Be the one who stays | Open

[nadasharillen]

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.

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.

Comments

II

[gatheringstorm]

Korrin's approach is not at all stealthy. She probably couldn't mask her heavy tread from an elf's ears even if she wanted to, and she doesn't. That Nahariel doesn't react is noted, but it doesn't stop the Vashoth from sitting down beside her broken friend. She doesn't say anything at first, simply slipping her larger (gloved) hand over Nari's smaller ones. Her eyes grow dark with sympathy, hating to see her friend in this state but not truly expecting anything different. Her own grief is but a shadow compared to Nahariel's own.

ii. the docks

[wheretheferngrows]

Nevertheless, Fern does approach her, cautiously but sincerely, and perches on the edge of one of the crates at Nari's side. She says nothing at first, just looking across the water in shared, despondent silence.

Then she takes a breath, bites her lip, and turns to look at the elven woman's face in profile. "She wanted me to know you better," she tells her softly. "Sina did, I mean."

I

[onlyhymns]

Cade is pious, and human, and aesthetically acceptable, which means he tends to have the luxury of entering the forest unchallenged. He comes here to pray sometimes, but that's not what he's about to do when he comes upon the frozen form of the elf curled against her wood sculpture.
Heart seizing in his chest, Cade's first thought is that she's dead: but he spots the gentle rise and fall of her ribcage, and though that's a relief, it isn't much of one.
He goes to kneel by Nahariel, gently shaking her awake, his eyes wide with worry.

Re: II

[nadasharillen]

Nari doesn’t look, but she knows anyway; the size of the hand, the Vashoth’s palpable sympathetic presence. Korrin is one of very few who can still touch Nahariel without the elf shrinking away like a cornered animal. Her hand doesn’t tense beneath the mage’s—that’s become what welcoming means.

Despite that acceptance, the sympathy feels more like pity through the shattered haze that clings to the elf like a second skin, and it stings as much as the salt in her fingers. She hates the pity with a fury only equaled by her desire to accept it and crumble into Korrin’s supportive arms and let herself break. Giving into her soul-deep loneliness, however, would mean she’d have to say she was alone. So the forces fight themselves to standstill, consuming every scrap of energy until she sweats and she freezes and finally loses consciousness.

There is no sleep now though, not yet. Now her fingers twitch briefly beneath Korrin’s to touch them back—the best she can do to tell her friend that somewhere, she’s still here.

Re: ii. the docks

[nadasharillen]

There’s a twitch of life in Nahariel’s face when Fern says Sina’s name. Enough life to allow her to turn her head slowly to consider the young woman beside her rather than maintaining her stare into the grey choppy waves. It’s more than most get, and not many of those hope for it twice since Nari’s once bright eyes have lost their clarity, their dull green vaguely unnerving with the cold skies inside them washing them grey.

“...She did?” Nari asks flatly, not quite seeing Fern for a long moment before some spark of recognition lights, “she did.”

“Fern,” she says slowly, but surely. “You’re Fern. She likes you.”

[wheretheferngrows]

"You're Fern. She likes you."

Likes, as though it is a feeling that Sina still experiences, and the thought is enough to make Fern's eyes well with tears despite her best efforts. She draws a breath and blinks them away quickly, wiping away the one that manages to escape with one sleeve. Oh, this is so hard--

"I like her, too," she answers, voice a little weak, but the speaking the words aloud brings a genuine smile to her face. "I like her very much, Nari."

I

[faithlikeaseed]

Myr’s made a sort of ritual out of these cold, snowy mornings—a bracing trek to Hightown to tend the forest hive in its tidy box, then prayers at Andraste’s feet. (Praying in his quarters or the Gallows chapel would be warmer, more convenient, but robs him of an excuse to check on Nari. Sina had asked.) The guards know him well enough now as the weird harmless elf with the bees, well enough to ignore him as he wears the pattern into a comfortable sameness, day by day.

