WHO: Felix, assorted Grey Wardens, and some concerned friends. WHAT: Felix Alexius is too cute to die. WHEN: Nowish. WHERE: Felix's room and the hallway outside it. NOTES: Broken into pieces, with starters in the comments.
This isn't an impulse decision. Or: some of it is impulse. Yesterday they still weren't certain whether or not to go through with it. There's rarely a good time to become a Grey Warden, by any objective standard, but surely this is among the worst, and even at the best times it isn't meant to be a kindness. It's not mercy or charity. But whatever is happening in the west is going to keep happening, it seems, while they stand by and wait—and in the meantime, here's someone they can save.
He comes alone. Five Wardens descending on a dying man will make people talk; better make sure it's not for nothing.
Directed to the right door by a servant, he opens it without knocking, but doesn't look surprised to find more than one person inside. Adelaide gets a glance, Dorian a tight and minimal smile, and Alistair inclines his head toward the sleeping figure in the bed without moving inside from the doorway.
Hand clasped in Felix's as has been her custom since he was first ordered to remain in bed and rest for the remainder- Adelaide's perched on the bed next to him. A concession to his desires for her comfort, sitting and holding and waiting for the last threads of him to wind out into the Fade.
She's done this before with others she didn't like near as much- it is never an easy thing but this? Cuts at her enough without Dorian's presence- and without being asked to leave.
"I beg your pardon?" She'd be this calm, this cold were it anyone speaking- but Alistair earns the barest spark of genuine irritation.
With the more obvious bedside territory taken, hands that are likely better at this healing compassion business than his -- the seemingly endless fount of electricity he can produce is not helpful to anyone at the moment -- he doesn't completely know what to do with himself, and so he is seated at the other side, elbows to knees and a book in hand, pages gently turned. He'd read a little poetry, prior, to fill the room with something, but has since been quiet, reading so as not to stare.
But he is very ready -- to fetch things, as needed, or to listen. So when the door opens, the stare that Alistair is fixed with is almost disarmingly focused. He shuts the book closed, glancing at Adelaide, a little surprised. Do they not like each other? Was Dorian aware of this?
"He said he wants to talk to him alone," he reiterates, helpfully. Then, to Alistair, less snappish but with a little pushback; "Badly timed, I should think."
Alistair's opened his mouth to sass Adelaide before Dorian beats him to it, and his irritation—with none of the usual playfulness, not right now, with a grim task ahead and bodies burning hundreds of miles away and the blighted song in his head always a little louder than it was the day before—hasn't faded when Dorian draws his attention instead.
"Right," he says, "I'll come back next week."
Nearly as soon as he's said it he drops his gaze and winces at himself, eyes shut for a moment, head turned aside, don't be an ass, Alistair, etc., and when he opens his eyes he looks kinder, if not quite apologetic. He doesn't step further out of the room than he already is, but his posture shifts back before he tries beckoning them closer: he isn't going to force them out (yet), but he doesn't want to wake Felix (again, yet).
As added incentive, he says—hushed, politely—"We can cure him." Sort of. Maybe.
No, they do not like each other, no Dorian is not aware as it hasn't been relevant until this fool in all his bumbling, fidgeting, sassing glory chooses to make it relevant. Bad enough that he is here, worse still that he is flippant- her temper holds by the barest of threads when it comes to the care and comfort of her patients-
When the patient is a friend? The thread is a touch more bare.
"Bullshit." Snapped and sharp and angry. "If you had a cure you would have given it to him months ago. How dare you come here when he is like this and say such things."
Dorian is already on his feet after Alistair's sass, which is less like he is in fact about to vacate the room and more like a blade being slowly unsheathed. He, unlike Adelaide, likes the man just fine, but not enough that he can get away with inserting himself into this situation and being clever. But then that attempt at added incentive stalls Dorian, a look of shock settling in his expression before that ices up as well.
He's heard that before. He's heard it from Gereon, countless times, for years.
His hand drifts out in a silent sort of gesture, bidding Adelaide to, well, chill. Like in a calm down sense, not in an ice queen sense. This doesn't have to get shouty yet, even if she is saying words he might have himself. "If that's what you've come to talk to him about, believe me, he's heard everything there is worth saying on the subject."
Alistair looks between the two of them—outclassed, outmanned, certainly out-iced, and, even if he weren't all those things, currently fighting with one metaphorical hand tied behind his back by probably a dozen solemn oaths he would at least like to break sparingly. But the look of resignation that settles onto his face isn't the sort of resignation that precedes giving up. It's the sort that precedes gripping the first stone on a cliff face.
