faderift | [ closed ] go ahead and cry little girl, nobody does it like you do

In large part, the trip is largely uneventful.

Or: in large part, the trip begins uneventfully.

It does not end that way. The last stretch of road will wind several more hours before clearing the woods to where earlier generations of Vauquelin nobles had, in fact, cleared the woods for the rolling estate that Gwenaëlle will one day inherit; she is sleepy and irritable and in some small way looking forward to seeing it again. Guenievre will stay there, that's the deal, she'll pick one of the other maids to bring back with her, and her mother will stay, and -

an arrow thuds into the tree behind her and changes everything. The only experience Gwenaëlle has of the Dalish are the unusually socially-conscious ones that run tame about Skyhold picking flowers and fucking, and - these, outnumbering them by a few (by a few more, if one discounts Gwenaëlle and Guenievre as entirely useless in a fight), are not that. Archers, rogues, and leading them a mage -

In the stories there would be some sort of banter. Threats. Someone (Alistair or Lex) would say something they think is clever in response and someone else (Bellamy or Herian) would be ostentatiously unamused.

Fire explodes from the mage's staff.

No.

The thud of an arrow and the sight that greets her when she snaps to look towards there attackers makes a tension roll up her back and across her shoulders. Dalish. Always, unavoidably the Dalish, and she has reached for her spirit blade with no hesitation, the blade of light called into life with strange shimmer that cuts through the air. She wields her staff in her left hand and the blade in her right; there is a snap of energy as the blade deflects an arrow shot to strike her, and Herian moves towards the Dalish. Intercept, keep the party safe. These were things she could do.

Working with strange mages isn't Bellamy's style. He sticks to his own. But he doesn't have a choice here; there's him, there's others, the big elf and the Warden behind them somewhere, Gwen's probably useless scholar, her maid, Gwen--and in a crisis, Bellamy goes for what is familiar. It's reflexive, force of habit, putting his conviction in his ability to fight with greater effectiveness alongside a mage. Plenty of experience there.

He has nothing against the Dalish personally. The force of his blind anger has always been aimed elsewhere, to threats more present. But this is a very present threat, to his people (which is Gwen, one of the spare few he cares about), so he's got his sword in hand and his shield up as Herian deflects the next arrow aimed at her.

The Dalish mage is readying some attack in response. Bellamy spots it, the clear telegraphing of movement, the pull at the Fade at the edge of his consciousness, something he has learned very well to feel--like someone grabbing on his eyelid and tugging, and he pulls up to mute that spell before it can take proper shape, neuters the mage's magic neatly without interrupting Herian. And without saying anything to her, so, sorry.

The archers are readying another volley anyways, so she'll have plenty to distract her.

Strange Templars are, so far as she can fathom it, the same potential risk as mage or Seeker. A sacred order, by her reckoning, men and women who sword oaths to serve the Maker, to protect Thedas. She had not any whit of loathing for a good many of the Templars that walked the White Spire. One she had adored, and yet so many of them had been read to strike; their honour had been decayed.

(Many, she realised, believed honour was secondary to survival. Herian herself wondered what the worth of the latter was without the former, if all were rendered vicious, feral beasts, a dangerous and spiteful as the very Dalish before them now.)

While Ser Bellamy remained relatively unknown, she did know this by reputation: that he had helped bring back the missing shardbearers, two of which she holds in some affection, and he fought side by side with Sabine, the closest thing she has to family and her favoured source of ready insults. That is enough, and even if were not known to her, she would still fight at his side readily, because they are both for the Inquisition, both for Lady Vauquelin's safe travel, and both against the Dalish. In ideal circumstances she might communicate before she casts, but they've not that luxury, just as he has not the luxury - or perhaps it is simply the inclination - advise her before he neutralises the gathering magic. No harm is yet done--

A pale green light marks a glyph on the ground, a soft colour that might seem cool and shimmer like the ripples of a stream's shallows playing under the sunlight. Barrier, to bolster health for them both. Her heart beats too hard and too fast, and then the clarity of combat settles over her.

Honour cannot be cast aside or overlooked in any circumstance, else all is undercut, decay set in its heart.

"We have no quarrel with your people," she calls, voice clear and sharp. "We hail from the Inquisition, and seek safe passage alone. No blood need be spilt; no harm need befall any soul hence."

She has said these words before, in variations, but always the same message, and the Dalish have yet to stay their blades. "Stand down!"

Edited 2016-09-30 02:23 (UTC)

Bellamy shoots a look sidelong at Herian when she starts into that short speech of hers. There's a little something of a patient you've got to be kidding in that look, but he humors it, doesn't interrupt her.

