[open] darkness is a harsh term, don't you think

[onlyhymns]

WHO: Cade and yooou
WHAT: just a catch-all with various Cadely activities
WHEN: Kingsway
WHERE: Kirkwall, mostly the Gallows
NOTES: the Nari thread is probably best left alone if you have delicate sensitivities, also possibly NSFW

I. Myrobalan's Office

During the day, Cade can be found doing his actual Inquisition-paying job, which is reading and writing Myr's correspondence and other related tasks. It keeps him pretty busy, he has a nice enough time there, and will sometimes work late copying records or text from books on loan. He's usually open to company on these evenings, as long as they're respectful of the space.

II. The Chantry Garden

Without fail, Cade is at the sculpture of Andraste every day at dawn, where he prays and meditates for an hour before going about his business. When she's not away on Inquisition business, Nari is usually there as well, but sometimes he can be caught kneeling alone with a candle in the peace of the morning.

III. Eating, Drinking, Walking Around

No matter where he is in public, Cade always looks a little uncomfortable, like he doesn't quite belong there and is afraid of being called out on it. He sits alone in the dining hall, will usually take tea up to the office or the library to hide with it while he reads, and averts his gaze from people on the street. It's nothing unusual for him, though there are plenty who consider him odd and off-putting. Because... he is.

Wren

Unable to get the idea out of his head after he and Six visited the City Guard, Cade has been steeling himself for a conversation with his... former..? supervisor, Ser Coupe. They're friends, he reminds himself, as much as he has any friends. He shouldn't be afraid of her. And yet.
He knocks on the door to her office.

Six

With their first mission such a rousing success (of sorts), Cade invited Six along for the next one, finding she was likely as good a fit as any for a full day of sitting in silence while a man talks their ears off about fishing. He wanted to meet a rifter, so one with an even temperament and quiet bearing will be perfect. Hopefully.

They're on a boat. No fish are biting. It is unseasonably hot, and Cade yearns for death.

Beleth

In keeping with the tradition of he and Beleth making sure the other one is eating enough, Cade is holding a basket of muffins when he knocks on her door. It's been a busy couple of months, but he should probably make sure she's not about to keel over.

Nari

When he knew what day she'd be home, Cade asked Nari not to go to the new room straight away, but to allow him to collect her at the quarters she shares with Myr. He wants to be there to see her reactions, and, of course, to make sure he didn't ruin everything.
Upon arriving, he offers out a little bunch of wildflowers, the blush on his face already spreading to his ears. "Welcome home."

Comments

[nadasharillen]

He'd been so chary of the prospect of combat-- at least, as far as the war went-- that Nari pauses for a moment with a bite in the air. Although, she reminds herself, it's not the same as being a ranging hunter, picking off potential threats before they can become threats in fact. With the crime here it's not out of the question that he'd be in escalating physical confrontations again and although she'd never seen it, and couldn't quite imagine it, she'd not doubted the veracity of the rumors that Cade could be provoked to particularly brutal bursts of violence. More than rumors really, given what had happened with Beleth those years ago. And his expulsion from the Order.

But walking the streets of Kirkwall in armor again, after the horrors he'd seen last time?

Nari looks at him searchingly for a while, hand and bread unmoving the entire time, and then, "Oh?" It's not unkind or disparaging in the slightest, just curious and prompting for more. There's no need to ask him if he'd thought it through; he'd probably rolled it around in his head long enough to tumble it to a glassy shine.

[onlyhymns]

When she's not immediately enthusiastic, Cade knows he has to explain, and begins to grow nervous as a result. He'd hoped it could be obvious.

"Um," he stammers, thrown off, "well I-- it... it feels wrong. Not being a soldier." He looks down at his empty plate. "Sort of... like I'm not doing what I should be doing." What he's been trained from early childhood to do, at the expense of all other aspects of his life.

[nadasharillen]

They make each other say things. As awkward as it is, as comfortable as the silences are, she's learned so much about herself from being forced to bumble out half-formed ideas and find names for the nameless things that live in her in order to build this bridge strung between them piece by piece.

"Do you want to?" Nari asks evenly, the weight in her gaze an acknowledgement of how important this is to him, "Or do you feel like you should?"

[onlyhymns]

It's not an instant answer that Cade gives, or can even form. He stares at the tabletop for a while, contemplating the difference between the two things: wanting, or feeling like he should. He recognizes that there is a distinction, but has never for the life of him been able to weigh the former over the latter.
"It's..." he says slowly, "...what I am." That doesn't really answer specifically, but it goes beyond want or should: it's his whole identity.

