[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

cy's room! 8D

[nadasharillen]

Despite her good humour in the other room, Nari has a thoughtful half-frown by the time she's bending to take her boots off in Cyril's space. It's punctuated by a tsking noise as she discovers the small spread of blood that had soaked into the bottom of her tunic and the legging below its hem from where Cade had leaned against her when they'd stopped.

"Damn," she says ruefully. That made zero articles of clothing that she'd brought on the trip not blooded. "I don't suppose you have wash-water to soak these." Ought to collect his as well.

[samahl]

Cyril is very concerned about grooming, so of course he does. He goes to get it for her and lets her set to cleaning herself as he pulls together something for her to wear to bed. At least his clothes should mostly fit her.

"You know I'm going to ask for details," he says as he brings over a tunic. "But I don't mind waiting until you are ready to talk."

[nadasharillen]

If anyone deserves details, it would be Cyril—who was still Clan as far as Nari was concerned. She’s stripped to her smalls with the rest of her garments soaking when he comes back with a tunic which she slips over her head gratefully. “Serranas, lethallin.” she says, finally sitting on the edge of the bed with a lengthy sigh.

“It’s... the hunters were farther east than I’d thought, and we ran into Sedi and Nymii.” Cyril may have met them at the bonding. Two standoffish blonde women with predatory eyes, “they’ve no love for shem’len.” An understatement. Nahariel stretches, laying over her legs to touch her feet briefly. “Sedi had an arrow in him before I could say anything. Two when my yell reached her. Not that she would have cared,” she says. “I thought she’d kill him. I thought—“

She’d said things. Things she didn’t even really believe. Had said anything. Would have said anything. She was still surprised by it. “—I thought they’d kill the both of us. But my family came.” Nari chuckles breathily, “There are enough of us to make anyone pause. Something happened fast, Sedi took a swing at my brother and my sister got in the way. She’s pregnant, Cy. The first child Dahlasanor’s seen since Sina. With that kind of mistake... they left, the both of them. I don’t think they’ll be back.

“The rest of it is just... we got him patched. Came home. Are here,” she says with a small shrug, a small slightly lost looking smile, “and relying on your hospitality, at least until the morning.”

[samahl]

Cyril listens to her carefully, taking in her words and letting her explain the whole story. When she's done, he seems solemn and thoughtful.

"That must have been terrible," he finally tells her. "I'm so sorry you had to witness all of that. I'm sorry that that much anger leads people to do those things."

[nadasharillen]

Nari shakes her head sadly. “I can’t wholly blame them,” she says, “Terrible things happened to them at human hands before they came to us... and that was before the raid. They were there for that too. And then here’s someone they trusted bringing one to their home.” And, when pressed, choosing him and the shem’len organization they fought for over Clan and People, to boot. Nari crosses her arms and hugs them to herself, looking unhappy.

[samahl]

Cyril places a hand on her arm, gently offering her some physical comfort. "Terrible things happen all around, all that we can do is control how we respond to them. The fact that you protected your friend and did what you could to keep him alive says everything about your character." He wasn't sure how reassuring that idea would be, but he could still offer it to her.

[nadasharillen]

It is reassuring, and Nari visibly relaxes, but the combination of guilt and whatever else is going on is making her stubborn and contrary and quite unlike herself (and she's pretty sure Cyril won't judge her for it) so she lets herself flop over backwards onto the bed and stare at the ceiling.

"My wonderful character of abandoning my already small clan to a harsh winter, bringing Chantry shem'len to our hunting camp, and causing two of our remaining hunters to leave the clan. I'm a true gift."

She didn't do the first on purpose, the second was only because Cade was going to die otherwise, and Sedi's bloodthirst had been bound to backfire on the clan someday, but to the void with it, she's determined to indulge in this sulk.

Her determination lasts all of thirty seconds, after which Nari sighs heavily, uncrosses her arms, and sits up again. "Abelas. The last few days have been..." Strange? Unsettling? Incomprehensible? All too vulnerable? "...a lot."