But the thing is, in Bellamy's experience, whoever comes up on your party unannounced and shoots first isn't going to be talked down. Proof of his point: one of the Dalish rogues yells something back at Herian, her voice rough with anger. The words are incomprehensible to Bellamy but tone and intent read clear. They will not stand down. They are not standing down, this is a fight that will be joined.

"Nice try," Bellamy says, short, to Herian. Here's the clever banter you were waiting for.

And then the clever banter ends, because they have to shut up and fight, because the archers loose another volley. Bellamy raises his shield to block himself from those arrows as the rogue that had shouted out leaps forward, the blades on her double daggers glinting wickedly.

They do not relent.

Part of her knew they would not, knew Dalish to be as relentless as an ocean current, fit to drag you beneath the surface, silence you, drown you. The ocean was not merciful, nor was she kind; she dashed ships to pieces, and housed all manner of monstrosities.

That she expected does not mean it brings her any measure of joy or satisfaction. Her mouth sets into a firm line - there is no time to say that it was worth it to protect these people if they could, or that she would never give the Dalish the satisfaction of having an excuse to turn against her. A declaration was made, peace offered, and now they must do all in their power to protect the people with them. (The foreign elf, she suspects, may be an obstacle, the nobleman may be of use or may a burden, and Lady Vauquelin and her maid were untrained. So it was two warriors to count upon and herself, so far as she could calculate it.)

The archers are far - too far to immediately reach with her blade. She slams the base of her staff (it's not at all creepy, promise) to the ground, as flames engulf the feet of the archers, sudden and climbing fast, and a second heartbeat drums over her own.

The staff is a little creepy, but creepiness can be exonerated by usefulness, and that's exactly what happens as flames burst to life under the feet of the Dalish archers. Shrieks pierce the air--that and the bloom of heat tells Bellamy it's safe to drop his shield arm and move.

No fancy flourishes, no tricks. While the archers are distracted with the fire, Bellamy goes for the rogue, who has made nimble progress in closing the distance between herself and what's passing for their line of defense (also known as Herian). She pulls up short when she sees him coming, leaps back from the broad swing of his sword--and back again when he rushes her, bowls right into her and catches her chest with his shoulder. They go down hard, together, Bellamy's weight crushing the rogue to the dirt--but she's not done; she spits in his face, heaves up one arm to stab at his arm. The leather of his armor protects him, and Bellamy twists, drives his elbow into her face.

On the field, the Dalish mage has recovered his magic, and tendrils of some spell play between his fingers as he gathers his strength to himself. One of the archers has gained the treeline, disappeared into the shadows; several of the others lie on the grass, badly burned.

When her staff was broken by angry villagers, she did not seek out another until she found this one, taking up the sword instead so that she might travel more discretely, and so it has been some two years since she has regularly used all the spells she had learned. The unfortunate truth of it is that Herian has neglected some of her magics to better herself as a Knight-Enchanter. Hours each day spent working with a sword, training drills, focusing on how to better her mastery of her Spirit blade and her barriers.

There is not time to cast haste on Bellamy and attempt to intercept the mage. He is strong and able, and the mage will do more damage to them. One archer is missing, and though she is not fool enough to dismiss how very able they are, the mage remains more pressing. She casts disruption field, slowing the rogue Bellamy is struggling with and the enemy mage, before she advances at a run to throw herself at the mage, blade cutting a wide arch that she hopes will render him too injured to cast—

But the mage can still cast even if he is slowed, and the magic of the Dalish is strong as it is foul. Nature's vengeance draws enormous roots up through the earth, striking at any who might be in reach, capable tangling or impaling or knocking them back. Herian, for her part, is caught and tangled in vines even as she reaches the mage, her strike attack still vicious but weakened for her need to fight with nature.

The mage is more pressing. The mage is more powerful, more immediate - a broader threat. The mage is where Gwenaëlle is looking, Guenievre's hand like a vice around her arm, dragging her shocked and unresisting toward the same treeline they didn't see the archer melt towards and out of the immediacy of the fight. It isn't what she sees that alerts her to new danger, then, but what she feels; the abrupt way Guenievre jerks her arm and pushes her down, her gaze only belatedly following her mother's to where the archer has come into her eyeline.

Instinct is something it takes a long time to learn - longer than the short time Alistair has been throwing small objects at her unexpectedly, especially when he's still hitting her in the backside with fruit a solid fifty percent of the time.

The second arrow impacts with her shield, breaks, falls.

The second arrow.

The second.

