[closed] it's not the long walk home that will change this heart

[onlyhymns]

WHO: Cade, Nari, a healer at the end (Sam?)
WHAT: a camping trip turned awkward family reunion
WHEN: sometime in Guardian w/e
WHERE: the easternmost edge of the Planasene forest
NOTES: warning for violence, discussion of self-harm and sexual abuse of a child

Between the flu, the fire, and Kit's passing, things have been rough lately. One of the few boons of Cade's excommunication from the Templars has been an abundance of freedom, with which, until recently, he had no idea what to do.
But sometimes one just needs to get out of the city. Not on a special mission or anything serious, just a little hunting trip, a pocket of time spent in the quiet isolation of nature. It's the one thing he missed from his time in the Hinterlands, and perhaps it's time to do it again.

Nari is invited, for her particular losses, and for her help throughout the flu. She looked out for him, and he's worried what she might do if left alone in the wake of her grief. Perhaps it's best if they both remove themselves for a while.

In separate tents, of course.

It's on the edge of the Planasene where they finally make a less temporary camp, setting up to stay for a few days by a small creek in a grove well-insulated from the still sharp winter winds. It's early morning, and the horses are lazing tethered to a tree, content to spend the day eating grass and rolling in whatever dust is nearby.
Cade is preparing for the day, sitting by the fire and sharpening his arrows, waiting for Nari to join him so they can cast out.

Comments

[nadasharillen]

Suddenly, Cade looks feverish, flushed, every line tensed and shuddering, breath erratic, and Nari tastes the metallic tang of terror. Terror that despite everything seeming to be healing well, they'd missed something. She'd seen some of Sedi's gruesome poison work before, but it had been immediate, nearly right after the shot. Maybe the hunter had made something new, something they didn't know about, something that had hidden itself until now.

A flash of memory: there had been a froth then. Thick, white, flecked with pink. Check for it.

Nothing. But he wasn't there, either. What else. What else.

Nari combs through her memory feverishly, finding blank after blank, and ending with... nothing. A numb, blank, clear nothing. It will pass or it won't. It's the end-stage of one of Sedi's concoctions or it isn't. At a loss, she finally reaches out a slow and surprisingly steady hand to cover one of his. If he was dying, he wouldn't do it alone.

[onlyhymns]

He's still until Nari touches his hand, and that yields a shiver of revulsion. He looks at her, seems to realize something isn't right, and has to blink back tears. It's not unlike when he was sick before, disoriented and living in fractured memories, but at the moment Cade recognizes where he is and who's here with him, he just can't match it to the awfulness he feels. The fear.
"Sorry," he says quickly, because he has no explanation, and can tell Nari is frightened.

cw: sexual assault

[nadasharillen]

Cade looks briefly like her gesture of comfort repulses him, and a tiny lance of hurt and confusion runs through Nari. And then she does remember something, with sudden clarity. A tent, a curled rigid form, that same feeling. Ilriane. Not too long after the raid, she'd gone to her eldest sister's tent to wake her for breakfast and found Ilriane curled tight and vibrating with tension. Worried that her sister was upset—they had all been shaken and numb—she'd gone to put her arms around the older girl to comfort her and Ilriane had pulled violently out of her embrace, her head snapping to fix her with this look, like she didn't know her, like Nari's simple touch was poison. Shocked, Nari had run to her parents to tell them something was wrong with her sister, told them what had happened, and they'd looked at each other for a long moment and then sat, her father leaning down to look into her eyes like he would another adult.

Nahariel, he'd said with gravity, your sister got hurt during the attack. Not by fire, or blade, but by a man who made his body a weapon. He took something from her with force and hatred that is meant to be given with joy and love, and he took away her choice to give it. It was a terrible thing that left a wound on her spirit where it cannot be seen, and sometimes, when she is touched, her body will remember that wound. It may be that it will scar, and that someday it will not hurt this way, but it may be that her body will always remember.

She'd hugged him then, fierce and angry and tearful, only half understanding what had been done, but understanding now that like so many of the others, like Shora and her leg, like Leanos and his voice, Ilriane would be forever changed.

When she was older, she understood it all.

And now... this. Him. The too-tense shudder of his body, his reaction to her hand on his, his return from wherever it was he'd been made a horrible sense.

He apologizes—for scaring her, presumably—but it isn't fear in her eyes anymore. “Oh,” Nari breathes, hand rising to cover her mouth, “Cade.”

[onlyhymns]

The subject is coming too close, Cade can feel it, can see by the look in Nari's eyes that she'll have questions that he won't want to answer. His small positive reaction to her attempts to comfort him is drowned out by the desire to be alone, to start this moment over, to feel less like his skin is trying to crawl off his bones.
He hates that she's looking at him like that, and feels a surge of irrational anger that has nowhere to go. He stares at the ground instead, folding his arms tightly over his chest and willing Nari to go away.
Even if he... doesn't really want her to.

[nadasharillen]

He closes, pulling into himself, and Nari’s entire being is suddenly at war with itself. Let him be alone. Don’t. Reach out and hold him. Don’t. What does he want. What does he need. Are they the same? And who is she; who is she to make that choice—make any choice. Who is she to be so close, to know anything, to say anything.

The only thing that doesn’t have chaotic echoes that make her muscles tense and hard is knowing that it’s her turn to say it now; and she does, trying to force the battle out of her eyes and leave only some kind of reassurance.

“You don’t have to.”

[onlyhymns]

"Sorry," Cade says again, quickly, his mouth dry and his heart still beating out of his chest. He glances at her, then away, then back, part of him wanting to shut her up before she can pry, the other part meekly lured forward by the reassurance.
He lowers his head, pushing his hair up out of his face and sitting there curled, ignoring the pain in his arrow wounds. He can't exactly get up and leave; paralyzed by the moment, he just prays for it to end.

[nadasharillen]

Part of Nahariel recognizes that she has him trapped. He couldn’t leave this if he wanted to, and that thought cuts through the rest. When he stops looking at her, she reaches for her basket, fills it with the pile of bandages to boil, the fresh she hadn’t used, and the rest. She hoists it to her hip and heads to the flap, pulling it aside and turning a last time.

“Try to get some more sleep, if you can,” she says, and is gone.