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Entry tags:

derrica,
ellie

closed.

WHO: Derrica + Ellie
WHAT: Patch job.
WHEN: August-ish.
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Discussion of violence, will update as needed.

The Gallows is not a small place, but it manages to be insular. Things don't go unnoticed for long.

And so that is why they're here now, in Derrica's room, with her satchel open across the bed. She'd corralled Ellie, pressed her into sitting upon while Derrica drew a chair up in front of her. The shutters have been pushed open to let in the sea air, cooling the space.

Derrica hasn't asked what happened, not in so many words. There's a way to draw that out of Ellie, but she doesn't know how to say it. Not yet. So she's examining her with very gentle hands, careful as she takes in every bruise and scrape.

"I can ease most of this," she tells Ellie. "If you like."

Because that's important too: what Ellie wants, what she'd like Derrica to do. It's always important that someone makes the choice to ask for her magic, rather than the bandages and ointments in her satchel.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yes."

Clarification that's allowed to sit between them. Derrica's thumbs slow, but don't stop their movement. Her eyes follow the play of expression on Ellie's face, trying to parse her reaction.

"Only sleep," is clarification too, staving off any misconception of what this invitation is. "If it would help."

Maybe it wasn't something that would be soothing to Ellie. Derrica had always found it so, but Derrica was raised in communal spaces. Before she'd come to Kirkwall and Riftwatch, she had never slept in a room with a door she could close against everyone else. She'd shared beds and shared spaces with people, had always fallen asleep to the sound of others breathing and snoring and shifting in their beds. It was a comfort to her.

And it was such an easy thing to offer, easier still having seen how Ellie had leaned into her hands.

It's unfortunate that she's looking right at Ellie when she clarifies, because Ellie's cheeks noticeably pinken, easy to see under her freckles. She shuts her eyes for longer than a blink, willing away the thoughts -- it hadn't been like that, but there it is.

It's tempting to stay, and tempting to pull away, to gain back the hard-fought distance between herself and the world. She knows from experience that opening herself up to people inevitably hurts, but she's... tired. She's just so fucking tired.

Ellie had always slept better with other people, too. Better next to Joel, best next to Dina, with a small warm body curled between them, little hands thrown out to the sides.

For a split second the weight in her chest is crushing, but she makes herself nod through it.

"... sure," she whispers. "I'd like that."

It hadn't been like that. It might have been, if Derrica had the sense it wouldn't be more harm than good to offer Ellie anything else.

And Derrica really, truly, doesn't want to do Ellie any harm.

Her fingers stroke once, twice, three times more along Ellie's cheeks before she lifts away.

"I think we're nearly the same size," she tells Ellie, with a small smile. Give or take an inch, they're of height. It still takes Derrica a moment to extricate her wrists from Ellie's hands so she can lift the basin from her lap. "You can take whatever you like."

Some people fold their clothes and put them away. Derrica is not really one of those people. An effort is made, yes, but there are still items draped over chairs and hooked on pegs. When Derrica turns back from setting the basin back on the set of drawers against the wall, she looks at Ellie, her bloody clothes, and tips her head in momentary assessment.

"I have some light things. What are you comfortable in?"

Derrica has a talent for clarifying things without making them feel like a rejection. The warmth of her hands lingers on Ellie's cheeks after she pulls away, and Ellie makes herself open her eyes, and try to come back to the world.

She gets up from her bed, reaching to undo the cloak, loosen the tunic over the top of her clothes. She has things on under it, but it'll be best to get these off, so she doesn't mess up Derrica's room further.

"Anything that isn't a dress," she says with a wry smile. "Other than that I'm easy."

Though it has been rather frustrating to find things in her size that aren't dresses. Riftwatch thankfully has been better about it than the marketplace.

Oddly gratifying to hear that her instincts had been correct.

And it's fortunate that Derrica's tastes tend to run similarly. Dresses aren't practical for any part of her life now, apart from the occasional formal event that requires more than just the Diplomacy division. She pulls a few things from the drawers, then tugs a last item from beneath the scattering of clothes on the chair by the window.

"Here," she offers, presenting the assortment of tunics and leggings for Ellie's perusal. "These are soft enough to sleep in."

Speaking from experience, though generally Derrica has slept in them in situations such as camping or being stranded in inconvenient parts of Thedas. Surely the principal is the same.

Ellie reaches out to feel the cloth -- definitely more than soft enough. She's slept for weeks in the same clothes before, this is practically a luxury. The Gallows in general are.

"Perfect," she says, and gives Derrica a glance before she decides she's too tired to give a fuck, and reaches down to undo her boots, start working off the rest of her clothes.

(She keeps her underthings, though, for Derrica's sensibilities.)

... and the scars are everywhere. Burn marks, bullet holes, stab wounds. Plenty of evidence of stitches. A fresher one on her side covered with puckered, pinkened scarring, where something all but skewered her in the gut.

