faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ NONE TO RETURN

MOD PLOT ↠ NONE TO RETURN

WHO: All characters signed up to participate in the Battle of Ghislain
WHAT: The Inquisition regroups and heads home
WHEN: Covers the period immediately post-battle (11.28) through the journey back to Kirkwall (11.29-12.1)
WHERE: North of Montfort, Orlais, and on the road to Val Chevin
NOTES: This is Post #2, covering the immediate aftermath of the battle and the journey back to Kirkwall. It's a free-for-all. Post #1 covers the battle itself. More info on the OOC post.

The Inquisition and Orlesian armies eventually limp to a halt along the Imperial Highway north of Montfort, where wide fields and gentle hills offer clear lines of sight and a sparsely equipped fortress provides some shelter and fortification. It's a soundly strategic location—if Ghislain is lost, Montfort is the last major city between the invaders and Val Royeaux—but among the rank and file there may be too much chaos to appreciate it.

For the remainder of the day and well into the night, the fortress and surrounding land are a frenzy of activity. The wounded who were not left on the field must be triaged and tended to with limited supplies, while many healers and surgeons out of commission themselves and the remainder worked to the bone. Scouts, soldiers, and even support staff in sturdy enough condition to keep working may be tasked with assembling camp from the few remaining supplies, taking reports on known casualties or acquired intelligence, or further fortifying the new location. The Orlesian army sends one of its battered cavalry units toward Ghislain to attempt to provide some warning, and from the Inquisition's number a few patrols are sent back toward the battlefield or toward Ghislain, with stern orders not to re-engage, only to watch for signs of pursuit, and to direct any stragglers.

Those who remain in the fortress are in for a long, miserable night, with meager rations and makeshift bedding, if any of either, while the wind shifts directions and grows colder. By morning a number of the wounded have died, but attempts to build a pyre are hampered by the sudden swell of a storm that starts with freezing rain and then transitions to early and unpredicted thick, heavy snow.

For a few hours that morning the two armies attempt business as normal, but it soon becomes clear that the storm is getting stronger, and they risk being snowed in with more people than they can feed. Many, including the Inquisition's Gallows contingent, are ordered to disperse. Many crowd into wagons, with any transportable wounded receiving further attention en route and neighbors hunching close to preserve heat whether they like one another or not, while those able to do so follow on foot or horseback over the rough, flash-frozen highway toward Montfort and then west toward Val Chevin. The storm doesn't abate until they've nearly reached the city, but once there they're able to stop, eat, and spend a few hours indoors thawing out before proceeding home.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Those left alive have not stoped working and neither has Sidony.

She looks dreadful, even from a distance. Her clothes are a mess of blood, gore and dirt, her skin caked with blood and things she doesn't want to consider, sticky with it. There's a thick, tight bandage around her midsection and her right arm is equally as wrapped up, but neither seems to be stopping her from moving around and treating the wounded. Her hair is a tangled web of knots and leaves, but she does not pause. For once vanity is not her main concern; the people under her hands are.

As more wounded from the battlefield come closer she welcomes them with a tired smile but few words. Her hands are quicker now than they had been hours before, but she is less careful - speed is better than perfection here and she knows it. Herb, stitch, bandage, repeat. Get them feeling less pain, stop the bleeding, move them on. There are so many people still needing aid, so many people that she has to help, and she does not have the strength to do it all. They lost many healers during the arson and now there are so few left...

Sometimes, her hands shaking, it looks a little as though she might break into pieces. She does not, however, lips pursed as she welcomes the next person needing her help, nodding at them as she gathers more bandages and whatever is left of the clean water.

II. ( closed to ilias )

Things get quieter and quieter; Sidony hopes that it is because people are sleeping rather than because they are dying. She does not want to consider what a grim reminder of things that would be, how sad it is that the bodies will not get proper funerals, that everything is far worse than she had ever pictured. She had imagined the battlefield to be rife with chances to study and learn, to grow, to grasp what she had always wanted, but the reality of the smells and the pain and the suffering is something she cannot even fathom. It's too much; it's far too much.

She feels moments away from breaking.

Ilias stands out in the crowd of people coming back for healing and she makes for him, taking his sleeve in her fingers in an oddly childlike gesture. She urges him to follow her, not daring to look into his face, afraid of what judgement she might see here. She has enough faith in him to recognise that he would not, this is neither the time nor the place, but she is afraid all the same. She had been young and foolish and said things to him that were unkind. He had been trying to help her recognise what it meant to be here as a healer, as a surgeon. She understands now.

