WHO: Athessa, Madi, Lucien, Skull, and YOU!! WHAT: catch-all WHEN: mostly Satinalia and later WHERE: Kirkwall and The Gallows NOTES: post-murderhaus h/c is gonna go here
It's not the shoulder Colin notices first--the swelling, the way she holds it, the little signs of pain. It's the look in her eyes. It's that look. He sees too much of it these days, and seeing it on her cuts to the quick.
He wears his profession like a suit of armor into this war, approaching her and checking her over for other injuries first. There's a soft little glance at her face just before he speaks.
She shakes her head slightly, as if at a loss. What did happen? Brows furrowed, eyes shut, concentrating very hard on sorting out the answer, Athessa starts with the obvious:
"Dislocated my shoulder trying to get off a rack, talked Barrow through popping the bone back into place. Couldn't really...afford not to use my arm, though. Got kicked in the stomach, but I think it was too low to break any ribs," she sniffs, scrubs the back of her hand across her nose, notices the blood under her fingernails. "Pretty sure none of this is my blood."
A sharp intake of breath confirms that yes, it does hurt, but beyond her grip on the edge of the infirmary bed tightening she makes no complaint to that effect.
"I know," she says. And she does know, has been reminded many times of the fact that Colin and Bastien are two people around whom she never needs to be strong if she needs to break down. But because she knows it, she doesn't want to. It's hard to shake the shame of vulnerability, of feeling like a failure or a burden for relying so much on someone else.
The range of motion in the shoulder is good. The muscles are tight, but that is to be expected. He nods at her statement--she probably is all right-ish for now. That's what the numbness is for.
"I'm going to heal you now. That'll repair a lot of the damage."
And he does, the blue glow emanating from his hands and phasing into her shoulder. It should greatly reduce her pain.
For many things, healing just feels like a balm. Cuts and scrapes, burns, punctures sometimes, they just feel soothed and smoothed away. But broken bones and torn ligaments are different. The pain goes, but there's still that feeling of being stitched back together, of things under the surface shifting, and that's what cuts through some of the shock.
"There was a woman looking for her son," she says, thinking about the crude stitches that held closed inexpert incisions in leathery skin. "We found...his body on our way back, when we stopped for the night. Him and his...his bride."
Outwardly, Colin's face doesn't change. Inwardly, he feels a kick to the stomach and a gratitude that he's not usually on these kinds of missions. He reaches for a clean stretch of white linen cloth and folds it.
"That's a horrible thing to have to see," he says in soothing tones. "I'll give you something to help you sleep tonight. You can take it if you like, or not if you'd prefer. Hold your forearm straight across your body."
That gets Colin's face to turn grey, his hands faltering briefly as he folds her arm in the sling. It takes two deep breaths before he can continue, tying the cloth behind her neck. Two more breaths later, he starts to pin it closed at the elbow.
Athessa shakes her head, visibly struggling to keep numb, to not feel the cresting wave of everything she's had to compartmentalize thus far. Easy, girl. Just breathe.
"A m-monster," she says, her voice failing her and sounding small and hoarse and frail. She tries again, clearing her throat and deciding that Medrod is likely a more common sort of man than not. No need to spare the rest from his classification. "A man named Medrod. He — I don't know why he would—"
Athessa can't explain it. She can't even try to put logic behind any of what happened at the Silver Lamp Inn, and the more she tries, the shallower her breathing and the harder it is to speak at all. She presses the back of her hand to her mouth and stares at the floor some distance away, forcing herself to take deep breaths through her nose to steady herself. She doesn't want to break down, not here.
Colin makes a quick dash for a table and brings back two things: a bucket, and an herb that fights nausea. He holds out the bucket in case she needs it.
"Breathe," he says quietly when it's secure, hand reaching out to stroke her hair soothingly.
She doesn't vomit, but one awful sob escapes from her attempts to compose herself while she sets the bucket aside. Her head hurts from trying to hold it all back, the flood she knows will happen as soon as she closes her bedroom door behind her.
"I can't, I can't—" She stammers, gritting her teeth against another sob that, blessedly, doesn't make a sound. One arm already crossed over herself, she crosses the other atop it to hug herself and shakes her head again. "I can't— I have to—I have to leave—"
"Come with me." He reaches for her good elbow so he can quickly lead her away from the infirmary and into the apothecary. No one's in there; he shuts the door and locks it.
Bless Colin and his expeditious locking of that door. Athessa is barely in the room before she crumples, a slow-motion descent to her knees and subsequent crawl to lean against the wall. Her whole body shakes with her sobbing, gasping for air between them and unable to articulate anything more about why she's so upset.
"H-he— Th-they were— C-could've been—" A valiant attempt, but ultimately unhelpful in conveying meaning. It feels as if there's a rope tied to something inside her and something is pulling and trying as hard as it can to turn her inside out.
His own fingers shake slightly as he picks up a potion and cloth and kneels before her, wetting the cloth and beginning to wipe the blood from her hands, hers or not.
