faderift | (no subject)

WHO: Cyril and OPEN.
WHAT: Merrick is suffering from the posion. This is the place for people to worry about him.
WHEN: During the Crow Plot
WHERE: Merrick and Cyril's room.
NOTES: Merrick has been poisoned, so there's that. Also; talk of grief and death as that brings back bad memories for Clan Ashara, and Cyril's inability to self-care.

Sam had brought Merrick in from the cold. The healers had done what they could. Now all that was left was to wait for the poison to make it's way through Merrick's body.

They knew by now that Zevran was missing. There was this strange ache in Cyril's chest when he thought about that, strong enough that he could notice it over the overpowering anxiety he felt about Merrick. He was aware they were coming up with a plan to get Zevran back, but most of that talk wasn't sticking when Cyril heard it.

It wasn't that he didn't care about the rescue. He cared a great deal about what happened to Zevran, it was that any new information just felt jumbled up in Cyril's head. He could only really focus on the way that Merrick looked. He was in pain, everyone could see that, but he couldn't wake or break free from it.

Cyril was stuck to the side of their shared bed. He sat in a chair with his legs folded up towards his body. He had reached out one of his hands clasped it over Merrick's. He wasn't planning on moving until his brother woke, not unless a healer needed the space by the bed. Nothing else really mattered to him. He didn't need to sleep, or eat, or do anything other than watch and wait.

Anyone who saw him could see that his body was very tense and stiff. He looked like someone who was just on the edge of a flight or fight reaction. His eyes were wide and staring down at the bed. Merrick's body was sweating and suffering. It reminded Cyril too much like how members of his Clan described the plague victims of past. He had no memories of that time, other than a dim impression of his mother's last moments, but it was enough to leave him feeling anxious and devastated.

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A soft knock on the door, and Nahariel will peek her head in--followed by the rest of her. She's carrying a small loaf of fresh brown bread and a bowl of simple rabbit stew. She didn't know what had happened, only that there was a hubbub, and eventually she had emerged blinking from Sina's small garden tent and asked Sam what had happened.

She didn't know Merrick, but she knew enough of Clan Ashara by now to be concerned for him simply by virtue of association. And, of course, for his caretaker.

If she did what she could for them, perhaps she'd forget to worry for Zevran.

"For the first three days I was sitting with Siuona," she said quietly, "I didn't eat unless Adelaide or one of her students made me."

She had been irritated by having to think about anything besides her clansister, but... eating had given her the energy to better watch over Sina. And so she'd come.

She'll sit crosslegged on the floor beside the bed and tear chunks of bread, setting them in the stew to soak up the meaty broth. After there are enough to cover the top of the bowl, she'll set the remaining loaf in her lap, and lift the bowl towards Cyril, holding it in such a place where he's able to eat easily with one hand, not requiring him to let go of Merrick's hand for even a moment.

Edited 2016-02-06 02:23 (UTC)

At first it's not sure that Cyril heard her, but then he reaches out and takes the bread. "Ma serannas," he mutters softly before finally taking his eyes off his brother's form to look at the food.

"You're Nahariel, aren't you?" he asks, trying to figure out who this stranger is. They haven't met, but he knows the names of several of the other Dalish here, and she had mentioned Sina. He was assuming they were from the same Clan.

As she answers, he takes a bite of the food and admittedly feels much better for it.

"I am," she replies. "A hunter, from Sina's clan."

She says little else, content to continue to hold up the bowl within easy reach and offer support with her presence. Nahariel wanted to ask after Merrick, but also remembered how the unending inquiries--to which she'd had to answer 'unchanged, unchanged, unchanged' again and again--had nibbled away at her. She was here, that was proof enough of care. If Cyril wanted to talk about it, he could.

He does eat a bit more but then he doesn't think he can stomach much more and he goes back to his vigil. "Thank you," he says again.

They are silent for a while, and then he shares a bit. "When we were young, our Clan suffered from a plague. Many of us lost our parents in that illness. Merrick and I both lost our mothers. I remember very little, but he looks like what they say those victims looked like..."

He isn't sure why he's saying this to her. Maybe because she can understand what that sort of loss to a Clan is like bettr than any human could.

Her lips thin, eyes darkening in a shared grief, as Cyril speaks. Any loss within the People was too much--but a plague striking through a Clan, raking claws through a generation? Unbearable. And if the symptoms now were the same?

She remembered the cold tight fear she'd felt, seeing Sina on the ground crumpled like their Keeper; saw the other hunter taut and trembling with it now. There was no room for platitudes. Instead, Nari set the bowl of remaining stew down beside her, and reached up to give Cyril's hand a firm but gentle squeeze.

Cyril hums appreciatively at the squeeze.

"Thank you for listening," he says after a moment. "And for the food. You didn't have to come today, it means something that you did."

She nods--a quiet, solemn gesture--and then pulls her feet under her to stand.

"I should go back to the garden. Would you like me to leave the stew? It should keep. Bread too."

Cyril nods after a moment. "Thank you for bringing it," he says. He is grateful to her for that, and for her presence. It means so much.

"Dareth shiral." It means something that he can speak the language too.

"Dareth shiral," she replies. Safe journeys. It's for Merrick too. For them both.

Nahariel leaves the stew on a side table within easy reach, pauses, reaches back to squeeze Cyril's shoulder, and then slips out of the room.