faderift | [ OPEN | PLAYER PLOT ] This is how it feels to take a fall

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[ OPEN | PLAYER PLOT ] This is how it feels to take a fall

WHO: Tiffany, Barrow, Astarion and...you??
WHAT: an assignment gone terribly wrong
WHEN: week 5, segueing into week 6 of the plot, just after dragon tracking concluded with a terrible, literal bang
WHERE: the most silent portion of the Silent Plains, nearer to Hasmal, and not far from Tevinter's very nicely constructed base
NOTES: cw for injury, darkness, being stranded, absolute idiocy | OOC POST: here

Previously: having successfully scouted Primus Taxarchis’ base in the Silent Plains, Tiffany, Barrow and Astarion make an unsuccessful escape under the fully alerted watch of the base’s active forces— provoking a near lethal counter attack that sees them crash landing not far away, and forcing the stranded trio to desperately petition for help.

That’s where you come in.

The ravine runs like a crooked gash throughout desert sands, deep and layered, sloping inward at an angle too steep to safely (or reliably) climb. Easy to spot from above, not as easy to get into without breaking an ankle or an arm, and impossible to freely clamber out of once inside: the stone is brittle and flaking to the touch, lean too much on it, and you’ll drop right to the earth along with it.

The caverns connected to it are far more accessible— the only downside is they’re labyrinthine in their knotted nature: it’s easy to reach an end too narrow to be traversed, or so broad that it loops back on where you’ve already been, descending downward in steeper layers, becoming a near honeycombed network at points.

Of course, you also might not be alone in the dark. This territory isn’t as unclaimed as appearances might otherwise suggest, factoring in proximity to the base the three had been previously scouting. Luckily no overwhelming force has been sent to give chase and comb the desert in pursuit, but that’s not to say there aren’t still eyes to be found in the depths of lightless pathways. Armor-clad agents working for the exact same reasons you are, their noses to the trail.

Well. Not the exact same reasons.

The temperature is freezing cold at night, and in the fuller depths of the caverns where light doesn’t reach, that’s a near consistent constant. Firelight might draw attention, for better or worse. Magic, too, and— despite earning the label of Silent— there is wildlife occasionally to be found. Proof of life’s perseverance even in the harshes of places, fleeting and skittish.

Or dangerous.

Whatever approach is taken, one thing is clear throughout: none of this is going to be easy.

[ooc notes:

-The trio rest at the very bottom of those lightless depths where they’d initially fallen, in varying states of wellness and action.

-they’re lacking in supplies, warmth, healing, mounts, protection, a way out— you name it they need it.

-time is a given: none of this will go quickly, so feel free to handwave or assume anything you need to to make your dream threads come true.

-this timeline wise takes place at the end of week five segueing into week 6, when Riftwatch forces are free to head home if they care to, but given that this is technically hostile territory between Primus Taxarchis’ base and Hasmal, it’s probably going to be a deliberate choice if your characters decide to come here.

-pls just don’t do anything to officially alert the nearby base in full, that would be Bad— and super difficult to do from a hole in the ground but mostly just Bad. Otherwise chase your bliss and make your wildest spelunking/survival/heroic fantasies a reality.

-ooc post is here, for all your delving needs and details.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ellie rolls her eyes, but softens it with a smile, rolling onto her side, and shifts to reach down and pull free a knife. It's smaller, lighter, and when she presses on the side of it, the blade punches out of the hilt with a soft noise. A switchblade from home, uncommon here.

"Been bitten enough for a few lifetimes," she tells him, but puts the blade to her skin.

The lack of hesitancy to cut herself might say something, but she doesn't linger over it. She chooses a spot on her left arm, pulling back the wrist of her glove, opposite of where the material covers the anchor. The hand with the missing two smallest fingers.

The cut is light, enough to bleed freely but not need stitches, across the back of her wrist. She wipes the blade and stows it away as the cut beads up, then shifts closer.

"Don't make this weird," she mumbles, and reaches out, reaching out to lay the cut against his mouth. She tries, but doesn't entirely manage not to drip onto the blankets.