Guenievre isn't holding her any more. The blood spattered across her cloak and gown and skin is not hers so it must be Guenievre's, and it is very difficult, suddenly, to understand this and to hold her shield up at the same time, so she - doesn't, on her knees and crawling to where her mother has fallen, the small and panicked sounds coming from the back of her throat not really words, although it feels like they were intended to be. The arrow protrudes obscenely from where it has lodged in bone between clavicle and throat and there are not going to be any other words, for all that Gwenaëlle -

There is so much blood, she despairs, pressing her hands there with all the force her small form can muster and succeeding in nothing but soaking them in what pushes through her fingers with Guenievre's slowing heartbeat.

"I tried," she says, because it's important. "Mama, I tried, we're nearly there, there will be a healer," as if she has to persuade her, as if it's as easy as convincing her not to go. "It's only a little while - it's only -"

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.

The wheeze of the rogue's breath through ruined nose and teeth; the crunch of bone--none of that is quite drowning out the sounds that pick their way clear, however quiet they began: Gwen, panicked. It would not be inaccurate to say that Bellamy is tuned mostly keenly toward people he cares about. At the same time, it is easy to hit that plane, the part of the fight where you don't give a shit about anything except the person you're grappling with, and, in vague periphery, the next person you'll have to grapple with, the shadowy future foes that could be the death of you in the next second so stay focused, stay here, present--easiest by comparison to that honed spike of lyrium but not so zealous, and here's how the difference goes:

Bellamy drives his elbow into the rogue's face a second time, and a third, then shifts, presses his hand to her forehead and uses that as a brutal leverage point. Her fingers are witless now and offer him no resistance when he takes her dagger from her and cuts her throat with it. And then he actually looks up and finds Gwen, across the field, closer to the trees than she ought to be, and the useless nobleman with her being suddenly not useless. And Gwen is knelt over her maid, and he picks out what she's saying next, clear as day.

If he thinks of his own mother in that second, who knows. But he does feel helpless. That's familiar, and he knows how to dispel it. Reality tries to order itself around this new fact, Mama; reality simultaneously comes together in the cacophony of the Dalish mage's spell. Bellamy's gaze whips over to Herian, twisted in the roots that have torn suddenly out of the earth. One thing at a time. One thing at a time, and he shoves up from the ground and runs right for the mage, who is still for now gripped in Herian's slow mire of a spell.

"Get her out of here!" is what he spares for Lex, shouted across the field, and he means Gwen, not her maidservant, her mother, whatever, only one of them is alive now and it's the one Bellamy cares about anyways, and no one better screw that up. He's got to kill the mage or at least draw the mage's focus, get Herian free enough that she can do it herself, because as long as there's a mage, there's a threat to them. The rest of it comes later. He jumps over one of the roots, ducks under the next--clearing the space between him and this particular foe with the rogue's dagger in one hand and his sword in the other.

One word, and the entire battle is changed.

Many times was she told, Better control yourself, if ever you wish to control your magic.
Control she has, the steady thrum of her anger fall too familiar and too raw, in ways it had rarely been before the Spire, save where the Dalish were concerned. The Dalish, who took and took, and who even as refugees came to their gates who had been injured by the Dalish, were allowed influence within the walls of the Inquisition. Perhaps if they killed more humans it would be of greater consequence. (Even with the bitterness of the thought that she will not remember until later, that does not have time to register now and simply passes as a ripple beneath the surface, Herian knows that she is still not more than a half-breed.)

The maze of thoughts will come later. Now there is only one thing true in her mind and it is her own father, bloodied and mutilated in the dirt, and a blade at the corner of her mouth.

Her grip tightens on the Heart of Rage, and she yells with exertion as the enemy mage's robes begin to smoulder and flames lick over the cloth to consume it. He cannot save himself from fire and a Templar, even if she is still slowed by the vines, using the Spirit Blade to slice through them. If does not take long, but time does not weigh the same as a battle as it might elsewhere.

He will look, in a moment, to make sure that Gwen's nobleman has gotten her safely out of range; he will look, in a moment, and do it himself if he has to. In the immediate, all of Bellamy's focus is on the mage, the narrow tunnel of vision singling out his target. A thick root writhes across his path and he jumps over it, clears it easy--comes down hard, with a scuff of loose sod, and the mage looks around at Bellamy's entrance just as his robes catch fire.

Herian is hacking through her bonds. Bellamy leaves her to it. She's proved she can handle herself and her Spirit Blade is sharper than his own sword could ever hope to be. The Dalish mage is contending with the bloom of fire eating at his robes, a frantic backwards shuffle with a wordless cry of pain. Bellamy clears one last root and slashes crosswise at the mage with the dead rouge's dagger.

