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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"I promise it'll be safe." There are many who could say that and have their intentions be unclear, but Cade is sincere by default. He's a fearful person: if something isn't safe, he won't say it is.
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She wanted to stay selfish. Scoff at the idea that comfort, that safety were things she wanted. Stubbornly go back into the snow, let the cold freeze the edges of the hollow inside her, but the puffs of exertion into the cold air, the breath she could see, dulled the desire to be contrary.
"...Thank you," Nari said finally, soft in the morning stillness. "For caring about whether or not I'm safe."
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It's about twenty minutes before they reach their destination, and he uses the toe of his boot to knock politely on the door of what could be described as an unusually pleasant-looking hovel.
+1 tired looking dwarf to the rescue
(In the small living room behind him, there's the sound of someone else quietly shuffling around, the shifting of fabric, like someone is getting dressed--)
"Hey, salroka," he greets Cade, though his eyes are on Nari with some worry. He recognizes her, though it has been some months since they last spoke. "Everything all right? You want to come in--?" this asked with a quick, almost questioning glance thrown over his shoulder, as though checking to make sure his company is decent before he gets the door open, "--you two are going to catch your death out here."
+1 disheveled medicine seller gettin nosy
He had the decency at least to get up from the veritable nest of blankets instead of lazing around like a lump.
"Shall I make tea?" He asked.
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This makes things slightly more difficult for Cade, as she's stopped supporting herself in any way. The arm around his neck is more of a drag than a help, but at least they're here, right?
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"I found her in the Chantry forest," he says to Kit, "she-- she needs to get warm." Why he didn't take her home is obvious, but why he didn't take her to an infirmary is less so to those who don't know his history with mages.
Shivering, he stoops to deposit her in front of the fire, and tugs his cape around her a little more tightly to cover any errant appendages.
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He helps to get her situated on a chair beside the very modest wood burning stove on the first level of his home, then picks up one of the blankets from the futon currently in front of it to drape it around her shoulders. "Just give her a little time, she'll be all right," he says to Cade in what he hopes is a reassuring tone of voice.. one which he slightly undercuts by looking towards the Medicine Seller. "She will, won't she?"
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"Remove any wet or damp clothing and wrap her in a blanket," he continued. "Tei taion is not difficult to treat. Kit, are there any dry towels? Or cloths?"
He poured the water into a cup. It wasn't hot - he didn't want to send Nari into shock - but it was a bit hotter than lukewarm.
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As far as the Medicine Seller's instructions... well. Nahariel had spent the entire night sleeping in the snow. Although she'd had a blanket, it hadn't been overly thick or watertight, so there was little on her body that wasn't at least damp.
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"I should go," Cade says quickly, backing toward the door again despite having barely warmed himself. If there's going to be a naked woman present, he needs to be elsewhere.
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"I shall fetch spare clothes." And smelling salts. If Nari was in and out of consciousness, they may actually need them.
"Try to rouse her and get her to drink this. ...It is just warm water," he added, his tone level as he passed the mug to Cade.
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"No, you shouldn't," he disagrees with him, kindly but firmly. "She'll need you here, once she wakes up."
Which, hopefully, will happen soon. Kit goes to crouch in front of Nari by the fire and gives her arm a gentle shake. "Hey," he says, tipping his head to try to catch her eye, "you've gotta wake up, just for a little bit. You're gonna freeze if you don't get out of those wet clothes. We're going to get you something dry and warm to change into."
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But if she isn't going to die, she may as well live. With little hesitation--Nahariel is utilitarian even when not addressing the problems that are preventing people from letting her sleep--one arm after another appears from the bundle of cloak and blanket and after some brief struggle within, almost like a cocooned caterpillar attempting to break free, a damp tunic emerges and is dropped. More grumbles and struggles, and then elvhen profanity as she realizes that boots have to come before leggings, and the aforementioned boots, socks, and thick woolen leggings make their departure as well.
The good news for the worried Templar is that she manages all of this without showing more than the length of her arms... although that does reveal a series of curling and branching lines, still a sullen red, along her forearms.
The bad news for the worried Templar is that there is now a naked elf in his cloak. A realization which the naked elf seems to share, as her suddenly-awake eyes dart across the room towards Cade and then quickly back to the fire, her face (and ears) perhaps the reddest they've ever been before she retreats entirely into the cloth, shuts her eyes, and pretends mightily to be asleep.
w h a t i s h a p p e n i n g
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Sufficiently wrangled by the two who don't get super weird about nudity, Cade stands there like a helpless idiot, at least until Nari opens her eyes again. Then, like an overeager guard dog, he takes a lurching step forward, only to calm again and turn quickly when she begins to undress.
He catches a glimpse of the angry marks, but is, at the moment, too preoccupied by the surging blood in his own face to make much of them. She's been through a lot. He doesn't know when to turn around, if at all.
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"Here," he offers them to her, "so you can change into something else besides the cloak."
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He set a few cloths on the wood stove to warm up, and went about making tea. Now that Nari was somewhat conscious and getting dressed, she could do with something hotter than the warm water from earlier. Swish swish swish went the whisk as he mixed the green tea powder with the steaming water. When she was finally decent, he offered her the cup.
"You need to warm yourself." He said flatly. "It is odd, however. You seem the sort who would know better to sleep in such conditions."
There wasn't any judgment in his tone. There wasn't much of anything really - the Medicine Seller voice and expression were utterly impassive and neutral.
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Of course she knows better. But...
Nari's mouth opens to say so, then closes, then her lips purse and she says nothing. Dry and warming now, she finally begins to shiver and draws all the remaining fabric around her more tightly.
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As his eyes rove worriedly over her shivering form, Cade realizes he's looking for some other way to help, something to do that's useful and that doesn't feel like standing and staring at a sick person.
"What can I do," he asks quietly, directing the question to both Kit and the Medicine Seller.
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He goes to stand beside the strange elf at the stove and asks him, "Could we get some food into her, maybe, or would that be too much?"
To Cade, when he catches his eye, he just raises his eyebrows and nods at Nari. Go on, dude, she's your friend, his look might as well say. She needs you.
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"Something simple to eat for now," he said in his usual monotone. "She seems stable but it is never good to push these things."
He turned to Nari, folding his hands in his lap.
"Are you hungry? Or would you prefer just tea for now?"
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"T-t-t-tea--" She tries to answer the question, but presses her lips together when it became clear that wouldn't be possible without forcing it out between her clenching teeth, and so just nods quickly and appreciatively. Yes, tea please.