faderift | OPEN: Like the High Tide Takes the Sand.

WHO: Nerva and OPEN
WHAT: After swearing an oath to Cassandra, Nerva has foresaken her title as Templar, and sworn to serve the Inquisition only.
WHEN: Over the next couple weeks so that whoever is wherever can still come bother her.
WHERE: Either Emprise, directly after her oath, or in Skyhold after they return
NOTES:The Oath, also warning for Nerva and her Opinions....

There is something uncharacteristically quiet about Nerva, these days. A solemn silence where the passion should be, a held tongue instead of the lash. After returning from Nevarra, after trudging through the snow of the Emprise, she retreated further and further into herself.

That didn't mean the passion was gone. Rather it was turned inward - almost self-flagellating in its intensity, ripping through everything she believed, and the things she thought she believed, until her soul was left at it's most raw, most pure state.

She needed a purpose. She needed a path.

And so she made one.

Any doubts she had, she did not voice. Any doubts she had, were gone, after she made her oath.

She did not have room in her heart for doubt. She did not have room in her heart for the wretchedness that had been there, for months. No. She only had room for commitment, for the cause. And if she could not fully live one, she would live the other.

If she could no longer be Templar in word and deed, then she would be no Templar at all.

She would turn herself into a sword for the Right Hand.

Over the next few weeks, her downtime was used to carefully and painstakingly remove all symbols of the Templar Order from her armour, her clothing, her weapons. Everything she had owned, had come from the templars, and she had no funds with which to simply replace them, so she worked. Mostly on her own, removed from others. She had no desire to make a big display. Her faith - her purpose - was her own, no one else's. There would be no announcement.

Just the careful and purposeful continuation of Duty.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

They're symbols. They mean what they want you to. The commander still wore the crest on his bracers, even so far removed from the Order. The Sword of Mercy had a place, a purpose, even if some of the Templars saw it as too literal a weapon.

But River understands the need to peel it away, to be something new and shake off even the semblance of remaining chains.

So she creeps in to watch, head resting on her arms, dark eyes following Nerva's movements as she works so diligently. Would she replace them with watchful eyes instead?

Nerva has never been good with keeping symbols that once meant something else to her. Her first name is all she kept of her childhood, and even that was more out of necessity than anything else. If she is to make herself a new life, she will scrub herself of the old one.

But when she feels eyes on her, and raises her own, a wave of guilt washes over her.

River. A thread left loose, one that she felt a personal responsibility to fix, but -

It wasn't her place. And even when she had thought it might have been, it had hurt her to even dream of actually attempting what was necessary. And now -

Now. Now she had no right, anywhere, to do anything at all.

"Hello, River," She murmured, carefully removing the stitches of embroidery on a tunic.

Today appears to be one of her better days. Her eyes shine when they flick up, regarding her warmly before falling to the busy work of needles and fingers, pulling things free from flesh. No. Fabric. It's different. She's shedding that skin.

Serpent of the North, but not one to be feared. Never that.

"They're afraid," she offers up, after a moment. But her voice is calm, almost reflective. Watching her pluck at the thread is relaxing, in a way.

"Who is afraid?" She asks, her attention half split - trying to focus on River and not stab herself with a needle at the same time.

She pauses, frowning. "Did something happen?"

"Afraid of change. Of falling. Failing. Seams coming apart with nothing to put them together again."

She shifts to make herself more comfortable, her tone still almost conversational. "Norrington more than most. Doesn't know what he is if he doesn't carry the words, the sword, the shield. He's afraid."

But not of her, at least. That much had been a relief.

That made her pause far longer - the fabric coming to rest in her lap, the needle between her fingers forgotten as she watched River.

"... I cannot keep anyone's fear for them," She said finally. Soft, but firm. "There is always Duty. It simply sometimes takes time to see it."

She doesn't say what she wants to, about Norrington. Bites her tongue. Conviction was the balm of her soul - and conviction wasn't something she could give others.

"Everything is changing," She continued eventually, brows pulling into a tight knot, as she turned her eyes back to the needle and thread - as she returned to the slow, but purposeful duty. "... It is not the first time. It will not be the last. I will do what I must."

"To keep us safe."

That had always been her concern, above all other things. Not herself, not patching the hurts that could be calloused and scar over, but those that were free of the perceived stain. It was the reason she'd never said aloud what she thought - suspected - knew.

River slips closer still, tipping her head against Nerva's shoulder as she works so studiously. "Everything shifts, swirling, slipping away. The eye of the storm is safest. When they become, you become with them. If they stay in the wind's path, they'll be torn apart..."

It's an automatic reflex - a low sigh, before her head tilts, pressing against River's, though her eyes and her concentration are still on her work.

"To keep you safe."

The you is both plural, and singular.

It is a promise, for a problem unspoken.

River's words, as ever, make little sense, but she tries to parse them as best she can - work them through in her literal, logical way.

"Life is always a storm, River. They will weather it, or they won't." But she did pause, pulling an arm up to clasp around River's shoulders. "I wish I could tell you what would happen, but I cannot foresee it. So I will walk my own path, and do what is best, as well as I can."

"It's going to get worse."

She wishes it weren't so, but the fracture lines are showing. Soon, something will happen, pressure in the wrong direction, and those fracture lines will snap. But she can hope it's not until they find their feet again.

Hope. It's a strange thing to try to hold, to know the shape of. Her dark eyes shift over Nerva's hands before reaching, touching the back of her knuckles.

"The light's growing too bright. Too many sparks, and they're afraid of fire."

OPEN: Like the High Tide Takes the Sand.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject