"So, the... Deep Roads," the Bull had said, as the rickety little lift had creaked its way down. This missions's his first time out after the Dirthamen temple thing and it isn't like he thinks the same thing's going to happen - what they saw there, what they went through, that was something Dorian himself had never seen before, so it's not like that exact thing is going to be everywhere - but that fact was definitely a piece in the pile of crap weighing on him, one little strand of all the worries woven into the halting unease threaded through his voice. He hadn't been planning on asking, but standing there with nothing to do but wait for that slow, inevitable fall to finish and spit them out deep inside the ground, some of it had to come out. "Do you think there'll be tight spaces? Long hallways with- low ceilings?"
"Possibly, why?" the boss had asked, and he'd just shrugged.
"Just hoping my horns fit," he'd said, because that was the only part of the truth he was going to come out and tell her. How he'd been with her for a hot minute back in Skyhold, getting all precious about which jobs he'd go out on at all, that's something that's been in the back of his mind ever since they set out; if he's going to deal with the looming - unlikely, definitely a really outside chance - possibility of losing himself again like he did back in that temple, then he's going to deal with this, too.
And that had been that. The Bull had been quiet, trying to pay more attention to the echoing sound of their footsteps than to the weight of all that earth over his head. But it's been too long now with nothing happening. No fights, no questions, nothing else to think about at all. After a while, the sound of footsteps stops really doing the job.
"So," he says again, his tone not exactly jumping for joy, but close enough to casual this time that it doesn't matter. "How do we feel about a game of I Spy?"
The Inquisitor was sure to outfit everyone with new armor for this outing – something that covered them up entirely, with sturdy materials meant to withstand physical assault. Hardly fashionable, Dorian had noted.
The darkspawn are a problem, you see. Their blood carries the taint, can kill a man within a few hours or leave them fading and fading and fading for several days, wishing for death. Dorian saw it first hand, when Felix was at his worst, and while his and Alexius' combined efforts bought Felix months, then years of extra time, it was never enough. Felix had accepted his fate and suffered his sickness with aplomb – something Dorian doubts he would have been able to manage, were their roles switched – but he did suffer. There were no doubts about that.
So back at Skyhold, when the Inquisitor had asked him to come along on this mission, she had him with new armor and a face covering meant to protect him from accidentally ingesting darkspawn blood – sturdy cloth treated to be water-resistant. Dorian accepted it all without complaint.
He covers up his uneasiness with sarcastic jokes, facetious comments. He complains about the slowness of the lift, wonders aloud how it is that they never face normal-sized spiders, and worries about tripping over a stone and spraining his ankle.
Evelyn laughs, of course, but Dorian doubts he's making a very good impression on their guides, Shaper Valta and Lieutenant Renn.
The Inquisitor, Cassandra, and the two dwarves have taken the lead, wandering ahead and discussing the history of the Deep Roads and the Legion of the Dead. They're speaking about something called a "Titan," and Dorian had paid only a little bit of attention to their conversation earlier, though he knows he should probably have more to say on the topic. Instead, he's fallen behind, walking in step with the Iron Bull.
He nearly jumps in surprise when the Bull suddenly breaks the silence, but he has mind enough to let out a laugh at the man's suggestion.
"'I Spy'? Really?" His tone is bright – almost aggressively so. All this darkness, all the threat of darkspawn and earthquakes, has left everyone slightly out of sorts. "Is there even anything to 'spy' down here, aside from stone, stone, and more stone?"
"I don't know," says the Bull, voice a little muffled against the thick cloth. "Think I see a rock too. Maybe even a protuberance over there. Might be a little advanced, if you've never played it hardcore before."
"My word," he says dryly, "you're right. We're completely spoiled for choices."
The Inquisitor has jogged ahead, the dwarves and Cassandra not too far behind. Evidently they're hunting strange gears made of foreign metals – Dorian hasn't been paying them much attention. He probably should, he realizes a little guiltily.
But he and the Iron Bull are something like kindred spirits, in this case. Evelyn seems in decent mood, though understandably wary, and Cassandra is— well. Cassandra, and thus, she's fine. He's not entirely sure why the Bull seems so uncomfortable, but he's exuding a vaguely anxious air, nevertheless. And meanwhile, a portion of Dorian's mind is currently dedicating itself to imagining them being overrun by darkspawn. If pressed, would he be able to remember the tinctures and tonics he and Alexius created to keep Felix alive? Would he be able to acquire the necessary ingredients in time to give any of them more time?