Her right arm shows evidence of being broken, and badly, and that's on top of the acid burn scars.

Derrica's healed it all, but these are old injuries.

"Thanks. For this."

Even in the few seconds it takes her to avert her eyes, the scars on Ellie's body make an impression. Maybe it's not enough of a look to see everything, or distinguish them into particular types of injuries, but it's enough to mark that Ellie's survived so much. The wounds are so extensive.

But she doesn't say anything. She's already asked Ellie to unearth something painful. It would be cruel to try and pull anything else from her.

"You're welcome," Derrica tells her, as she lifts her satchel from the floor. There's a strip of bandages to be wound back into a neat roll, and she occupies herself with that while Ellie changes. "But you don't need to thank me. I don't mind helping my friends."

A very deliberate addition, meant to make a point.

Ellie's used to these glances now; her scars weren't commonplace even back home, unless someone was older, or had come in from outside of Jackson. In New Amsterdam they'd set her apart. Here, in war-torn Thedas, it's much more common to see these things on soldiers.

But she still catches the look, and gives Derrica a wan smile. Nobody asked about her scars, or even her fingers here. And she doesn't think that it's because they're lacking in guts or curiosity.

She's slipped the tunic on over her head, and is drawing the leggings up her thin hips when the rest of what Derrica says hits. Sticks. She pauses halfway there, the breath caught in her throat before she makes herself finish, and smooth the fabric and straighten up. She grips the edge of the tunic, wisps of hair falling around her face, damp-edged and escaping the simple twist she'd put it up with.

"Me either," she says softly. Making a point back.

So many times, she's been a shitty friend. Just this once, she hopes she can make sure she doesn't fuck it up.

So they are in agreement. Derrica glows over it, small smile widening just a fraction before she crosses to a peg behind the door to retrieve her nightdress.

"Good."

As if to seal some arrangement.

When Derrica sheds her own tunic, there's mottled scarring along her right side. Even turned away from Ellie, the marks are visible still, until they vanish beneath the fall of loose fabric. Derrica shimmies from her trousers after, stepping out of them after they've pooled to the floor. When she returns to bed, she sits beside Ellie, tucks an ankle beneath her knee, and begins undoing the loops of braids her hair had been held up in.

"You can lay down, if you want. This won't take me very long."

Ellie nods, and takes her hair down, ruffling her fingers through it. It nearly reaches her shoulders now, cut straight in a place that's settling down into only memories.

As she settles on the bed she averts her eyes out of respect, but they draw back to Derrica's side, somber as she takes it in, trying to parse what could've made that mark. Ellie looks small without her gear, settled down with her head on the pillow, watching her.

The familiarity of it is bittersweet. She craves, it, but it still stings.

"... what happened here?" she asks, her voice soft and she indicates Derrica's now-covered side.

At the question, Derrica turns more fully to her. The drape of fabric in her lap becomes the resting place for each piece of jewelry she takes from her hair, rather than leaning to place them on the side table.

"I was a sailor before I came to Riftwatch."

Which had been meant to be the Inquisition, but she'd stayed anyway, even after realizing the group she'd found in Kirkwall had splintered away from the whole. It's for the better, she thinks. A slight smile crosses her face, and she amends, "I was a pirate. I think it'll make more sense, if you know that."

And the Commander knows anyway. It's the least of Derrica's secrets.

"You know how it is, when you're trying to fight someone bigger than you, yes?"

They're of the same height. It feels like a safe assumption that they have similar difficulties.

Same height, and Ellie's been fighting grown men since she was much younger, much shorter. She nods, though her attention dips back down to the covered scar.

"Somehow I didn't picture you for a pirate," Ellie answers, and despite the awfulness of the day, manages to scrape up a smile from somewhere for her. She looks desperately tired, but it softens her.

She knows she won't be able to sleep yet, so this helps.

"It wasn't what I thought I'd be either," Derrica reassures. She unravels one braid, draws her fingers through the wavy locks. The routine draws some of the heaviness out of those words.

Derrica wasn't supposed to have been a pirate.

"We were trying to take a ship," she tells Ellie, hands lifting back to begin unweaving another braid. "I was still new to fighting that way, and I wasn't positioning myself properly. I should have been further away."

A little shrug, one shoulder rising as she smiles.

"This man grabbed me. He was one of the largest men I've ever come across in my life. He threw me clean across the deck, so hard that I shattered the cargo I landed in."

Still new to fighting at all, Ellie thinks, though Derrica may have been more used to fighting with magic than in close quarters. She frowns slightly, listening, and winces when she fully explains.

"Shit," she breathes, remembering the breadth of the scar. That would have torn her up awfully, to leave behind a mark like that.

"... you weren't using your magic?"

"I was."

Her hands pause in her hair, then sweep carefully down through the loose tendrils before she returns to unwinding her braid. It doesn't occur to her that Ellie is asking the question in the sense that magic should have protected her.

