faderift | wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast

To be in the Infirmary is not especially restful. Granted, it is somewhat familiar, but it is not the comfort of one's own place. She is well-used to adapting, the need to evolve and survive-- perhaps that is part of the discomfort. To have returned to Kirkwall could be a homecoming, or it could be a regression. It is a place of joyous memories and of loss, tangled together.

As the reality of that settles back into her mind as she awakens, Herian's brow creases as she opens her eyes, and then she starts at the sight of a familiar face already present. Suffice to say, she was not prepared, and the unexpected surprise makes her grimace slightly as her injuries protest the jarring tensing of her muscles.

"I should have anticipated that you would not await an invitation." And that Herian's efforts to enter Kirkwall discretely were, perhaps, useless.

“Since you couldn't have slipped in a little, oh, by the way, I'm on my way back to Kirkwall in your last letter—”

Gwenaëlle, sat in the chair at the side of Herian's sickbed where she has been cleaning and oiling several blades, sets aside the work now that Herian is actually awake to be scolded. It is slightly incongruous with both their surroundings and the fine black velvet dress she's wearing, tightly corseted and layered with petticoats to stave off the chill in the air; some things change, some stay the same.

“As if I wouldn't hear. Did you hear your girl was back and just drop everything?” She hadn't ever paid Cosima that much mind, previously, but that doesn't mean she wasn't aware of the connection or that she hadn't thought of it when she heard that voice over the crystals again.

Herian looks baffled, but in all fairness to her, she also looks like she lost a fight with a landslide. She has her left shoulder and upper arm bandaged, and what bare skin of her torso and arm is visible above the blankets looks, in medical terms, bruised to fuckery. The bruises cease before reaching her neck which is a mercy that might be part of how she survived at all.

One thing at a time.

“My departing from Skyhold hinged upon the completion of an assignment, and agreement with my superiors that the service to the Divine was not best suited.”

Her tone is quiet. For so long she had declared herself a Loyalist, a Knight-Enchanter, and what purpose did a Knight-Enchanter hold if not service to the Divine? “To disclose such matters over letters would have been ill-considered.”
Reckless or idiotic, she’s sure. Her gaze is caught on the daggers, and the way the light seems hazy over true crinkled in the velvet.

It takes a second for her to master her focus. “Saoirse is returned, then?” Her or Sabine, seems, to her, the most likely conclusion.

“Who?” —seems like an honest question. Maybe Herian had mentioned her in letters, but Gwenaëlle is Orlesian and the way she might guess that name to be pronounced is almost certainly not correct, so, regardless: “If you had some tart on the side, you should probably sort that out before you see Niehaus again. Do I need to pay someone off for you?”

This is a joke in that she's relatively certain that's not what's going on and that Herian wouldn't want her to pay off her sidebitch, but it's not as if she couldn't or wouldn't in the incredibly unlikely scenario where all of those things were actually true.

To say she’s bewildered would be an understatement, and Cosima’s name dropped into the conversation strikes her visibly. Her mouth works silently for long moments. Letters with Gwenaëlle never had the same impact as in person conversation, and she’d almost forgotten what it was like.

“Saoirse is a friend who departed Kirkwall some months before I did,” she says quietly. Her head is spinning, but protecting her friend’s honour seems a decent place to start. “Neither would she suffer the insult of being a ‘tart on the side,’ nor would I act with such a wanton disregard for someone as to let them believe they alone held my heart, while handing it to another.”

A breath. She looks shaken. Is shaken, actually. Or maybe just shaky.

“Cosima is returned?”

If Gwenaëlle's face looks a little bit like she's just tolerantly letting Herian get through that speech so they can move this along more than actually listening to it,

that's because her face is very good at expressing what's going on in her head. Yes, yes, yes, Herian is very good and honorable and has almost no sense of humor, she knows, back to the point. The point being:

“Recently, so she probably hasn't been swept off her feet by any other tarts either.”

Herian would slump back against the pillows, were she not already slumped. “Does she remember?”

As for not knowing about Cosima and any other tarts, (Gwenaëlle, please) Herian sighs. “ Mhà dealanach bualadh orm.”