Her bag and her little blankets are a mess, but so are the two of them, a soldier back from war and a silly girl playing at healer. Sidony doesn't say much as she gathers her needle and threat, making sure to clean it with the heat of a small fire, not daring to speak as she waits for it to be safe to use. What will he say, knowing how she reacted? Can he see it on her face? What she wants, she thinks, is for him to be kind, but she is not sure if she should expect it.

One arm is wrapped in bandages. Her waist is a mess of sticky fabric and what is clearly a hastily made splint for her ribs. When she tries to thread her needle she can't, her hands shaking too much, but she is determined - and refuses to look him in the eye.

"I'll do it, one moment."

[ Sarah wakes up slowly, rising up into consciousness like emerging from deep water. Immediately, she wishes she could go back, sink down into darkness again. At first it seems like she might be able to, and then something makes a noise beside her and she can't turn the sound off, or the pain she's starting to feel. She mentally gropes for several seconds, trying to decide where she's been hurt, then decides: everywhere. There isn't a part of her that doesn't seem to be in pain. Her limbs feel stiff and cold, her head is swimming and throbbing with every beat of her pulse. She has no idea where she is, or when, or what happened. Just that whatever it was, it was shit, and it's probably going to continue being shit for the foreseeable future.

She's not wrong, because suddenly the pain in her right arm intensifies, like the skin is being pulled—burnt—ripped away. She tries to lift a hand and stop whatever's happening, but her arm doesn't move. Her fingers barely twitch. ]

Mmn— [ Her voice is choked and gravelly, the voice of someone who was screaming and then silent for a long time. She swallows, tries again. ] Helena?

( Her hands only feel steady when she's treating people. If she stops moving, sits and actually processes what the hell just happened and what they just saw (what only some of them survived) then her hands'll start shaking and not stop. In fact, she's sure that'd be far from the worst of it. She'd go into a full scale meltdown and not stop, more likely.

Finding Sarah had been simultaneously a relief and terrifying. Alive but badly wounded, bruising and bloody and with ice crawling over her. Fuck magic is fucked up. Don't get her wrong, she loves that it can help people, but it seems like a whole lot of this healing wouldn't be necessary if it weren't for fucking magic. Fuck.

She's changing the dressings, and frankly nearly has a heart attack when she hears Sarah talk. )

Not quite, ( she replies, and it sounds as stupid as she feels saying it. ) Alex. Sarah?

( She needs to check her reactions, record things, but her relief is overriding her sense for moment. ) Welcome back.

More to come :>

( Magni blinks herself awake, and by reflex goes to roll over before pain snakes up her back and she grunts with the sharpness of it. The ache dulls and thuds outward, the waves against the shore, and Magni winces as she tries to settle back into place. Remembers: the battle, the blood. It was not a horror shared by the land of dreams. It was reality. They had failed.

Her eyes slip shut. She can feel the slight itch of the remains of her war paint drying and flaking off her skin, but her face and neck feel clear of it, and she tries again to open her eyes and reach for a waterskin, if there is one. Focused on that task, not yet fully cognisant of all around her. )

Myr's walking wounded but only barely walking, pale from blood loss and a multitude of other causes; better to say he's sitting wounded, wedged onto a piece of broadcloth that's only enough to keep the chill from the ground seeping too deep into him and the two sleeping (or dead) forms he shares it with. His arm is--

A mess, hastily wrapped and clutched against his side, blood seeping through makeshift bindings and the remains of someone's cloak. He's been picking half-heartedly at the tourniquet still wrapped above his elbow as he waits for further attention. Maker be thanked it's not as tight as it needed be to save him bleeding out--but it's uncomfortable still.

At a sound, at the presence of someone next to him he looks up, taking Sidony in in all her gruesome self. "...are you all right?"

It's not what he'd intended to say--he'd intended to stay silent and endure whatever could be done--but it's bone-deep instinct to ask. She didn't look all right. She probably needed to be sitting down every bit as much as he did-- Or barring that he should be on his feet, but Andraste's scorched bones it's a struggle to get up with one arm useless and the other all over weeping blisters.

She is doing her best not to pay much attention to her own wounds; they're not life threatening and they're managable for now. A few herbs pressed into the searing blisters from the Dracolisk, the straps around her chest for her ribs - all she needs is time. Time being a few weeks of rest, of course, but she doesn't have that right now - right not there are people that need tending to, people in worse shape than she is, and Sidony is not going to allow herself to crumble to pieces when there is so much that needs doing.

Myr is her next patient and she almost doesn't hear him asking after her own health, wrapped up in gathering what she needs to treat him. Fresh bandages, the cleanest they have, something for the paleness, some herbs to stun the chance of there being an infection that they cannot control, anything to help with the aches. He must be in agony, she thinks, barely aware of her own now, so many hours after it had first happened.

Then she blinks, glancing up, hesitant. It's been a while since anyone had stopped to ask - better things to do - and she breathes out. She doesn't smile, but she nods.

"Well enough." Her hands reach for his arm, bringing it towards her gently so she can begin to rewarp it, to offer something a little more helpful than the makeshift bindings. "Is this the only injury you have, ser?"

In the silence of after, Six spends a few hours praying. She cannot kneel properly with her leg as it is - there is a splint and some bandages, stretched out in front of her like some kind of calling sign of wound and injury - but she does what she can, tucking the other under her. Her face is dirty, caked in blood and mud and the tracks of sweat and tears, hair sticking to her skin and making her look a fright, but she does not care. Her voice is soft as she prays, fingers clasped around her holy symbol as she speaks in something almost like a whisper.

Ever faithful, Two the mabari is settled at her side, watching her with twitching ears, guarding her whispers.

"When last light fades from mortal eyes, know that the immortals have taken thine light unto their own hands. May that light find solace in the embrace of the lady, Sarenrae. Where I walk, I walk in your light. When the night is darkest in the places that have never known light, I will go with you and I will burn bright."

It continues much the same, whispering mantras of thanks, requests for forgiveness, prayers for redemption.

"May her holy light lift you from your mortal shell. May the grace of the Dawnflower welcome you in her sweet embrace."

She keeps praying, without pause, hands shaking around the symbol in her fingers. She can be seen in the same position for what must be hours, head bowed, prayers on her lips. So many had died today - allies and enemy alike - and Six must pray for their souls, for their spirits, as best she can. Sarenrae may not hear her, may not heed the whispers of her Paladin, but it must be done. She would not rest easy otherwise.

II.

Later, when her prayers are done, Six takes some time for herself, still away from most.

The rag she uses to wash her face is barely anything, but it rubs some of the muck away from her face. She strips, awkwardly, from her armour, placing it to one side and baring the brunt of her injuries to anyone who might notice - a leg that cannot be walked on, strapped and wrapped and set in a straight line, a place on her hip where the fabric of her shirt is sticking to her skin with blood, bruises and scratches and other various marks over her body. She doesn't pause as she reaches to take off her shirt, the bindings around her breasts tight in place before she begins to clean the rest of herself.

There was no place for modesty on the battlefield and she has not entertained the notion for many years.

Eventually, she manages to scrub herself and her shirt clean enough that she feels comfortable tugging it back on, dragging it over the soreness in her shoulders with a wince. Two comes up and whines, pressing his face into hers, and Six takes the same rag and begins to clean him, too - the maw of her Mabari with blood caking his fur, scrapes across his legs, minor injuries that she had taken care to make sure did not get worse.

A pause, to breathe, and Six presses her face into the soft head of her dog, scratching at his ears gently. She is tired, she is wounded, she is hurt and she is lost. She has no God to soothe her and she fights back the tears, breathing hard. Too many have died, too much pain and suffering and there was nothing she could do. There was no power in her hands to restore life nor to heal, and a greatsword can do nothing more than cut and harm.

Her tears come quietly, hidden in the fur of the mabari who does little more than whine.

III. ( marcoulf )

Soon enough, Six manages to make herself some kind of makeshift crutch out of some wood. It must be from a broken cart or something like it, she thinks, for the thickness and the weight of it, but it means she can limp around the camp and make sure her other leg doesn't seize up on her and leave her unable to walk at all. She knows how important it is to keep moving after the adrenaline has worn away; Two walks at her side as a loyal protector, nudging at her hand gently as they go.

There are few faces that she recognises as she goes, a handful of Inquisition folk she had met in her wanderings, a few guards she had spoken to before, stablemasters that had taken good care of her horse before she had left him behind in Kirkwall. She had said, after all, that a battlefield was no place for a horse, least not the kind she intended to care for. They are the first target and the first victim, unnecessary death in the wake of what was already a painful event. She nods at some as she goes by, still taller than most despite the hunch of needing to lean to walk, and she keeps moving.

Pain and dirt cakes everyone, she thinks, and for a moment all she can do is stand still, looking around, a grim expression on her face. She needs to be ready to walk and move sooner than she knows is possible, and it makes her curse herself softly. A foolish mistake lead to a decent soldier being brought down. If the battle begins again...