"That's part of why he came up after me," Derrica explains, though this is something she understood much later. "It's the way you would approach any kind of fight, by wanting to handle the people who are posing the biggest threat as quickly as you can."

Should have protected her, should have enabled her to attack at range. But Ellie's expression turns more grim, and she breathes in, letting it all out in a slow sigh.

"Smart of him," she says, and realizes a heartbeat later that that probably sounds cold.

"Glad you're okay, though. That must've hurt like a bitch. How bad was it?"

Something Ellie might have the pleasure of learning about Derrica: she has never been so found of attacking at range when she could be swinging the blunt end of her staff into someone's kneecap.

But in the moment—

"Bad enough," Derrica says. One last plait, and she shifts her hands to it as she explains, "I was able to do something for it in the moment, but I couldn't expend too much energy when there was still so much happening. And then after..."

A second shrug.

"There were people worse off. I spent what I had left on them first."

Turning to look at Ellie, she smiles a little and confesses, "And I don't mind the scars."

Settling her head on the pillow, Ellie frowns at her. It's not like she can get after her for putting others before herself when it's so far in the past, but it does mean that she'll be more careful of her in future missions.

Survival often depends on making sure to properly see to one's hurts, and not downplaying them.

Still, she smiles back at the comment about the scars.

"I don't either," she answers. Which is probably a good thing, considering how many she has. She pulls up the side of her tunic, showing Derrica the one in nearly the same place. It's a stab wound, but messy, like Derrica's.

"Slavers."

The first, immediate urge Derrica has is to put her palm over that mark. It won't help anything. Derrica isn't even certain it would be a comfort to Ellie, nevermind whether or not it's something that should be done. There is quiet examination, before Derrica lets out a breath.

Her hands settle into her lap. The few pieces of jewelry there clink as she begins scooping them into one palm. Derrica's hair streams in waves over her shoulders, unbound.

"You don't have healers where you come from, do you?"

Not that it guaranteed anything. There was a limit to what even healers can do. Derrica's own scars are an illustration of that.

This scar isn't something that Ellie's apparently all that bothered over, and she can see the way Derrica's attention shifts to it. She impulsively wants to take her hand, to show her it's okay, but bites back the urge, the kick to her heart.

Touch is a loaded thing, but thankfully Ellie's racked up a lot of years dodging these impulses.

"No. No magic either."

Ellie's expression sobers a bit, as she studies Derrica's face. "Did you choose to be a healer? Like, studied for it? Or was it something you just found out you could do?"

Before she answers, Derrica leans over to tip the bits of jewelry into the shallow bowl sat on the side table. When she turns back, she settles herself up against the headboard, legs drawn up.

"When you have magic, the way mages like I do, it...comes to you, at some point. Some of us have a skill for certain kinds of magic."

And Derrica pauses then, considering. Maybe thinking of how to explain, or how best to translate such a thing for Ellie.

"I had a gift for healing. It came easier to me than any other kind of magic. So that's what I spent the most time studying. I could have chosen something else, but having a talent for healing isn't something to be put aside. If it were fire, or ice, maybe, but..."

A trailing pause, then she shrugs with a small smile. The point is easily taken from that. How can anyone ignore a gift like this?

Ellie turns onto her side, cheek on the pillow and hair spread across it, next to her, her eyes softer and trained on Derrica's hands as she drinks it all in, paints the colors of Derrica's past into the lines she's drawn in her mind.

"Fits you."

It's hard to imagine her as anything else, really. Some people are just like that. But she knows that the people who are kindest often have the most steel.

"You went from being a healer, to being a pirate?"

A hesitation.

Not pained just, thinking. Remembering. When she tips her head to Ellie, it's with a small smile.

"I was a healer on ships too. It's why that first crew allowed me to stay. Healers are always necessary."

Whatever other roles she'd played, it had always come back to that. Knitting wounds back together, new-made apostate. Not the life she'd ever pictured when she was growing up in Dairsmuid.

"Am I keeping you awake?" is a softer question, Derrica studying Ellie's face. She has to be exhausted, after all she's gone through.

Ellie sees the hesitation and tenses, ready for walls to be thrown up, and relaxes slowly when they don't come. She nods, fitting it into what she knows, and decides not to pry. Derrica has asked her so little, it feels shitty to want to dig into her past, lay it open just for her own curiosity.

Ellie knows how she'd feel, if someone did the same.

"No," she answers, just as softly, shifting on the mattress. "I don't sleep all that much. Probably keeping you awake, though."

There's a question Derrica could ask: What keeps you awake?

But she thinks she knows enough to guess at it. Or part of it. So she doesn't, just slides down the mattress to stretch out alongside Ellie. Derrica is very deliberate about how she arranges her body, how much space she leaves Ellie on her side of the mattress.

"Is there anything that helps you sleep?" is maybe an easier question. As if it was as simple as opening the shutters or keeping a light on.

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slap a bow onto this pls