faderift | Open: Nerva has feelings about Mages

WHO: Nerva and Open
WHAT: Nerva storms back into Skyhold following the Abomination
WHEN: Before / During the Mage Council meeting
WHERE: The Tavern
NOTES: Nerva is her own warning. Alcohol.

Before the Council meeting, Nerva was nothing but a ball of rage. She had not been in Skyhold when the Abomination struck - sent on a quick escort mission down to the crossroads - and had returned to the remnants of destruction and chaos. Destruction and chaos that should have been prevented. Destruction and chaos that she should have been there to prevent, not out gallivanting around the countryside.

Once the meeting itself started, Nerva had attended despite the fact that she had absolutely no vote in the outcome. She had no power, here - though that was not a difficult thing to reconcile. She'd had no power in the Circle, either - too vocal and distrustful to ever be promoted beyond being a mere grunt. She'd gotten used to the fact that she had no say in policy decisions.

Which was why she had to be as loud and as vocal as possible if she was going to influence the council's decisions at all. That she disagreed with the council existing at all was beside the point. It was reality, and she had to face it. But she didn't like it.

However - she didn't stay for the whole meeting. Once she had said her piece she left - fuming and white knuckled - and stalked straight for the tavern. She usually was careful about her alcohol intake, mostly because she disliked being out of control of herself, but today was a good day to drink until she could at least have a conversation without burning holes through someone just by looking at them. Her rage and grief - a grief old as time but torn open anew with astounding regularity - were almost physical presences around her, hunched over the bar and nursing the wine even as she looked at it in disgust.

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River was rubbing at her eyes, but settled on the edge of the bed, somehow small even in the cramped quarters allowed to them. She had a way of sinking back into the shadows, as if instinctively wanting to hide in them.

But there was no need to hide, here. Her eyes fell to the cards, the images springing up in blossoming fragments, dots of ink spreading on a page. So young, she'd been. They both had been. That had been before--

River bit her lip and said nothing, drawing her knees up to her chest and watching.

She dealt them both five cards each, carefully, each card laid down with a solemn press of her fingers that made the mattress dip under the weight. She didn't know why she was speaking - whether it was to calm herself, or to calm River. And it really didn't matter, in the end.

"He cheated, every time," She murmured lowly. "But I didn't care. That wasn't the point. I'm not sure we even kept track of who won." At least, not until the fight. Not until he left. That, she would always count against him.

She set the deck down between them, and then stared at it, as if she wasn't sure what to do with it. She picked up her hand slowly and looked at the cards.

The black queen stared grimly up at her, eyes dark and set.

"... Are you still cold?" She asked instead, looking up from her hand, as if just reminded of her manners.

River hesitated, then nodded again. Carefully, she plied up the handful of cards she'd been dealt. Hands they been dealt. That was a saying. A phrase for the set of circumstances that set themselves in front of them. Don't let them see your hand. Hold them close to the vest.

"...they always hide their faces," she murmured, her brow furrowing. "To keep them safe. They can't see your hand, don't know what you're risking."

She put her own hand down to reach over to the end of her bed and grab her blanket, before reaching over to carefully drape it over River's shoulders, making sure not to glance at her hand. She frowned slightly, unable to make any sense of River's words, or even manage to think of a context for them.

"What who is risking, River?" She asked in a low murmur - more encouragement than a demand. She sat back herself, crosslegged, but close enough that her knee just barely touched River's. She pulled out a pair of five's and set them down in front of her.

"The one with the cards. It's a bluff. A gamble. Risk and loss. But they never see what you had in your hand. Some things you can't show them."

Her fingers play over the cards in her hand before she places her entire hand face down. The blanket shifted forward over her shoulders when she leaned, hair nearly obscuring her face.

"Things they can't know. Wouldn't understand."

Her heart went out to River well before her mind could catch up, reaching out and sliding over the bed, the cards scattering beneath her as she drew River close. She didn't understand - or maybe was afraid to - but it didn't matter. She could see it, in the slump of her shoulders, in the gentle sway of her hair as it fell across her face.

In the warning tremble up her own spine as the words sank in. Like riddles that she could feel, even if she couldn't make sense of them.

Too many secrets, held tight against her chest. Tightening her ribs until it made it hard to breathe.

"You're safe here," She murmured, a quiet promise, in more than one meaning. "The past - is the past. It doesn't matter now."

She had to believe that, at least.

"It matters. It's...matter. Touching. Leaving marks behind." She frowned, brow furrowed tighter still as her eyes lifted. "You never feel safe."

And her eyes strayed towards her pillow. Never not a weapon under it when she slept, she knew. Never a moment when there wasn't that sense of something just behind, waiting to drag her back there again.

Nerva might understand more than anyone else here.

She didn't reply. Indeed, she couldn't, because it wasn't in her nature to bare-faced lie (save to herself). River was right. Of course she was. In that strange, soul-echoing way that Nerva didn't understand but was coming to, however much she didn't want to. She leaned her head down, pressing her face to River's hair, her eyes closing. Breathing in.

The sword she slept with was still on her hip. It would take its place by her pillow soon enough.

"... No," She agreed eventually, her voice quiet. "... No, it may never feel safe again." She couldn't lie about it, couldn't deny it. "But I will do everything I can, River. I swear it."

Even if it meant protecting River from herself.

Even if it meant protecting River from her.

Open: Nerva has feelings about Mages

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