May lightning strike me is melodramatic, yes, but does it also apply? Yes. She’s been languishing for over eighteen months, how dare—

Severely: “I hope that means 'thank you, Gwenaëlle',” with the sparkling air of one who is certain that it doesn't. She sits down on the edge of the bed (carefully), adding, “Well, she certainly seemed to remember everything else. I suppose 'and has anyone seen my woman' would have been a bit tactless as an opener, she was talking more about catching up on work. But I think I'd probably lead much the same way, in her position.”

You know, feelings private, give me a task.

With the even tone of someone resigned to it, “You are a menace.”

Herian is quiet, but that isn’t dissimilar to saying the sky is blue.

“No word of her return was sent to Skyhold.” Or, at least, none before she departed, who knows what she might have missed with the timing being as it was. Cosima or anyone else might have sought to notify her and she’d be none-the-wiser. It’s tempting to sink into something indulgent and self-pitying, though, so in this instance she allows it.

“How do you fare?”

Gwenaëlle solemnly hands Herian—

a letter. “It would have been,” she says, dry, “but I heard you were in town before I sent my packet of mail.” And news simply doesn't travel that fast through most of Thedas; the Inquisition and Riftwatch crystal networks aren't the same, presumably, and it takes time for a bird or a messenger to get anywhere. Gwenaëlle isn't typically in the habit of sending each letter simply as she writes it but with packets of other mail and business.

Most of the time that's fine.

“You can read all about how I've been for the past few weeks while you're moping.”

“From you, aye, but not Cosima.”

That hurts, it hurts in a way that she hadn’t anticipated feeling today. Overlong she has been resigned to a weight and resignation of realising her cause with the Inquisition would not make the difference she’d hoped for. This is something fresh, new, to know that someone she adored so completely had returned and— what? Not thought to contact her? Pass on some pressing, urgent message?

(In the impulse of the moment and her exhaustion it is easy to give on to despair. Had that not been her weakness in Salzklippe, those years ago?) She takes the letter, holding it on her fingertips but making no move to open it.

“I do not mope.” She does, competitively.

The withering look Gwenaëlle gives her speaks, in Gwenaëlle's opinion, volumes. “Yes, that's why you just said that idiocy that just came out of your mouth, because you don't mope.”

Presuming her point to be well made (it's incredible that she's still surprised when, frequently, it turns out not to have been), she says,

“And what happened to you, anyway?”

Shockingly, Herian frowns. She keeps her hand from going to the pendent hung about her neck, just barely, and doesn’t offer comment to that first point.

Easier to move on to the question.
“I was injured on an assignment before departing, but I thought the wound would hold through the trip to Kirkwall.”

A little tilt of her head. “I failed to fully account for blood mages, those well-qualified in the propulsion of boulders—“ You know, that old thing. Herian, it seems, was a key ingredient in a theoretical mage jelly.

Once Iona is stabled, Herian makes her way to the Infirmary. No crystal collected yet, no visits made. She moves there with determination, though not with steadiness. By the time she makes it there she is shaky, skin holding an unhealthy pallor, sweat running from her brow.

"Forgive the abrupt intrusion," she'd said, moving towards a bed, "I've an injury that has been put off overlong."

Armour peeled away, the admission is made that she had an encounter with an enemy party on her way hence. She had already been injured prior to departing for Kirkwall, and that new encounter only served to worsen her state. An unhealthy gash across her left shoulder and chest now rendered messy and torn open, and Herian keeps her gaze fixed on a point on the wall as she sits for Sidony to inspect.

"I had not anticipated encountering someone who flung boulders with such enthusiasm," she says softly, and it could be humourous but-- it's also Herian. Who knows.

Sidony is settled into her desk, flicking through her papers and thinking - she still has awkward memories of that strange dream she had, the notion of her becoming a poisoner something that is almost haunting - when someone new comes in. It makes her drop everything she's doing, because eyes immediately going to the colour of illness, her eyes narrowing.

"Well, that was rather foolish of you, wasn't it?" She gathers her things immediately, moving over to her new patient.

Luckily, Sidony is a professional - at least now. She has her needles ready, her poultices, and her hands are quick to begin to clean out the wound, as much as possible, before she starts thinking about treating it. With this much bloodloss things will certainly be unbalanced and it would be best to stop the bleed as soon as possible.

"Boulders." Sidony tsks. "Why is everyone in Riftwatch like this? A level of self-sacrificial I've never seen in my life."

“I promise you, there was no self-sacrifice in this.”

Only herself and an ambush that she handled rather less well than she’d have liked. No matter your skill, you can have an off-day.

“The gash,” she doesn’t bother gesturing to it, not least of all because moving hurts, “was well-treated before my departure from Skyhold, and should have held sufficiently to Kirkwall. Bandits and their apostates, however...”

She trails off, but the wry tilt of her head may get the idea across. Her injuries were not the forefront of their priorities, to say the least.

"That's what they all tell me, I assure you."

Her fingers aren't necessarily gently, but she's careful enough as she takes stock of the wound and begins to make sure there's no future risk of infection. Her nose wrinkles just a little before she sighs.

"Yes, well, I cannot comment on the work of the healers at Skyhold proper, but..." Sidony shakes her head. "We're clearly the more skilled, even without bandits and apostates to help the matter. It's a complete nightmare, isn't it?"

She shakes her head.

"At least you're here now."

A wry smile flickers briefly at the corners of her mouth. “We are a cliche, then?”

The bruises around the original injury are bad, and, to Sidony’s trained eye, the stories of a boulder align with the signs of crushing and impact injuries. The bruising is swollen and painful, and may need some time to heal.

“Their apostate was a blood mage, I think. I was... I couldn’t move, and then I saw his wounds healing as my own opened up anew.”

A shaky breath, and she shakes her head. “In the time-honoured tradition of Riftwatch, I could attempt to disregard medical advise and assure you I’ve no need of aid, if that is become part of your routine.”

"Something of the sort." It's easy to admit, because why would she say otherwise? People are simply like this and she accepts it as it is.

She lets her fingers trace along the bruises, gentler than she has been in the past with others, and nods her head. Something to put on it will help soothe some of the hurt, but there's not much to be done but let it heal on its own. The body is good at that.

Her nose wrinkles at the mention of blood mage though.

"It's good that you're here," Sidony agrees. "I'll have to do some stitching and then offer you a mixture of poultice and potions."

She's been in the Infirmary-- well, truthfully she's little notion of how many days, or perhaps even if it has been a week. Parts of it have been spent feverish and other days have simply been lost to restless sleep.

Franklin has been free to wander, been cared for by those who see to Riftwatch's animals or possibly by someone else. She's not certain, which is unusual enough for her, but he is hale and hearty, trotting by the Infirmary to nose at her hand from time to time before dancing away to explore. One such exploration results in joyous barking, his dancing to circle around someone very familiar and dear to him, unable to contain his excitement and nosing at her repeatedly. After that, the prancing efforts to get her to follow him could only lead to one place.

Herian is resting against the pillows, bandages wrapped across her left arm and shoulder, and there fading out bruises visible where her forearm is exposed, and above where the bandages over her chest cease. They are not dark or dramatic, but carry the unpleasant green-yellow that comes with their fading away. A silver chain hangs about her neck, with a simple silver pendent; a broken sword blade, and the word “Mercy” engraved upon it.

She sees Franklin first, a very slight smile appearing, before the movement that follows him draws her attention. The smile freezes and falls away, and for long moments she's unsure how to speak.

"Miss Niehaus."

Nailed it.

Edited 2021-03-08 01:00 (UTC)

By the time they reach the infirmary, Cosima's talked herself into and out of Franklin's identity more than once. It has to be him, but she wants it to be him, so maybe she's just misreading some similar-looking dog's enthusiastic friendliness. (No, that's not it.)

So she's not as surprised to see Herian as she might be, but she's still unprepared. It almost takes her breath away, and that's before the stiffly formal address. For just a moment, she's at a loss, and then she says, "What happened?" because the state of her is the first thing. They'll have time for the rest of it later.

(She's still wearing the necklace. Cosima is keenly aware of the rings she hadn't been wearing when she reappeared through the rift; she wonders if she left them when she vanished and, if so, what became of them.)