The thing that breaks her from her thoughts is a familiar face, and she almost looks sheepish as she nods her head to Marcoulf.

"I think it will be me that pauses our training now, ser."

Edited 2018-11-25 15:54 (UTC)

He's walking as if en route somewhere, sharp eyed and pale behind the scrub of his beard and the dirt on his face as he comes striding up between scattered makeshift lean to's and paltry open fires burning in the fortress' muddy yard. Beyond the exhaustion, he looks fit and fare - a rare sight indeed in the miserable encampment -, though he's walking with his right hand tucked up into his coat, out of sight where he can be certain it will be kept warm and safe and--

His mind is clearly elsewhere. And who can blame him? That anyone is moving about at all when they should be dead on their collective feet (Don't think about necromancy, raising the dead on the battlefield) is a kind of miracle. Regardless, for a split second she speaks out to him and he blinks at her without slowing. Then he jerks. Comes to an abrupt halt before her to survey the crutch and the shape of her leg.

"Who let you walk around?" He'll have then beaten for it, is his first flashing thought.

I.
Byerly typically likes being convalescent. You get to lie around and indulge your every desire while others fuss over you - what could be better? But all the fun's taken out of it when you're just one of a multitude. The fun's taken out of it when you're lying on a pallet surrounded by the sick and the dying, when the smell of shit is everywhere, and when your brains have been so scrambled that you can't even hold a thought for more than a moment or...

His throat is raw, his hip completely fucked, and his head is throbbing. And he's dizzy and nauseous. He bites down bile when one of the physicians has him sit up, fights not to whimper when she prods the aching spot on his skull where the spear-butt slammed into him - he thinks. It's clear he's no great priority, though; the healer turns away from him almost as soon as she's poked him, calling to someone else -

"Say. You. If you haven't got anything better to do, come and look after this one. Make sure he doesn't fall asleep."

Byerly would like to fall asleep; he'd like that very much. But he obediently looks up, trying to focus on whoever it is the healer is calling to come talk to him.

II.
He's a little more himself on the wagon-ride back. A miserable version of himself, but himself. Propped against the side of the carriage, taking up more than his share of space by far, he's the picture of wounded elegance.

An hour or so down the road, he starts to sing. Which is, depending on your perspective, might be either lovely or insufferable: he has a wonderful voice, a rich and warm baritone, and he sings expressively; however, the songs he sings are mournful ones, ballads about lost loves and odes to fallen companions. Also, there are, frankly, few things worse than people who sing in public. And yet he carries on.

Resting on her crutch, Six pauses and stares at Marcoulf for a moment. He stares at her and, briefly, she thinks she might have done something to offend him, as if her very existence was something so upsetting he couldn't help but stare at her. She had cleaned the worst of the gunk and dirt off her face and her shirt, she's as clean as she can get herself to be - but maybe she still looks horrific in the midst of everyone else sorting themselves out.

Two tilts his head at her side; he knows Marcoulf. He whines a little, tail wagging, wanting to wander up for a little attention but he doesn't want to leave Six when she's so clearly hurt, but she just smiles fondly, relaxing in the shoulders.

"Who let me?" She pauses for a moment, considering briefly, before she shakes her head. "I did. I need to make sure that the other leg does not cramp, so I thought it best to walk. Briefly." She nods her head at Two who darts forward a little, waddling over to settle at Marcoulf's feet with a beaming, doggy grin.

[ She opens her eyes. It's a struggle, and they feel weighted down, but she manages it. Alex is a blurry, half-lit figure next to her, changing the dressings. Sarah tries to rub her eyes into better focus, but again her arm doesn't want to move, and she gives up, too tired to fight it. ]

Where's my sister? [ Helena should be here, why isn't she here? Where are they? She'll kill herself if something happened to Helena and she wasn't there to help. She needs to find her, look for her, do something. Despite the fatigue and the fact that her head is aching, she tries to sit up and get her legs under her so she can search. ]

He does not look like himself. The Provost is pale, wan; asked to guess his age, a newcomer might edge towards fourties or, unkindly, fifties, rather than the usual flush of 'far too pretty elf', given the pinched set to his brow and the wrinkles at his eyes and temples even in sleep. His hair has been bound up in a loose braid and lolls over his shoulder, and he has been laid at the very front of a wagon, all the better to allow him to be somewhat prone. Sitting up straight would risk further injury, but the Inquisition is right to be miserly with their space given what little they have, and Thranduil being so large.

