In a moment of glorious surrender, you were broken for all the world to see...

[nadasharillen]

WHO:Nari and Sina Dahlasanor, Adelaide LeBlanc, Pel Ashara, and YOU!
WHAT: Visiting Sina in Recovery -- for whatever reason
WHEN: Beginning of Guardian, the first weeks after the Surprise Rift is closed.
WHERE: A private tent in the Skyhold garden
NOTES: Positive and negative reactions both welcome! If you're not sure what happened, check that sweet sweet 'Surprise Rift' link!



In the days following, Sina sleeps, the toll the active shard took on her thin, pale form evident in the hollows of her face; the way she'll wince and gasp, fingers grasping and twisting at the blankets. Sometimes she wakes in mumbling delirium, staring glassy-eyed at the wall. Rarely she'll open her eyes and actually see, lucid, but weak.

Always, her clansister is there. She looks like a fretful shadow of herself, wary. Her knives are sheathed but close by, lest anyone come to take issue with the small bed-ridden mage.

Wounded she might be, but she'd still opened a Rift in the heart of Skyhold.


[Adelaide.]

Nahariel is like a ghost that haunts her clansister's bedside. She talks little, sleeps less, and is only away for the briefest of reasons--one of which is to make sure Adelaide never runs out of tea when she's there. One day, as she sets down another cup, she suddenly and quietly speaks.

"I don't think I ever thanked you properly. Or your spirit."


[Pel.]

At some point during the next days Pel will look up to see the swarthy hunter often seen in Sina's company, with very little sound to accompany her appearance beside a polite throat-clear. She looks... tired.

"Pel?" She asks--mostly a formality.

"Sina was... mumbling in her sleep. She said your name once or twice, and..." she'll trail off, and run a hand through her hair with a sigh. Some of it sticks up afterwards--it doesn't look as if she's taking care of herself much.

"I know you fought not too long ago, and you were both hurt, but... would you come and see her? I think she'd like that."


[Everybody.]

[Bring flowers? Study her? Cry a bit? Be accusatory? Come on in!]

Comments

[nadasharillen]

"Don't worry. It's not--well I'm mostly curious, actually." Nahariel reached up to run a hand through her hair, looking slightly embarrassed. "I keep to myself mostly. Habit. I've never actually met any of the rifters." She sits in her chair, pulling up one knee and resting her elbow on it; extends a hand to indicate the other one.

"You're welcome to stay for a bit if you like. Sometimes she wakes." The elf smiled crookedly, "And--" she paused, pursed her lips. She wondered if would be all right to ask about where he'd come from? To lose everything you knew, just like that, and then be viewed with fear and distrust on top of it.

She could imagine, at least a little. "--Would it be rude to ask about your world?"

[wontforgetyou]

He'd run across enough different reactions by now that he was never really sure what way people were going to do when they noticed the shard. Curiosity was one of the better of them, as far as he was concerned, and he gave her a rather crooked smile of his own in return.

"Well, if you don't mind, I'll stay for a wee bit, then."

Maybe Sina would wake up, and even if not, he didn't particularly mind talking about his world. Well, some of it, at least. Part of it was complicated, but he figured he could worry about that if it came up. Still, he couldn't help but glance over at Sina for a moment, giving her a thoughtful look before shaking it off a bit and turning back to Nahariel.

"Ah, I'd not say that's rude. Not any more rude than my barging in here to check on Sina. How is she doing, anyway?"

[nadasharillen]

How is she doing...

Nari sighed, shoulders drooping slightly. It was always a difficult question. Even "better" didn't mean much when "better" only meant that Sina slept well a few more hours than she had the week before.

She said it anyway, although her half-grimace betrayed her thoughts. "...Better. At least the fever hasn't been back in a while now, and she's woken lucid a few times. But with the shard... it's like trying to treat a knife-wound when you can't remove the knife. And with it so close to her heart, her lungs..." The elf pursed her lips, looked down. After a moment, her eyes strayed to his hand.

"Does yours cause you much pain?"

[wontforgetyou]

Where Sina's shard was wasn't a good place for it to be at all. Even Jamie knew that. 'Better' wasn't going to be completely better, so long as it stayed where it was. The reality of that was enough to get him to also grimace faintly even as he nodded, acknowledging her words - at least when it came to Sina.

Her question wasn't exactly one that could be answered as easily with a nod, though. Oh, he could nod, and it'd be true, but there was more to it than that, and it wouldn't be right to leave it just like that. So while he did hesitate for a second or two, in the end it was only to take a breath and let it out again.

