Bastien's nod is barely a nod. A twitch of the chin.
He has not said, I haven't done this in a while. Killed someone. He could be more specific: I haven't done this in ten years. Nearly. Ten years next month. He'd been pleased about that. Counting down.
"I'll go around," he says, clarifying his barely-audible whisper with a semi-circular gesture and point toward cover at another angle. "Can you—"
He tenses. Makes his hands tremble. A pantomime of electric shock. Something to keep the mage from being able to cast for a window of time, ideally not so loud and flashy that it will alert the others before they're ready to deal with them.
There are some things she could do, yes. But Bastien is not a mage and despite everything, Derrica still flinches from the idea of risking his judgment and fear should she try one of the more esoteric skills she was raised to utilize.
So: electricity it is.
“We should wait till he puts feet into the water,” Derrica says softly. “It’ll be better if I have that conduit.”
In another situation Bastien would hesitate—the more honest response. Some trepidation, but he would also want to know what it was first. How it worked. Constant curiosity blended with the way understanding anything makes it less intimidating.
But his head is clear of anything unhelpful, including trepidation and curiosity. He can feel both later. Right now it’s a math equation. Is A more dangerous than B? The answer is obvious, so his nod is immediate, his sideways glance grateful and smiling and brief.
He watches the Vint push river rocks around with his boot while he crouch-crawls a single pace back from Derrica, in case she needs more space.
All her anxiety in this moment must be misplaced. Derrica should be more worried about that mage. Maybe she should also be worried about what they plan to do to him. She is very worried about Bastien getting so close to him, and though there is still time to change that, she knows she can make a better distraction than she could dueling a mage stronger than she is.
There is very little to mark a glyph on him. What she settles on is drawing out her waterskin to dump liquid into the dirt, work it into mud.
"This first," Derrica says, very calm as she lifts two fingers of mud to the sleeve of his jacket to paint a symbol into the fabric. "And then a barrier. Just in case."
It's a good jacket, sturdy, well-maintained, and made to last. But it's not a delicate or ornate one. Mud will come out. Unless mud that is imbued with magic is impossible to wash out, or it will leave a scorch mark behind, or—
Questions for later.
For now the only question is, "Do I need to do anything for it to work?"
“No,” she answers, brisk as her fingers grind the angles and loops of the glyph into the fabric. “It’ll activate on its own, if you’re hurt.”
In which the word hurt is doing some heavy lifting. Hurt in a way that can’t be walked off.
To be specific about it seems to invite the possibility closer, so she doesn’t. Just puts her palm over the gritty symbol and exhales, eyes closing, as she stretches far past herself, past the glittering Veil, to invoke and draw close the attention of something beyond. It flows into her body and down her arm and into the smears of mud. The glow of activation lingers when her pal lifts, smolders for a few beats and then fades, thankfully, to nothingness.
“I’ll cast a barrier for you after you’re in place. So the light doesn’t give us away.”
A trust exercise upon a trust exercise. It’s too late to start fretting about offering Bastien this boon. They’re doing something dangerous and it’s her job to keep him alive. Holding back something that might help him survive the task they’ve come to accomplish would be reprehensible.
For all his calm gratitude, Bastien holds his breath, when the glowing begins. It's not a dramatic hold. No gulp of air, no sigh or gasp when he releases it. Only a few moments of perfect stillness.
After, he nods again. The same chin-twitch as before, and he's on the move, low and quiet. These aren't a bard's usual hunting grounds, brush and dirt and earthy debris. A twig snaps under one of his feet. But it isn't a big twig, and the Vint, this far from him and this close to the water as it rushes over and around the rocks, can't hear it.
This is mathematics, too. If he tries and fails, Derrica can still try after him, at range. If she tried first and failed, there'd be no getting closer.
He stops behind a sizable rock. A rock, not one of the shrubby trees, because a rock he can go directly over. He can still see Derrica at this angle, but the mage shouldn't be to be able to do anything to both of them at once.
A part of the equation Derrica is thinking about: if Bastien tries and fails, he might be killed.
But what is the use of saying so? He is gone regardless, and there is nothing to do but exactly as they'd planned.
In the dark, she has some minor sense of where he's gone. Can see directly if she cranes her neck, but she isn't meant to be looking at Bastien. There is an order of operations here, for them to succeed.
A lightening bolt to begin. Derrica draws that crackle to her, lets it spike and shake beneath her skin. All she needs are boots in the water and inevitably, seemingly taking ages to oblige them, their target does take that step forward. Derrica watches him wade in up to his ankles, peering down. Maybe looking for dinner. It doesn't matter.
She releases a breath. She lets go of the lightening. Across the water, there is the muted sound of impact, a flash of purple light. Then, the scent of something scorched that tells her she hit her target. The complete absence of sound tells her that the electricity did it's work well.
Briefly illuminated brighter by the flash of her bolt, Bastien is over the rock, hand planted on its surface to push forward into a run. He's not as fast as he once was, but he's still faster than he looks like he should be. With soft shoes on a manmade surface he would be quiet, too. Here he's not. Rocks shift and crunch and fly back behind his feet. He trusts Derrica to hit a moving target, if she deems a barrier necessary.