As much reassurance as they have in the way of logic, Ellie watches him closely, locking down the concern.

“Then don’t look,” he murmurs, working against the dilation of his own eyes. The old instincts he no longer needs.

It’s a gift. A beautiful, glittering gift in the dark— and Astarion’s too greedy to stick to hesitation or apprehension: he’s already a monster twice over, what’s a little more risk for reward?

She puts her wrist to his lips before he can reach up to take it, hasn’t the strength to manage anything differently besides, and it’s the heat that strikes him first, so different to the dead or dying rats he’d been endlessly forced to sink his teeth into before his master’s table. Remarkable and strange, and he almost inhales more than he drinks at first, so startled by the vividness of it.

He’d feared it might be awful.

Instead, there’s an earthiness to her blood, muted and subtle beneath the salt-tang of iron. Reminiscent of something like rich whiskey in its depth, its bitter bite. Not a trace of putrescence, and without the jagged pain of hunger in him he only finds himself basking in it as crimson seeps past the edge of his own parted lips— trickling across his jaw, staining the fabric of his collar.

It’s far more than just a taste. But then again, given his own nature, she might’ve expected the onset of avarice.

The drawing sensation is strange, sends some kind of primal adrenaline burst skittering through her veins, some holdover of human instinct to pull away, fight the predator. She makes herself relax.

It hurts less than she thought it would. Stings, mostly, in a dull sort of way.

Definitely more than just a taste, but it's not like he's in any condition to fight if she decides to make him stop, so Ellie relaxes as much as she can and just... lets him have this. Hell, on the off chance it helps him heal faster, it'll be more than worth it.

And apparently she doesn't taste bad, or rotten. It's the world's weirdest comfort. That she's not decomposing on the inside, the infection isn't eating away at her.

It might be growing all through the old bite mark on her arm, the spores and cysts hidden by the acid burns and then the sleeve of her tattoo over her ruined skin, might have spread all through her skull like creeping tendrils of plague, but. At least she's still human enough for this.

She'll let him keep going, for now.

He does keep going.

A different kind of hunger than the sort he’d known before Thedas: he’s been crept along by Tiffany’s own spared, sparse rations, left shuddering to fight off the cold and pain— and the promise that if they aren’t vigilant, the viper of a Venatori agent might creep up in the dark and erase every last shred of hope.

So it does help him, more than just the rushing sweetness drawn across his tongue. It can’t restore him in a flash, it won’t turn him powerful, or grant him the strength to shake off his wounds like shed tissue.

But this. This is everything he’d been forbidden for two hundred years. The blood of a thinking creature, strictly off limits to Cazador's pets.

He can see why.

And still, he doesn’t stop.

Ellie doesn't wait until she feels faint, or even funny. She's known what blood loss feels like, and is all too familiar with it. It's hard to measure just how much Astarion's taking, but she knows it's gonna start causing problems if he goes on like this.

She can't exactly blame him, though. Not if they're going by the look on his face.

It just makes her all the more pissed at Cazador.

"Okay," she says quietly, starting to draw her arm back. "Much more and I'm not gonna be worth shit at getting you out of here."

He grabs her without meaning to— a fleeting grip, one hand across the edge of her own, keeping her arm clutched close.

And as the seconds tick on, a handful of them at best, his expression eases back with fresh clarity. His fingers slip away from hers, setting her free without a word, lips and jawline the picture of a predator painted viscerally red after a vivid meal.

He feels warm. Feverish, almost, compared to the frost and freezing sand. Better than the blanket draped across him, or the company at his side.

“...thank you.” Astarion mutters.

Low and shaky only from the rush of it, relief scrawled across sharp features. He sounds different than the cheerful, lilting songbird he pretends to be all too often. Placid and serene, deep-voiced and steady. No mask, this time. No pretense.

“I won’t forget this. What you’ve done for me.”

Ellie's arm grows tense, fingers balling up into a careful fist as the seconds tick by, as she gives him a moment for it to sink in. She really, really doesn't want to have to hurt him to get him to let go, but she will if he gives her no choice.