"All right, I'll humor you." He waves a hand imperiously. "And I'll allow you to start off, besides."
The Bull grunts and looks around. He doesn't expect to find anything - the plan's to just keep listing off synonyms for rock until Dorian loses his patience with him, but even the gesture of looking around like he's actually spotting something makes him feel uneasy. It's this armour. The boss did good, whoever designed it did as good a job as they could with the visibility, but when what you need to do is keep a bunch of tainted blood out of your eyes visibility is going to take a little hit. The Bull had said that that was fine. He'd said the way he fights, he can just wade in and start hitting anyway, and that doesn't need him to see well enough for detail work. Which is pretty much the truth.
He has to twist his neck even more than he's used to to see the same thing. His narrow range of vision is a little narrower. Hasn't gotten used to that yet.
He stops looking around.
The conversation happening up ahead is too much, though - what he should be helping the boss with up there has enough people on it that it doesn't need him that much, and the conversation happening along with it is too detailed, all history and the background of this place, for him to really focus on in the way he needs to. But he still needs something.
"Alright," the Bull mutters, trying to channel his urge to grumble into something that, in this context, might sound like a joke, as if he'll admit that Dorian was right but won't be happy about it. "So maybe there are just rocks. You got a better suggestion? I probably know more drinking games than you but that's not the kind of thing we're going to get a lot of use out of down here."
Dorian lets out a quiet, triumphant laugh – something that says I told you so, but without uttering the words aloud.
"Let's see," he says, a hand going to his chin. His gloved finger taps against the treated cloth covering his mouth. "Well, when I was a small boy on long trips, my parents would quiz me on our family tree, or have me name every Archon in chronological order. I doubt either of those would be very interesting for you."
Evidently Dorian's parents used long trips as opportunities to reinforce his education, rather than entertain him. He hums quietly, trying to think of the inoffensive games his nannies would play with him to keep him amused.
"There's twenty questions, I suppose. You think of something, and I ask yes or no questions to narrow down the possibilities. Or word association? I think of a word, and you offer the first word that comes to mind, then we keep trading words until one of us grows bored or we have to stop the game when someone says something entirely outlandish."
It's a little funny, a part of Dorian thinks as he's hurried to the healer's tent in the Legion of the Dead camp, how rescue and uncertainty somehow go hand in hand. The tainted blood is dried and only a little tacky by the time he's settled, his lips pressed firmly together and closest eye clamped shut. Lucky for Dorian, the Legion has a system for thoroughly cleaning off darkspawn blood.
Evelyn sits with him, babbling the entire time as the healer scrapes the darkspawn blood from Dorian's head and hair. She tells him how terrified she had been when Dorian and the Bull had fallen over the edge, how Cassandra had to talk her down from scrambling down the face of the cliff after them. At first, they had decided to find a safe place to prepare an encampment and hope against hope that the two of them would managed to find their way back up. Instead, all the noise drew her to the two of them. Convenient, Dorian supposes, that the wide, open spaces of the Deep Roads allowed the sound of his casting to carry throughout the caverns.
He'd be more appreciative if they hadn't nearly been mauled to death by darkspawn.
He moves as the healer directs, keeps as still as he can, silent and fuming and a little terrified the entire time. It's fitting, somehow, that he should survive that entire ordeal, only to be infected by the taint at the very last second. That's just his luck, he supposes. His mind races, going through the various spells and potions and powders that had and hadn't worked on Felix. Would Vivenne or Solas be willing to perform the work if Dorian became too ill for it?
("There are worse things than dying, Dorian," Felix had told him as they parted. The words echo coldly in his head.)
The healer scrapes off that last bit of blood, flicking it away with disgust. They nod, letting him know they've finished.
Unluckily for Dorian, there's no real way of knowing if he's been infected aside from waiting it out. To be safest, the healer tells them, Dorian should be isolated for a few days to see whether or not the infection takes.
"Chances are good that you're clean, though," they say, and Evelyn lets out a sigh of relief. Dorian, however, continues to create his mental checklist of ingredients he'll need.
