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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His hands go out to help and he stops, barely refraining from casting and biting the inside of his cheek to keep from saying something stupid. Right now he could do something, but she doesn't want him casting and it hurts to see her hurt like this, to have power and yet be powerless.

"I have... I have more willowbark. And if you say you'll stay lying down for a time I'll try to place the bandages so they'll stay on without wrapping." It's all he can offer.

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.

"He caused the Blight." Kaisa said, in a matter-of-fact tone that clearly said that she thought that was all that needed to be said. "So, I was saying, I think we shouldn't tell anyone, and we should kill him. Anders is going on about how King Cousland made an alliance with the Architect, but--" And she shifts, because Kaisa is all about keeping your word, keeping oaths and promises that you're bound to. But she didn't make this one, and she was hard pressed to keep it.

"He caused the Blight." She repeats, a tenseness in her words. "He killed--You know how many people died in the Blight? People I knew." There's a pause, then, in a lower voice, "He deserves to die, and Anders doesn't agree, so he can go dunk his head in the river, for all I care."

Hermione still has her own troubles, and lately it seems that animals seem to be helping her cope with them. While she'd been spending a good amount of time with the Commander's small mabari, she knows she should probably leave him to his work; Garahel is, at least, a much older dog and so shouldn't be as excitable as Puppy.

When she heads to the Warden camp, however, she doesn't see Inessa or her mabari first. Instead, it's Teren, and she seems worse for wear as she putters over a fire. Immediately concerned and forgetting about her own problems, Hermione moves closer still, tilting her head to try and get a good look at Teren's face in case she's trying to put up a brave front.

"Teren? Are you all right?"

"If I have the opportunity, then," with a bland smile. "You've everything you need, here?"

Besides the ability to get up and chase everyone out of her tent, presumably.

"Shit," Teren breathes, her voice half a whine, and raises her good arm to quickly wipe the tears from her eyes. Not that she cries, mind you, but no one can stop the waterworks when they're in agony.
"My fucking--" she begins, curses herself, and nudges her head toward her unaddressed but severely mutilated left leg. "It's burned. Or something." She sighs this out in short, angry bursts. "Acid, it belched acid."
And indeed, upon closer inspection, a hideous acid burn stretches from her upper thigh to just below her calf, wrapping around in the odd formation created by liquid projectile.

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

"Hang any alliance Cousland made," Teren remarks, bizarrely seeming a little happier when she gets to be mean about someone, "I feel similarly, but the other senior Wardens aren't having it. And I suppose as liaison, it's my job to not tell the Inquisition to shove off when it asks too many questions." She sighs, long-sufferingly. "My hope is that we find him and then gut the blighter anyway, before they can get their fingers too far in."

"Within reason, yes," Teren sighs. She looks Benny over for a quiet moment, scrutinizing her.
"You look better," she observes, "got some of your meat back. I was beginning to worry." Because when in doubt, deflect the conversation to be about someone else's welfare. Who's looking after who, exactly?

'All right' is an overstatement, but Teren isn't in the business of displaying weakness. Especially not to people she knows only peripherally, and especially when they are significantly younger and she has at some point advised them.
"Yes, what," she grumbles, turning toward Hermione and straightening with a wince; her face is healing, but still an unpleasant yellowish grey where she was struck in the battle. "Never better." She pauses, glances this way and that, then looks back at Hermione to scrutinize her.
"You're not sleeping with a Warden, are you?" she asks, in a tone that suggests she's going to be less than pleased if the answer is yes. Why else would a non-Warden be here? It's not like any of them have friends.

"Teren." There's dismay in his voice as he carefully shifts clothes to see her leg. "Please, please, let me heal this. I don't get why you won't let me, and there's nothing, nothing that can compare to magic for burns."

Sure, he has salve that can ease some of it, but it cant' do nearly enough.

Teren squeezes her eyes shut, obstinate as always, but her resolve is beginning to break down. She's not being tortured, after all. Someone who ostensibly cares about her is here, begging her to let him do her a favor. It's ridiculous, she thinks as she continues to grimace, you're being ridiculous.
"Fine," she pants, and, quick to find an upside, "you don't need me to move more, do you?" She can presumably stay as dressed as she is, and also avoid aggravating the accursed thing again.

He breathes a sigh of relief, calling upon his magic the second she's giving approval and barely hearing her question. Then he's shaking his head.

"No. No, you can stay still, thank you." A beat. "Thank you for saying yes, I mean." He doesn't normally thank his patients, but Teren is one person he can't very well order to lay still while he heals her. He respects her too much for that, even when she's making poor choices.

She should feel warmth spreading, distantly, through her leg as he starts to heal the deeper damage, focusing on that first. "May I work on everything? You'll feel so much better."

Teren lies staring at the ceiling of her tent, wincing, defeated. Most of the fight has gone out of her in the face of the debilitating pain, but there are some small victories she can still claim. "No," she says in a low, tired but brusque voice, "just this."