But he is good company. Warm, though not feverish, and kitted with mostly-clean clothes, including a woolen cloak, lined with fur, and draped over his usually sleeping form. Given it was originally made to cover him and drape over the majority of the back of his elk, it is large, and worth attempting to hide under, waterproof and equipped with an elven space-heater in Thranduil himself.

He is unlikely to refuse any company, for exhaustion or for charity's sake.

He clambers off the back of the wagon without warning.

It's difficult to tell where one stain ends and another begins, sleet only soaking them dark. The dull cries of the wounded haven't grown any duller. Isaac shoves hands beneath arms and shivers; falls into step beside Ilias, tension steeling his eyes ahead (the wagon, the work done). Flatly:

"That one's going to die."

You can sit a bit, there'll be room — and Maker bless exhaustion for bridling his tongue — Materials, if you want another stunt.

There are more wagons. He just needs a minute.

( Finishing up with what she's doing is a priority, but Alex nevertheless pauses to meet Sarah's gaze. Calm, gentle, ) Hey, hey. She's okay. Got sent out to help with something. Soon as she's back from that she'll be right here with you.

( Resuming her task, she explains what she's doing a little. ) I just gotta clean this up a little. Might sting a bit.

( Although— relieved though she is, she's still thrown that Sarah is awake and talking so quick, and her brain is going to be gnawing on that quietly around all the rest of it. ) It's good to see you awake.

[ Relieved, she sinks back down. Helena's okay. They're okay. ]

How long was I out? [ She's watching Alex changing the bandages, teeth gritted at the pain of it. Jesus, what fucking happened? She's trying to remember but everything is fragmented and nonsensical. The battle was going well, and then it... wasn't. But specifics are still eluding her. ]

Prayer is a refuge. She hears the young knight praying, and waits for a pause in it, before gently touching her shoulder. Much had happened today that was horrifying. Betrayals, vicious traps, and her heart is heavy with it. She needed to get word to Cosima that she had survived it, because Maker only knew what word might already be getting back to Kirkwall, but that would have to wait.

"May I join you?"

Her voice is very quiet, slightly rasping with exhaustion. Their faiths are different, they pray to different gods, but— what they pray for is much the same, and solitude is not always good for the heart. Gently, "I will take no offence if you wish for this time alone."

Certainly a division head appearing and might become a more intruding than comforting very easily.

The young man the healer speaks to looks dazed and numb, but fairly alert. The elfroot potions have helped the pain, but that's not where the numbness comes from. Glassy-eyed, he looks at the man in the cot and can't think of a single thing to say, a single story to tell, but even overdosed on lyrium and completely drained and badly wounded, he is a healer. And he thinks that if he is left to be empty like this, the same thing will happen as before--darkness will fill the void and be very painful to expel. So he stands, he scoots over to sit on a crate beside Byerly's cot, and he waits for the pain in his ribs to abate before breathing in.

"What's your name?" he croaks.

Six isn't the one to notice Herian's arrival; it's Two, ever alert at her side, that perks up and makes a soft whuff sound that brings the woman slowly out of her prayers. It's what makes the touch to her shoulder less of a surprise - the kind of thing that otherwise might have had the division head flung over Six's shoulder with a dagger to her back with Six in agony from her leg. War makes everyone tense and, lost in prayer, she is not as attentive as she might have been otherwise.

Thankfully, she was prepared and she recognises the woman as she turns her head.

"You may. I would not be offended."

There are not many here who would accept her sitting and praying to a God that is not the Maker; Six had spoken to enough people to recognise that they view her as a heretic at best and something more foul at worst, an abomination to their church. Acceptance is a fleeting thing and she will not turn it away when it is so freely given to her, especially with her heart in her throat as it is.

"I..." This is the more dangerous part, she thinks. "I was praying for the souls of the dead. For peace and redemption."

Devout as she is, raised by the Chantry after she was taken from the Alienage, Herian is not without tolerance. Some born of whittling doubts that come to reveal the cruelties in what the Chantry have done, in their dealings with so many, some of knowing the struggle of being cast in doubt by others, and a good part of it doubtless born of Cosima. True that it was open-mindedness that allowed her to become so fond of a rifter to begin with, but— Cosima’s way is one of acceptance, beyond tolerance, and Herian admired it greatly.

Kneeling alongside Six, Herian nods her understanding. “Peace and redemption— I fear we need that in vast measured, for the dead and living alike.”

A quiet exhale, as she thinks a moment. “What is your god’s name?”