The trip back is a chore, but Dorian is kept in a covered wagon of his own. He spends the first day dead to the world, exhausted from the ordeal in the Deep Roads, but after that, he spends the rest of his time with a quill and pieces of parchment, writing down what he recalls of his and Alexius' work. His original notes are lying in a pile in his study in Ventus, assuming his father hadn't decided to be rid of them, and only the Maker knows what became of Alexius' notes. For all Dorian knows, this may be the final written record of their research.
Evelyn, of course, visits him near religiously, and those spare moments are a small balm. Her first question is always, "How are you feeling?" And Dorian's first question is always, "How is the Bull?"
It's only when they arrive at Skyhold that Dorian starts feeling more at ease. The taint is an unpredictable thing, killing in a matter of hours or weeks with no apparent reason; he hasn't suffered much more than a bone-deep exhaustion, but that isn't much different than his usual returns to Skyhold. Still, Dorian goes straight to his room, waiting out several more days in seclusion. Aside from drinking himself into a stupor and slumming in seedy brothels, research has always been his favored outlet; Evelyn brings him his books and notes, and he returns to his work.
After a week of waiting in Skyhold, after one final meeting with a healer, Evelyn finally flushes Dorian out of his chambers. In the same breath, though, she tells him in no uncertain terms to stay out of the library. Dorian has been cooped up for far too long, she says, and Skyhold has suffered without his presence to grace it. She extracts a promise from him, and she runs off to a meeting with Josephine, leaving Dorian to his own devices.
He's not entirely sure why, but the first place he thinks to go is the training grounds. It's still early enough, he thinks; the Chargers would still be out there.
It's not one of the days when Vivienne has people carry a little table out here and put out little cups and tea and one chair just slightly bigger and sturdier than the other and has the Bull sit with her for a while. Krem probably wishes it was. He's not sure what part bothers Krem more - having to smooth things over with the Chargers when their training sessions start to go like this, or seeing the Bull snapping at his guys so much in the first place.
It isn't that bad. They all already know how to deal with him when his usual high standards and demands turn into something crabby and distracted. They all know how to weather it for a few days while their chief's mood levels out and they don't ask questions, except for Krem who asks with the looks he's been giving when he knows that the Bull sees.
So it's been more than a few days now. So he's been feeling the Iron Bull's friendly face slip at times he doesn't mean it to. He's benched till the healers give this useless shitting ankle the okay and the Chargers all know how that's a pain in the ass, the way that it wears on you. And he knows everything else that's wearing on him, the reasons all this is built up the way it is, and he's going to sit here and ride it out.
And he knows it's not just the Dorian thing that's built it up. Not on its own.
No- call it what it is. Not 'the Dorian thing'. The only way this works is if he doesn't hide from any of it. Having a good, close member of his team turn into a darkspawn for him, or get the blight and die, or whatever ends up happening, those details are pretty new but the losing people part isn't. He knows how that part works, and he can get through it. If he couldn't, couldn't handle losing just one guy, that would be a problem. He's thought about it, decided he isn't that bad yet. It isn't like there wasn't a whole lot of other crap weighing him down at the same time, what with the way it went down, the place his mind went when it did, and the leg and everything. When he sits back enough to think about it, it all mostly makes sense.
Knowing the forecast inside his head doesn't mean that he can tame the storm. It does tell him that he can wait it out. It tells him he's waited these storms out before and tells him he can do it again, nevermind the way his eye keeps focusing past his men and their footwork and their form onto the stairs, the ones Vivienne ordered him off climbing, chastising him for taking the risk. He hadn't bothered to ask how she'd already known he couldn't afford to walk more than down from his bed in the morning and up to it again at night, how even that had made the healer make a face back before his brace was all fixed up. Vivienne had let him stay there for a while, that was all that mattered.
Surprised the shit out of him the next day when she'd had that little table set up near the steps to the great hall, like she was demanding his company, like they both don't know that he puts that submissive part of himself out there for her on purpose, that she takes that bait only because she's decided to do it, like she gets a single thing out of bringing herself down here for hours at a time and making that evening a whole habit, the evening they'd just gotten back and Dorian was swept into more isolation while the Bull climbed all those stupid stairs and sat with her to leech off her unshaking certainty, her strength.
