faderift | [open] seven times I went down

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[open] seven times I went down

WHO: Teren von Skraedder and anyone brave enough to visit her
WHAT: Teren got the veritable shit kicked out of her in this debacle. She is convalescing. Angrily. (she doesn't know how to do it any other way)
WHEN: After the shardbearer rescue plot.
WHERE: Camp Shady, more specifically her tent
NOTES: she's mean, also tw for some icky injuries

Teren is like a cat, and when she's suffering, she hides it under her otherwise sunny exterior and continues to go about her life. Generally this works out for her, but after a long and uncomfortable trip back from Nevarra, all she wants to do is go to her tent and collapse. She appears back in the Warden camp with a distinctive limp, a bundle of torn leathers, and cuts, bruises, and abrasions on every expanse of skin visible outside her modest and practical traveling clothes.
Greetings to her fellows are little more than a grunt and a wave as she looks right past them, staggering along and gritting her teeth until she can go lie down again. This she does, arriving at her and Blackwall's tent to find it half-empty, all of his belongings vacated with no notice.
Typical Gordon.

She takes to her bedroll and proceeds to not come out for over a day, and even then it's only to boil some water by the cookfire before she withdraws again.

She's Fine

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Whether he's brave or just sort of foolish is up for debate, but at some point Alistair stands outside of Teren's tent and says, helpfully and not at all obnoxiously, "Teeeeeeren."

At the familiar sound of Alistair's keening, Teren grimaces and throws a pillow over her own face. Perhaps if she plays dead and doesn't answer, he'll go away. Not that thinking she's asleep has ever stopped him before, but a woman can dream.

"TeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEren."

There's no hope.

"I'm counting to fifteen," he says, "and if you're indecent when I come in, I'll know it's intentional and you're trying to seduce me. One, two..."

As he counts, her mind races. Can she sew the flap shut that quickly? Not like this. Does she have anything to knock herself out? Besides tea, no, and that'll take longer than fifteen seconds.... does she have anything to knock him out? She casts her gaze frantically around the tent interior. Nothing. A diversion? Exploding powder? Bollocks, she wouldn't be able to get it outside, where's Kaisa when she needs her?

Actually it's probably better that Kaisa isn't here.

"... three, four—"

He sticks his hands through the tent flaps to demonstrate that he's counting with his fingers. This is complicated somewhat by the fact that he has a small, clear glass bottle of dark liquor in one hand. He counts as high as he can, anyway, until he's holding the bottle with only his thumb and a single finger, then makes a circular and so forth gesture with his empty hand.

"Eight, nine, ten... I'm bored."

He sticks his torso through the flaps, but not yet his feet, because he isn't entirely sure that Teren isn't asleep. Or dead.

"I brought whiskey."

She's not either thing, but she has resigned herself to his presence... which is now considerably more welcome after what she sees in his hand.

"You should've just said so, fool boy," she huffs with a curt beckoning gesture, "get in here, then." Her face actually softens a little between winces as she lies back, finally coming to rest with her head and shoulders propped up and the rest of her laid flat.
She at some point must have mustered the werewithal to change out of her tattered leather armor and into a fairly unimposing linen ensemble, and between that and actually having her hair out of its tight bun for once, she almost looks human. Up her arm and the right side of her neck are a series of ugly burns and abrasions, the kind caused by extreme temperatures rather than weapons.

Alistair grins on his way in. It's not a grin without caveats--he's tired around the eyes, less so than at the height of the Calling business but more so than's normal lately, and the edges of his smile dip at the sight of her, looking so vincible. That isn't how this works.

"For you," he says, sinking down to sit cross-legged on the ground and uncork the bottle, which he offers with a wiggle. "All for you. I got drunk yesterday. Have to alternate, you know. No repeats of when we met."

Vincible? Not her, certainly.
Okay... maybe a little.

She winces as she takes the bottle, still in a great deal of pain but trying not to show it. "Drunk?" she asks, with a careful raise of one eyebrow, "we can't have that. What was the occasion?"

Alistair nods his head toward the emptier half of the tent, where Ser Blackwall no longer is staying, which has left him in the uncomfortable position of being sort of, arguably, with the way things traditionally work, in charge.

"I can't--" he starts, and there are two ends to that sentence: can't be in charge is one of them, obviously, but can't ask not to be is the other, because the Nightmare's who will you hide behind now still occasionally echoes and winds its way around his neck and tries to choke him.

This is very overdramatic. He's fine.

"I was thinking you and Howe could, uh--" Help, help, please help. "--but that means you can't die," he says, "or lie in here healing as slowly as possible out of stubbornness, because you can't make me deal with him alone. You can't. I'll fall asleep every time he talks."