[nadasharillen]

"But is it what you want to be?" The question is posed carefully, but not as carefully as the next. "Who you want to be?"

It's a lot of question. Nari knows it's a lot of question.

"You don't have to answer now," she says. Abandons the lunch in favor of stretching her hands across the table to cover his. They're cool and dry as they search out and touch the calluses of years. Sword hilt. Bowstring. Thinks of her own. How she would happily let the places on her hands that daggers have rubbed go soft, keep only the ones for making.

"If you want to join the Watch, I want you to. I just want to know you want to." Its awkwardly phrased, really, and she thins her lips in a small wince at it. But it's as close as she can get to what she wants to say.

[onlyhymns]

He flinches when their fingers touch, but doesn't pull away-- it's still just a strange feeling, being touched with affection. "I..." he begins thoughtfully, looking down at their hands, "...I don't know." He purses his lips for a moment, considering. "I don't know what else I would be." Before he can stop himself, "I've never had the choice."

[nadasharillen]

Nari shrugs lightly, the corner of her mouth quirking upwards in a half-smile. Her hands go from exploring to stillness, although she doesn't withdraw them.

"You could stay a scribe— I've seen your copywork, it's lovely. Teach Rifters how to shoot. You could weave. That's what some of the hunters who couldn't shoot anymore for whatever reason would do. Their patterns were always the best," Or so she remembered, sitting at their feet when she was young. "Strong dexterous fingers trained to taut string make for the best finework.

"You could hunt. The kitchens need supplies, and you step as quietly on the land as any of ours," that one is unstintedly warm. Approving. "Or scout, for the same reason. You could bake tarts." A chuckle, and then after a pause.

"We have all been let to become things here that we... would not have, otherwise."

Like a Dalish woman who still swears by the Creators and wears her vallaslin with pride, holding her hands gently folded around the hands of a human who prays at the feet of the Maker's Bride each sunrise and still smells, sometimes, of Lyrium.

[onlyhymns]

A faint smile crosses Cade's lips at the various suggestions-- it's true, some of those might actually work. As long as Myr still needs him (GONG OF FORESHADOWING), he'll always have work. A use. He can still go hunting.
But it's different, when one has been hammered into one shape for so long. Despite their calm, the conversation is causing some mild distress, displayed in the tensing of his hands, which still make the effort not to disturb Nari's.

"It's-- more than that," he murmurs, and angles his head to look out one of the windows, since meeting her gaze will make him lose his train of thought. Or nerve. Maybe both.
"I was given to the abbey as a little boy. It was... I was theirs, to shape for one purpose." His fingers tense again, before he can stop them. "...but I've failed in that. It's not-- it's not as simple as becoming a scribe." Though he's disagreeing, his voice remains gentle, careful.
"I'm a tool of the Maker. I can't just... not be one anymore."

[nadasharillen]

His hands tense under hers, and she runs her thumb slowly back and forth along a finger in response, as if she could smooth the tension out like cloth. Like a crinkled scroll.

Nari had talked to Myr once, about being the Maker's tool.

"You won't," she says. "Not be one anymore, I mean."

"I don't know how the Chantry works," she admits with a little shrug of her shoulders, her half-smile turning apologetic. "If you have to be shaped by them to do the Maker's will or not. But you know the Chant just as well. You want to be what it wants you to be. Serve the Maker, serve Andraste. You don't have to wear Chantry robes to do that. Or armor. Or wear a sword." Her smile twitches a little wider. "You could do it by making tarts."

"Our Keepers might hold and carry the knowledge and stories of the Creators and be the ones who teach us, but we choose our vallaslin, not them. As much as we're guided by our Keepers, it's between us and the gods. I guess what I mean is... maybe... it could be between you and the Maker? Not between you and whoever... told you before?" She wants to scratch her head, run her hand back through her hair to diffuse the awkwardness she feels, making this kind of suggestion, but she doesn't want to let go of him to do it. So she doesn't.

[onlyhymns]

He looks like he might be about to argue, however gently, but he's stopped by something Nari says. Keep it... between himself and the Maker. That's an angle he hadn't considered.
Rather than reply right away, Cade seems to lapse into thought, his eyes going distantly toward the window again. It's not as plaintive an expression as before, simply thoughtful, and he looks back at her with what might even be relief.

"I'm... still going to ask," he decides, "but perhaps... if I'm denied, it'll... be all right."

[nadasharillen]

She smiles; the simple quiet one that isn't dry, or wry, or self-effacing. The one that, by and large, is for Cade. Squeezes his hands in hers gently, and releases them like she might a bird.

"Okay."

That finished, with the clean feeling of it in the air, and the new space he'd made around them, Nari decides something she'd decided a long time ago.