Somehow - perhaps because she’s retreated backwards some steps these past two years, perhaps simply as a means of coping - that strikes a bitter nerve in her. She knows it should not, logically. Logic speaks to there being many reasons why Cosima might not have sought to contact her, or perhaps that she did and Herian’s own travels disrupted the efforts. Regardless, emotion was readied to do battle with logic.

“Truly?” She feels the incredulity reaching her tone. “You did not seek to let me know that you had returned, and you feign such concern over me?”

It is unfair. She’s sure of it, even as the words leave her tongue, but hurt feels like her only defence when she is bed bound, without armour or blade or means to retreat.

"OK, whoa, hold up. No one told me you were here. The word was, in fact, that you'd been gone for years, plural, and no one knew when or if you were coming back at all. I sent a raven to Skyhold, or I thought I did, maybe I'm bad at ravens. I don't know how I was supposed to ... I was on a field mission, you remember those, and I've only been back from that a day. No one told me."

She wants to be angry, and she is, but her eyes also treacherously fill.

"Is that where you've gotten to, since I've been gone? The conclusion I'd pretend to be upset you're hurt? That sounds like your memory of me?"

Seeing Herian again would have been complicated enough, but she's so blindsided by the hostility that she has no defense against it. It hurts.

“I found out you were returned to Thedas from Gwenaëlle. An afterthought to a reprimand on my return to Kirkwall.”

Her voice cracks with it, and her gaze drops as her jaw snaps shut, biting down on the painful betrayal from her own voice. The raven had not reached Skyhold - or, if it had, perhaps Herian had been already departed. Perhaps that was fate playing both blessing and curse, to have her on her way already, but unaware of that significance.

The reality stands, though, that Cosima was stung by her words. There’s no vindication in that.

“My memories were all I had. None of them would have led me to think I was so insignificant a note in your time hence that you’d not seek me out.”

"Maybe if you'd just asked me, and I could have told you that I didn't know, instead of immediately assuming I was, what, mocking you? Jesus, Herian."

This isn't how she wants this to go, and Herian's clearly not at her best. Cosima knows she should be the one to defuse the situation, but it's hard to just ignore the blow that had found a sensitive target.

"I assume the provost's wife knew I was back because when I got here a couple weeks ago I made a public announcement on the sending crystals. You weren't here. I was on my own, I was just trying to make the best of it."

“I would have come back.” Her head jerks up with that, and she hates that her eyes are glistening, and that iron control over her emotions feels out of reach. “If I had known you were returned, I would have travelled from Skyhold that very moment.”

Out of habit, Herian’s hand goes to the chain. The movement is stiff and sore, and she grasps the pendent as a means of self-comfort before catching herself and releasing it. On closer inspection, should Cosima wish to make it, the fine chain can be observed to be broken in a couple of places and tied back together.

There is an uncomfortable silence. Softly, she makes herself reply.

“It seemed— it seemed you had departed Kirkwall without mind of whether I knew you were returned.”

She swallows down the impulse to respond sharply. "...it was a mission already planned, just to the Wounded Coast. Our new head of Research asked if I'd go because it was partly based on my old notes, he thought I'd be useful. I hadn't even had any sign you'd gotten my message yet, you could have been anywhere on assignment." A pause, then she adds, "If you weren't hurt, I assume you could have told me you'd arrived by sending crystal when you got here, and I wouldn't have been herded by Franklin."

It had, in hindsight, an ironically on the nose Timmy fell down a well feeling.

"I would have tried to be here when you arrived, if I'd known you were coming."

She nods. It makes sense. So much of what Cosima says - by her biased assessment - finds its base in logic and reason and sense. Meanwhile she remained a brash fool.

“Have you not heard? I was too engaged in self-pity.”

Her shoulders slump very slightly, and she looks away - the last escape of the embarrassed and foolish. (Franklin, for that matter, has been looking between the two of them, and takes this moment to helpfully leap onto Herian’s bed. He lands squarely on her abdomen and she makes a quiet sound of pain as she shuffled down to her feet and circled himself between them: the noble pup croissant.

“This is not the reunion I’d have hoped for.”