It's only a short distance. The Vint, visible in the moonlight, hasn't fallen to the ground. That would be convenient, if he were fried, if there was nothing left to do—but he's wavering on his feet, hands at his side, looking nowhere, stunned in more than one sense of the word. It should be simple. Bastien has his dagger in one hand. The spot he would normally choose on the Vint's back is blocked by his staff, so it will need to be somewhere else, his throat, and does he have a family? Is someone waiting? Does he understand what he's part of?
Bastien doesn't slow down, but in the span of a second the world loses some of its clarity. The straight lines tilt and the easy calculations complicate. His toes catch on a rock instead of sailing over it, and between the noise and his second-losing stumble to keep on his feet, the Vint begins to turn, still slow and bewildered.
The practiced, dancelike sweep of his dagger slices through one artery. Only one. Before the arc of his arm reaches carotid number two, he's being shoved back onto the bank by the Vint's instinctive, panicked burst of force.
The barrier is necessary. Bastien walks into it, a wash of cold not unlike stepping through a waterfall. The gleam of magic sticks, coats his body, sparking protectively as he moves towards his target.
There is a spray of blood, but—
Not enough.
Derrica’s gasp doesn’t carry. It’s only a moment of frozen shock before she forcibly wrenches her attention to their present predicament: that mage is upright, but he hasn’t shouted.
Abandoning her position, Derrica moves briskly out from behind cover. It’s instinct to get close, but she can’t wait. In that span of time, he might break Bastien’s neck.
She stretches one hand upward, fingers open to the sky. The focus on her stave smolders to life. She closes her fingers into a fist and yanks down another bolt, aiming to finish what they’ve started. Or at the least, hold him in place until Bastien regains his footing.
He goes rigid under the bolt. One of his knees bends before the other, a last conscious movement, the beginning of a step that he doesn't take because his heart stopped beating under that second round of electrocution, and he collapses into the river and rocks.
Bastien is close enough to be splashed. Still glowing, unharmed, halfway onto his feet. The magic that has killed the man is terrifying and the magic that cushioned his fall against the riverbank is the reason he is already standing, if not the reason he is alive. He doesn't look at Derrica yet. He steps close enough to the Tevinter to be sure, and he is. No need to feel for a pulse. His visible eye is open, flat in the moonlight, and so's his mouth. If he were inhaling he would be inhaling water. There's a splatter of dark on his tan face that Bastien first thinks is blood, before he realizes it's freckles.
He gets his arms under the body's, to drag it into the shadows, and then he looks up.
"Thank you," he says, still quiet. There was no cry of alarm, but sound carries oddly around water. "Sorry."
Apologize. What is there to apologize for? She couldn’t have done it any better.
“Let me help,” is pitched softly too, accompanied by a careful, hesitant stretch of her hand towards him.
He’s alright. Derrica has done this trick before. It’s why the barrier. There’s an order to it all, but Bastien has never seen it and Bastien is still—
Unknown to her. She had been able to predict Holden, but she cannot guess at Bastien’s reactions to her. (It hurts, thinking of Holden.) Anxiety curls in her chest, even as she slips her stave back over her shoulder. All is still quiet. They will have their pick of approach to the rest of this task, surely.
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sighs at myself, sighs at the passage of time
He has not said, I haven't done this in a while. Killed someone. He could be more specific: I haven't done this in ten years. Nearly. Ten years next month. He'd been pleased about that. Counting down.
"I'll go around," he says, clarifying his barely-audible whisper with a semi-circular gesture and point toward cover at another angle. "Can you—"
He tenses. Makes his hands tremble. A pantomime of electric shock. Something to keep the mage from being able to cast for a window of time, ideally not so loud and flashy that it will alert the others before they're ready to deal with them.
"Not me," he clarifies, as a feeble sort of joke.
time, a true scam
There are some things she could do, yes. But Bastien is not a mage and despite everything, Derrica still flinches from the idea of risking his judgment and fear should she try one of the more esoteric skills she was raised to utilize.
So: electricity it is.
“We should wait till he puts feet into the water,” Derrica says softly. “It’ll be better if I have that conduit.”
Her collarbone aches.
“I can cast something on you. For protection.”
no subject
But his head is clear of anything unhelpful, including trepidation and curiosity. He can feel both later. Right now it’s a math equation. Is A more dangerous than B? The answer is obvious, so his nod is immediate, his sideways glance grateful and smiling and brief.
He watches the Vint push river rocks around with his boot while he crouch-crawls a single pace back from Derrica, in case she needs more space.
no subject
There is very little to mark a glyph on him. What she settles on is drawing out her waterskin to dump liquid into the dirt, work it into mud.
"This first," Derrica says, very calm as she lifts two fingers of mud to the sleeve of his jacket to paint a symbol into the fabric. "And then a barrier. Just in case."
Minor apologies, if this is a good jacket.
no subject
Questions for later.
For now the only question is, "Do I need to do anything for it to work?"
no subject
In which the word hurt is doing some heavy lifting. Hurt in a way that can’t be walked off.