The latest makeshift cane jerks out of his hand and out of reach over onto the crate he should be sitting on and his brace slips on the same powdery snow Rocky's shoes just slipped over and the Bull catches himself against the wall, all his muscles tight and jaw clenched and fingers curled up to reach for his axe and he looks over into his blind spot and sees - who else - the one Charger they'd been missing. Rocky opens his mouth, and the Bull interrupts before he can explain. "Don't bother. I don't give a crap why you're not paying attention."
Rocky gives a couple slow nods, eyeing him, and turns to take his place near Krem. "Hey!" the Bull snaps, before Rocky can even take two steps. "Get back here."
Rocky stops, turns with his eyebrows raised. He opens his mouth and, on the look on the Bull's face, goes ahead and closes his mouth again.
The Bull jerks his head, gesturing with a horn away from the field. "The rest of us aren't a high enough priority to get you here on time, you don't get to get in their way. And go get some better shoes, for shit's sake, you put those on and try to fight on snow and the next thing you skid into's not going to be some damned cane. Get out of here."
Krem shouts for the rest of them to focus, forcing their attention away from Rocky and the Bull and the Bull looks away too, looking over the courtyard without really thinking about any part of it, straightening up slowly and carefully and trying not to really think about that either. He knows. He knows, and the Chargers know, and Rocky knows, and they're all just going to ride it out. Except Dorian, maybe. There's only so much riding it out that you can do when you're living on borrowed time.
Edited (was thinking of slightly better hooks for this) 2021-05-10 20:08 (UTC)
Evelyn had reassured him the Bull was healing, of course, that the man was mostly intact. The injuries the Bull sustained after the fall would take some time to heal, which meant allowing the Bull to rest and recuperate in Skyhold. Somehow, though, Dorian had the feeling that "rest and recuperate" for the Bull didn't mean lying supine in bed with his leg propped up, staying off his feet as much as necessary.
And sure enough, there are the Chargers practicing on the training grounds, going through forms or sparring or wrestling in the mud or whatever it is they do – and there stands the Bull.
Stubborn oaf of a man, Dorian thinks; he doesn't realize how fond the words sound in his own head. Damned fool. It hasn't been that long since they all returned from the Storm Coast. Dorian may not consider himself a healer – he lacked the appropriate temperament for it – but he's almost certain the Bull ought to be sitting.
The Bull seems to scan the courtyard without seeing him, which is likely just as well – Dorian has to force the look of disapproval from his face with a slow breath; instead, he schools his expression into something lightly amused. To one side, Rocky storms past him – too distracted to notice Dorian's presence, as well. Odd, Dorian thinks, though perhaps not too odd; the two of them were mere acquaintances at best, and Rocky certainly seemed agitated enough to not notice a bear until it was mere inches from him.
Dorian approaches the Chargers, sweeping over the scene. The Chargers are busy with their training, of course, and the Bull is standing to one side, apparently ignoring the presence of the crate and cane sitting blithely to one side. He wonders, briefly, if he's merely imagining the strange tension in the air.
The Bull must certainly be distracted, Dorian thinks as he scoops up the cane from its place atop the crate. He tests its weight in both hands.
"Rocky seems in quite a state," Dorian says, in lieu of a more conventional greeting.
"Yeah," the Bull murmurs, sounding distracted. For all the time he's already had to take in the fact that it's Dorian walking up to him and what that might mean, it's distracting just looking at him and his eye moves over Dorian quickly, looking for the slightest thing that might be off. Or for signs that Dorian's healthy, but it's weird to think about it that way after so long of - he realises now, feeling himself trying to break out of it - expecting to hear anything about Dorian except good news.
"If he's really pissed off Krem'll let him bitch about me later, I'll buy him a couple drinks, he'll get over it. Hey, so." He shouldn't have to ask, it should be clear already, but something in him needs to hear it. "They finally let you back into the world, huh?"
Not, he guesses, that he's not going to chicken out of asking Dorian so are you going to die or not outright. He got close enough. Sometimes with Dorian you don't have to ask outright, you just have to ask a little and let him keep talking and he'll get there himself and it's weird to think that, like Dorian's going to be around long enough that the Bull's going to have to remember techniques for dealing with him. It feels like opening up a locked box you already tucked away in the dark before it's even had time to start getting dusty. This isn't like a teammate getting bed-bound for a while or even going into surgery, it sits in his head different, and he can't take his gaze off Dorian.