Teren looks concerned, and then exasperated, then some combination of the two. "You can," she says irritably, but as soon as he starts complaining, she can't help but laugh. Of course, laughing is extremely painful right now, so after one chuckle her face is pinched and her posture tense as she works hard to still it.
The spell passes and she rests back with a tired sigh, as displeased about the state of things as he is. "I'm not going to die," she assures him hoarsely, "...well, I am, but not from this. Not yet." One bony hand moves from holding the bottle to drape over her aching ribs, and she shakes her head.
"...I'll help you. But don't be a fool." Her head angles toward him as she scrutinizes his face. "Don't start drinking again. ...and don't make me laugh, it's awful." It's possible she'll have a drink to recognize Blackwall's absence, but no one else needs to know about it. And it won't be quite the same, since he always had the best whiskey. Selfish tosser, he better come back.

When she laughs, he grins. It's one of the more boyish in his arsenal, one that displays teeth and reaches all the way up to crinkle the corners of his eyes, pleased to have done something right without slipping over into smug or smirky--

but it's gone nearly immediately, just as fast as the laughter dies, and he rubs his mouth with the lengths of his fingers, like the remnants can be erased, while he gives her a worried scan.

"Not yet," he agrees from behind his hand. He may manage to beat her, if she doesn't die right now because he couldn't leave her alone, good job Alistair, fantastic work.

When he drops his hand he puts both arms behind him to brace his weight against when he leans back. The smirk returns.

"You'll have to pick one of those things," he says. "Maaaybe two. I definitely can't do all three."

If Teren dies in bed, something has gone very much awry. For the sake of her own reputation, she won't let that happen, even if it means using the last of her strength to drag herself outside and pick a fight with a bear.

The look she gives him is familiarly exasperated, but merits a smirk nonetheless. "Fine," she concedes, we both know which two it'll be, at least in the meantime, since telling you not to be a fool is about as useful as telling a swallow not to sing."
She sighs, letting her eyes fall briefly closed. "...just don't make a habit of getting drunk again. You become even more intractable, and it's embarrassing for everyone. Keep it together."
When her eyes open again, they're still hard, but with an unmistakable trace of concern.

"Mm, but I do love it when you call me intractable," Alistair says, with the low smarmy drawl he uses whenever he flirts but doesn't really mean it--so ninety-nine percent of the time. Deflective nonsense. A shield thrown up out of instinct because embarrassing to everyone is a metaphorical jab right in his metaphorical gut.

It isn't an uncalled for jab, though, or an incorrect one. He knows that. He forces the smirk off his face and clears his throat--still leaning back on his arms, maybe looking a little childish for it, but otherwise serious.

"It won't be a problem, Teren." He smiles again, primarily with his eyes and eyebrows. "I'll find completely new and exciting ways to embarrass you instead. You have my word."

Teren rolls her eyes, but then she smiles a bit. She does like him for being intractable, because so is she. It means he has moxie.

"Good," she replies to his assurance, and automatically reaches to pat him on the knee, but in doing so aggravates one of her many injuries. "AHH bollocks," she spits, "shit bloody nugfucker." She flops back again, regretting all of her life choices.

"Teren--" Alistair says out of delayed-response impulse to tell her not to move, even though it wouldn't have occurred to him that she shouldn't move until she already was moving. And cursing. He doesn't finish the warning. His hands do go out to hover next to her bedroll, though, like she might try to move again and need to be stopped, and he shakes his head. "Are you sure you don't want to move to the healers' tents? I'll carry you."

He knows that is absolutely not going to happen.

"shoveitupyourarse," Teren kindly disagrees, letting a hand flop over her forehead as she sighs out and takes a few seconds to recover. "No healers' tents. Anders is bad enough, and at least when he leaves I'm not still surrounded by healers."

"I suppose that's something."

Stubborn arse. But if she's still acting like herself--and she is--it can't be that bad. He lowers his hands cautiously to the floor and tries to brighten up like he isn't very worried.

"Completely unrelated," he lies, "can I sleep in here tonight? Not to watch over you. You obviously don't need it. It's just that Zevran's baby is fussy, keeps me up half the night..." Lies lies lies. "I'd be very quiet."

Perhaps, on some level, Teren has already zeroed in on what he's trying to do. But perhaps, on a slightly lower and a bit less prickly level, she doesn't mind. If nothing else, she can always just pretend she's watching over him instead, as she does all the younger Wardens each night. At least when she isn't flat out.
"...do you snore," she asks flatly.

That's not a no, yet. Alistair perks up.

"Only a little," he says. "It's more quiet background noise than—" He illustrates a noisy snuffling snorty snore.

Teren shrugs dismissively. "On more than one occasion I mistook Gordon for a bear," she assures him, "just don't be a nuisance."

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