Something is different today—something is wrong; he can feel it in the air as he approaches the half-carved statue, reaching out to Her image to trail reverent fingers down it as he kneels—

And finds a snow-covered shoulder beneath his hand.

“Maker’s breath! I’m sorry—“ He recoils in alarm before he’s realized who it must be he’s found, how strange it is she’s been seated and still long enough for snow to accumulate. “—Nari? Nari, are you—say something, please.”

Don’t be dead, please, Maker, let me have come in time. He hastens to strip off his gloves and reach for her again, shaking her shoulder gently as he can for all his fear.

Re: I

[nadasharillen]

Her response to his touch is light at first—a brief flutter of snow caked eyelashes as her eyelids squeeze tighter for a moment—but quickly becomes anything but gentle. Nari’s eyes fly open, wide and filled with something fierce; fear, rage, grief, confusion, some combination of all, and her hand tightens on the hilt in her fist and darts it out wildly with a hoarse cry as intense as her gaze. Her animal force fumbles the blade in her frozen grip and sends it in a glittering arc past Cade’s shoulder, clipping him only superficially despite the elf’s deadly intent.

She stares, sucks in a breath deep and loud, coughing at the cold in it, and finally sees him. The shock and swiftness of her actions manage to cut through the haze that’s surrounded her for weeks and she pulls her hand back as fast as it had shot out, hitting herself in the chest with the pommel—although she’s too frozen to feel the impact—and jarring the knife from her hand to land to her side in the snow, the look in her eyes changing quickly to horrified guilt.

“Cade! I’m—“ her voice is hoarse and rough with both the night’s air and disuse; she coughs again. “I’m s-s-sorry, I didn’t—“

II

[gatheringstorm]

For now, it's enough to know that Nari recognizes her under the fog of grief. She takes some comfort in that, even as her concern about Nari's overall state doesn't diminish. So she slips off her thick scar, settling it around her smaller friend.

"It's not Lux, but it'll do for now. Will you let me get you inside, Nari? My flat's not that far away. You don't need to talk or do anything else, just let me take you somewhere warm."

III

[justice_is_blond]

He's paging through his notes, not really paying attention, but there's something about the posture of the person he's approaching that makes him look up. She looks ill, or maybe very cold, or maybe both, and considering she's the one he'd seen by Sina's side the most while trying to heal her, he has a possible cause for her appearance.

"Nahariel?" Anders says gently. "Have you eaten?" It's a start, at least. He can't just start casting creation in the middle of the street. That's got too many risks.

Re: II

[nadasharillen]

The scarf is soft, Lux or not, and still warm from being wound around Korrin’s neck. Perversely, it makes her shiver. The mage’s offer is kind, but Nahariel only shakes her head—how to explain that warmth brought comfort she could ill-afford? The biting chill, the stinging salt, the paper-dryness of her hands, the gnawing hollow hunger; they kept her in her body. The aches, the pains, they were safe. Warmth meant relaxing, meant peace, and with peace came rushing memories of other peaceful days—dappled sunlit forest, back warming as it braced against her back, soft sounds of leaves, grass, saying something that made her laugh with delight and the brief beat of joy in her heart to have caused it and then the sudden seizing of loss that squeezed the breath from her lungs and refused to let it return. Black, like a sucking whirlpool, the frantic reach for other memories to fill the pool, the loss from them, building and building and building and building until the only thing that could cut through it was the sharp intensity of the knife. Perhaps, after enough thin lines, she could carve herself into a vessel that could hold it all.

Nahariel shivered again. Better the cold. But the memory of it... she clutched her knees to her chest and buried her head in them, hands grasping hard enough to break open one of the cracks in her raw hands and set it to bleeding thinly.

