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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"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.
no subject
"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.