Which is largely her fault, she is realises.

"Yeah, that makes two of us."

It's quieter. She didn't pick this fight, and she's not inclined to push to keep it going, but it's also made it hard to sort out any of the other complicated emotions she'd have been feeling even if it had gone better.

After a moment, she says, "You don't have to tell me how you got hurt if you don't want to. But it does seem like you have reason to, you know. Be at less than your best right now."

Herian tried to school together her thoughts. The pain is, admittedly, considerable - aches and dull thudding pain that goes on relentlessly whenever the last dose of a pain medication fades out, and she is mindful of the complexity and expense of their production. There will be emergencies where those are needed, and she survived the last stretch of the trip to Kirkwall without them. It’s seems the appropriately masochistic course as a personal recompense for acting so callously to one undeserving of it.

“I— if I could credit it solely to discomfort, that would be a relief.” No, this was her doing, pain or not. “On my return to Kirkwall to re-join with Riftwatch I crossed path with some bandits. They had a blood mage and one very able with the tossing off boulders.”
A flicker of a smile, self deprecating as she studies her hands to keep her from having to look at Cosima. Cosima who she had missed so painfully, and who she had hurt within moments of their being reacquainted.

“A recent wound was refreshed,” what a euphemism, “and I think some fractures sustained. I will be well again, so long as I can suffer stillness for a time.”

"Well, you know I can sympathize with the frustration of having to just lie there for a while." For all Cosima looks in good health just now, Herian has better reason to remember her close calls than most.

She exhales, gathering herself a bit now that Herian seems, if not calmer, at least less likely to snap at her. "...do you want my company, for a while?" It feels strange to have to ask, but under the circumstances it doesn't seem to go without saying. "I wanted to see you, but I can come back another time, if you'd rather." Or not. It hurts to imagine Herian doesn't want her company at all, but it also seems to be a possibility in a way it wouldn't have before Cosima arrived at the infirmary.

A little nod. She remembers it well. Part of the fear of that blue plague that descended had been that Cosima would over-exert herself, neglect her own well-being to such an extend that her own sickness would be exacerbated.

Herian, in a show of exactly how bad she is at staying still, braces her able arm on the frame of the bed so she can force herself more upright. A small and futile gesture, perhaps, but she if she can least attempt to sit upright perhaps she will feel more herself. She has to grit her teeth as she does it, and the results are honestly not that impressive, because her everything hurts. Still, she’s sitting up as she reaches one hand towards Cosima - albeit sheepishly.

“I would be very glad if you were to stay, although— given my behaviour I understand if that prospect is now— less appealing than once it was.”

It’s been a long time since she felt so formal and uncertain in Cosima’s presence, but then in fairness, it has been a long while since she was in Cosima’s presence at all.

She's tempted to ask so is that an apology, but that feels needlessly unkind, even if Herian did leave a bit of an emotional bruise. Instead Cosima comes to sit next to the bed, rather than on it. (She'd caught that groan when Franklin invited himself up.) And she does take the offered hand.

"There was no way this went it wouldn't be complicated," she says, finally. "I want to say I missed you, and I did, but only since I've been back. It's been a lot longer for you, and I get that. I didn't want to assume anything before you wrote me back."

“A little shy of two years.”

It is a painful confirmation, that Cosima had known her only when she returned. That she had been alone in the grief of separation.

Her hand is, at least, less battered than the rest of her.

“I did not— We had spoken of marriage.” Long ago, and maybe naively. “I had no interest in— casting that aside.”

Perhaps it could be argued that it was her obstinance, the value of her honour, standing by her oaths, that resulted in that rather than love. Or, perhaps that as a Knight-Enchanter serving an Inquisition and this a Divine that wished to see Circles restored and prior laws applied to mages upheld, she simply didn’t have the same opportunity. It was not as though she could produce easy evidence of what was in her heart. Herian’s gaze is down turned.

“But please know I make no assumptions, now you are returned. You are not— bound to me, and I know I am not as you remember.”

Mostly in the sense of being severely injured, having subjected Cosima to a burst of ill-temper, and also, depressed and dramatic as fuck. Well, that last bit might be familiar.