Thranduil cannot walk. Yet. It is a mixture of healer's orders and literal inability, and so someone very kindly, as the wagons roll to a stop, removes him from the one he was in (he does not ask why) and helps him to another. He squints through the snow as they approach, and when he makes out Byerly's face, but mostly Byerly's voice, he feels more relief than annoyance.

That will come with time.

The scout helps Thranduil settle in, and takes out someone smaller to bring them to the wagon Thranduil vacated. He settles his head against a sack that's serving as insulation against the cold, and looks at Byerly. Wrapped in a warm woolen cape lined with fur, he considers his options and the likeliness of a mutiny from those around them.

"I will share my cloak, if you stop," he says. This is meant to be a tempting offer.

What a mess.

She joins him carefully, when she does—both for the sake of his injuries and her own, the pain that she's been ignoring flaring out from the small of her back becoming impossibly intrusive when she forgets and lets herself lean pressure against it, her left hand strapped and unusable, cradled against her as she uses her elbow instead for leverage to climb in and settle beside him. The smell of smoke and burned flesh still hangs unpleasantly in her hair, but it's become familiar now; she'll notice it later, when the air clears and it still lingers.

She doesn't wake him, immediately. She finds his hand with her right one, tangles their fingers together, and—rests. Waits.

{ healing }
She can't stop working. The moans and cries of pain are enough that the entire carriage ride to Montfort is spent healing the wounded however she can. Even after the wounded are unloaded at the fortress there is more work to do. Despite being a spirit healer, there are some wounds that go too deep — or are looked at too late to make any difference — that lead to many deaths that evening. The number of bodies increases, and that only spurs Christine on to not lose another. Numerous times she's told to rest, but she brushes aside all concern and keeps working. Her latest patient is able to put weight on his foot again and moves out of the way as the next is brought over. With bloodshot eyes and a monotone voice, Christine asks, "Where are your injuries?"

{ rest }
It's unclear what happened, but Christine is now seated beside a fire with a bowl of steaming something pressed into her hands. The person waits until she recognizes what's happening and holds tight to the bowl before they let go. Heavy lidded eyes look down at the spoon and she picks it up, shoveling the hot food into her mouth and burning her tongue. She doesn't care. It's food and she can't remember the last time she ate.

"I must have nodded off," she mumbles to no one in particular. Or maybe she passed out from exhaustion. She doesn't want to believe that was it. People still need looked over.

{ reunion: for church }
After eating, Christine feels rejuvenated. Yes, her limbs are aching and her eyelids still want to close, but she has enough energy to get up and move around. By now, almost everyone has been seen to by a healer or is in line to see one. Christine had to be forced into resting as she hung by a thread, but now she feels she can do more. She walks along the rows of people, looking at their faces to see who they are and if they're in need of aid. But the people here seem tended to and without the distraction of being able to heal someone, Christine's thoughts stray to the face she hasn't seen since before dawn.

Reaching down inside her armor, she tugs out the blue pendant that Church gave her and runs her thumb over the smooth surface. What if he didn't make it? What if his body is still lying in that field? Tears prick at her eyes and she moves past everyone so they can't see her break down. She turns a corner and covers her nose and mouth with a hand as a sob escapes her. Where is he? She's often thought of him disappearing on her and back to his world where he said that he was about to die. And there have been several occasions here where she's worried that he would be injured and die, but usually she was there to watch over him. Yet today was different. They were separated from the start and she has no idea as to his fate. What if he was lying out there in need of a healer and she could have saved him?

The thought makes her give into her despair and she sobs, gasping for breath worse than she had when she learned her father was dead. It's all hitting her at once: her exhaustion, her worry, her hopelessness, and her despair.

This is the closest thing to mortal sleep that he would have come to in Arda. This is the healing sleep, bones knitting themselves back together, bruises fading. By the time they're back in Kirkwall, the swelling in his shoulder will be gone, the teeth marks in his thigh healed over.

He wakes. There is a hand in his own, and he turns his head to see her, to see the familiar color of her hair, and the face he wakes up to in the mornings. She's well. She found him.

He doesn't say anything. He just watches. His unburnt hand squeezes her uninjured one.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 49

MOD PLOT ↠ NONE TO RETURN

sidony venaras | healer/surgeon | ota

Sarah Manning starters

Alex

no subject

Magni starters

Lakshmi

i.

no subject

six | ota

no subject

Byerly | OTA

no subject

no subject

thranduil | OTA

ilias

no subject

no subject

I

I.

no subject

no subject

II

no subject

Christine

no subject