"Breathe," he repeats, eyes darting from her hands to her face and back several times until he can be sure whether her hands are injured. "In through your nose. You're home. You're safe. Look."
It turns out that some of the blood is hers, after all. Not much, not enough to be truly concerned over, but there's a dotted-line of a cut along her knuckles where a knife grazed her in the heat of things. Most everything else amounts to simple scrapes and bruises, and a mixture of Barrow, Edgard, and Holden's blood (though obviously Colin won't be able to tell what blood belongs to whom).
Looking at her tattoo doesn't bring the calm that it would, were she worrying for her own sake or fearing a place she'd been. They burned the murderhaus to the ground, she knows it can't hurt anyone else ever again.
Those forget-me-nots remind her of her family, of seeing those faces superimposed by her own grief upon the faces of the Dalish elves they found. Glassy eyes staring out unseeing from leathery faces. She swallows thickly, breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth.
"The lady's son, Gawen—" They found parts of him in the room with Mhavos and Leander. Parts. Always parts. What a life you lead. "He eloped with a Dalish woman. He'd—"
This isn't going to happen to you. We'll avenge them.
"Medrod turned her into a p-puppet. And there were others— And I kept thinking: does her clan know? Do they know? Is she just missing? What if these aren't the only ones? What if—"
He starts to feel light--not quite upset, not yet, but a bit dazed. Some part of him knows what she's feeling, and he refuses to think about that. It's not about her being safe. It's about what she's seen. Things that eyes aren't meant to see because they aren't meant to be, and yet are.
The healing potion stings at first before gently numbing the small wounds on her hands even as it sanitizes. He swallows.
"No. I don't know. Maybe," There'd been some dark, alchemical ramblings in those books they retrieved, but it wasn't like the time Athessa herself was puppeted by a blood mage. Magic hadn't had a hand in preserving those bodies. "No. I don't think so. He was just a...just a man and he...he cut them open and—"
The corners of her mouth tug down, her lips quivering, her throat tightening around more tears and grief and horror, and she has to focus on her breath again. In through the nose, out through her mouth.
"Gods, but their faces," she whispers, "their eyes, s-staring. And I couldn't— I couldn't look at them without s-seeing—"
Had one of them actually looked like her mother, or had she imagined it? Even in the light of dawn, burying the bodies with the help of her companions, she had to look away every now and then.
With her hands clean, he folds the cloth and dips it in a nearby basin of water. Not even a word is needed to chill it to coolness and press it against her forehead, the back of her neck, while he draws a handkerchief from his pocket and holds it out to her.
He's not sure if he'd hoped for a blood mage. Demon influence might have explained it. It's almost worse, if it was just a truly monstrous person. It is worse.
What is she supposed to do with all of this in her head now? She already doesn't sleep well, already can't parse the menagerie of emotions that she feels and has no words for without having to add the horror of seeing taxidermized elves when she closes her eyes.
"H-he was smiling," she sobs, barely able to see the handkerchief through her tears. "Every time we saw him in that awful place."
She reaches, not for the handkerchief but for the hand that's holding it. It's hardly a vice grip, her fingers trembling and the flow of tears and the throbbing in her head and the dull ache in her shoulder and her stomach where she was kicked and the lack of sleep and everything sapping her strength to the point where she's just making contact, reaching for something safe and familiar, for someone who feels like home.
She buries her face in his shoulder, crying it into a sodden mess that she'll feel guilty about after the fact, but for now she's not thinking in words or thinking about what she'll feel in the next few minutes. She just feels and weeps and feebly hooks her good arm around him.
That gets a nod, and not a lot else by way of acknowledgment. She knows, logically, that she gave those elves the best care that she could; she buried them, gave them rites as well as she was able, but...
But what? She didn't even know their names, or what clan they're from. All she knows is the gods they'd dedicated themselves to. Mythal, Sylaise, Andruil, June, and Falon'din.
After a time, when the exhaustion of everything settles in and outweighs the tears she might shed, her breathing steadies and she quiets. Pulling away, she utters a soft "sorry."
For crying on him. For telling him about such awful things. For needing to be held.
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i
He wears his profession like a suit of armor into this war, approaching her and checking her over for other injuries first. There's a soft little glance at her face just before he speaks.
"What happened?" he asks quietly.
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"Dislocated my shoulder trying to get off a rack, talked Barrow through popping the bone back into place. Couldn't really...afford not to use my arm, though. Got kicked in the stomach, but I think it was too low to break any ribs," she sniffs, scrubs the back of her hand across her nose, notices the blood under her fingernails. "Pretty sure none of this is my blood."
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"I'll check once we've seen to that shoulder. I'm going to make sure it's properly in place by moving your arm. It might hurt."
With a delicate touch, he takes her arm and gently, slowly begins to rotate it.
"I'm proud of how strong you are," he says quietly. "But if you need someone to not be strong around, I'm always here. For future reference."
She's probably still a bit numb.