"Um." She indicates the room with a tilt of her head, and the tentative nature of her smile returns. "I have something for you too."

[onlyhymns]

Cade wasn't expecting that. He blinks at her, blushes a little (naturally), and asks quietly, "you do?"

[nadasharillen]

“Mmhm.”

It’s... well. It would be a risk whenever she brought it, the thing she’d made. But as sure (and unsure, when she’d held the finished piece) as Nari had been when she’d made it, the Arlathvhen had cemented things. She’d never reached out before; not from the tree, at least, but in the branches of it, in a gathering full of her people, she’d called him.

And so:

“It’s still... give me a minute?”

That’s all she says, before she scoots the chair backwards and slips out of the room.

It’s not a long time before she returns, but it’s long enough to allow for minor fretting, if minor fretting is to be had. She returns though, with a quiver slung over her shoulder and an unstrung bow in her hand that even from a distance looks intricate, the carving on it augmented by a blue-green inlay of material that has a gently luminescent glow about it. The same material is visible along the inside curve of it.

She stops, still standing, close enough that she can offer it.

“I found this... Fade-touched, at the rift, in Amaranthine. It’s stronger than anything I’ve ever worked, but it bends the same as the wood, and it was only a bit harder to carve—reminded me of Ironbark that way, which I know how to work, and it reminded me of how all this started, but not in the way that hurt, more in the... I wouldn’t have come if...” she’s rambling. Flushes slightly, runs her hand back through her hair.

“...there’s a tradition the People have, where when you’re serious about... someone—“ Nari is looking absolutely everywhere else, “—you do something. To prove you’re worthy of it. Mostly it’s hunting, to show you can provide, but I... this is what I do.” She lifts the bow a bit. “Am. Wanted to be, more than a hunter.”

Quietly, then, “I named it Dirthavaren. Means ‘the promise’. It’s what we call the land Andraste gave us.” She finally looks at him. “It’s the best I’ve ever made. And I... made it for you. If you want it.” Me. She holds it for a hesitant moment longer and then holds it out.

[onlyhymns]

With a gentle nod, Cade sits still and lets Nari run off to get... whatever it is, and he looks out the window some more, his mind roiling with questions. He's never asked for anything really, at least nothing material, and isn't even sure if he'd want anything of that nature.

When it arrives, his mind is changed instantly. A small intake of breath signals his shock at the sight of it, and he looks the bow over, just drinking in its details with his eyes, almost afraid to touch it. He's pale, speechless, like nothing in the world could have prepared him for this moment.

"It's--" he nearly chokes, "....it's for me?" He looks up to meet her eyes, flabbergasted, tearing up slightly. Cade is not a person who has received many gifts, even small ones, let alone those of this much importance.

[nadasharillen]

She can't make herself say any of that again, so she just nods. Tries for a reassuring smile that ends up tentative.

Even though it looks like the very act of being given something like this is deeply touching to him, it... Nari doesn't know if he knows, or even can know, what something like this means to her. It's not just a pledge-gift, it's her masterwork. Or at least, it feels that way to her. She'd used everything she'd known, the best material she could find or hunt. The details were the finest, the inlay the most delicate. She'd measured his hand with hers to make the grip, had studied his stance, the way he drew the string, the draw-weight he favored. It would sing for him in a way it would never do for anyone else as long as it existed on this earth.

And he was human.

By all rights, a bow like this should never have left Dahlasanor, nevermind the Clans, nevermind the People as a whole. Not unless it was pried out of someone's rigid dead hands. And here it was, a gift given freely with the kind of love that if known might mean never being looked on as part of the whole she had always known. Would it be any easier for him?

She tears up slightly.

[onlyhymns]

He notices Nari's expression, but isn't quite sure what to make of it: if anything, he's worried she finds him ungrateful. Cade takes the bow and gently feels it over, admiring it with the same wide-eyed wonder that he can't shake and perhaps never will. "It's amazing," he breathes, "it's-- you're-- amazing."
He turns a smile on her, one of full, humble but genuine delight.

[nadasharillen]

No-one had ever called her that before. Her work, yes, but her, no. She doesn't really know what to do with it except wrap it up gently and set it aside for later, but the honest delight that had filled Cade's face was enough to make her smile in return by itself. She offers the thin coil of carefully braided sinew to string it, the simple but well-made quiver that goes with it.

"I had enough of the green left over to make a couple dozen arrowheads. I'm a fair hand at fletching," examining one will reveal she's being modest; they'll fly as true as they're shot, "but a poor hand at testing." That one's true. "If you want to."

She looks as eager about the idea as he's ever seen her. She wants to know.