[closed] speaking of fights

[onlyhymns]

WHO: Merrick, Cade, and the people who arrive to clean up the remains
WHAT: Merrick has a score to settle. All over Cade's face.
WHEN: the night of the soiree
WHERE: Cade's room
NOTES: Warning for ... I mean it's probably gonna be mostly violence.

It's been an hour or so since Cade first arrived back in his cell-like room and slammed the door behind him, then proceeded to drop to the floor and hyperventilate for a while. Hadrian, the Tranquil currently keeping watch, predictably didn't care, and let him work it out for himself.
Exhausted by his entire life, Cade settled down for the night, and rather than try to sleep with his thoughts spinning as they are, he has taken to using the light from Hadrian's candle to read a book of his own.

Comments

[onlyhymns]

Cade is lying on his stomach with the book laid in front of him, chin resting on his palm, his eyelids beginning to droop as the day's exhaustion starts to catch up with him.

It's not that he hears something, because he doesn't. But he feels it, feels that there's someone watching him, a sense far more refined in him than it would be in most people as a result of how cripplingly shy he is. He angles his head and turns over to look curiously at the Tranquil, who is still busy with his own book, and then Cade's paranoia is validated when an elf falls on him.

He barely has time to react before Merrick's hands close around his throat, and he's in the process of lashing out to push him off when the much smaller person kicks him straight in the stomach.
He lands hard on the floor, all of his instincts screaming for him to wrest the elf down and crush him, bash his head in, kill him before he can do any killing; but somewhere deep in the back of Cade's mind, a small voice reminds him that this would end catastrophically for himself.

In the meantime, he just scrabbles against the stone floor to get up and out of such a vulnerable position.

At some point in the madness, Hadrian took off. He is on his way down the hall, hurrying back to the ballroom to find Nerva.

[dalishious]

Merrick closes in, throwing another kick at Cade and pressing him down with a heel in his back. His hands go to the templar's arm, yanking it up and back, twisting it hard.

[onlyhymns]

Even if Cade does fly into berserker mode periodically, he always has a sword. He's never brawled before, and this is unfamiliar territory, though he does make an effort to grab at one of Merrick's feet in an attempt to pull him down. This results in another kick and the wrenching of his arm, a frantic and anguished expulsion of breath as his other hand continues to grasp for purchase.

[dalishious]

The movements have been practiced thus far, methodical, but Merrick is rapidly losing control. He plants his foot on Cade's back, putting his whole weight on it--which isn't much; Cade absolutely has the size and strength advantage here--and twists the arm just so, in anticipation of the pop of a dislocated shoulder.

[onlyhymns]

When his shoulder gives in to Merrick's attempt, Cade makes a sound like a kicked dog, a yelp of unfamiliar agony. He's certainly been injured before, but never with quite so much... deliberation. A calculated effort, not the heat of combat.
Suddenly giving way to the frenzy he's been trying to hold back, he reaches behind him with the uninjured arm to grasp the elf's ankle. He wrenches his grip outward and away from himself, intending to catch Merrick off-balance long enough to get up and gain the upper hand. Never mind that his right arm is now almost entirely useless; that sort of thing usually doesn't stop him when he's fighting for his life.

[dalishious]

Merrick is easily overpowered and thrown to the ground. His back hits the stone floor and he winces before bending his knees with the intention of bouncing back up.

[onlyhymns]

Cade tries to take the opportunity to get up himself, but the pain in his shoulder verges on blinding and he's slower than he would normally be. He lurches toward Merrick, hoping to knock him down again, perhaps to pin him under his greater weight until he can figure out what to do. However, it's possible that the elf is too quick for him.

[dalishious]

Merrick arches his back, bends his knees and springs up, but before he can orient his spine Cade is lurching toward him. His drunkenness has him swaying, and Cade is able to tackle him back into the ground.

[onlyhymns]

Sometimes when Cade fights, he's in a rage or just letting go of his mind entirely, a brainless human-sized golem made for fighting. There's no relish in it, no passion, very little expression or emotion at all.
But tonight there is, even if it's just animalistic fear. Despite the pain and desperation and the suddenness of the situation, there is a cognizance in his eyes, and he seems as afraid of his own actions as anything Merrick would do.

He'll be executed. Or worse, jailed forever, forced to live with what he's made his life.

It's because of this that he is just barely able to hold himself back, and though he does his best to pin the elf, he's too aware of himself to hold him very well. With a knee pressed in just under Merrick's ribcage and the good hand on his chest, Cade looks imploringly at the door, hoping nobody walks through it to find them.

[dalishious]

The hold is weak; Merrick has fought worse during training. Cade has weight against him, but most of his opponents do, and he knows how to handle it. He hits Cade in the crook of his elbow to weaken his hold then grabs his arm and twists.

[onlyhymns]

A quick intake of breath signals Cade's surprise and pain at the sudden maneuver, and though Merrick gives his arm a good wrench, Cade manages to jerk it away before it can be fully debilitated. In a last-ditch effort to hang onto his senses, he looks toward the doorway again, and realizes he has to get out of here. Not just the room-- he has to get out of Skyhold, and the Frostbacks, and... everywhere.
Of course, he just has to... deal with the person he's holding down first.

His hand is shaking when it returns to snatch up a handful of Merrick's hair and slam his head down against the stone floor, perhaps harder than he should, at least with the intent to disable rather than kill; and then he makes a clumsy attempt to bolt, hindered somewhat by his total inability to use his right arm for the balance and strength needed to get himself off the floor while trying not to step on or be killed by a homicidal elf.

[dalishious]

The blow to his head is bad. Merrick had already felt a migraine growing, tasted it in his mouth just as he'd been waking up that morning. It had been sitting in the back of his skull all day, but he'd been determined to go to the ball, to be with people, to try to relax and be happy and be normal for just one night-- and now, his skull is like an iron maiden clamped shut around his brain.

He reels, his vision whiting out, and is only dimly aware of Cade's body lifting off of his. Arching his spine, he catches the human around the hips with his legs, using his lower body strength to bring him back down and roll them over.

Now straddling Cade's hips, he goes in with his first blow, a punishing cut to the jaw. He's past technique now.

[onlyhymns]

Cade's landing isn't terribly graceful, not that that could be expected. He goes down like a sack of bricks, one hand clawing futilely at the door-- just enough to bat it almost closed instead of grabbing onto it-- and only stopping when Merrick's fist hits his face.
In all his years of combat, Cade has actually never been just... slugged in the face before. Even in spars it's been accidental or pulled, so this is as shocking as it is painful. It takes him a moment to react, in the form of trying to push Merrick off him with his good arm.

[dalishious]

There's a tinny noise in Merrick's head, signaling the start of a rapid downward spiral. With each hit he descends, tier after tier after tier, until the last vestiges of control are peeled away.

He's momentarily shoved aside, but rights himself quickly and punches Cade again. Visions of Beleth's bruised and beaten face tear across his mind. Her nose had been broken-- Cade's nose should be broken too. He pounds his fist into it ruthlessly.

There is no technique, no finesse anymore. There's just hit after hit after hit as Merrick tries to get the human underneath him to bleed as much as possible.

[onlyhymns]

Quickly seeing the futility in trying to either shove Merrick off him or struggle out from under him, and too shocked to do much else, Cade resorts to shielding his face with his one mobile arm, with limited results. Each subsequent blow disorients him further, until his plan of action is reduced to lying there waiting for it to stop.