Cade's Inbox

[onlyhymns]

[For personal threads, memos, things left in his quarters for him to stumble on, confessions of love, injunctions, jars of bees, and so forth.]

Comments

one tries, motherfucker

[onlyhymns]

For his part, Cade is quiet until they dock, though despite Nari's expectations his instinct is to hop out of the boat and offer his hand to her in assistance. She may not be a fine Starkhaven lady, but Cade knows his manners, and he's not going to let her struggle awkwardly out of the boat herself.

she dies, motherfucker

[nadasharillen]

How someone who’d been down for as long and as harshly as Cade managed to move so quickly was a nearly galling puzzle, but off he’d gone, past her and up onto the dock where fully contrary to expectations he was offering her a hand off the boat.

Nari couldn’t remember the last time anyone had offered her a hand under any circumstance, let alone a human, let alone one that had been trained to an unthinking ceremonial curve meant to be taken by someone far less callused—and far less elven—than she. She stares for a moment in a mix of confusion and disbelief, but ultimately the corner of her mouth quirks up and she accepts the offer with a murmur of gratitude, joining Cade on the dock.

mince pies, motherfucker

[onlyhymns]

He's got reasons. And priorities.

He offers a small smile when Nari accepts his hand, but seems to leave it at that, walking silently beside her through the docks and up through Lowtown, where Cade seems content enough to keep his gaze down and his steps even. It's not until they reach Hightown when they looks they receive become really significant, and it's when they've stopped in front of a guard that it becomes apparent:
over the low residential buildings, where the magical forest used to be present, there's now bare sky with a few black, dead stalks disrupting the silhouette.

Hoarse cries, motherfucker

[nadasharillen]

There had been a smell. An undercurrent of smoke that tickles the nose. At first, it hardly registers; it’s winter, after all, people are going to be burning wood. Nari wanted to ask about Nerva, but decided she’d poked enough for the moment and contented herself with absorbing the feeling of freedom that came from being on land again, continuing to match steps with the man beside her, her gaze sweeping the gathering morning market crowds. Cade they’d move for, even if there was grumbling. Nari, on the other hand, had become used to dodging “incidental” shoulders.

So engaged, and with the smells of the marketplace covering it, it’s not until they reach Hightown and stop that the lingering smell clicks together with the stark black spires visible over the low buildings where there should be the spreading branches and stands of evergreens of Sina’s forest. Nahariel chokes audibly, her eyes wide with horror over hands that quickly fly to cover her mouth.

No. Not this too.

whiskey ryes, motherfucker

[onlyhymns]

Cade is perplexed at first, but as a sense of foreboding moves over him, he's quick to notice when Nahariel stops and stares. He follows her gaze, and then takes a step back himself, his own eyes going wide.

dark skies, motherfucker

[nadasharillen]

“They burnt it.”

It’s a whisper, muffled and hollow. Nari’s eyes stay fixed on the ashen monuments that had taken the place of all the verdant life Sina had exhausted herself in her last days to gift to the ungrateful town. It had lived on after her, a legacy, and now...

“They burnt it,” she repeats, louder, as if saying it would somehow make it understandable. Then her gaze snaps down to Cade. “The statue.”

end nighs, motherfucker

[onlyhymns]

Cade stands there dumbstruck, his mind racing and, incidentally, reverting back to how he felt at seeing the Chantry go up in the first place. It's not the same, it's... he can't wrap his thoughts around it. Was it on purpose?

He's snapped back to reality by Nari meeting his gaze, and, eyes widening, he breaks into a jog to go to the site of her work.

great tries, motherfucker

[nadasharillen]

Nari is only half a step behind, her ears full of the sounds of their boots slapping against the cobblestones of the street. It's surreal, what the mind finds important at times like these. The smell is more choking than it should be, tendrils of week-old smoke reaching back to smoke long ago, the smell of grass and wood, the cloying stench of flesh.

But ahead of them is green. A grove of trees still standing, their crowns shifting languidly in the breeze against the blue sky as if unaware that a fire had ever taken place, let alone near them. There are people in the trees, a low hum of speaking that rises to a murmur as they close the distance.

And there she is, shining dully in the dappled sun. With sword in one hand, the other outstretched, the Maker's Bride still stands in the almost circular stand of trees. Nari stops near the outer edge of the clearing, presses her cheek into the rough and living bark, and stares, stunned, at the handful of Kirkwall's citizens who are gathered at Andraste's newly candle adorned feet, at the small gifts of remembrance and offering left there.

[onlyhymns]

The sight that greets them is confusing at best, and Cade stops in his tracks to see all the people. And then there's... well, there She is, still standing, surrounded by them, peaceful and holy as ever.
It's difficult for someone of Cade's personal spirituality to not interpret this as a sign, or a gift, or... something. He's silent a moment, just watching the scene unfold.