Half-bent to deal with Herian's fire, the mage catches that strike across the face, and a deep cut splits his cheek. As he howls, Bellamy throws down his sword and grabs hold of his robes in his fist, forearm braced across the mage's chest. This time he stabs, low, at the stomach, pulls bodily at the mage so he meets that strike.

A new root bursts up from the earth, right under Bellamy's feet. The force of it knocks him on his back. He looses his hold on the mage--and on the dagger, too, which protrudes from the mage's stomach. Dazed only for a moment, Bellamy twists to grab for his cast-off sword, but the mage is ready for that. However injured he is, he raises his hand and staff, and Bellamy feels the pull of that gathering force--

But by this time, surely Herian will be free.

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dashing - 2016-10-06 11:15 (UTC) - Expand

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nonsibi - 2016-10-07 21:35 (UTC) - Expand

Near a week spent in close, close companionship with the warden has at least solidified Thranduil’s opinion of him into something that can be explained in a few words: somehow tainted, otherwise enjoyable to be around. The caveat of ‘for a Man’ is stamped on that in big, red letters, but when is it not?

He won’t remember what they were talked about later, once he struggles to recall the memories in the estate. It was a fun conversation, Thranduil will recall, his lips curled in a smile, but then the arrow, and he cannot imagine his horse is well trained for war. Herian is somewhere in front of them, and the ladies two, but he and Alistair are the only two out of the group with big, physical swords. They haven't fought together, which hinders them, but Alistair knows this world better, so it is to him Thranduil looks in those precious split seconds--

The mage is leading. She needs to fall first, and she is an elf, he cannot kinslay.

"Orders?" He asks, because every moment is precious, but a moment of thought here might save them all.

"What?" Alistair says.

So there goes that moment.

But after that moment passes he does look at Thranduil—a quick sideways glance and obvious click of understanding effort his attention returns to the mage. Orders. Right. It isn't Thranduil's fault; Thranduil doesn't really know him.

Anyway: "Try to keep count of the archers," he says. The mage is the bigger and louder threat, but from what Alistair knows of the Dalish—it wasn't their mages they sent to Denerim. Herian is making her attempt at placating them. Alistair likes the Dalish as a people well enough to keep his hand off the hilt of his sword, for that long. Only his shield (small but serviceable thank you) to fend off potential arrows where he's risked sticking his head out from around his chosen tree. "We can swing around behind him." The mage. "They'll be able to hold him, if they can't stop him. The boy's a Templar. You can tell because he doesn't smi—"

No banter allowed. He's cut off by an arrow embedding in the upper edge of his shield.

Alistair certainly gives off an aura of being fairly competent- the structure of the Wardens is still fairly shady for Thranduil, so he's not sure if all the shine on his armor is just for show or if means anything beyond skill with a polishing rag- but he's apparently unused to command, and Herian's never led anything other than her refugees.

(That Thranduil might himself be useful here is dismissed- he'd never trained with these people before, doesn't know strengths and weaknesses and wishes for the competence of his elves before refocusing on what's before him.)

"Understood." He unsheathes his swords- who needs a shield?- rolls his wrists, and as always, tests the boundaries of his strained fëa before stepping out from behind the tree and making for the first archer.

There's an economy to his movements, his choices. A grace born from wanting to accomplish a goal in as few movements as possible. He advances; drops into a roll to avoid an oncoming shot, ends up back on his feet. The wrongness of the situation screams at him as he raises his sword to another elf-- and neatly cuts their bow in half. The halves fly back with the newly loosened tension off the bowstring, one hitting the archer neatly in the forehead. It's easy to take advantage of that, to be inhumanly fast and end up with his arm about his neck, using his body as a shield- please, let these elves not be so deprived as to shoot their own clansman- while he chokes the Dalish man out. No kinslaying.

What Lex does with his knife registers dimly and distantly; something that Gwenaëlle will not fail to appreciate, but later, later when the immediacy of all this is a bit less. When she remembers in other than the bright flashes of horrific oversaturation, when she notices that her hands are covered in blood, when she's caught her breath and used it to wail.

Right now, what penetrates through the blank haze of fury and failure is what Bellamy shouts across to him - spurs her to movement, but not helpfully. Her fingers clutch Guenievre, Guenievre whose eyes stare unseeing up at her, the wreckage of her throat having not allowed her either the dignity or small kindness of last words -

"No," she says, more clearly than she thought it would come out, but. She's only a small thing, kept delicate; prising her away wouldn't present a challenge to someone who doesn't wield a hammer.

