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(closed) These violent delights have violent ends
WHO: Abby & Ellie
WHAT: Two girls one mission
WHEN: they least expect it (October)
WHERE: Wounded Coast
NOTES: Violence, mention of old trauma and past violence/torture/murder
WHAT: Two girls one mission
WHEN: they least expect it (October)
WHERE: Wounded Coast
NOTES: Violence, mention of old trauma and past violence/torture/murder
The Wounded Coast is colder than she thought it would be. There's a southerly blowing up off the top of the water that sets Abby's horse stamping in place, shifting restlessly when she tethers him up near the sparse tree-line. She presses her palm gratefully against his cheek, and offers him a bruised apple from her pocket; the later is the real treat. She leaves him munching, and descends down the track to the beach to get a better scope of the area, hands dropping to her hips as she breathes in.
Scouting wants people out to mark new enemy supply lines up the coast, and thinks they could run into a bit of hassle along the way. It's why she's here and working with somebody out of her usual division: she's the muscle, as per usual. She doesn't mind. Means she gets to do a bit of exploring by herself while she's at it, and it's nice to be away from the Gallows, out in the salt air.
Abby just hopes she hasn't been paired with somebody quiet, or boring, god fucking forbid. Guess she'll have to wait and see.
She's waiting on them to arrive, after managing to worm her way out of getting on the back of a griffon. Yeah it would have been faster, but some how Abby doesn't think it'd work out so good for her. She's trying to make a good first impression here. Sorry, Lev. She'll get back to facing her fears... later. Promise.
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Abby's healthy and hale now, but somehow this version of her feels more like a ghost.
"Okay," she breathes, and opens her mouth to tell her about the spiders, but comes up short at the question, swallows it back down as she weighs it.
"Is that important for the mission?" she asks, caught between being defensive and unsure. If it is, this implies, she's not going to keep it from her.
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"No." It has nothing to do with why they're out here now. She wanted to know for her own sake, but that isn't going to fly. "Forget it."
Not that important, and far more pleasant to look out at the scenery as they start to cut into rock face, keeping off of the sand. Abby likes the wind in her face. She finds that wearing the armor can get to be too warm after a while, and she's uncomfortable enough without slowly cooking in her leathers.
"Is it far?" Look, a mission-specific question. Just for you.
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It puts her off-balance, and she doesn't like it.
"It's in that cove over there, past the rocks," Ellie says, gesturing to the sloping, rocky cliffs held together by hardy trees. The rock juts clear out into the ocean, so there's no way around it by the beach. As they get closer, it blocks the wind in places, makes it rougher in others.
"We'll have to climb up and over, and then down in. That's the only way to reach it if you're not sailing straight up."
Ellie leans forward as they start ascending. It's a steep hike, best that they don't have horses for this part.
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She can reduce herself down to short, simple answers. Ellie won't take anything else from her, will give even less, so Abby puts a heel down hard on her own curiousity and leans up into the hike, relishing the ache in her legs as a result of the climb. Turns out they can keep a pretty decent pace together. She has no trouble keeping up.
The height doesn't really register to her, not at first. There's a lot on her mind. She's busy stewing over Ellie and the reproach she's reading into the curve of her back, wondering what she's thinking, why she cares. If she's leading Abby astray on purpose. The truce hasn't broken, but it was only ever held together by a handful of words in the first place; Abby could die out here, by accident. Nobody else would ever know.
A chilling thought. She frowns, suddenly wary, and then realises with a start- "How high up are we going?"
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But she's not going to be the one to change her mind. Fuck that.
As they head up, Ellie can admit (silently, to herself) she's grudgingly impressed. This is a hike even for more experience and active scouts, and Abby's keeping up with her in armor. She shoves away the uncomfortable memory of her staggering along a beach, on death's door, still managing to carry someone in her arms-
The question comes out of nowhere, and Ellie frowns, pausing to look back at her.
"To the top of the ridge," she answers, pointing up. "It's not that far." She pauses then, assessing the path. The way she normally goes would eat up another half hour, but if...
Ellie hesitates, visibly, weighing the outcome, and bites it back to point up at the ledge of the rocky outcropping.
"Boost me."
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Rhetorical, but not really. It's a decent height. Ellie is strong, Abby will give her that, but is she as strong as Abby is heavy? She doubts it, but– well, fuck it. Ellie's the one calling the shots today and Abby has deigned herself to heed them, even though registering where the top of the ridge is makes foreboding churn up in her gut.
Fuck, it's high.
She'll be fine. It's fine, she's going through worse.
A final, quick glance at the ledge before Abby grits her teeth and sighs, coming in closer to shove her shoulder up against the rock face. She laces her hands together, and presents them for Ellie's boot, anchoring her hands on one bended knee. "C'mon then."
... And if she puts a little too much boost into the motion, that's only for her to know.
