Nahariel Dahlasanor (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nadasharillen) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2018-01-01 10:05 pm
nadasharillen) wrote in faderift2018-01-01 10:05 pm
Be the one who stays | Open
WHO: Nahariel (sort-of), and yooooou
WHAT: Wintermarch Catch-most
WHEN: Haring (post Sina’s-death) through Wintermarch
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: CW: self-harm, intense grief, depression, dissociation, suicidal ideation; Nari is likely to snap in and out of sudden cruel rages even when interacting with people she’s close to.
WHAT: Wintermarch Catch-most
WHEN: Haring (post Sina’s-death) through Wintermarch
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: CW: self-harm, intense grief, depression, dissociation, suicidal ideation; Nari is likely to snap in and out of sudden cruel rages even when interacting with people she’s close to.
There comes a point when enough is carved away from a statue that it ceases to be what it was and can’t be put back again. In the fervent desire to put it right it becomes smaller and smaller until the only choices left are to doggedly whittle the ruined work to nothing or scrap it and begin again.
So it was with Nahariel Dahlasanor.
She looked smaller. Her frame was more gaunt than slender, her shoulders hunched and curled inwards to make a hollow of her chest as if she held something at her breast to protect it from the wind. Every emerald glance, when caught at all, was dull and brief before returning to the ground or some far off point known only to her. The sleek short cut of her hair had turned to uneven shag as it grew as it would, lank and uncared for. The whole of the erstwhile kind and genial elf looked like a plant left to blight, marked heavily by the absence of the hand that had nurtured it. Like a ruin, she had housed something once... but that thing seemed to be gone, replaced only by wind.
I. The Chantry Forest
By all appearances, Nahariel had continued to live in the home she’d shared with Sina. But with a lifetime as a Dalish scout behind her, those appearances meant less than nothing. Each night found her, instead, curled tightly in a clutched blanket with her knees drawn up, a knife in her fist, her back pressed against the feet of Andraste. Each morning with the sun she uncurls, and makes her heavy way back to the docks to start again; just another grain of sand waiting to pass through the hourglass.
Last night it had been colder, she’d slept longer, and when you come upon her she hasn’t yet woken. Under a thin layer of last night’s brief snow, Nahariel looks much like the incomplete statue that supports her—stiff and still, her skin dark as the burnished wood. Only the small unconscious movement of her hand clutching the blanket tighter around herself signals that life is one of the differences.
II. The Docks
Despite the bitter wind that often blows from the expanse of water that is Kirkwall’s harbor, Nahariel can often be found sitting with her back to a stack of crates, her eyes full of the grey of the winter sky and trained on the horizon. The whittling work so often in her hands is conspicuously missing, her thin fingers dry and cracked from the salt still in the wind and holding only her knees.
She doesn’t turn at your approach.
III. Elsewhere!
She moves between the Docks and Hightown each night and morning like a silent shadow, feet dragging just a little more each day, although thus far she’s apparently been quite able to avoid being caught by the patrols.
You, on the other hand, she isn’t keeping watch for.
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“No.” Her response is fast, forceful and sharp. “No,” she repeats, softer this time, shaking her head quickly, “I can’t... let’s... you’ll want the things at your home to make the drinks, won’t you?” It’s almost a plea. Nahariel forces the tremulous smile back onto her face, although it doesn’t reach her eyes. Those stay on the edge of wildness, although with dread rather than panic.
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"All right," she assures her gently and tries for a smile of her own. Again she reaches down to touch her arm, offering out her hand. "Let's go to my room in the Gallows. Is that.. is that all right?"
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Her steps aren't as deft as usual, but at least she's taking them.
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She has no trouble leading the way back to the modest room in the Gallows that she shares with her roommate, Colin, and feels a moment's relief to discover that he's not there as she guides Nari in. "Here, sit, make yourself comfortable," she says to her friend, smiling. "I'll get the kettle started."
This would be an onerous task for someone who wasn't a mage; as it is, she just tosses some wood onto the tiny fire in their woodstove and, with a flick of her wrist, lights the wood on fire.
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She sets the kettle over the fire, then comes to sit down beside Nari. "I'm glad I got to know her, you know," she says softly. "Even though it was only for a little while. I wouldn't take it back for anything."
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"But then I thought... would it have ever been enough? Would there ever have been a time when I was ready to... to let her go?" Same whuffchuckle again. "I always wanted to die first. So I wouldn't have to be here like this."
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Fern hesitates a moment, then gently reaches out to settle an arm around Nari. If she allows that, then next Fern tilts her head just enough to rest against her shoulder. Just a quiet gesture of support, of affection.