faderift | (closed) These violent delights have violent ends

Entry tags:

abby,
ellie

(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

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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What is with people and making this shit look so easy.

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."

It probably should have been obvious before this moment, but Ellie realizes with a jolt that Abby's afraid. It was the second time she'd realized it, and the first time, Abby was afraid of her.

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.

The wind makes it harder than Abby feels it rightfully ought to be. Whenever it picks up, her stomach plummets, her breathing shivers out of her. A particularly strong gust even warrants a tiny whimper, an "Oh fuck," but hopefully Ellie isn't close enough to hear that. She's started hanging back, taking her time and slowing their pace as a result. Abby appreciates that silently, because all she has to do is watch the ground ahead, think about where her foot goes next, and then put it there.

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...?

Thankfully, Abby doesn't seem inclined to freak out and freeze up; or at least she isn't doing it now. She'll be fine if they can get down to where the caves her, and going up doesn't seem to bother her. It's down that's the problem.

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.

The moment she spots the ledge, her stomach plummets to her toes.

"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.

The way Abby calls out to her makes her heart leap into her throat; she's never heard her sound like that, and for a second her thoughts spin out of control. She splays her fingers against the stone, the phantom digits twinging, her cheek pressed against the slick rock.

"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."

In a really fucked up way it's almost exactly how Owen used to cajole her into moving, too. He didn't give her any room to complain and stamp her feet, he held his hands out and waited for her to take them, insisted she'd be fine. It was the same with Lev. Abby had wanted to show them she could do it, that she trusted when they told her so.

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.

Edited (hours later i reword) 2021-10-21 09:22 (UTC)

Ellie's fingers hurt, as she watches Abby, watching the real fear in her eyes. It feels like that moment in Lowtown, the look on her face while she was watching, waiting knowing that Ellie was invisible and sharp and wanted her to hurt. Like she was a force of nature, a reckoning as implacable as this cliff.

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."

"I can't," she whimpers, but she takes another step anyway. Ellie's hand is on her shoulder and gripping tight, holding her, but it feels oddly– flimsy, almost unbalanced, something she can't understand in the moment. Can't even realise it shouldn't be there at all. The ledge is too narrow, and having to look at her own feet the whole way is cruel. The vertigo is starting to make her feel dizzy.

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.

"You fucking can," Ellie snarls, and keeps her hold on Abby, her hand gripping down like iron. If she wasn't secure before, she is now. Instead of thinking about it, she keeps her hold until Abby has her feet back on solid ground, until she has a good handhold on one of the twisted trees, even if it spills sap on her fingers.

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."

She can't look at Ellie. Humiliation burns hot and unfair at the back of her throat; does she think that Abby wouldn't get on with it if she could? Even with her feet planted more firmly she's sweating, heart like a drum in her ears.

This is terrible. She doesn't want to be here, the last place that she wants to be is here, but there's no where else to go and Ellie isn't moving on. She's glaring, silent and hateful, and when she speaks Abby's attention jolts up toward her instead. What she says doesn't match the anger in her voice at all.

Abby stares. She's clinging to one of the trees, leaning her body into the cliff, and for a moment she must look young and unsure, uncertain in a way she's never been around Ellie.

She held onto her, until she was safe.

Realisation leaves a strange taste in Abby's mouth. Coppery, like blood.

"Okay." Her voice is steadier than she feels.

Ellie hates it. Hates the way she looks at her, vulnerable. Like she needs something. She remembers the dream, and the way they took the stairs together, down and down. The way she needed her in order to open the door or be drowned.

She hates that she did this, that she's doing this. That Abby is safe, more than once, more than twice, because of her. Safe, after what she did to Joel. What she did to Jesse.

Ellie's eyes sting as she abruptly pulls away, turning away from Abby to scrub a hand across her face, wipe her hair back where it's escaped the messy bun.

"Last stretch is a slide down to the beach. Just lean back if you don't want to go down on your face."

Ellie takes the grappling hook and with a hard swing of her arm, anchors it into the sturdy bark of one of the trees. The wood shows signs of her having done it before. Holding the rope, and feeding it out, she slides down- they can use the rope to get back up once they're done.

