[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]

“It’s fi—” Nari starts, and then cuts herself off with a quiet laugh and a wry sheepish smile. It wasn’t fine, and since she’d just gotten at him for saying so, she amended the words. “It’s... it was bound to happen, sooner or later. We were so... there were only the twenty three of us who’d survived the raid, in the heart of forest together for eighteen years. Leaving was the most terrifying thing I’d ever done, but Sina dying was even more terrifying than that.

“I made us travel only at night for a week before I stopped thinking everyone I saw was going to try to kill us,” she says dryly, “Trying to find out how to get to Skyhold listening for rumors of the Inquisition at the windows of taverns and inns.

“Things changed, at Skyhold. I didn’t want them to. I wanted the Inquisition to know how to cure her, to do it, and to let us get back to the life we’d had. They didn’t know, we stayed, and I learned things. About people. About what was happening to the world.

“I love my family,” she says, fiercely. “More than anything. But I can’t go back to the way Dahlasanor lives after all this. After knowing what we’re fighting. What the price is for losing. After making shem’len friends who had the sheer audacity to be likable.” A smile twitches briefly on her lips, and then disappears as Nari sighs and ruffles her hair. “They knew that, when I stayed in Kirkwall after Sina’s death. My bringing you here... everything that happened... it was just proof they couldn’t deny anymore.”

She looks embarrassed, burying her fingers in the horse’s mane again to work a small plait into it. “I’m sorry. You apologized and for your trouble I near told you my life’s story. I don’t usually talk this much.”

[onlyhymns]

Catching her laugh, Cade's smirk grows a little, though it remains at a respectful size for the subject matter. He knows so little of the Dalish that isn't from Beleth or now from Nari, the rest of his impressions being entirely borne of rumor and books written by people like himself.

"I don't mind," he assures her when she's finished, and looks off into the distance for a bit, happy to have the distraction from his aching arrow wounds. "...I think... I think the Inquisition changed a lot of things. For everyone." As bad as his experience has been with it, Cade isn't foolish enough to still be alive if another purpose hadn't been found for him.

[nadasharillen]

It’s something Nari’s certainly able to chew on for a while, as they travel. Everything that’s changed; how much “everything” truly was. Before wandering off into the thought though, she tilts her head slightly at Cade, curious as to whether he meant to continue aloud or lapse back into quiet as he was wont to.

[onlyhymns]

They're not quite that far yet, into a place where he can openly unpack things like how desperately broken his self-worth has always been, how current events have torn that open so wide it can never be hidden again. He has to take peace where he can get it, and, with their lapse into silence, this seems to be as good a place as any.

The ride back to Kirkwall is blessedly uneventful, accompanied by the tentative birdsong of early spring and the bracing wind that periodically shivers through Cade's bandages. Getting home will be a relief, but despite all the trouble, this hasn't turned out so bad after all.