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"I know," she says. And she does know, has been reminded many times of the fact that Colin and Bastien are two people around whom she never needs to be strong if she needs to break down. But because she knows it, she doesn't want to. It's hard to shake the shame of vulnerability, of feeling like a failure or a burden for relying so much on someone else.
"I'm...I'm alright."
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"I'm going to heal you now. That'll repair a lot of the damage."
And he does, the blue glow emanating from his hands and phasing into her shoulder. It should greatly reduce her pain.
"How does that feel?"
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For many things, healing just feels like a balm. Cuts and scrapes, burns, punctures sometimes, they just feel soothed and smoothed away. But broken bones and torn ligaments are different. The pain goes, but there's still that feeling of being stitched back together, of things under the surface shifting, and that's what cuts through some of the shock.
"There was a woman looking for her son," she says, thinking about the crude stitches that held closed inexpert incisions in leathery skin. "We found...his body on our way back, when we stopped for the night. Him and his...his bride."
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"That's a horrible thing to have to see," he says in soothing tones. "I'll give you something to help you sleep tonight. You can take it if you like, or not if you'd prefer. Hold your forearm straight across your body."
He demonstrates with his own arm.
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There's no way to keep the disgust off her face, even with the distance of everything that happened. Even with the numbness.
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"Wh-who would...who did that?"
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"A m-monster," she says, her voice failing her and sounding small and hoarse and frail. She tries again, clearing her throat and deciding that Medrod is likely a more common sort of man than not. No need to spare the rest from his classification. "A man named Medrod. He — I don't know why he would—"
Athessa can't explain it. She can't even try to put logic behind any of what happened at the Silver Lamp Inn, and the more she tries, the shallower her breathing and the harder it is to speak at all. She presses the back of her hand to her mouth and stares at the floor some distance away, forcing herself to take deep breaths through her nose to steady herself. She doesn't want to break down, not here.
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"Breathe," he says quietly when it's secure, hand reaching out to stroke her hair soothingly.
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"I can't, I can't—" She stammers, gritting her teeth against another sob that, blessedly, doesn't make a sound. One arm already crossed over herself, she crosses the other atop it to hug herself and shakes her head again. "I can't— I have to—I have to leave—"
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"H-he— Th-they were— C-could've been—" A valiant attempt, but ultimately unhelpful in conveying meaning. It feels as if there's a rope tied to something inside her and something is pulling and trying as hard as it can to turn her inside out.
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"Breathe," he repeats, eyes darting from her hands to her face and back several times until he can be sure whether her hands are injured. "In through your nose. You're home. You're safe. Look."
He taps the tattoo on her wrist.
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Looking at her tattoo doesn't bring the calm that it would, were she worrying for her own sake or fearing a place she'd been. They burned the murderhaus to the ground, she knows it can't hurt anyone else ever again.
Those forget-me-nots remind her of her family, of seeing those faces superimposed by her own grief upon the faces of the Dalish elves they found. Glassy eyes staring out unseeing from leathery faces. She swallows thickly, breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth.
"The lady's son, Gawen—" They found parts of him in the room with Mhavos and Leander. Parts. Always parts. What a life you lead. "He eloped with a Dalish woman. He'd—"
This isn't going to happen to you. We'll avenge them.
"Medrod turned her into a p-puppet. And there were others— And I kept thinking: does her clan know? Do they know? Is she just missing? What if these aren't the only ones? What if—"
What if.
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The healing potion stings at first before gently numbing the small wounds on her hands even as it sanitizes. He swallows.
"Blood mage?"
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The corners of her mouth tug down, her lips quivering, her throat tightening around more tears and grief and horror, and she has to focus on her breath again. In through the nose, out through her mouth.
"Gods, but their faces," she whispers, "their eyes, s-staring. And I couldn't— I couldn't look at them without s-seeing—"
Had one of them actually looked like her mother, or had she imagined it? Even in the light of dawn, burying the bodies with the help of her companions, she had to look away every now and then.
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He's not sure if he'd hoped for a blood mage. Demon influence might have explained it. It's almost worse, if it was just a truly monstrous person. It is worse.
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"H-he was smiling," she sobs, barely able to see the handkerchief through her tears. "Every time we saw him in that awful place."
She reaches, not for the handkerchief but for the hand that's holding it. It's hardly a vice grip, her fingers trembling and the flow of tears and the throbbing in her head and the dull ache in her shoulder and her stomach where she was kicked and the lack of sleep and everything sapping her strength to the point where she's just making contact, reaching for something safe and familiar, for someone who feels like home.
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He doesn't want to say any of the words she's used.
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But what? She didn't even know their names, or what clan they're from. All she knows is the gods they'd dedicated themselves to. Mythal, Sylaise, Andruil, June, and Falon'din.
After a time, when the exhaustion of everything settles in and outweighs the tears she might shed, her breathing steadies and she quiets. Pulling away, she utters a soft "sorry."
For crying on him. For telling him about such awful things. For needing to be held.
"I'm sorry."
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