She relaxes as he backs down, and in the low firelight it looks way more gruesome than it should. She wipes her arm with the edge of her cloak, checking the cut. It dribbles slowly, but experience tells her it's the kind that'll stop soon. She puts pressure on it, watching Astarion with steady eyes.

It surprises her, seeing him so serious. It's tempting to joke back, to lighten the mood, to let them both off the hook that gratitude implies. But it's plain that this meant something monumental to him.

And frankly, Ellie's... she doesn't know what the best word would be. None of the ones she knows seem quite right. But it's good. It feels good, being able to do something.

"You're welcome," she answers, her voice soft -- and after a second, she finds a clean corner of her cloak, and reaches out to wipe the blood off his face.

"I just hope you don't start sprouting spores or anything," she adds, with a shrug. Though it's phrased as a joke, she's absolutely serious- but she can't help the tiniest smile.

"You'd be shit out of luck for any Riftwatch beauty contests."

Normally he'd bare teeth at being tended to so gently— but after all she's done for him, where they are besides, Astarion can't bring himself to do anything but let her do as she likes, patient about it as she wipes away the worst of that quickly tackying swath.

"And...right now? Sans any spores or fungal influence?"

Please don't ever think him too dead to be any less narcissistic.

Ellie's gentle but methodical about it; clearly not the first time she's tended to someone incapacitated by their hurts.

She smirks back at him, finishing with the last of the stray drops that escaped to mist against the edge of his ear.

"You are so asking the wrong person." Ellie snorts, then settles onto her stomach. "You know I'd vote Margaery."

But she grins wider, shifting to make herself comfortable. "But yeah, you look stunning for a guy who nearly got himself offed by Venatori and fell into a goddamn canyon."

“Ah,” he exhales, cutting across the edge of a knowing chuckle. Recently enlightened, it seems.

“Excellent taste.”

On that, they can agree: the woman is beautiful beyond compare— though compare he does, by way of her own added, teasing compliment. He feels well enough to preen for it, tipping his head to make it easier for her to wipe away the last of that blood.

He does look good for a man dead and left to freeze in the bottom of a pit.

—or at the very least, he assumes he must.

“Does she...know you like her? Have you told her, I mean.”

Ellie outright blows a raspberry, probably to distract from the way her cheeks flush red in the dark, but then her expression crumples at the edges. It's a split second, blink and you'll miss it crack in the calm, but it's there.

"Fuck no, I'm not telling her shit. I'm done catching feelings for girls who are used to... living in palaces."

It's hardly charitable, and even the way Ellie says it makes it clear she doesn't mean to be an ass about it. It just is.

"And, y'know."

Ellie shifts, uncomfortable. The pause is long, while she rolls around the words she wants to say on her tongue, like they don't taste all that great, and finally she has to spit them out.

"... good people."

“You think she’s good people?”

He almost laughs. Almost.

Whether it’s warm weariness that tempers it, or his appreciation for the woman at his side, remains to be seen.

“Palaces are trouble, I’ll give you that. But if it’s a sweet heart that’s holding you up, hers is very much savory.”

Ellie squints back at him, but doesn't question whether he's telling the truth.

"Compared to the rest of Riftwatch, maybe."

She weighs it in her mind, visibly waffling over the moral choices in front of her before she breaks down, looks fully at him.

"She tell you something?"

“We went hunting together.”

It’s a discreet way of phrasing it, the way they’d lured in Kirkwall’s chaff with malicious intent— coin for them, less trouble for Kirkwall proper: a perfect plot, and perfectly executed at that at her side.

"That woman's no saint; I've seen the glint in her eyes."

"Really?"

Shit, she definitely misread Margaery, if that's the case. Not Astarion; that sounds exactly like him, and she knows the type of bullshit he gets up to. But it makes sense that Margaery would be double effective.

"Was she good at it?"

“Exceedingly good at it.”

A night far from wasted, in fact, despite all the trouble it was to keep stretching his fledgling wings right underneath Riftwatch's own collective nose. He's fond of the memory, as he's very much fond of all those early ventures: the first few moments of freedom, and most of them spent in good company.