[nadasharillen]

An actual small twitch of a smile ghosts Nari’s lips in return. “I hoped you would,” she says. “The clan was so small but I always hoped that someday she could forget her duties just enough to... let someone like her. To like them. I’m glad.” Her voice is hoarse—it’s the most she’s said in days, and the wind and the salt. It would almost be hopeful if it hadn’t arisen from the small bubble of falsehood that sometimes surrounded the Dalish artisan. Inside it, Sina was still alive.

Re: I

[nadasharillen]

She moves limply along with his shaking, her remaining pliability meaning either life or that she’d been dead for hours. A small puff of mist from her mouth meant the former. Although it went unseen by Myr, he could feel the accompanying rise of her shoulder. Not dead, but not conscious either.

Re: III

[nadasharillen]

It takes Nari two steps to slow to a stop, another three to turn to face Anders. She looks at him blankly for a moment before matching name to face, and face to where she’d seen the mage last. She opened her mouth to answer him but then

bent over Sina in the infirmary, hands glowing with light that warred against the sick green throbbing glow of the shard that killed her
bent over Sina—
—shard that killed her
light literally fading from her chest
killed her
Sina dead
nothing to be done

Nari’s mouth remained open, frozen in the first syllable of her reply, as her eyes darted back and forth and she tried to take a stumbling step only to lose her footing and drop to a knee with a painful sounding crack, locked into memory.

[gatheringstorm]

That bleeding is noted and Korrin's lips form a thin line of worry as she nonetheless tries to keep her smaller friend as warm as possible. She doesn't have magic that can heal, or supplies on her person to help with those cracks. All of the wonderful body oils and such are back in the apartment, after all. Perhaps she could leave and bring them out here, but against the chill wind, would they protect for that long? Not to mention she's more than a little afraid that Nari might run off and she might not find her afterward.

"Nahariel...please, let me help you. You'll freeze to death, before long. I can't just watch that happen." If she wants to hate Korrin for pushing, that's alright. The Vashoth woman can take it; but she'd rather have Nari alive and upset rather than find her frozen corpse the next day.

[nadasharillen]

She does hate the Vashoth mage for pushing. She longs for her to keep pushing.

She wants to be left alone to freeze. She wants to be picked up and carried kicking and screaming and clawing back to warmth.

Sina was out here. She should be out here. Warmth was betrayal. Friends were betrayal. Every beat of her heart took her farther and farther away from the last moment they’d shared, like fighting against wave after wave inexorably washing her out to sea. Nahariel’s entire body shivered—although not with the cold. With the exertion of trying to slow time, to stop each moment and force her way back through them.

From the outside, she was gone again; although her hands continued to tighten and tighten, another split opening, a quiet choked keening of effort rising from where her head was burrowing into her knees.

[gatheringstorm]

And Korrin can't bear to just sit and watch her suffering like this any longer. Sighing, she stands up and activates her crystal, relaying a brief message to Araceli. That done, she moves to scoop up Nahariel as gently as she can, hoping for her friend's sake that she doesn't try to fight it. The sooner they can get her inside, the sooner she can tend to those hands.

[nadasharillen]

For a moment, it seemed as if Korrin’s hopes would be rewarded. The woman in her arms was light—too light—and despite her clenched stiffness settled easily against the mage’s chest. And then she fought. It was the weak and easily subdued struggle of a kit, and the fists she slammed into her rescuer’s shoulders wouldn’t leave even the smallest of bruises... but the hoarse wail of anger and betrayal that accompanied Nahariel’s feeble twisting was another kind of assault.

Rather than taking her to safety, it sounded like Korrin was pulling the elf away from her clansister’s body. For all the Vashoth knew, in Nari’s mind, she was.

Nari didn’t have the energy to keep it up for long, although she did so longer than would be expected. By the time they’d made it to Korrin and Araceli’s door, the artisan was out cold and no longer mounting any resistance.