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She steps back to give Abby room, and nods once before she can stop herself, good body mechanics, before she reaches out to steady her hands on both of Abby's shoulders, brace with her foot and then push off to jump.
"Jesus-" Ellie wheezes softly as she hits the ledge, with her middle and ribs rather than gripping to pull up with her hands. It knocks the wind out of her, and she has to take a breath, thinking dark thoughts about the old wound in her side. She pulls herself up over the ledge, grumbling, then turns around to reach down with her good hand.
This is going to be an experiment. She's pulled up people of Abby's size before, but not in full armor.
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She'll take the tiniest, most savage amount of pleasure from the sound of the breath abruptly leaving Ellie's lungs, thanks.
"You good?" She's asked before Ellie has managed to pull herself up completely, a kind of false concern; she's making no effort to reach up and give Ellie's dangling foot one final shove the rest of the way. Abby knows she doesn't have anything to worry about, that Ellie's as good as a spider when it comes to crawling around and clinging on. She's up moments later, grumbling inaudibly, and Abby doesn't bother to hide her smirk.
She has to give herself a jump start, catching Ellie's hand firmly, and scrambling for a foothold. She's got a firm grip, that isn't the problem. It's the armor that's going to fuck them in the end, but all Abby needs is her other hand to make it to the ledge and she can probably hoist herself the rest of the way–
"Fuck," she strains, and finally catches hold with Ellie's help, pushing up. It fucking hurts. Her shoulder has instantly decided to remind her she was stabbed in it only a month ago.
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For a moment she thinks she's going to drop her, but then she grits her teeth and bears down, pulling -- and before she can think about it too hard she reaches out, grabs hold of Abby's backpack with her maimed hand, and helps to haul her over the ledge.
She can see her wincing, favoring her shoulder, and Ellie has... some mixed feelings about that.
"You ever get that looked at?" she asks, gesturing to the covered wound. Astarion had mentioned patching her up, and Glimmer had mentioned helping her find a potion, but... she's not sure if anyone actually looked at it.
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Ellie is watching her. Abby feels self-conscious of her hurts and turns, only to stumble back haphazardly from the edge when she realises with an unpleasant shock exactly how far up they've already come.
She can play it off as the ache, she thinks, and holds her breath to keep it from coming rapidly for a moment.
Ellie's question both confuses and irritates her.
"It's fine." Why does she care, exactly. That play at actual concern is infuriating to her, "I'm good. Let's go."
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Instead she gives her head a small shake and continues on, leading the way up the path. They're not too far from the highest point they'll have to head over.
Ellie crests the top ridge first, then pauses there, gesturing down at the rocky cove below.
"Kinda steep here, but there's plenty of handholds. We can go down by the rocks," she points out -- there's path they can mostly take by foot, but there are places they'll have to shimmy or climb.
Thankfully there are plenty of trees and rocks to grab onto.
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The drop off to the cove presents an immediate distraction anyway.
It's beautiful, the view. So long as Abby is looking out to sea she isn't bothered by it and the crisp sea breeze is, once again, welcoming. She sucks down a few lungfuls, then realises where Ellie is pointing, following the gesture.
Down and off the side of the cliff.
Her stomach drops, and she lifts her head immediately with another, tiny lurch.
"Down there?" Oh, fuck. She can't do that, it's– down. No. "Isn't that dangerous?" There's a certain tightness to her voice, a worried note that wasn't there before.
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"Maybe for you," she says with a shrug. "If you fell in the water you'd probably drown."
On that cheerful note, though, she eases aside her cloak and takes out a coil of rope, a grapple, and an ascender, and clips them to her belt.
"But yeah, it's the only way down, unless we come back with a boat."
Sarcasm. That's sarcasm.
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She isn't in the mood, and more than that, Ellie's words scare her a little. That's exactly what would happen if she fell from this high up. What if she hit her head on the way down, or couldn't get out of her armor in time? She would drown.
Ellie is fussing with equipment, attaching loops of rope to her belt. Abby hears the click of a carabiner, and that makes her open her mouth abruptly.
"Then let's get a boat." It sounds pathetic, even to herself, but it didn't take long to get up here, did it?? It would take them even less time to go back, and then they could circle around, come at it that way, and they wouldn't have to go down and risk breaking their fucking necks. It's the safest option.
This is not sarcasm okay. It's real.
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Rolling her eyes, Ellie starts down the nonexistent path. It's steep, and she reaches out to grip onto the twisted, gnarled trees here and there to keep her balance, but she moves at a fairly good clip downhill, and she's not actually climbing yet.
"I've got ropes, if you're squeamish."
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Abby watches her go warily, but it's her pride that wins out, in the end.
"Wait," she calls, frustrated and unhappy, wringing her hands. She doesn't want Ellie to stray too far ahead of her. Just in case.
Think about the good parts to fear. She's trying, okay??
