[OPEN] Get out of bed, get a hammer and a nail

[nadasharillen]

WHO: Nari and you!
WHAT: Open for Drakonis
WHEN: Throughout the month
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Darktown Stuff, general CW for mention of character death and related grief, other CWs posted in their specific threads

Much like the month itself, Nahariel slips between foul and fair as the tight bud of her grief shows the very first small signs of opening. On the good days there are faint smiles, on very good the warm chuckle that so easily issued from her before Sina's death. On the bad days her feet drag to her work, she stares at the plans she'd begun to draft for too long before making new marks. On very bad days her time is spent curled in bed staring dully at the ceiling or down at the Gallows docks no matter the weather, monosyllabic at her most talkative.

Either way, the world turns onward.

[Not necessary, but feel free to specify if you'd like a good day or a garbage day in your header!]

I. Hightown

Being near the blackened ruins of the Chantry Forest is still difficult. Despite that, Nari can regularly be found walking to and from the area. Sometimes it's to harvest what uncharred heartwood can be salvaged from the charcoal spires that once were trees. Most often it's to the still-standing grove where the statue of Andraste reaches out her hand to care for the space; clearing away wilted offerings, spent candles and the spilled wax around them, replacing papers or notes that have been tugged by the wind out from under the rocks that held them. And, when the ground begins to thaw, turning over the soil in preparation for planting the first beds of flowers.

Sometimes she can be heard murmuring as if conversing quietly with someone, although there is no-one there.


II. Darktown

The elf's initial survey of the area, its strengths and weaknesses (mostly the latter), has begun. When she isn't pacing out spaces and taking scrawled but detailed notes with the aid of one or two volunteers (you, perhaps?), she's bent over a table covered in drafting tools and rolls of cheap parchment with a quill or charcoal stick in her hand, the appropriate smudges on her skin, and a look of intense concentration that wrinkles the Crafter God's vallaslin spread across her brow, the humble beginnings of her plans appearing.

Sometimes the wind howls through the space like a wounded beast, grabbing at the edges of her plans, and once in a great while it wins, sending her sprinting and wide-eyed after them, Dalish curses bursting from her like the first blast of water through a broken dam.


III. Wildcard

When she's not doing these things she's sitting around carving in various places; little figures, a complex bracelet, a set of odd and complicated dice, something that looks like it might be a handle, boxes that she sells for a little extra income. Fixing chairs and tables in the Hanged Man (a neverending task), trying to get back into fighting shape in the courtyard, walking everywhere, visiting you, something else entirely!

Comments

[wheretheferngrows]

At her hesitation, Fern's hand again settles gently on Nari's arm. "It's all right," she assures her quietly. "I'll go in with you." She's not sure where this wellspring of strength has come from, but she isn't about to question it.

Fern reaches out to touch the latch as well and gently coaxes it the rest of the way open, allowing in the light.

[nadasharillen]

Fern's touch seemingly restarts the older woman with a shudder, and she breathes in audibly through her nose. The light comes in; slanting across the dusty floor, motes kicked up by the door's movement floating lazily through the beam.

There was her bed, as rumpled as she'd left it, the clan-woven blanket on top haphazardly tossed to the end and left where it had fallen the morning of the day Sina died. A small window lets light in on the other side, the hoped for green of the plant that sits where the light falls on an end-table a bare papery brown, curled leaves dropped in and around its pot, among the small herd of halla figurines of various sizes that surround it. Sina's too neat bed, un-slept in for longer than Nari's, a thick group of pale scarves in varying hues hanging from the nearest carved post.

Turning to look at Fern as if to reassure herself, Nari heads in.

[wheretheferngrows]

After a moment's hesitation, Fern follows her in.

She'd never visited Sina at her house, had only shared the few moments of their intimate friendship in the Chantry forest; but it's not difficult to imagine this place as it might have been in the past, a lively little sanctuary for two clansisters to return to after a day spent dealing with Inquisition business. Fern steps quietly through the motes of dust floating through the beams of light and approaches the plant by the window, reaches out a hand to touch the dead brown leaves that have fallen around it. Nothing to be done about fallen leaves, but... "I think it's still wick," she tells Nari with a quick glance at her over her shoulder.

Her eyes drop to the halla figurines, and she picks one of them up, holding it gently.

[nadasharillen]

For some reason, the idea that the plant could still be alive is enough to make Nari's vision watery.

"I--" she starts roughly, and then clears her throat, "Would you like to take over its care? If I try, I'm sure it'll finish the poor thing." She bends to pull a chest from beneath her bed, picking up and folding the bedding to add to the few contents. "A few of the halla might want to go with it," Nari continues, as casually as she can, before turning to look at the varied sculptures that make up the herd. She moves to pick up one in particular, much cruder than the others, and turns it over in her hands with a small smile.

"This was the first thing I ever carved her." There had been others of course, one or two among the rest that had been gifts from the friends Sina had made, but this one... "She wouldn't put it down for a week, not even for softer things." She'd been so proud.

[wheretheferngrows]

Wordlessly, Fern collects up the little plant and places it in the basket she'd brought with her from her rooms. Already, it is not so difficult for her to envision a place for this plant in the herb garden storeroom--just beneath the window, beneath the artwork of Arcadia Bay that Chloe had sketched for her. (There's a reason why this feels appropriate, of course, but she gently coaxes those thoughts aside for now.)

"What was she like?" she asks after a pause, looking to Nari. "When she was little. When she was growing up."

And, it should go without saying, that all of the little halla figurines are added to the basket, too. She won't leave them behind.

[nadasharillen]

A wistful smile ghosts across Nari's lips as she tucks away the rough little figure in the chest as well and moves across the space to lay out the scarves. Lacking her own (it was enjoying its new life as bandage and tourniquet), she winds a pale green-grey one around her neck and for a moment is overwhelmed by the light scent of loam and herb and Sina that still clung to it, closing her eyes.