"Why? There's self-flagellation and then there's this." Did she think she'd failed, she deserved this? It doesn't make any sense. He looks up at her as he continues healing, searching her face for anything that's not tiredness or agony.

"That's none of your bloody business," Teren snarls, with a ferocity unusual even to her. "Ask me again, stupid boy, or learn when to quit before you blow something else up." Proving that the healing is in fact working, she's able to sit up a bit to yell at him; and, despite her fury, there is a great relief building in her as the wound repairs itself. She relaxes her bearing somewhat, but seems no more tractable.

He flinches, going pale for a brief moment. There are areas he doesn't expect barbs from, and she's one of them. Then his eyes narrow and his lips press together.

"Stupid boy? Fine. I'll ask again so you can feel justified in calling me that." While he's getting better at using humor to deflect, this isn't a time that's working. Instead it's anger. "Why are you insisting on being stupid? You could be back on your feet with ease, back to duty, but you're clinging to your injuries."

He'd thought... He doesn't know. He just hadn't expected her to fling the Chantry at him and his reflexes aren't the most useful.

Teren can see that she's struck a nerve. She might regret it on some level, but being who she is, apologizing is out of the question-- especially when he's still probing her, both verbally and magically, if such a thing is possible. That, and striking nerves is what she does. It's why she's good at what she does.
Even if he is, on some level, a friend.

"It's none of your business," she hisses again, "so finish your nonsense and get the fuck out." There's a tinge of uncertainty now-- she really does feel better, physically anyway, and somehow that makes her more anxious than if she didn't. She's also aware that she is in the process of alienating the person who is trying to help her, but to that... it's well enough. He should have known better anyway.

His expression goes flat. Fine. He's fine. And she doesn't need to see otherwise. He keeps prematurely counting people as friends when they're not, and he needs to stop. He needs to stop hoping.

Anders continues working on the burn damage, looking past her silently as he casts. This is what happens when he lets his guard down. Several minutes pass like that before he stops casting, gathers his stuff up wordlessly, and gets up and heads out. He'll stop if she says anything... but he doubts she will. After all, she told him to get the fuck out.

Perhaps this was a mistake. And perhaps she'll forget it later. But if she indicates any weakness now, it'll...
...well, uh...
...well he'll know she's a person. And for whatever reason, that's not something she's willing to deal with, not at present. Teren watches him go, stone-faced and cold, reminding herself each time her thoughts wander that this is for the best. Maybe he was getting too attached.

Maybe she's a stubborn old bitch who deserves every bit of unhappiness that's found her over the years.
With an exhausted sigh, she lets her head fall back again and closes her eyes.

The lingering bruising on the older woman's face doesn't look good, and Hermione is silently working out a tactful way to bring that up when she's struck with an unexpected question. Struck being the operative word, because it looks as though she'd just been slapped in the face. What a thoroughly odd conclusion, especially being made right away and brought up so bluntly.

"W- what? No! No, most of the Wardens I know are - well - ... older. Than me. Significantly. Which isn't a bad thing! It just means I wouldn't sl-... not that I would otherwise but that I certainly wouldn't-...." She's stammering, and she hates it when she stammers, so she presses her lips together tightly as she lets out a long exhalation from her nose before continuing on.

"Inessa and I are friends. I'm friends with a few Wardens, really. A visit doesn't have to be anything scandalous."

"I keep well enough," Benevenuta demurs. Hercules' loss and its impact on her - that's a conversation for another day. She isn't sure that other day will ever come, particularly, but there's little she wishes to say on it that seems productive, and. What is she, if not productive?

Work is soothing. She finds herself again, in work.

"Though I can't imagine I'd lost any, eating Orlesian food."

Teren smirks a little-- it's not that her question wasn't serious, but she is also fully aware of how easily flustered Hermione is. It can... be difficult not to take advantage of that, when an opportunity presents itself.
But she's not about to bully anyone.

"I see," she says easily, "just haven't seen you much down here, is all."

"Depends on the food," Teren points out, a wryness to her voice that perhaps only Benny's presence has been able to bring out.
"Come, tell me what's new. As you may have gathered, I'm not entirely up on current events."

Hermione doesn't get flustered easily. Not unless it has to do with an implication that she's bedding Wardens, or anyone else, really. That sort of gossip is every bit as inappropriate in Skyhold as it had been in Hogwarts, though she supposes that adults are perfectly allowed to gossip about whatever tickles their fancy. She'd just hoped the fancies of adults would differ a bit more from that of hormonal teenagers.

"I don't usually come here," she admits, breathing a bit more easily when she realizes that Teren isn't going to dig into her. "I just... needed a distraction, and mabari are usually fairly good for that. I'd been monopolizing Cullen's, so I thought I might come here to give him a bit of a break from me."

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[open] seven times I went down

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