He pauses there, weighing something lightly in the forefront of his mind.

“If you like...I can put in a good word for you.”

Ellie presses her lips together, lifting her eyebrows, thinking of Tommy and Joel, of Tess and their days spent doing less than savory things. While Ellie had extensive experience in violence, subterfuge was a little beyond her.

She's interrupted from her thoughts by Astarion's offer.

"No," she says instantly, like a reflex, and then repeats it more quietly. "No. I mean, thanks, but-"

Pausing, she works the pressure out of her throat.

"It still wouldn't be a good idea."

“Suit yourself.” He concedes, shifting closer to her, head tipped lightly against her leg, a near imitation of an animal insisting on attention. Sated as he is, he still aches to the bone, and his wounds are more inclined to gnaw now that he’s not slipping away under some wearied current of half-starved desperation. Whatever attention she has to spare— by touch or conversation— is enough to take the edge off.

And he's always been greedy at heart.

“If it were me, and our places were swapped, I’d take the offer.”

Touch, especially casual touch, has been difficult to grapple with for so long -- but Astarion shattered that barrier the night they met in person, and it'll surprise Ellie later that she thinks nothing of the way he leans up against her.

Automatically, she reaches down to set a hand on his hair, like she would a cat that had nudged up against her. Her fingertips are rough with calluses from her weapons, her bow, but her hand's warm.

"You would," she mutters, like it's meant to be cutting, but it comes out fond. Ellie sighs deeply and settles, tipping her head back to look up at the vaulted rock.

"... I'm not ready," she confesses, her voice soft.

"My darling girl," Astarion exhales smoothly, contented by the slow scuff of her fingertips through his curls, every bit the lapcat in this uniquely placid moment. "No one's ever ready."

Much as some love to claim love is a battlefield, the truth is, it's nothing more than heat and passion, short-lived sparks. It lives, and it dies.

Just like everything else.

"In fact, it's more than possible you'll have your heart broken— or you'll break hers, or whatever it is the dance you do lends itself to. But you know, that's the beauty of it: the thrill of living, and the wonder of having a choice. Because if you don't leap every now and then before it's too late, you won't know the rushing thrill of gravity— no matter how steep the fall."

Mm. On second thought, perhaps his mind is still suffused with fatigue. This all sounds far too gentle for his taste.

Ellie has to fight back the stupid, intrusive urge to laugh. Instead she scrunches her fingers, gently tangling them up in Astarion's loose curls, and shuts her eyes tight, wetting her lips. She knows Astarion wouldn't appreciate her snickering out loud.

"God, you're a sap," she whispers, the smile all through her voice, hurting her cheeks as it breaks free.

"I know that. You think this would be my first rodeo?"

“How old are you, five? Ten years? You can’t have that much under your belt.”

He’s teasing. A menace beneath her fingertips and he knows it, grin glinting in the dark where she can’t see.

Ellie snorts, and this time actually does laugh, though she keeps it quiet. All the better to not jostle him where he's still curled against her thigh.

She pokes him lightly in the cheek.

"Twenty. Not that it matters." She sighs, and the laughter bleeds out of her voice, ending in a small huff of breath. They're not cheerful stories, unfortunately.

"It didn't work out, the last time. I'm not-" Ellie pauses, catches at her lower lip with her teeth. "Ready for someone else."

He clicks his tongue against the back of sharp canines as she prods him, his only good hand reaching high to make some miserably feeble attempt at snaring her fingertips.

But whether he succeeds or he fails, when her own mood sinks like a stone, his does exactly the same, falling deep into sobriety. A subtle, quiet segue into one singular confession.

"...I don't understand."

"What part?" she asks, letting him bat at, then grab her hand, letting her fingers go slack. She's warmer than he is, despite how thin she is. Her eyes are almost luminous in the reflection of the firelight.

It sounds... heavier than it should, and she's not sure she understands what he's trying to say.

[ OPEN | PLAYER PLOT ] This is how it feels to take a fall

cw: blood/self-harm

cw also for blood with brief mention of animals just don't come here

cw: body horror yeah just give up on this thread sry

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