[open] love, love is a verb

[eolasemah]

WHO: Sina and you!
WHAT: She's awake more often and able to sit up in bed to do things. Visits will be more productive now.
WHEN: Early Drakonis
WHERE: Sina & Nari's tent in the garden
NOTES: Follow-up to this log and the direct result of this one.

The past month has been rough, and Sina has spent most of it in the Fade. Only now is she beginning to look a little more alive, able to converse and laugh without hurting herself, eating more than what Nari can manage to spoon into her mouth while she's conscious, spending her days reading tomes on magic and elvhen history from the library.
She still can't get out of bed without assistance, and the stuffiness of the sick tent is wearing on her. Sina is pale and thin, a shadow of herself, with bags under her eyes and protruding bones. She still smiles easily, however, and is grateful for company and news of outside goings-on.

She will get better. She is getting better. But it will take time.

Comments

[eolasemah]

"A dragon!" Sina breathes, caught between being impressed and horrified. "Korrin..!" On the one hand, dragons are noble lords of the land, sea, and sky. On the other hand, they're terrifying and violent and prone to ruining civilizations.
When Korrin bends down, Sina hesitates a moment before awkwardly reaching her thin arms up around the vashoth's neck. To Korrin, she must weigh almost nothing. It takes the elf a moment to adjust, and she gives a nervous giggle at suddenly being so much higher up than usual.

[gatheringstorm]

"Not to worry, Sina. I've had backpacks that weigh more than you; you're as light as a feather." Which is worrisome in its own way, since the Dalish elf definitely needs some meat on those bones. She'll conspire with Araceli to send more tasty and fattening things her way.

Araceli's tutting gets a small grin out of Korrin, as she lifts Sina in her arms. "Hey, I didn't just run off on my own. I'm not Kain. There were heavily-armed teams all ready to take each one on, and more potions and tonics than I ever remember seeing before or since. We were responsible. That reminds me, I have a dragon tooth as a souvenir."

Once out of the tent, she'll seek the nearest unused bench to gently set down Sina. Then Lux is free to climb all over her again, of course.

[foxsays]

“Sina, because it has been far too long since I had an argument with that hag in the kitchen, what do you like to eat? Would you eat fish at all? I can make it so you cannot actually taste that it’s fish.” Might take a bit more fighting with various jars to do so but fish is good for a person, and she would see Sina well again if she can manage it; a good thing so many meals in her home involve lots of small portions to mix and match at will.

Lux hops down as she speaks, following along as Araceli rubs at her face again as she shakes her head.

“That would say more if he wasn’t the sort to run around in plaidweave, I was almost blinded last time I clapped eyes on him. That fabric should be burnt, the ashes thrown into the darkest of holes.” Honestly, it’s not even that it’s yellow - she has clothes of all colours - but there’s something so eye-searingly ugly about it that it makes her grind her teeth. She settles next to Sina on the bench as Lux flops over in front, legs in the air and belly on display, reaching for one of Sina’s hands. “I am so sorry I was not here to help Sina, I am so so sorry.”

[eolasemah]

The sunlight, the fresh air, the gentle rustling of the trees and plants: Sina almost starts to cry the instant they get outside, but she restrains herself in favor of beaming around at the garden. Part of her was afraid of what she would find-- namely that the rift had destroyed it somehow, that she had damaged it beyond repair, that Skyhold was falling apart and everything was ugly and charred and dead because of her.
But it's not. It's fine, and her relief is palpable.

She almost doesn't hear Araceli's question as Korrin sets her down on the bench, too transfixed by the progress of the herbs nearby to form a coherent thought. "Um..." she murmurs, "yes, sure." Fish is fine. But look at the blood lotus!!

Her attention returns to her friends when Araceli takes one of her hands, and Sina, suddenly tired from sitting upright, leans slightly onto the human. "I'm glad you weren't," she admits, "because it would have hurt you. I'm glad so few people were here, and that the ones who helped weren't badly injured."

[gatheringstorm]

Sina's reaction to the garden is met with a fond smile. She new Samwise and others had been hard at work since the rift was sealed. The fruits of their labor have definitely paid off, and she's especially grateful for that now. Araceli's mention of fish gets an approving nod from her.

"I'll be your very willing kitchen assistant, of course." Korrin's doesn't really take the lead for anything culinary aside from spiced wine and par vollen banana bread, but she'll take directions like a champ. Araceli's cooking is always worth the effort, especially to help Sina recover. Speaking of plaidweave also gets a belated snicker out of her, but she sobers up at mention of the rift incident.

Settling down by them both, she sighs. "I'm with her. I'd still rather have been there, to help somehow." Emprise du Lion was important, but so was saving a friend and defending their fortress. "But whatever you need now, we're here."

[foxsays]

Time to start canvassing the Dalish about comfort food it is then.

Araceli rests her head atop Sina's, because Sina is real, and solid, and very much alive and she rubs her face again to get rid of the last of the tears that threaten. How she still has any left is beyond her and she takes time to simply breathe and look about the garden. It isn't a place she spends much time in but she can understand loving living things even if hers all come from the water, and perhaps to see it well as it should be will help Sina, especially if they smuggle her out and into the fresh air more often.

"You didn't open the rift on purpose Sina, you wouldn't have hurt me." Solid logic there from Araceli but she feels confident enough that Sina is one of the very last people who would do such a thing maliciously. "When someone that is a part of you suffers, you hurt, just in a different way. No one can help that."

She says it gently though, wary of making things worse but she had grieved all the same before she'd managed to compose herself to write a letter to be sent to Skyhold, even as she'd tried to write in silly things with her stiff frozen fingers.

"Especially if it involves sneaking you off somewhere, Lux is already a wonderful lookout if you wish to visit elsewhere in Skyhold."

[eolasemah]

Sina closes her eyes contentedly when Araceli leans back against her, but she can't help but catch the motion of rubbing away tears. She sits up to look at the woman's face, and reaches toward her to gently cup her cheek, her slender thumb moving over Araceli's cheekbone as though to wipe away any tears that remain.

"I know," she says quietly, her brow knit with concern, "but all the same." She lowers her hand and looks out at the flourishing garden, then lifts her gaze to Korrin with a sheepish smile. "I never want to be part of something so destructive."

[gatheringstorm]

Korrin's expression softens at that motion of Araceli's, ignoring her own heartache that would have made tears possible. Sina's tender response is much appreciated, and she has to refrain from giving the tiny elf woman a crushing hug that she probably wouldn't be able to withstand. She'll settle for giving her a very gentle squeeze around the shoulders, though.

"No one in their right mind would be. We still don't quite understand how it happened, but I'll join any effort to ensure that there's no repeat incident. And if anyone dares to give you grief about something beyond your control, let us know. We'll set them straight."