[gatheringstorm]

Bundled up as Korrin is, she barely feels those fists anyway, but that doesn't stop her from wincing as Nahariel's wail reaches her ears. It doesn't doesn't stop her, of course, Nari needs to be removed from the harsh weather outside before it does irreparable damage. That Nari falls silent after a bit is no relief, and concern overrides heartache as Korrin opens the door with a free hand. After closing it behind her, she strides forward to deposit the inert elf on the couch. Carefully, she removes Nari's shoes -worried about circulation- before slipping a thick blanket over her and starting a fire. Warming up the kettle will be next, so there will be something warm for Nari to drink when she awakens, and those oils will be fetched as well. At least those hands can be tended to while Nari rests.

[onlyhymns]

There's a variety of factors that makes this not deadly: one is that Cade himself is not armed, and another is that he hasn't been under quite the same amount of stress lately that made him snap before. He has a well-earned reputation for his behavior when threatened, and this is driven home by how he lurches to his feet and plants them, grasping for a sword that isn't there.
It's several moments into Nari's pleading that Cade realizes he's Doing It Again, and he sinks to his knees with a shudder, coming closer to the elf again now that it's apparent she's more distraught than murderous.
"It's fine," he murmurs-- is it??-- his heart is still thundering in his chest, yet-- "you're going to catch your death out here."

[nadasharillen]

For the space of a few ice-crystal breaths as the Templar jerks up and away from her, leaves and snow crackling under his feet as they shift into their practiced stance, hand grasping to draw a missing sword, Nari is struck colder still; this time with terror that in a single wild moment she’d managed to destroy every precariously strung thread of trust between the two of them. Some deeper twitch of feeling wonders why it would matter so much if she had, but it goes unheeded under the rabbit-like pound of her own heart. When he snaps back to himself—much the same as she had—Nari blows out the breath she’d been holding.

She reached out slowly before she knew what she was doing to touch the rent she’d made in his shirt with the wavering tips of her fingers. “It’s not,” she says, pulling them back stained lightly with red, “you’re bleeding.” Never mind that she was as well, the knuckles on her knife-hand split again. Never mind Cade’s second assertion either, although her cheeks reddened with shame and her eyes lowered to have been caught at it. Insensible as she often was, she knew what sometimes happened to those who slept alone in the cold and snow.

[onlyhymns]

He hadn't noticed, but when he sees Nari's fingers, he glances at his own shoulder and touches it. "I've had worse," he replies, this time with the beginnings of a gentle smile, though his face is still fraught with worry. "Will you come inside?" A pause. "...can you walk?"

[wheretheferngrows]

And maybe some of that is communicated to Fern, somehow, because the more Nari speaks, the more Fern's small smile starts to fade from her face.

In the intervening weeks since Sina's death, she's certainly felt grief, and pain, and much of it she has borne entirely on her own, either unable to ask for help, or unwilling. Except during the occasional dream, she's never been under any illusions about where Sina is now. (Wandering the Void, if she believes Jehan. She doesn't.)

She reaches out and settles her hand gently on Nari's forearm, her brows drawing together into a little frown. "It's--so cold out," she tells her earnestly, "wouldn't you like to come inside? There's a hot drink my ma' taught me how to make, I could make it for you, if you like."

[nadasharillen]

“I—“ Nari starts to speak, but the rest lodges in her throat. She shakes her head, her eyes blurring suddenly with tears. She doesn’t want to go inside. She’s not sure why, but she doesn’t. Everything is fuzzy. She’s not cold anymore, just tired.

The other question seems separate somehow, and she answers it by uncurling slowly and ponderously from around herself, “I can,” she says, raising to one knee before faltering and sinking back down again, letting her eyes close. “Maybe if I just... rest a bit first.”

[nadasharillen]

As it turns out, Korrin was right to be worried. Stripping off Nahariel’s boots reveals the tips of her toes much lighter than the rest of her skin, a couple of tiny blisters speckled across them; a tribute to how long and what hours she’d been keeping outside, given that the weather hadn’t become as cold as it could have been for this time of year. Still unconscious, the thin elf begins to shiver beneath the thick blanket—a good sign.