"I remember." If she hadn't at home, she remembers the engagement now, at least; it's something she's been thinking about often since the rift spat her back out on Thedosian soil. One more complicated thing. "Look, I'm not... I've got a couple years' worth of new memories too. It's complicated, and we probably shouldn't like ... set a date unless and until we have time to see how things are now. But Herian, I don't..."

She exhales, looking down at their hands. "It's not like I just stopped loving you. I didn't leave you on purpose. When I wrote you, I thought we might try. If it was what you wanted too, if you hadn't found someone else. I wouldn't have blamed you." So few rifters came back, there could have been no knowing Cosima ever would.

How is this more painful? Emotions that she had been so adept at locking away feel so raw in this moment, perhaps due to the exhaustion, the physical pain, the sharp reopening of another rather more metaphorical wound. Was it the cutting open of flesh so that it might finally heal, or just picking it over ruthlessly? Her mouth does not feel under her control - she is aware of is tugging sharply downwards and to one side, and she makes sure to be facing down as if that might revoke the familiarity Cosima once had with her body language, or conceal the threatful tears when they are so close together.

“I missed you.” There’s a crack in her voice that she can’t hide away, and she keeps her gaze turned down. Cowardice, now, as well as all else? It does not feel so different to a dam starting to break apart.

“You speak it true. We cannot simply resume and pretend all is as it was. There is— there is much new to learn and consider.“ Her breath shakes as she exhales, and she sighs with frustration as her lack of composure, and she stiffly wipes her eyes with the back of her other hand, facing away from Cosima as she does so. Bandages for absorbency, at least.

“Is all well at home? With Sarah and your sisters, as well?”

She softens a bit, at a slightly less fraught topic of conversation, letting Herian's confession go when it feels as if she's one raw nerve that even affectionate pressure might hurt.

"Yeah, they're good. Sarah and I got a lot closer, the past few years. Oh, um, Helena had twins, so I've got two new nephews, they're cute." Quieter, she adds: "I found our cure. Finally. That's what I was doing, when I came back, I was traveling the world to get it to my other sisters. Turns out there's a lot more of us than we knew." And now they'd all have a chance at a quiet, ordinary life if they wanted it. Of course, the cure meant a lot personally, too, but she expects she doesn't need to spell that out.

It takes a moment for that to fully register, around the headachy muddle that her mind seems to be reduced to. Exhaustion and emotional exertion are terrible, anyone who disagrees is a monster. Her brow furrows a moment, and though she hastily wipes her eyes again, Herian looks to Cosima with a smile, surprised and warm.

“You found a cure?” Her smile brightens, despite all the other complications of this conversation, and she looks at Cosima with renewed wonder. “You are truly beyond compare, Cosima.”

She remembers that day, carrying Cosima to the infirmary when they were barely known to one another, the need for regular visits and the exhaustion it could bring. “Congratulations hardly seem sufficient.”

It breaks her into a warmer smile. "Well, I had help, it wasn't just me. But thanks, yeah. It's big. It's been a few months, but I'm still getting used to it. You know, conceptually." She feels better, which is a big win on its own. But the long-term ramifications are still sinking in. She suspects that will take awhile.

She rests a hand on Herian's blanket, not touching her, but a little more relaxed all the same. "Now we can get you healed up, and we'll be in great shape." Sternly, to Franklin: "No catching a cold or anything, OK?"

Something about, we’ll be in great shape stirs hope in her, as foolish as she knows that to be. Cosima is just returned to Thedas, Herian remains emotionally raw and vulnerable. It is not the time for her focus to be cause on such matters, and yet.

“He is immune to any many of sickness. The sheer force of his optimism seems to chase away any miasma or infection.”

See, she remembers some of the stuff Cosima explained to her, even if old habits are hard to shake. Her gaze is caught in Cosima, though, as Franklin shimmies forward on his belly, and rolling on his back to request pats.

“That you and your sisters can be safe and well is... a relief beyond words. You all deserve every happiness, after all the turbulence you have endured.”

wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast

GWEN;

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SIDONY; wound description, injury talk and potentially related grossness along the way

slams down

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COSIMA; gay angst

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cw injury metaphors bc big mood

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