"Maybe," he says, at length, to Dorian. "But if he said no, this would be a good time for him to reconsider." Perhaps he should have put on his armor. He's more impressive in his armor. He abandons his relatively polite post just outside the door to come to Felix's bedside, nearest Adelaide, and examines his pale, sunken face. He might be too far gone to survive it, but— "It's not something we give anyone. It's a sacrifice he can make. If he wants to. If you get out and let me talk to him."
Her hackles are already raised by the time Alistair slips that much closer; no amount of eloquent, graceful gesturing will bid her calm. A man is dying. A good man is dying and she is preventing the pain that would cause; even now there is a constant flow of pale blue light from her palm to Felix's. The chronic ache, the weakness in him pushes past the spell faster than she might cast it- so the connection has not been severed.
And Alistair would have her break away. Leave Felix in pain. Leave him alone in the dark of the Fade, to desperation and demons and whatever kindness Alistair is attempting to offer. Teeth grit, voice a tight whisper, she says-
"I am not leaving. Whatever sacrifice he needs to make, whatever treatment you propose- I am not leaving him to face it alone." Wardens cannot simply cure the blight- that isn't how it works. That isn't how any of it works and that he thinks she will simply walk away at his word?
Edited (not that many e's in teeth) 2016-01-03 07:58 (UTC)
--begins a protest, and dies off again as Adelaide delivers her own ultimatum, one he doesn't share for the same reasons. His desire to stay is much less practical.
Dorian looks away from both, towards Felix, looking all the more diminished, shrinking before their eyes over the span of months. His own hand wanders out, touching the edge of bedding, even as he keeps one ear pricked for the inevitable argument transpiring on the other side of the bed. Even now, wheels are turning, terribly, even if the rest of him is so tired of the desperate, fruitless search for the way out of dying.
"He won't be alone," Alistair says. He shoots a look toward Dorian—seeking help, however unlikely—and finds him looking at his friend instead, which is, you know. Fair. Under the circumstances. Back to Adelaide: "There are maybe two oaths to the Wardens I haven't broken yet, and I'm not—" She doesn't care about his oaths. He already knows she doesn't care about his oaths. He doubts Dorian does, either. He cuts himself off (or is cut off, perhaps, but without resistance) and considers Adelaide and the logistics for the length of a sigh before ducking down to scoop her up.
It's as polite a scooping as he can manage, and a sturdy one.
"Give me a few minutes," he says to Dorian over whatever protests Adelaide might be registering, having, demonstrably, given up on her entirely. "This isn't a theory. It's something we've done before. We have what we need. And if he says no, that's it."
If he continued with that line of argument Adelaide would have told him exactly where he could shove his oaths. Duty is fine and well but not when it twists into this. Felix is fading by the hour and she can feel it- Compassion feels it. There is no argument, nothing he can say or do to make her go. No promise he can make. He cuts himself off and she turns her attention back to Felix, considering the matter settled.
She honestly hadn't expected him to physically move her. For a moment she's shocked enough that her hand goes loose around Felix's- slipping away, the strands of the spell stretching through the air until they snap with the loss of her concentration. "Me mettre bas, vous fils de pute-"
Dorian looks up around the time he registers a flurry of movement, a sharper sort of attention for Adelaide being manhandled that-- does not immediately have him throwing bolts of lightning. Attuned as he is, he can feel the breaking of the spell, access to the Fade shutting like a door as her hand leaves Felix's.
He doesn't look down again. He also doesn't ask more questions. Relevant questions, like why must you be alone with him and specify 'we' and why didn't this come up before, because none of the answers are going to be in any way satisfying, and maybe he can sense a brick wall when one exists. And time is a precious commodity.
He moves, with a sort of pent-up aggression that could insinuate he's going to square with Alistair directly and physically, but instead, his trajectory takes him to the door, which he shoves open wider.
Sorry, Adelaide.
At some stage, before or after her depositing, his hand goes out and grip Alistair by the elbow in a hard snare. "Don't waste this time with him," he says, brightly. "I'd so loathe to have to throw you off the fucking ramparts." That said, he'll assist in herding Adelaide out into the hallway proper, if necessary, short of actually picking her up.
Fils de pute earns a glance and an eyebrow quirk—not a smile or a joke, not now—but other than that and a jostling-but-necessary adjustment to his hold on her, Alistair ignores Adelaide and watches Dorian, on whose reasonableness he's hanging all of his hopes, braced for the exact questions he doesn't ask.