Abby swallows, watching her go.

After the ledge this should be easy, but of course it isn't. Not when she looks down and the sloped ground briefly falls away from the toes of her boots, stretching out in front of her. But Ellie has already slid out of sight; nobody is going to steady her this time if she accidentally pitches herself off the side of the rock face, so.

"Nearly there," she reminds herself, and grabs the rope. Giving it a good tug finds that it's acceptably sturdy. "This is the last bit. Come on." Don't lose it now, Abby. Standing up there and looking purposefully down is just like hoisting herself up to stand on the edge of an old, swinging gondola, and daring herself to jump.

She leans back, because she doesn't want to go down on her face. That means she has to see the entirety of the down bit so she does scream, but only once, and right at the start (it helps a little). And then she's down on the beach faster than she thought she'd be, spraying into sand, her eyes wide, cheeks flushed.

"... Did it," she mutters, and collapses briefly against the bank, bringing a hand to her chest.

Ohhhh, fuck. Thirty seconds, just a moment to recalibrate.

Ellie's standing at the bottom, her hands on her hips as Abby flops down onto the rocky beach. She gives her a look.

"You are such shit at stealth," she says, but they're down at the bottom at last, and in one piece. It's generally without heat- and Ellie feels guilty for that, too. Awkward and fucked up. Because if it weren't for their history, if she were some other Abby from another world, an Abby who hadn't crossed her path that winter...

Her anger has no place here, and without it to shield her, it just hurts.

"Are you afraid of spiders?"

"Have you seen me," she pants, also without heat. Her heartbeat is coming down. When she stands up, she shakes her limbs out, shrugging it off. Okay. Not the best start, but they're not even there yet. She has time to make it up to Ellie, who has an absolutely unfathomable look on her face.

"Not afraid of spiders."

A moment, an awkward breath. "I– should have said something. About..." She gestures at the cliff, and can't quite look Ellie in the eye when she mutters, "Sorry."

Ellie snorts aloud, in a way that could be derisive, and could be a laugh. It's hard to tell. But when Abby properly answers her, she shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other, crossing her arms across her chest, almost protectively.

There's a lump in her throat, all that impotent feeling sitting there like acid, burning through the back of her tongue.

Sorry.

For a second she hates her so much she wants to swing at her, and her missing fingers throb in time with her heartbeat. She squeezes them into a fist so hard she expects that she'll start them bleeding, even though they're long healed. She does this until the horrible feeling passes.

It leaves her feeling empty and small.

The wind flutters her cloak, slaps it against her legs, and Ellie makes herself release the pressure.

"Anything else I should know?"

There's an ugly pause, during which Abby feels like she could snap at her if she could be bothered. Frustration licks like a flame in her chest, so quick to ignite; angry's the only thing she's good at being, but Ellie is folded up tight across from her, waiting for the spark.

Abby holds everything tight inside of her. She lets it curdle instead. Sure, she'll feel sick and unhappy for the rest of the day but there's nothing she can do about that. Just like there's nothing she can do about her fucking vertigo.

Breathe. Let it go. Do your goddamn job.

She inhales through her nose, and hikes her pack up on her shoulder.

"No."

A brief glance at her, how rigidly she's holding herself– she catches the fist balled up against her arm, the two fingers missing from it, and Ellie's thumb pressing hard against what remains.

"... Let's keep going."

"Okay."

Ellie's voice is quiet, too tight to contain real heat. Inexplicably, she feels bad for rebuffing Abby's apology. Like she's snubbed some kind of olive branch, even if it feels like there's no way she could have accepted it.

"Fucking get it together," she hisses to herself under her breath, hopefully quiet enough under the sound of the waves. She leads on, heading into the mouth of the previously-hidden cave. A small squeaking noise echoes from within.

"Giant spiders and deepstalkers in here, mostly," Ellie says. "They're not crazy dangerous unless they swarm you, but try not to get pinned down." She pauses, then realizes that Abby would actually know what she's talking about.

