Lex is not on this excursion to protect the party. Of course, Gwen's probably useless (mostly useless) scholar (not actually) doesn't really need to be protected either, he pretty much does that for himself by being out of the way of arrows or stabby things or magic blasts of fire, so...small blessings, or something. The reasons he is here were probably more inscrutable, since he hasn't said much to anyone, exists to do his job, mostly, before--well, before all this, before the arrow and shattered shield and all that blood.
The memory of getting there is hazy, before he is terribly unwisely in the middle of the whole mess; his hands aren't much bigger than hers, but he's always in so many layers it's easy to shed one to press around them, even if the brutal practicality that governs the forefront of his mind says he just ruined a perfectly good something for no reason; it's too late for that kind of simple first aid to matter. Mostly, if he's honest, about which he would have no qualms being, he wants to distract Gwen with something enough that she won't protest moving, being moved, because if he's noticed one thing everyone else on the field has, it's the absence of that archer from formation.
Absent, and then--not so much. Suddenly very present; Lex notices, bloodlessly, gray eyes and a long, ropey scar down the side of the face and neck, under distinctive tattooing, notices that in what seems to unfold like an hour, another arrow hocked back with a kind of terrible precision he recognizes--
(He's not a combatant. But he's kept himself alive this long, meaning mostly he sees openings where they exist.) Meaning, his single contribution to this entire mess is an accurate throwing arm and one moment where everyone is focused somewhere else, meaning a smart, ornately handled little knife protruding, abruptly, in a spray of blood too bright to seem real, even if it's only as bright as all the rest spilled in the grass, from the seat of that scar. Meaning, the archer topples and Lex stops caring about that particular problem immediately.
no subject
The memory of getting there is hazy, before he is terribly unwisely in the middle of the whole mess; his hands aren't much bigger than hers, but he's always in so many layers it's easy to shed one to press around them, even if the brutal practicality that governs the forefront of his mind says he just ruined a perfectly good something for no reason; it's too late for that kind of simple first aid to matter. Mostly, if he's honest, about which he would have no qualms being, he wants to distract Gwen with something enough that she won't protest moving, being moved, because if he's noticed one thing everyone else on the field has, it's the absence of that archer from formation.
Absent, and then--not so much. Suddenly very present; Lex notices, bloodlessly, gray eyes and a long, ropey scar down the side of the face and neck, under distinctive tattooing, notices that in what seems to unfold like an hour, another arrow hocked back with a kind of terrible precision he recognizes--
(He's not a combatant. But he's kept himself alive this long, meaning mostly he sees openings where they exist.) Meaning, his single contribution to this entire mess is an accurate throwing arm and one moment where everyone is focused somewhere else, meaning a smart, ornately handled little knife protruding, abruptly, in a spray of blood too bright to seem real, even if it's only as bright as all the rest spilled in the grass, from the seat of that scar. Meaning, the archer topples and Lex stops caring about that particular problem immediately.