That's good. The answers would consist primarily of wordy, apologist elaborations on a Wardens are crazy assholes theme.
He can't quite relax when Dorian goes for the door, not while he's holding Adelaide, but he does exhale in relief and follow quickly behind him. The warning—there's a moment where he's at risk of saying something smart again, or making a face that implies it, but he still regrets the last comment enough to stop himself. And Dorian really is as intimidating as he thinks he is. So is Adelaide. Alistair would have held up his hands and retreated by now, if the Wardens weren't so sure and he wasn't being spurred sharply in the sides by infuriating helplessness elsewhere.
But they are, and he is, so he lets Adelaide down onto her feet in the doorway and stands squarely in the frame to block reentry. Two Warden mages are, appropriately, standing vigilant in the shadows; he holds out a beckoning hand to them while he says, "It will be all right."
He's said the same to a dozen nervous recruits over the years. Half of them didn't survive this. But he still says it like he believes it.
"Lâcher moi!" Hissed and sworn rather than shouted- she doesn't want to wake Felix. Bad enough that she's been forced from his side mid spell, bad enough that she cannot ease his ache or sustain him for a little longer- she'll not take what precious rest he has left from him. Not even for this bastard. Her hands tangle in Alistair's shirt, fingers ice cold and breath frosted in the air between them- colder still is the low cut of her voice once he sets her down. She shoves away, glaring. Out here it is public, out here she must manage her temper, but she cannot help the vicious fury in her whisper. "Ne me touchez pas sans ma permission à nouveau, bâtard!"
It takes two breaths for her to reign it in. For the ice to withdraw from her hands and her breath, locking into place in her eyes instead. Even, almost civil were it not for the glare, she repeats. "Jamais. Toujours. Refais-le."
Whatever promises he makes, whatever platitudes he offers? She snorts, eyes slipping past him to the room beyond, to Felix. From this distance she cannot do anything but she can still feel that ache. That failing. It cannot be alright. It will not be all right. Resigned to him doing- whatever it is he means to do, she mutters. "Menteur."
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Step 1: Kick out Adelaide and Dorian
He comes alone. Five Wardens descending on a dying man will make people talk; better make sure it's not for nothing.
Directed to the right door by a servant, he opens it without knocking, but doesn't look surprised to find more than one person inside. Adelaide gets a glance, Dorian a tight and minimal smile, and Alistair inclines his head toward the sleeping figure in the bed without moving inside from the doorway.
"I need to talk to him alone."
no subject
She's done this before with others she didn't like near as much- it is never an easy thing but this? Cuts at her enough without Dorian's presence- and without being asked to leave.
"I beg your pardon?" She'd be this calm, this cold were it anyone speaking- but Alistair earns the barest spark of genuine irritation.
no subject
Dorian has never done this before.
With the more obvious bedside territory taken, hands that are likely better at this healing compassion business than his -- the seemingly endless fount of electricity he can produce is not helpful to anyone at the moment -- he doesn't completely know what to do with himself, and so he is seated at the other side, elbows to knees and a book in hand, pages gently turned. He'd read a little poetry, prior, to fill the room with something, but has since been quiet, reading so as not to stare.
But he is very ready -- to fetch things, as needed, or to listen. So when the door opens, the stare that Alistair is fixed with is almost disarmingly focused. He shuts the book closed, glancing at Adelaide, a little surprised. Do they not like each other? Was Dorian aware of this?
"He said he wants to talk to him alone," he reiterates, helpfully. Then, to Alistair, less snappish but with a little pushback; "Badly timed, I should think."
no subject
"Right," he says, "I'll come back next week."
Nearly as soon as he's said it he drops his gaze and winces at himself, eyes shut for a moment, head turned aside, don't be an ass, Alistair, etc., and when he opens his eyes he looks kinder, if not quite apologetic. He doesn't step further out of the room than he already is, but his posture shifts back before he tries beckoning them closer: he isn't going to force them out (yet), but he doesn't want to wake Felix (again, yet).
As added incentive, he says—hushed, politely—"We can cure him." Sort of. Maybe.
no subject
When the patient is a friend? The thread is a touch more bare.
"Bullshit." Snapped and sharp and angry. "If you had a cure you would have given it to him months ago. How dare you come here when he is like this and say such things."
no subject
He's heard that before. He's heard it from Gereon, countless times, for years.