"The deepstalkers act a lot like stalkers where we're from. They look like little lizardy things."

Look, after the whole cliff debacle Abby is more than ready for a fight. She is desperate to lose herself in a different kind of adrenaline; she's thinking savagely of ripping a goddamn leg off one of the giant spiders, and bashing them all in with it. That will make her feel better.

"Right," she says evenly, lowering her voice to a hush. She can't stealth, but she can at least pretend that she can (although, glancing down as they enter the darkness, she notices the green light of her anchor is slightly visible, even through the glove she has over it. She holds it tight by her thigh, pressing to keep the faint glow from view).

"Are they as big as little... lizardy things? Or are they– Christ."

Something just darted past them in the half-shadow, she fucking saw it.

Ellie, meanwhile, has no such feelings about her anchor. They're not about to run into any people out here that'll care overmuch; they'll have plenty of other reasons to kill them if they find them.

So Ellie loosens her glove and pulls it back to inspect it.

"They're like the size of a dog. A little smaller-"

Something rushes by them, and Ellie pauses, her eyes narrowing, and she goes still.

"... is your anchor hurting you at all?" she asks, her voice level and careful.

"Little bit."

It's tender around the edges, but Abby chalked it up to being further away from the Gallows for a few hours. She understands that it hurts to stay away from other Rifters, but she doesn't understand the timing of it; sure, it seems odd, because she's with another Rifter, but it isn't bothering her. She's ignored it.

There's definitely something skirting around them in half-circles... Infected were never this coy.

She draws her sword, casually.

"Well, shit."

Ellie gives a soft sigh, masking the fear. The green light in the cave might not be entirely from their hands, and the thing skittering around in the darkness might be much, much more nasty than a spider.

"Might be a Rift nearby. They start stinging. You ever closed one?"

As she speaks, she draws out a knife; it fits nicely in her hand, dwarven make. It's the one she used to stab Abby. Her shoulders are tense despite the way she talks.

"The one I came through," she breathes, uncertainty colouring her tone. She did everything back then instinctively, it was as if the anchor took control. Hopefully that happens again, because Abby doesn't remember everything concretely, just the confusion and terror, and the bright hum of green energy all around her.

Something darts at her from the shadows to attack while she's distracted, but Abby automatically kicks out and sends it flying backwards with a high-pitched shriek. It doesn't come rushing in to try again, but she doubts she killed it.

"Right." She manages, still tense, "Lizardy things. I see what you mean."

The cove goes in deeper. When she steps forward, her anchor does sting. She might not have registered it otherwise. "Can two of us close a Rift?"

"Same."

There's movement in the shadows, and as the creature comes out of the dark, Ellie automatically closes the distance to guard Abby's flank, to keep her from being surrounded if there are more of them. It's how Stalkers hunt. One will charge, and the others will try to take a bite while you're busy fighting that one off.

It's not something that Ellie consciously realizes is from home.

The creature limps off into the darkness, yelping and growling, and something deeper in the cave gives a hoarse screech.

It was not a Deepstalker.

"Guess we'll find out."

A deep breath, and she heads in deeper, her hand out to let the shine of the anchor light their way. Something with too many legs pulls out of sight, skittering deeper into the darkness, and it gives the unsettling impression that the cave walls are moving.

She doesn't even notice Ellie flanking her it feels that natural. Not that it's her but that she moves to do it, covering her blind spots. Abby would do it for her in reverse. It's how you fight back home, and so far, it's how she fights here too.

"Great," she mutters, copying Ellie as she trudges deeper into the darkness. Two anchor lights are better than one.

Abby has a strange, reflexive need to reach back and check that her gas mask is there even when she knows that it isn't. It seems odd to her that the air is so clear down here, albeit damp, almost wet, and stagnant. The rock is slick underneath of her feet as she follows. Condensation perhaps, or some source of water nearby.

Giant spiders, tiny lizards... she can handle those, Abby isn't worried. Not about those.

"Will there be demons?"

There was last time. One big one that Abby couldn't kill by herself.

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