Abby takes a deep breath before she follows, watching pointedly for where Ellie sets her hands on the tree roots so she can copy the holds, testing each before she eases herself down in pursuit of her. It's nowhere near as bad as the sky bridges, not by a long shot. "Alright, Abby..." she mutters, and breathes through her nose. The adrenaline is a good thing. It's good that her heart is beating fast and hard, "You got this."
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It's... strange, to realize. Comes with a little bit of a detachment, a weird bit of squirming panic, because it makes her seem all the more human. Something real instead of a ghost, following her around. Ellie slows up, and without doing it consciously starts to pick out sturdier holds more likely to hold Abby's weight.
The sea wind whips around them, tossing the folds of Ellie's cloak around her legs, and she hitches it up over one arm to keep it out of the way and better see where she's putting her feet.
It doesn't occur to her to taunt Abby. Instead she slows down, keeps close to her as she would any other partner. It's habit and training. Going quiet in a tense situation and covering the person she's with. Making sure everyone gets out of this alive.
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One after the other, after the other, after the other.
Easy. True strength.
Her knuckles have gone white with how hard she's gripping every passing tree or root, but other than that she's handling it fine. Maybe it's not so bad? Maybe she really can do it. She wishes Lev were here to see. She'd make him give her a big round of applause for finishing up this last bit.
Because it is the last bit, right. After they clear this bit they're done...?
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Ellie's not terrible with heights, and they generally don't bother her when there's not electrified water all over the floor. But a climb like this one requires attention, so she shifts her focus to the next part of it.
They get to the end of the switchback, turn -- and there's a very small ledge here. For about ten feet they'll have to shuffle across the rocks on a ledge that's about the width of Ellie's boot, and the salt spray makes it slippery.
Ellie begins to cross, taking it a foot at a time. It won't take her long, but she has to be careful about where she puts her feet.
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"Oh my god."
And Ellie actually steps out onto it, like she expects her to follow. Abby's breathing pitches up, her chest heaving, and she trembles like a leaf when she presses tightly against the cliff face, resisting the urge to hide her face in against the stone.
"I can't do that!" She calls, her voice tight with distress. Even thinking about it is making her limbs feel weird and weightless and shivery, like her body is trying to float off the side of the drop, but– what else is she supposed to do? She can't go back up. She's stuck, her hands shaking around fistfuls of gnarled, old tree root.
Ellie's still going, inching her way carefully along the ledge. Is she going to leave her here?? A surge of panic makes Abby call out again, "Wait!", and take a tiny step forward, to the start of the ledge. It's not happening like this. If Ellie is going to do her dirty, fine, but she could at least have the common fucking decency to wait until they both have equal footing.
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"One second," she snaps, and pushes herself to safety on the other side, wrapping one hand around a twisted tree root, reassuringly sturdy.
She braces her feet, turning back to watch Abby shuffle across. She's bigger than Ellie, and the bulk of her armor redistributes her weight. It's more dangerous for her.
"C'mon, it's not that far. You've got it."
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She doesn't trust Ellie, nor does she want to prove this to her. Abby just wants to make it.
"True strength," she whispers, and forces herself forward. Even so, she's breathing like she's about to burst into tears, panic expanding like a balloon in her chest. Ellie's gaze holds, unwavering; judgemental? Abby can't tell. "Okay..."
Another small step. Fine so far. She's almost up to Ellie when her back foot slips on the wet rock and shoots downward into open air, forcing out a ragged gasp of fear. It's not enough to make her fall, she's holding on enough that she stays upright as she claws her way back up, but it's a close thing, and a wicked scare.
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It's not a choice, what she does when Abby slips. Not a conscious one. But her missing fingers scream with phantom pain as she reaches out, grasping hard at the shoulder of Abby's armor and leveraging her hold to press her back against the rock, keeping her steady.
She doesn't realize what she's done, not yet. But her voice is low and firm and she keeps her hand where it is.
"Just a few more feet."
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Feels like it lasts hours. In reality it's maybe two or three minutes all up, the time it takes to shuffle past the ledge and put her foot up onto a firmer, flatter spot with a sigh of relief. They're not all the way down to the cove but the ledge must be the worst of it.
Not her best day... And Ellie right there, to see it all.
"Are we there yet," she bites out, trying to layer sarcasm over fear. It falls very flat.
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She doesn't answer; her eyes burning holes in Abby's face.
Furious with her, suddenly. Not with her fear. Fear is human, but maybe it's the humanity that's the problem. Ellie takes a breath to relieve the pressure in her chest, and it doesn't work at all.
Her ears are ringing, her skin itches, and she's sure her face is flushed. She probably looks like a crazy person, but she doesn't fucking care.
"I'm not going to let you die here," she snaps, suddenly. It comes out before she can properly think about it. "Not after everything. If you bite it in Thedas it's not going to be because of a fucking cliff."
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