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WHO: Cyril and OPEN
WHAT: Cyril was late returning back to Kirkwall, and when he finally shows up he's a little worse for wear.
WHEN: Some timew this week
WHERE: Gallows
NOTES: Some light description of injury.

He hadn't meant to be gone this long. He had gotten some leave to visit Sam and was supposed to be back last week. The visit had been wonderful, the trip home not as much.

When Cyril finally does make it back to Kirkwall he has a bruise along one eye and his arm is in a sling. He doesn't want to let the injuries get him down. He knows he's going to have some friends concerned about his appearance and he doesn't want to worry them. Still, it's pretty unavoidable when he knows someone can take one look at him and notice the broken arm.

The pain isn't helping his desire to play it off as if it's not big deal either.

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"Oh, I think I could believe," Nari replies, her look matching her tone again now that there's not been any foul play. She gently extricates herself from the hug, and whuffs out a breath, looking back towards the workshop. Normally she wouldn't be breaking yet, but a quick bite would be fine, and she'd both missed Cyril and was keen to hear about how Sam was doing.

"I do indeed. Could do with a moment's pause." She'll follow along wherever Cyril's going, adding "And I'm sure Anders'll be happy to see you, even if it's business before pleasure," as she does.

"I'm sure he'll be happy to see me and happy that he can help. He's giving like that," Cyril adds, grinning at the idea. He can't help but feel a large amount of affection for the mage.

"He is," Nari agrees readily. Some of it might be born of the lingering guilt that she imagines a man so devoted to healing must feel to have caused so much agony, but it seems to her that the larger portion is that that's just how Anders is.

"You were missed," she ventures a little cautiously, knowing that the People are a delicate and knotted subject for the man she still considers her clanbrother, "at the Arlathvhen."

Cyril pressed his lips together at the thought. He felt a deep ache in his chest at the idea. He had complicated feelings about the Dalish but still held a huge respect for what they were trying to accomplish.

"Perhaps I will be able to attend the next one." If the world was even around in ten years.

She nods, hearing the unsaid addition. There's a chance it could be their last one. That after surviving so much for so long, here it was. The end of it.

"We're good at surviving," is what Nari says, though. "The best. Even if Corypheus grabs the entire world in his fist, we'll find the corners and pockets in it and keep hunting, and keep dancing, and keep telling stories. After all, the whole world already belongs to those who don't want us. Would probably have entirely done with us if they could." She grins cheekily at him, although it's an exceptionally obvious attempt to cover her worry. "But they couldn't. Can't. And he won't be able to either. So we'll go to the next one. Together." She reaches to link arms with him again, moving around to the side where she can.

Well, saying it feels nice, at least.

Edited 2018-09-21 15:56 (UTC)

Cyril feels pretty comforted by her words. They will find a way, even if the Inquisition fails. He wishes it was more than just scraping by and hiding away, but something would survive.

He chuckles gently and pats her arm. "You do have a way with words, lethallan."

"Thank my father," she says with a half-grin. "Sometimes I think he took it upon himself to teach me storytelling because he thought without extra help I'd end up never speaking at all."

Not an exaggeration, really. She'd been a very quiet, solemn child, more often mimicking the singing of birds than the speech of clanmates.

"Storytelling is vital to our survival so it was a useful skill to share." It's the only way they can remember their history.

"I feel a little bad sometimes that I'm not there," in the forest, with her clan, maybe travelling to other clans to learn theirs, as she'd done for a few days at the Arlathvhen, "Learning more of them. But at the same time, it feels nice to tell the ones I do know to the children who run about in the streets. Down by the docks. Human and elven alike. They might be just fanciful stories to them, a bit of entertainment, but it feels like strewing seeds in any case."

"If you are too worried about being away, you can always compare yourself to me and instantly feel more Dalish," Cyril offers, a tinge of self-deprecation in his tone. "Either way, teaching others about our history is never a bad thing. It can help different people relate to one another."

The self-deprecation in his voice makes her frown slightly. And, since they're talking about stories, and people...

"What does 'being Dalish' mean to you, Cy?"

Cyril considers that for a moment. "Being willing to live with a Clan? Wants to convert every elf back to the old ways? Wanting to have as many elven children as possible to pass what we know?"

"That'd make me a terrible Dalish too, you know," she says with a little grin and a gentle elbow that's careful to avoid anything that might hurt or jostle him too much.

"After all I've decided to stay here with the Inquisition, I want our people to make their own choices even if I'm telling the stories, and I don't plan to..." Have children at all, and even if she did, they wouldn't be doing the work of sustaining the People. The very thought of which makes her tug at her hair with a short embarrassed laugh, her shoulders tensing for a moment. We'll just... put that over there and never think about it again. "Well." Small cough. "My work is what I want to leave behind."

"I think being Dalish is about remembering. Wanting to remember. Looking for and keeping and sharing our history. Keeping the strength and perseverance of it in our hearts. Being there, for all of us, and holding our ground, no matter what it is. I've been doing a piss-poor job of the last—haven't been much to the Alienage. Scared, I think." She crosses her arms and quirks a self-deprecating smile. "Anyway, I think it's okay to find a new way to be who and what we are in this new world. One that someone else didn't tell you."

Cyril feels that he can get behind what she says and he wishes more of their people believed the same things. Her words are comforting and he's reminded why she makes such a good storyteller. She has a way of speaking that is so soothing.

"I've been wanting to do more work in the Alienage too, maybe we can encourage each other to become more involved."

She'll smile at that. "With Merrill coming back too, they'll be overrun with helpful Dalish." It's a little unsure still, maybe, but the smile remains nevertheless. "I'd like that. I want to help, I do, it's just that I feel like an outsider coming in to try to fix problems I don't really know anything about, and I want..." Nari puffs her cheeks and blows out a sigh. "I want us all to be People. Together. And I can't see how the road gets there."

"Then, let's approach it less as a 'we're here to fix your problems' and more a 'you tell us what you need and we'll do what we can to make it happen?' I'm pretty sure it's the Dalish that act like they know everything every elf needs that drives them crazy."

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