To be specific about it seems to invite the possibility closer, so she doesn’t. Just puts her palm over the gritty symbol and exhales, eyes closing, as she stretches far past herself, past the glittering Veil, to invoke and draw close the attention of something beyond. It flows into her body and down her arm and into the smears of mud. The glow of activation lingers when her pal lifts, smolders for a few beats and then fades, thankfully, to nothingness.
“I’ll cast a barrier for you after you’re in place. So the light doesn’t give us away.”
A trust exercise upon a trust exercise. It’s too late to start fretting about offering Bastien this boon. They’re doing something dangerous and it’s her job to keep him alive. Holding back something that might help him survive the task they’ve come to accomplish would be reprehensible.
no subject
After, he nods again. The same chin-twitch as before, and he's on the move, low and quiet. These aren't a bard's usual hunting grounds, brush and dirt and earthy debris. A twig snaps under one of his feet. But it isn't a big twig, and the Vint, this far from him and this close to the water as it rushes over and around the rocks, can't hear it.
This is mathematics, too. If he tries and fails, Derrica can still try after him, at range. If she tried first and failed, there'd be no getting closer.
He stops behind a sizable rock. A rock, not one of the shrubby trees, because a rock he can go directly over. He can still see Derrica at this angle, but the mage shouldn't be to be able to do anything to both of them at once.
Feet in the water, Derrica said.
no subject
But what is the use of saying so? He is gone regardless, and there is nothing to do but exactly as they'd planned.
In the dark, she has some minor sense of where he's gone. Can see directly if she cranes her neck, but she isn't meant to be looking at Bastien. There is an order of operations here, for them to succeed.
A lightening bolt to begin. Derrica draws that crackle to her, lets it spike and shake beneath her skin. All she needs are boots in the water and inevitably, seemingly taking ages to oblige them, their target does take that step forward. Derrica watches him wade in up to his ankles, peering down. Maybe looking for dinner. It doesn't matter.
She releases a breath. She lets go of the lightening. Across the water, there is the muted sound of impact, a flash of purple light. Then, the scent of something scorched that tells her she hit her target. The complete absence of sound tells her that the electricity did it's work well.
no subject
It's only a short distance. The Vint, visible in the moonlight, hasn't fallen to the ground. That would be convenient, if he were fried, if there was nothing left to do—but he's wavering on his feet, hands at his side, looking nowhere, stunned in more than one sense of the word. It should be simple. Bastien has his dagger in one hand. The spot he would normally choose on the Vint's back is blocked by his staff, so it will need to be somewhere else, his throat, and does he have a family? Is someone waiting? Does he understand what he's part of?
Bastien doesn't slow down, but in the span of a second the world loses some of its clarity. The straight lines tilt and the easy calculations complicate. His toes catch on a rock instead of sailing over it, and between the noise and his second-losing stumble to keep on his feet, the Vint begins to turn, still slow and bewildered.
The practiced, dancelike sweep of his dagger slices through one artery. Only one. Before the arc of his arm reaches carotid number two, he's being shoved back onto the bank by the Vint's instinctive, panicked burst of force.
no subject
There is a spray of blood, but—
Not enough.
Derrica’s gasp doesn’t carry. It’s only a moment of frozen shock before she forcibly wrenches her attention to their present predicament: that mage is upright, but he hasn’t shouted.
Abandoning her position, Derrica moves briskly out from behind cover. It’s instinct to get close, but she can’t wait. In that span of time, he might break Bastien’s neck.
She stretches one hand upward, fingers open to the sky. The focus on her stave smolders to life. She closes her fingers into a fist and yanks down another bolt, aiming to finish what they’ve started. Or at the least, hold him in place until Bastien regains his footing.
no subject
Bastien is close enough to be splashed. Still glowing, unharmed, halfway onto his feet. The magic that has killed the man is terrifying and the magic that cushioned his fall against the riverbank is the reason he is already standing, if not the reason he is alive. He doesn't look at Derrica yet. He steps close enough to the Tevinter to be sure, and he is. No need to feel for a pulse. His visible eye is open, flat in the moonlight, and so's his mouth. If he were inhaling he would be inhaling water. There's a splatter of dark on his tan face that Bastien first thinks is blood, before he realizes it's freckles.
He gets his arms under the body's, to drag it into the shadows, and then he looks up.
"Thank you," he says, still quiet. There was no cry of alarm, but sound carries oddly around water. "Sorry."
no subject
Apologize. What is there to apologize for? She couldn’t have done it any better.
“Let me help,” is pitched softly too, accompanied by a careful, hesitant stretch of her hand towards him.
He’s alright. Derrica has done this trick before. It’s why the barrier. There’s an order to it all, but Bastien has never seen it and Bastien is still—
Unknown to her. She had been able to predict Holden, but she cannot guess at Bastien’s reactions to her. (It hurts, thinking of Holden.) Anxiety curls in her chest, even as she slips her stave back over her shoulder. All is still quiet. They will have their pick of approach to the rest of this task, surely.