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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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.