Whispering wind is blowing [Open]

[nadasharillen]

WHO: Nari and you! (And special for Cade and Simon)
WHAT: October catchall for Nari
WHEN: Early Harvestmere
WHERE: Various Kirkwall
NOTES: Anything that comes with Cade. Super-sina-sadness! Cami don't read this in Panera :P

[Chantry Forest - open; come in at any point]

It had taken Nahariel a good amount of time to go into the forest. She'd been before, of course, but not for this. This was different. Beginning this work meant acknowledging an ending.

Early light of morning finds her wandering, looking at the wood with the frank and evaluating eye of a carver. Just before midday, she's found what she wants. A branch - good, straight, sturdy, just fallen. Tall enough.

Midday finds her sitting on a large tree's roots, somewhere near the center, thumb rubbing the haft of Dahlasanor's arulin'holm. The Dalish ceremonial tool for the beginning and ending of a work had been well taken care of in her absence, but even so she oils, polishes, and sharpens it with slow deft strokes. She raises it, turns it to catch a beam of sun that had managed to pierce the canopy, and makes the first cut.

Her afternoon, and several afternoons after it, are spent carving with singular focus. Curling vines and herbs and flowers and grasses and trees grow slowly from the wood, twining around it. Thoughtful halla begin to graze and keep watch, curved around the sides. Constellations of Ghilan'nain's guiding stars rise over the fields.

The details are refined with patience that could only be born of love, the wood sanded and polished to a silken sheen. It's only after she raises and lowers the arulin'holm to make the final cut she'd been saving for it - the only rough place on the smooth surface - that she weeps. It's a deep sound, broken and raw, rising and falling like waves as she rocks side to side, her arms wrapped around Sina's funeral staff.

[Docks]

When she's not working, Nari is down in the harbor. Sometimes it's helping to load or unload cargo, sometimes learning to fish, sometimes carving small animals or puzzles for the local children out of scrap wood, sometimes telling them stories, and on the warm days, sunning with a farmer's flopping straw hat down over her face. No matter the activity, she's always glad to see you.

[Elsewhere!]

Catch her leaving or returning from the forest (Chantry or Planacene)! At the markets! Drinking in the Hanged Man! Something else!

[Chantry Forest - closed]

She'll meet the two of them at where the entrance to the Chantry would have been, a pack full of sketches and measuring tools and some simple lunch slung over her shoulder, a roll of carving tools fastened beneath it. Upon seeing them, Nari raises a hand in greeting. "Thank you again," she says. "Feel free to disagree, but I thought perhaps the right place for her would be about where she was before?"

Comments

[gatheringstorm]

"He was...." Korrin sighs, staring off. "...wild, but he was part-Avvar. You'd never know it, he took to that side so strongly. Ruthless to his enemies, but generous to his friends, and he hated the Chantry and Templars about as much as any rebel mage. We went on a lot of adventures together, me, him and Mal. The bitch of it is that he didn't go out in glorious battle, like he would have wanted. It was this slow, lingering thing that took all his strength out of him. Not right, for a warrior to go like that."

[nadasharillen]

"If we could all die when and how we deserve..." Nahariel said, trailing off into a sigh - it seemed near every breath she took came out that way today. Carefully, she braced the staff against the ground and leaned it against the tree whose roots they sat on. With both hands free, she could pull both her knees to her chest and rest her chin in the dip between them.

"He sounds like a good man."

[gatheringstorm]

"He was, even if he lied to others and himself about it sometimes. And he carried a lot more hurt than he let on, too. I didn't know about a lot of that until later." Korrin sighs, knowing there's not much she could have done to directly help Asher...but still, she would have supported him, if only he'd opened up to her about it more.

[nadasharillen]

"It's hard not to, if you don't know you have somewhere you can put it down," Nari replies. "Carry hurt, I mean." She echoes Korrin's sigh. "I hope you consider me a nice shelf," she muses, pulling up a blade of grass and twisting it between her fingers. "I trust you to hold things for me too." The Dalish laughs, one short burst, and then smiles at the mage.

"You were one of the first people I trusted, really."

[gatheringstorm]

"I do, and I'll let you know when I need it. It helps to hear that, you know." Aw, Nari. Korrin gives her a soft squeeze, smiling back. For all the hurt they both carry, it is comforting knowing that there's someone willing to listen. Still, she doesn't want to make this moment all about herself, not when Nahariel was the one found crying. Her own hurt can wait.

"Really? That's pretty amazing, since I've been told I have one hell of a resting bitch face. People always seem to think I'm more ornery than I really am." Sometimes she encourages that, true, but not always.