"Sweet, especially as a babe," she chuckles softly. "Spoilt as anything. She was the most precious thing we had, especially since we weren't sure we were going to get her at all. Her mother was so close to bearing when the raid came and we were sure she'd lose the baby. The entire Clan doted on her. Even more when her magic came."

Nari retrieves another scarf, light rose, and folds it absently away, gesturing for Fern to take a look through the remainder if she wished.

"The halla took to her right away. She used to insist on sleeping out with them on fawn-watch, the mother's head right in her lap. If she hadn't been First, she would have been the Halla'amelan for sure."

[wheretheferngrows]

Somehow, Fern has no difficulty picturing any of what Nari describes to her--not even that last word which, though she doesn't know what it means, she finds no trouble in understanding. (She'd hate to admit it, but she would do something similar for the sheep during lambing season.)

She comes over to Sina's neatly made bed, gently resting the basket with the plant and halla figurines atop it, then reaches out to touch the fabric of the scarves. Involuntarily, her eyes fill with tears, and on instinct she tries to draw in a slow breath and straighten her shoulders, lifting her chin; it's harder to cry, she's discovered, with a straight back, and she is so tired of crying.

"I wish I could've known her then--known about all those things, from her. But I don't even know how we'd have met, if it weren't for the Inquisition. If it weren't for this--" She pulls off her glove and stares down at the anchor shard that glows in her palm.

It had killed Sina, but it had brought them together, too.

[nadasharillen]

Nari is moving to gently tug the matching chest from beneath Sina's bed when Fern begins to talk about the Inquisition, the shards, and it plays again inside her like it always does. The cry of surprise, the cry of pain, how slow her footfalls felt, how she'd stumbled across a surface that she knew as well as anything in her life, Sina crumpled, how light her clansister had felt in her arms as she scooped her up and ran from whatever it was that was coming.

She sucks in a breath and tries hard to feel the grain of the wood under her fingers, the smell of the room, even the way the light and dust moves. Anything real. Nari's voice when she speaks doesn't feel as solid as the rest of it, like she's where the memories are instead of here with Fern.

"They changed everything. For a lot of people. Maybe everyone." The lives they'd had before--hers, Fern's, the rifters, everyone who'd been touched by the rifts--and the lives they might have had. Both of them were as gone as Sina was.

[wheretheferngrows]

She hears that little intake of breath and drops her eyes to look at Nari, experiencing a pang of instantaneous guilt. How stupid of her, to talk about this here of all places--

"I'm sorry, Nari," she blurts out and sinks down onto the bed, reaching out a hand to touch her friend's shoulder where she kneels. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have said any of those things."

[nadasharillen]

Nari shakes her head, although the motion is small, then leans it to the side to press her cheek against Fern's hand briefly in acknowledgement before straightening again. She wouldn't say it was fine--none of it is fine--but neither did she want the people close to her to be afraid of speaking.

"Truth stays truth, spoken or not," she says evenly. "Trying not to look at something only makes its pull stronger."

Nahariel's thumbs flip the latches, push the top of the chest open. Clothes mostly. A cloth bundle that contains what Sina had worn to work in the gardens, various robes, carefully folded. The dress Vivienne had gifted her. Two cloaks, one thick for winter, a thinner for the gentler seasons, the latter wrapped around the embroidered robe she'd worn as First. Then, at the bottom, another cloak, one that pooled like molten gold, soft and fine, and within its folds the dress she'd worn for her bonding to Sorrel. All of it, all of it smells like her, and rubbing the cloth of the dress between her thumb and forefinger, the tears that had been threatening all this time finally begin to fall.

[wheretheferngrows]

In the face of those tears, Fern really only has one avenue available to her: she slips from the bed completely to kneel on the floor beside Nari, and wraps her skinny arms around the older woman's shoulders.

There's nothing more to be said in the moment; Sina's things are all around them, evidence of a life lived (and a life lived well, by someone who was loved and loved strongly herself), and Fern remembers something her da' told her when her grandparents had been taken by a particularly cold winter. 'Grief is the price you pay for love. It isn't something to be ashamed of.' She doesn't say the words now, but the memory of them makes her eyes squeeze shut, her face tucked against Nari's neck. She smooths a hand over her shoulders, soothing.

"It's okay to cry more," she says a little unsteadily, her own eyes misty when she opens them. "If you need to."

[nadasharillen]

Nari shakes her head 'no', even as her eyes fill. She's tired of crying as well, tired of feeling like some shelled animal whose protections have been pried away to leave all the sensitive places in it exposed to the uncautious air. Tired of every small touch on those places searing like a blade before quenching, of being able to take so little before she's again staring into nothing with tears burning tracks down her face.

But Fern hadn't said 'if you want to', she'd said 'if you need to', and the insistent tearing pressure in Nari's chest speaks all of need, and so she does. She cries for Sina the child, and Sina the First, and Sina the bondmate. She cries for Sina the mother, for Sina the hahren, for Siuona, Keeper of Clan Dahlasanor.

And she cries for herself. Finally, for herself. For Nari the sister, and Nari the protector, and Nari the confidante. For the cradle and toys she'd never carve, for the Keeper's staff she'd never touch arulin'holm to, for the funeral staff she did. For the Nahariel who reached out a hand lined with age to tuck mouse-brown strands laced with silver behind her beloved clansister's ear and patted them there, even though every time they fell again; for all the other iterations of the two of them that had popped like bubbles on seafoam when the shard had flown crackling into Sina's chest. For all the futures that wouldn't be, and all the pasts that had been. The pasts that were so precious now that they were all that was left. All that would ever be.