Lex reflects somewhere distantly that this is probably one of those times other people feel sorry; he understands, in the abstract, how much this must hurt (in the abstract, which doesn't say how many different ways there are to experience what Gwen is now, and Lex was too young when his mother died to remember), but in the bloodless pragmatism of his mind it probably hurts less than getting sliced in half with swords.

So - he might have spared Bellamy a nod back, presumably, what with their momentary common goal and all - he doesn't say, I'm sorry, he says, "We can't stay here," and he's only going to haul her as much as he has to, but. However much it takes.

It's more than none - she struggles until her hands leave (the body, Guenievre is gone), doubles forward momentarily in an effort not to be drawn too far and it's not a decision to stop so much as she loses her balance and the decision is taken entirely out of her hands.

The sound she makes isn't despairing, isn't the sort of ladylike and pretty distress that even she's capable of turning to great effect; it comes from the bottom of her stomach and it's wounded -

"I promised," she says, savagely angry, clutching Lex's arm with bloody hands. "We were nearly there--"

That, at least, he can respond to--just not until they're out of the way of fireballs and ice blasts and swords and whatever else is going on over there; he keeps tugging, which is a pretty apt metaphor for Lex as a person, not particularly forceful, just relentless.

Once they're as safe as they're getting in the middle of this mess, hidden behind--let's say whatever vehicle is moving supplies, shall we, Lex stays within touching distance, but doesn't actually, for the moment. "I know," he says, finally. There's blood all over his shirt, none of it his; he looks suddenly, sharply at her.

Something smashes, outside their periphery, a cry of pain or exertion follows, a wet, guttural sound. Lex is practiced at ignoring like, signs of life anyway, but right now he would be too focused to absorb much else otherwise. "Are you hurt?"

Physically speaking. He's probably not the audience she might want for the other thing. Or maybe, as future events would seem to support, he is exactly that.

The blood is all Guenievre's, though in the chaos and confusion - Gwenaëlle has to stop to register the question, to think about it, to make sure she knows the answer is true. It isn't as if she doesn't know how easy it is to miss something you oughtn't; how many times her father has sat down declaring himself perfectly well. Well; there was alcohol, then, but she doesn't feel as if she's thinking so much more clearly than he is.

When she shakes her head, mute, she's sure. Of that, anyway, because not another fucking thing that's happened in the last not-nearly-so-long-as-it-feels makes any damned sense -

She does feel a bit as if she might be sick at that unidentified sound.

"I promised," she repeats less harshly, distracted, shocky.

Lex is pretty sure they're all right, but just in case--well, shit. Actually his little emergency knife is currently embedded in an archer over yonder, so ...they're out of luck there. On the other hand he knows where his tools are, and a lot of those work as weapons. "What did you promise?"

He's definitely using that and the distraction to coax her along with him, away from the worst part of the fray without drawing attention to the fact that that's happening.

"To take her home. She isn't--"

She wasn't.

Past tense. The pause, remembering that, reliving what had happened only moments before, blanching - it is not without its uses when she's too distracted by the inside of her head to much protest what happens outside of it, following automatically the way that she's led.

"She wasn't," she repeats, "supposed to be here at all." Not here, not in Skyhold - she should have been in Orlais the whole time, buried in the countryside, in the estate where they might go unnoticed or at least have high walls and dedicated guardsmen. It's hard to argue that it's so much safer when it's on the way there that Guenievre has died -

That doesn't help.

Even if Lex were the sort of person with any proficiency in assuaging grief, he wouldn't know how to do it when survival is so much more paramount. What does he tell her, she did her best? She can't control the highway? The last would make him, personally, spit nails--there's nothing he can't control if he finds the right reach.

This is something he suspects she understands. So instead of any of that: "It hurts," he more ...remarks than inquires, although there is something of curiosity about it too. He doesn't remember whether it was the same for him; his mother died when he was far too young to remember, and his father--well. The less said about Alexander the elder the better.

It does.

That -

doesn't work for her. She doesn't know how to wear that, how to linger in it; she processes the truth of it when he says it out loud, feels it like something hooked in under her sternum, and pivots away to something that makes more sense to her, a song she knows the words to:

"I want them all to die," very clearly.

[ closed ] go ahead and cry little girl, nobody does it like you do

ᴀᴛᴛᴀᴄᴋ.

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gloms on to your attack

YEEEEE

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tfw you realise you didn't hit "post comment" 15 hours later

the tag was maturing ok like a wine

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for alistair

I'm sorry I'm here

i forgive u, here's my dumbest icon to prove it

for lex, parallel to herian and bellamy.

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