[samahl]

Cyril presses his lips together in thought. "You can't control with other people act in anger," he points out, but he doesn't really know if there is anything he can say to make to situation any better.

Instead, he focuses a bit on what she's sharing with him. "I know," he admits. "It feels like every time we interact with a Dalish Clan it's a lot."

[nadasharillen]

"I can't be too surprised about that. We don't quite fit anymore," Nari says. She furrows her brow, a new thought occurring to her. "Anywhere."

Leaning back on her hands, Nari turns her head to look at Cyril. "We're too Dalish for the city elves, too elven for the humans, and now that we've been working with the Inquisition, perhaps a bit too human for the Dalish. We bring things with us that don't fit here, and we bring things home that don't fit there." Her throat closes slightly, thinking of how good it had been to see her family, and how difficult it had been to realize that her world had become different than theirs; how she would never be a seamless part of the clan ever again. They were together, and she was...

Well, not alone.

"We're kind of like our own clan now, I suppose," she says. "All of us who came here."

[samahl]

Cyril nods at that, admitting to himself how true that feels. It probably helps, though, that so many from his old Clan had come here with him. There weren't very many of that original group left, especially now that Pel was back in Skyhold. At least Sorrel had found his way.

"I know what you mean," he says. Then, after a moment. "Can I tell you a secret?"

[nadasharillen]

Pulling her feet up so she can turn to actually face Cyril rather than just looking to the side, Nari nods.

[samahl]

"This place... Well, this organization. The Inquisition. You, the others. Even Sam and the humans I've met here. That's the first time I've ever felt like I truly belonged. I never felt that way with the Clan, not really. Not completely, anyway."

He moves to sit with her and then sighs a bit. "I know that's probably not very comforting to you, given what you just went through, but hearing you say that we're almost like a Clan here was very comforting to me. It says that I might not be totally broken for feeling the same. And it means that I would do anything to protect you, and make sure you feel at home."

[nadasharillen]

After nodding slowly while he talks, Nari says "it... is, though. Comforting. I've been feeling displaced too. Ever since Sina died, it's like I'm a sail flapping free in the wind. Holding myself to the work orders, the daily routine, I'm just barely..." she trails off, rubs her toes speculatively, and then starts again. "I feel like I'm holding on to myself with my fingernails. I thought going to the forest would make it better, but it's worse."

Tentatively, Nahariel leans over to rest her head against Cyril's shoulder. "But you're here and I'm glad of it. You're not broken, and... maybe I'm not either. Maybe changing just feels like breaking sometimes."

[samahl]

Cyril puts an arm around her, giving her more space to lean against him. "Sometimes," he agrees. "It does. A bit like a butterfly, I'm imagine. The cocoon is tight and unforgiving, but we're all the more beautiful for it."

[nadasharillen]

She's content to sit with that thought for a while, relaxed against Cyril's side as she had been against Isen's, but eventually snorts with gentle amusement. "When I come out, will I have eyes like yours? Seriously, Cyril, how many cocoons have you come out of? How do you do that."

[samahl]

Cyril chuckles gently. "While I am never one to shy away from speaking of my many wonderful physical features, I would counter that you should be proud to have eyes like yours.

Green is probably one of my favorite colors for eyes."

And he's going right on pretending that that doesn't hint to some feelings for some other elves with bright green eyes. That would never happen.

"And you always seem far more certain than I am. I just cover up my uncertainty with a lot of kohl."

[nadasharillen]

It had never really occurred to Nari to be proud of her eyes. Or anything else for that matter. Or even think about it. Really, she was neutral about the entirety of having a body, so long as it worked.

To hear Cyril say so now, however, makes her oddly pleased. And also wonder if it was an objective assessment. Maybe everyone thought they were nice. That would be...

irrelevant!

“Well... serannas, lethallin. I don’t feel all that certain these days. Maybe I should take up wearing kohl,” she says with a smile, elbowing him gently. “If that is what’s doing it, it’s working. Talking with you is always reassuring, and you always seem gracefully collected. Maybe we’re all of us a mess and just covering it well, eh?”