"Sometimes, aye. Not all the time, and even then it's usually just an ache. I've...I've noticed it gets stronger after I've closed a rift, though. Or more noticeable, anyway."

[nadasharillen]

"That makes as much sense as anything might. If it's a sort of... wound, then using it would make it hurt. Like running on a turned ankle. Or... tugging at a splinter?" Nahariel frowned slightly--was it a magical wound in itself? Or some kind of embedded object? "You had it on--or in--you when you came to this world, but Sina... she said it flew out of the rift and hit her. Like some kind of projectile."

She shook her head with a self-conscious smile. "I'm sorry. I thought I'd given up trying to explain it."

[wontforgetyou]

"Well, to tell you the truth, I don't remember a lot about actually falling through the Fade, like they said we did. I remember being trapped behind one of those force-field thingys ...erm, like a sort of invisible barrier. And we weren't going anywhere anytime soon, so I thought I'd catch a wee bit of shut eye."

He'd learned long ago to catch what sleep he could where he would, and even though it sometimes would get the people he'd travelled with to roll their eyes, he never really thought too much about it - with a couple of exceptions.

"The next thing I know, I was falling, and my hand was hurting, only I'd not really thought too much of it because of the demons. Could be that it hit me the same way, only I was a bit too distracted to notice that part of things." There was a small pause, and he added, "You don't have to apologize for that, though, you know. I still get asked about it a fair amount, to tell you the truth."

[nadasharillen]

"I'm... thankful you're still this good natured about it." Nari pulled up her other knee, shifted around until she's settled cross-legged on the stool. "Granted, it's something I've never seen before, but there are plenty of humans here who've never seen a Dalish elf, and if I were asked about my vallaslin as much as you're probably asked about your hand..." she trailed off with a meaningful look and a short laugh.

She looked at Sina again, reached out to smooth a few wayward strands of hair from her cheek. When she spoke again, her tone was quieter. "Do you miss it? Where you come from?" A small sad smile. "That's probably a stupid question."

[wontforgetyou]

"Ah, I'm not always," he admitted. There were plenty of times where he'd been cranky about it, and he suspected there were likely times he'd wind up being so again. Today wasn't one of those times, though, and he gave her a smile. "But I've done my own share about asking about things like the vallaslin, so unless someone decides to start calling me a demon when they're asking, it's not so bad."

He's had some practice in saying that word, too, and while he still hasn't gotten the pronunciation perfect, it's much closer than it once had been. Hopefully she wouldn't mind that it wasn't quite up to snuff, just as he didn't mind that she was asking about home - and at that last part, he shook his head quite firmly, a clear signal of denial.

"Hey, that's not stupid at all! So don't you go thinking that it is. But...aye. I do. Have for awhile, to tell you the truth. I've not been back to Scotland for years, now."

[nadasharillen]

"You were travelling already then, when you were brought to Thedas? Or--" her lips thinned, remembering the plains with a young girl's hazy memory. She'd never gone back. "--or something happened to keep you away?"

[wontforgetyou]

For a moment Jamie opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again. Strictly speaking, both of what she'd said was true, in a way, although explanation could be a tricky one. Still - maybe he could put in a way she understood, and even though he grimaced a bit, after a few seconds he finally managed to get something out that would hopefully make some sort of sense.

"Well...yes. I was traveling, but I guess you could say the fact it also kept me away. My friend has a ship, you see, and it's, ah...sort of magical. Only he's not able to control it as well as he'd like, and so we keep winding up places that aren't where we'd meant to go."

i am the slowest human

[nadasharillen]

The elf found herself grinning, remembering, "I think I have some idea of what that might be like," she said, stretching her shoulders absently. "The first time I tried riding a halla--that's one of the animals the Dalish herd, sort of like a white deer--when I was small. I could get on it, but it didn't take any of my directions, and just sort of... moved around, ate grass, did whatever it was going to do anyway. If it hadn't been so tame, I probably would have ended up miles away from camp."

nah, not at all. it's all good. <3

[wontforgetyou]

Having been told about the halla before - at least, what they were - Jamie nodded. It wasn't so different from some horses he'd dealt with in the past, and he could picture what she was talking about quite easily.

"Aye, it'd be a bit like that. Only take miles away and make it so there's a lot more of them. Like...it took you and Sina a while to get here, didn't it? It'd be like that, too, only all the time and all over the place, so you never know exactly where you are when you first get there. I suppose eventually he might've wound up back at Scotland, but I travelled with my friend for three years and not once did we turn up there. Close a couple of times, though."