faderift | [open] we sit and grow our roots into the floor

WHO: Cade and his many friends and admirers
WHAT: a dumb sulky baby got hurt at the Winter Palace because he was dumb and now he is sulking about it
WHEN: post-Halamshiral, simultaneous with red lyrium plot hell
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Injury stuff, nothing ridiculous

The Healing Tents

For the umpteenth time in the span of two years, Cade is under supervision. But this time it's not because he was violent-- well... it was, but indirectly-- it's because he got a couple spikes of red lyrium through the thigh after flipping out and battling Red Templars completely unarmored in the Winter Palace.
He ingested red lyrium once before, and from what anyone can tell it caused him to smack an elf. This is a lot more of the stuff, and Cade is notoriously unstable, so he's being watched to make sure it doesn't alter his personality.

He's the first to reassure the healers that lyrium doesn't work like that, you have to take it daily and it slowly builds up in you and so forth, but, you know, caution is caution. He respects it. But he hates being fussed over, so periodically he'll sneak off a small ways just to have a bit of solitude.

Near the Healing Tents, Being a Renegade

Usually this means sitting up on the ramparts and watching people, reading, anything that gets him a little peace and quiet. For someone who seems to thrive on being told what to do, no one can tell Cade what to do and he will be stubborn for as long as it takes for him to be deemed Safe again.

This is pointless.

Choose Your Own Adventure

Whatever else! Hit me up if you want a specific scene, or just start one here and I will accede to your whims.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"A lot isn't precise though, I've seen some of them and they're like--" Hopping up to his feet as if that's going to help when he is a short arse dwarf, he gestures to the whole of himself. "So some are just a big angry red thing. Some are vein-y. Like your dad when the rent is due and you know you're fucked."

Yngvi has felt that pain and he has at least six dads all wanting rent Cade, it's a hard life being a Carta dwarf.

"And how did it get in? Stab? Slash? Fired at you? Suplex? Also, to get back to the important point here, you can't be narrow-minded about these things, you can absolutely wear a skirt and armour. Find me six Orlesians and they'll agree with me." Case closed.

Now that he thinks about it, the night was just a blur. Cade blinks at Yngvi for several awkward seconds, then looks down at his wounded leg. "...I don't know," he admits in a grumble, "it just... did." He flexes his leg a bit, then immediately regrets it. "...and Orlesians can wear all the dresses they want." He's a proud Marcher, Orlais can go drown in their own cordials.

As someone who wasn't there (because deshyrs would've been there, Bhelen loyalists, good old merchant types) he only knows what he's heard and those things grow more lurid by the minute. He was doing the sensible thing; writing some letters back to the family, getting drunk and working on traps at three in the morning. Taking advantage of Skyhold being emptier than usual.

Deciding that closer inspection is warranted since who knows when he'll get this sort of opportunity again, he rolls over. "I know miners that've had, shall we say, incidents with the blue stuff and they end up coming topside. They can make amazing things but they're a bit-- well they're a bit what they are. They get it out of you? S'pose it's harder to tell. It's red, blood's red. Only a few people drink enough lyrium to turn that blue."

This conversation is doing nothing to ease Cade's worries, and he looks down at his bandaged leg with a frown. Did they get it all out? "I think so," he murmurs, not at all confident about it, and he cranes to look over his shoulder in case there are any healers nearby. "...I'll have to ask them." He purses his lips. "...they wouldn't close it up unless they got it all." Right? Right??

"We could get leeches. Me. Myself. I. I can get leeches." Making a slurping noise that he would imagine a leech makes since all things need to make noise don't they, there's nothing in the world that goes by silently, he gestures to Cade's leg again. "Slap those on the afflicted area and suck out the bad bits. Then burn them. That's what lowland humans like doing with dead things, great deal of fire all over the gaff when you find a dead thing and I mean, what's the worst that'll happen to a leech? You can give it to Christine to study, she's polite enough she'd say thanks."

Through her teeth maybe, she's the sort of feisty Yngvi likes and Asher was very fond of but still, an offer would be an offer. Even if Cade doesn't agree he's confident he could do it. Sneak in. Warm the leech up so it's not cold. Dry it a bit because they're damp too. Then just drop it and let it get on with things.

"Anyway, let's put it this way: you have a leg. I've seen lots of people - lots of dwarves - who got something nasty in a wound and when the healer couldn't get it out they cut the whole thing off to stop it spreading. Never quite prepares you for a man missing an arse. Or just the knee, that was a weird one. A whole leg but no knee."

No. Noooooo! Cade is instantly horrified, and even moreso at the slurping noise. Nothing about this gets any better as it proceeds.

"I don't want leeches!!" he yelps, shifting away from Yngvi on his bed, even though it hurts him. "I-- it's not going to-- the healers will-...!" Surely they won't amputate his entire leg? They might as well just throw him off the mountain.

"Go away," he says weakly, knowing that it will likely fall on deaf ears.

"I shall return."

That's not ominous at all. Yngvi rolls out, literally, and there's sort of silence in his wake for a bit for several long minutes. Healers, birds, the fire always burning by the healers, then rustling as he reappears because he's herpes Cade, he is the worst form of herpes because he speaks.

But he does not have leeches.

He has a nug.

"Stroganugg, Cade. Cade, Stroganugg. And look. If the leg is still there? It's not coming off now because let's look at the facts of how stretched Skyhold actually is because Skyhold is pretty stretched, says the person from Kirkwall that lived in Darktown and Lowtown when the refugees came flooding in. Nothing smells. You're not delusional. If they thought it needed to come off after the red lyrium shit folk've dealt with by now when you're here in Skyhold? That'd be gone and in a fire. Or maybe the researchers'dve gotten their mitts on it but-- you have legs for wearing Templar embroidered armour when it makes a comeback." Look he can do reassuring because someone bred some weird practicality into him and he is not entirely made of asshole. Also people with lyrium in them probably shouldn't be left solo. Kind of concerning. Stroganugg agrees, squeaking and pawing around until he makes himself comfortable after blinking in Cade's direction several times.

(Don't worry, none of Yngvi's nugs have poker faces yet, teaching twenty at once is a slow process this far from their roots.)

This entire encounter has been nothing but upsetting from the get-go. Cade has finally managed to calm himself down and enjoy the quiet of the medical tents for as long as it takes for Yngvi to be gone, but once the dwarf returns, it's all shattered again.

"Why is there a nug," he asks weakly, temporarily ignoring all of Yngvi's other commentary. Nugs are so unsettling, with their horrid naked bodies and little pig faces.

All a dwarf does is come in here to help and this is the thanks he gets? He is so attacked right now, this is terrible, who do you think is still involved in keeping the good pure blue lyrium supply running? Him. Not him specifically but he could be called upon! At a moment's notice.

"Because this is one of my many children and he is a brave and courageous beast. Not afraid of anything, not even Orlesians firing crossbows at me or bears or whatever came out of that bog we went past that I might have dreamt up. It was a long journey." Actual facts: Yngvi does not know if this is a boy nug or a girl nug, who wants to actually attempt to accurately sex a nug can you imagine the horrors? "He's also the most calm, better than other things, how can you not like nugs? He plays cards and everything, dogs can't play cards."

"Your children are nugs," Cade observes, his unhappiness growing. "...they don't have any fur. It's like touching a person." And let's face it, there is absolutely nothing more repulsive than touching another person.

[open] we sit and grow our roots into the floor

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