His hand drifts out in a silent sort of gesture, bidding Adelaide to, well, chill. Like in a calm down sense, not in an ice queen sense. This doesn't have to get shouty yet, even if she is saying words he might have himself. "If that's what you've come to talk to him about, believe me, he's heard everything there is worth saying on the subject."
no subject
"Maybe," he says, at length, to Dorian. "But if he said no, this would be a good time for him to reconsider." Perhaps he should have put on his armor. He's more impressive in his armor. He abandons his relatively polite post just outside the door to come to Felix's bedside, nearest Adelaide, and examines his pale, sunken face. He might be too far gone to survive it, but— "It's not something we give anyone. It's a sacrifice he can make. If he wants to. If you get out and let me talk to him."
no subject
And Alistair would have her break away. Leave Felix in pain. Leave him alone in the dark of the Fade, to desperation and demons and whatever kindness Alistair is attempting to offer. Teeth grit, voice a tight whisper, she says-
"I am not leaving. Whatever sacrifice he needs to make, whatever treatment you propose- I am not leaving him to face it alone." Wardens cannot simply cure the blight- that isn't how it works. That isn't how any of it works and that he thinks she will simply walk away at his word?
no subject
--begins a protest, and dies off again as Adelaide delivers her own ultimatum, one he doesn't share for the same reasons. His desire to stay is much less practical.
Dorian looks away from both, towards Felix, looking all the more diminished, shrinking before their eyes over the span of months. His own hand wanders out, touching the edge of bedding, even as he keeps one ear pricked for the inevitable argument transpiring on the other side of the bed. Even now, wheels are turning, terribly, even if the rest of him is so tired of the desperate, fruitless search for the way out of dying.
no subject
It's as polite a scooping as he can manage, and a sturdy one.
"Give me a few minutes," he says to Dorian over whatever protests Adelaide might be registering, having, demonstrably, given up on her entirely. "This isn't a theory. It's something we've done before. We have what we need. And if he says no, that's it."
no subject
She honestly hadn't expected him to physically move her. For a moment she's shocked enough that her hand goes loose around Felix's- slipping away, the strands of the spell stretching through the air until they snap with the loss of her concentration. "Me mettre bas, vous fils de pute-"
no subject
He doesn't look down again. He also doesn't ask more questions. Relevant questions, like why must you be alone with him and specify 'we' and why didn't this come up before, because none of the answers are going to be in any way satisfying, and maybe he can sense a brick wall when one exists. And time is a precious commodity.
He moves, with a sort of pent-up aggression that could insinuate he's going to square with Alistair directly and physically, but instead, his trajectory takes him to the door, which he shoves open wider.
Sorry, Adelaide.
At some stage, before or after her depositing, his hand goes out and grip Alistair by the elbow in a hard snare. "Don't waste this time with him," he says, brightly. "I'd so loathe to have to throw you off the fucking ramparts." That said, he'll assist in herding Adelaide out into the hallway proper, if necessary, short of actually picking her up.
no subject
That's good. The answers would consist primarily of wordy, apologist elaborations on a Wardens are crazy assholes theme.
He can't quite relax when Dorian goes for the door, not while he's holding Adelaide, but he does exhale in relief and follow quickly behind him. The warning—there's a moment where he's at risk of saying something smart again, or making a face that implies it, but he still regrets the last comment enough to stop himself. And Dorian really is as intimidating as he thinks he is. So is Adelaide. Alistair would have held up his hands and retreated by now, if the Wardens weren't so sure and he wasn't being spurred sharply in the sides by infuriating helplessness elsewhere.
But they are, and he is, so he lets Adelaide down onto her feet in the doorway and stands squarely in the frame to block reentry. Two Warden mages are, appropriately, standing vigilant in the shadows; he holds out a beckoning hand to them while he says, "It will be all right."
He's said the same to a dozen nervous recruits over the years. Half of them didn't survive this. But he still says it like he believes it.
Adelaide Disapproves - 15 ( Alistair ), Adelaide Disapproves - 5 ( Dorian )
It takes two breaths for her to reign it in. For the ice to withdraw from her hands and her breath, locking into place in her eyes instead. Even, almost civil were it not for the glare, she repeats. "Jamais. Toujours. Refais-le."
Whatever promises he makes, whatever platitudes he offers? She snorts, eyes slipping past him to the room beyond, to Felix. From this distance she cannot do anything but she can still feel that ache. That failing. It cannot be alright. It will not be all right. Resigned to him doing- whatever it is he means to do, she mutters. "Menteur."