[samahl]

Cyril nods at that. "Maybe we are." He feels as if he's exposed a lot about himself all of the sudden, and yet instead of panicking over the idea of it, it's reassuring.

Nari was one of the elves here he hasn't spent a ton of time around. It felt as if they mostly were around each other during times of turmoil - Merrick's poisoning, Sina's illness, and now Cade's attack - and yet he wanted to let her know how important she could be.

"For now, we should focus on healing. Both you and Cade are going to need a lot of it."

[nadasharillen]

Cade she understood, but, "Me?" she asks, drawing back a bit to peer up at Cyril curiously. "I took no injuries."

[samahl]

"You experienced something traumatic," Cyril points out. "And you watched a friend as he was attacked by people who were part of your Clan."

[nadasharillen]

Nari thins her lips, her gaze sliding downwards. "It doesn't seem comparable. It was difficult, of course, but," she sighs and smooths the fabric of the clothes he'd lent her where it had bunched with her movement, "life does that, Cyril. I can't near bleed out twice from feeling things."

Then again, you couldn't bind the heart like you could a wound. Couldn't watch to see how it was healing, feel the edges to see if it had taken sick. And it could have killed her, after Sina. She had been more than ready to sleep in the snow in her clansister's forest and never wake. Would have, after the weeks of sleeplessness, poor eating, and the like, except for Cade's dogged persistence in praying in all weather.

Why was it, when most of that time was lost in a dull haze, that she could remember with crystalline clarity the bright glint of the sun's first slanted rays in his hair as he'd carried her? Nari pushes the heels of both hands into her eyelids in a fervent attempt to banish the thought.

"...Maybe you're right."

[samahl]

He moves his hand so that he can rub her back a bit. It's really just meant to help comfort her. Touch like that would help Merrick, sometimes, when he was lost in emotions. Cyril doesn't think that Nari is in that dark of a place, but it's still a heavy thing to deal with.

Even more so when it's on top of lingering grief.

"It's bound to happen some time," he replies to the claim he might be right.

"There's no shame in feeling things, lethallan."

[nadasharillen]

Considering the set of thoughts Nari had just been having, Cyril's assertion that there's no shame in feeling things propels a single bark of resigned laughter from her. It feels unkind, he'd meant it to be comforting, and, again, it was but...

(there were so many 'buts' these days)

She pulls a hand through her hair and pinches the bridge of her nose, tries to instead focus on the feel of Cyril's hand on her back. "I'm sorry. Again. You're being so kind and hospitable and I'm being an ass about it," she says regretfully, leaning back into his shoulder.

"I haven't even asked. How are you and Sam doing?" Nari queries gently, "he said Kirk had... gone home. That must be..." she shakes her head slightly, trying to imagine. At least when Sina left her life she'd known. Could see it. With a loved one just disappearing like that, not knowing if they'd ever return, if they were okay wherever they were. There were no words for it.

[samahl]

Cyril gives her a wry smile. "You're allowed to be that too," he points out, at least telling her that he doesn't take her laughing at the thought personally.


Then she asks about Sam and something sad crosses Cyril's face. "I... I don't even know what to do to make this any easier. Kirk wasn't the first Rifter we've lost, but he was the hardest, and Sam... Sam went to bed with him and woke up with him gone. And then his magic started to go a little crazy. It's been so much for him to deal with. I really hate that things just can't be easy for him. He's such a wonderful person. He should be able to catch some kind of break, right? But since when does Thedas care about that sort of thing?"

[nadasharillen]

The corner of her mouth pulls up when Cyril lets her know she's fine, but drops again slowly as he talks about what had happened.

"Since never," Nari murmurs when he asks, even though it wasn't really a question meant for her. She knew too many good people who'd had their lives destroyed, seen too many cruel ones dancing blithely through life to think there was justice in it. It made her prefer the imprisoned Creators to the Maker's lofty plan; at least their gods had an excuse.

"There's not much we can do, I don't think. Be there, I suppose," she says, her voice tinged with sorrow. She raises a hand to place it on Cyril's back in turn. "And remember that you can be supportive and be supported."

Great advice from a woman who stubbornly refuses to apply it to herself.