THIEF.

Hi!! My name is Luci or Jesse, I’m 21+ and agender (she/they/he). This is my RP blog for INQUISITOR CADASH, mostly canon compliant. 

whereas andraste’s face is cold and unchanging, the inquisitor’s is warm with life and, for that, all the more beautiful. the indecision that sat like a stone in his stomach thaws into fondness. ❛ i’m whatever you need of me, be it a strong sword - arm or an ear to bend. ❜

blackwall turns away from the display to face naraka. ❛ my apologies in advance if i burst into flames, ❜ he begins with his smile, as slight as it is, edging toward wry. were they not alone, the blasphemy he’s about to commit would surely merit a scolding from any one of skyhold’s chantry sisters. ❛ the gods can wait, ❜ he says. ❛ and until you’re ready to answer them, know our belief in you is certain. that, inquisitor, you will never need to question. ❜

      THE GODS CAN WAIT. It was a powerful sentiment, more so coming from a believer. Somehow, it managed to weigh in her chest AND lighten the load on her shoulders.

      --- No, not lighten it. The weight was never so heavy as when she was reminded of THEM; everyone. The INQUISITION that had chosen to turn to Naraka for leadership, and the world outside of it turning to her for DELIVERANCE. But it was easier, as Blackwall reminded her she was not carrying it ALONE. The Inquisition leaned on her, yes, but they supported her also.

      That was easy to forget, to misplace in the sea of responsibilities of the HERALD and the INQUISITOR.

      She let the pause between them pass for a moment longer, and another moment after that, before a wry smile of her own twisted at the corners of her lips.

if only she knew the man who truly stands beside her. if only he wasn’t a bloody coward. blackwall takes in the dejected cast of cadash’s eyes and his stomach with indecision.  ❛ … my mother was rivaini–came to the free marches in her early twenties, if i remember correctly, ❜ he says, his voice a rumble inside the quiet of the chantry. ❛ she believed in the natural order. ❜

maker, he hasn’t thought about her in years. blackwall slides his gaze back onto the statue. ❛ my father was a stout andrastian, ❜ and the eyes he inherited from the man, striking against his dark skin, are now lambent with candlelight. ❛ this world is full of gods, inquisitor. our belief feed them. ❜

he hooks his thumbs into his belt. ❛ they’re indebted to listen. ❜

@ofcadash » continued!

      “What if I don’t KNOW if I believe?”

      There were certain undeniable truths for seemingly EVERYONE surrounding the dwarf; the Maker created and abandoned them, Andraste was His wife, and Naraka was Their HERALD. But how can you herald for someone if you didn’t even know if They were real?

      Would the Maker believe in her, if she didn’t believe in Him? Would He even care?

      She gave up on holding on to bits of herself early on. Arguing with everyone who called her HERALD proved tiresome, and trying to explain that she didn’t follow their Maker, fruitless. Protesting didn’t make them see her for who or what she was; nobody would listen. It was easier to lose herself in what they expected of her. To give herself up.

      “My sense of style? Not really, no.” She didn’t think of it as her sense of style changing or shifting; what she thought looked good remained roughly static. But the Legion of the Dead armor is certainly not something she would have worn before, nor the formalwear from Halamshiral. Anything Josephine suggested to her when greeting nobles was as likely to find its place under her feet as on her shoulders. Deep down, buried under fine silks and clanking armor, Naraka Cadash was very much still herself.

      With one exception.

meme. // accepting.

NARAKA: My boyfriend is too tall for me to kiss him on the lips. What should I do? MORRIGAN: Punch him in the stomach. Then, when he doubles over in pain, kiss him. DORIAN: Tackle him. VIVIENNE: Dump him. SERA: Kick him in the shin. THOM: No to all of those! Just ask me to lean down!

NARAKA: I would never say this to Solas’s face, but I consider him one of my closest friends and I treasure his presence. BLACKWALL: Why wouldn’t you say that to his face?

BLACKWALL: What’s a thot? SERA: It’s a thoughtful person. [Later at dinner.] NARAKA: Here’s the salt, Blackwall. BLACKWALL: Thank you, my lady. You’re such a thot. SERA: [spits out water]

CASSANDRA: How do Blackwall and Sera usually get out of these messes? NARAKA: They don’t. They just make a bigger mess that cancels the first one out.

meme. // accepting.

      “Does the Chantry teach you all how to be this DRAMATIC, too, or is that just a human thing?”

      She sighed (she seemed to be doing that a lot lately). She didn’t mean to be this rude or uncaring; she was just tired. It was like everyone around her was realizing what she had known all along; the Maker didn’t CHOOSE her. She wasn’t ANDRASTE’S Herald. Neither Chantry figurehead had sent her to be their savior; she was just UNLUCKY.

meme. // accepting.

      Naraka glanced over her shoulder at the sound of footsteps approaching, but when she realized it was Blackwall, she turned back to the statue of Andraste. Arms outstretched, face nigh unrecognizable, the original martyr. Is that what she would become? A symbol, the woman underneath lost to the years, if her actions were even remembered at all.

      A martyr. Not a person.

      He knew she didn’t believe, though. Andraste had been real enough, but the Maker? The all-powerful creator of everything who just... abandoned them. Regardless of whether he was real or not, Naraka wasn’t interested in worshipping him.

      “Well,” she sighed, her head dropping as she got up off her knees. “Figured I could use all the help I could get.” But as she looked up into the empty face of the figure before them, helpful wasn’t the feeling she was getting.

meme.

      The rock and stone closing in from every side must seem like a prison to most surface-folk. It must seem almost hopeless to look up and not see the clear, blue sky, but instead a dank, coarse ceiling. The smell must be suffocating, catching in their lungs and in their throats.

      But underground like this, Naraka only saw and felt the part of her people that she would never be a part of. Their connection to the Stone, their faith in it, their assurance that when they passed, they would return to it... What awaited her on the other side of death’s door?

      She didn’t believe in the Maker. She didn’t follow the Elvish gods. The Stone... it wouldn’t accept her.

      “I guess that’s ONE word for it.” Hostile wouldn’t be her description for it.