His clotted, muffled outcry as the dwarf's arm snakes around his neck offers a hint of a reason why; the consonants are all soft and ill-formed. Burly as he is, he's no trained fighter--they're the muscles of a stevedore and occasional dockside brawler, and taken by utter surprise like this they avail him nothing. He kicks, twists, drags his feet and gets nowhere in hindering his attacker before the lack of air weakens the worst of his struggling. He won't be so hard to subdue.
More mercifully, no one seems to have noticed the sounds.
Five. Myr considers the number in a moment's dim despair, then shrugs it away. They will do this; there's no question in his mind that they will. Andraste, grant us strength to save these little ones, he prays soundlessly, taking his staff down from his back and moving closer to Sina. Something in him aches to reach out to her with his own word of comfort--but he can feel that first upwelling of magic and knows better than to interrupt a sister-mage when her focus is already imperiled by distress.
Instead, he grounds his staff and draws the hilt of his spirit blade, head raised as he listens for any indication they've been discovered. The melody of Sina's song is aching-familiar, though the words aren't; yet, he remembers the way it goes in Trade, the way Ben used to sing it at his bedside, and mouths the lyrics to himself as she sings on: "Where will you go, little one? Lost to me in sleep..."
Maker, let none of them be lost. If nothing else, let them have arrived in time for all these children.
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His clotted, muffled outcry as the dwarf's arm snakes around his neck offers a hint of a reason why; the consonants are all soft and ill-formed. Burly as he is, he's no trained fighter--they're the muscles of a stevedore and occasional dockside brawler, and taken by utter surprise like this they avail him nothing. He kicks, twists, drags his feet and gets nowhere in hindering his attacker before the lack of air weakens the worst of his struggling. He won't be so hard to subdue.
More mercifully, no one seems to have noticed the sounds.
Five. Myr considers the number in a moment's dim despair, then shrugs it away. They will do this; there's no question in his mind that they will. Andraste, grant us strength to save these little ones, he prays soundlessly, taking his staff down from his back and moving closer to Sina. Something in him aches to reach out to her with his own word of comfort--but he can feel that first upwelling of magic and knows better than to interrupt a sister-mage when her focus is already imperiled by distress.
Instead, he grounds his staff and draws the hilt of his spirit blade, head raised as he listens for any indication they've been discovered. The melody of Sina's song is aching-familiar, though the words aren't; yet, he remembers the way it goes in Trade, the way Ben used to sing it at his bedside, and mouths the lyrics to himself as she sings on: "Where will you go, little one? Lost to me in sleep..."
Maker, let none of them be lost. If nothing else, let them have arrived in time for all these children.