He can. He could. But Dorian is in front of him and the last time the Bull saw him Dorian was a number, the latest of many, a calculation about how much the boss might slip when she started grieving and here he is, whole and alive in front of him, he doesn't need to look away just yet. He wants to see the look on Dorian's face when Dorian answers, one way or the other, and it's okay if that's more than a little obvious.
Dorian lets out a quiet hum of acknowledgment, resting the base of the cane on the ground, piercing through the thin layer of snow.
"In all fairness to the Inquisitor, sequestering myself in my quarters was my idea." His tone of voice is light, conversational. "The Blight can be a fickle thing, you know. It's fully possible that one may not exhibit symptoms of the sickness for some time. Hours, for some. Days, for others. Better to isolate myself to be completely certain – and the lack of distractions allowed me to better focus on recreating my old notes from when Alexius and I treated Felix."
He holds the handle of the cane toward the Bull, looking a little pointedly at the Bull's brace. The brace, at least, is in a much better state than the last time Dorian saw the other man, though Dorian has some doubts as to whether or not the Bull has allowed his ankle to heal along with it.
"You ought to be sitting, you know."
Without waiting to see if the Bull takes the less than subtle hint, however, Dorian continues.
"Evelyn invited herself to this morning's meeting with the healer, and afterward, I was practically ordered to make my presence known throughout the keep," he says lightly. "Skyhold has been sorry, miserable place without my chiseled profile to brighten it, I've been told, and I have little reason to disbelieve it."
He pauses for a moment, lips pressed together and brow furrowing before he forces himself to brighten.
At length, he says, "The contact with the blood was brief, and it didn't find its way into any open wounds. Everyone seems rather confident that I should be fine."
"But not you," the Bull says, thoughtful, still not looking away. That's not the kind of definitive answer that would have been cause to celebrate, but it's weirdly easier to take. More in line with the way he had been thinking, takes less work to really take in. Not the good news he'd been trying to open himself to, not the bad news that's been sitting in his head since the whole thing happened. Still keeps Dorian in that same category, though. Dead man walking. Maybe, anyway. Maybe not.
The Bull grabs the cane and tilts his head, looking at the side of Dorian's face that the blood hit. The Bull hadn't even seen it. He'd seen the back of Dorian instead, arms spread out, and then saw him ushered away to the closest healer, and that had been it. He'd seen the blood the darkspawn left on the lift behind it, but he hadn't seen the blood that mattered.
He leans on the cane about as much as he trusts it to hold him, leans on his bad foot enough to take a step, doesn't hurry to put his weight on the other one instead but just lets his jaw tighten, lets his breath out slow, lets it hurt while he leans on that side just enough to study the part of Dorian's face that took the hit.
"With the angle, the blood probably sprayed you at..." He raises his right hand to trace a line in the air down from Dorian's temple to his jaw and the angle's awkward but he doesn't resist moving his hand closer, bumping the backs of his knuckles here and there like accidents against Dorian's skin. Most people outside Par Vollen are weird about touching, like you can't want it just to have it, like you want it cause you want to fuck. The Bull has a lot of fun with that, usually. Gives touching a new dimension, a new power it didn't always have back home. On any normal day, he'd like that just fine.
If the conversation works around to something a little less tense and on-edge - maybe some of that's him, he'll try to keep his eye on it - maybe he'll be able to get away with throwing an arm around Dorian's shoulder. "Hard to say, but it wouldn't be weird if it all missed your eyes, your nose, that whole area. You have a reason you're not as confident as everyone else, or are you just being cautious?"
Bull looks up at the noise, alert suddenly, a part of him thinking-
But no. No, of course it's just a deer. He should know better. He knows no one comes out to the woods any more. His own fault, probably. Now if he could just get it through his head that he's decided to stick around anyway, that this is just how things are until he's done, whatever 'done' ends up meaning, if he could just ignore that pull inside him making him so alert for anything that can think and speak and fill this heavy, empty thing inside of him-
The berries he'd been picking pop in his fist, red juice spilling over his hand. He grimaces, watching as it stains his skin, and rubs what isn't already drying there off onto his pants. Pants today, even if the fleshy tail sticking out over the low-slung waistband and the black, furred legs and hooves coming out from their cuffs all sort of ruin the look. Leaving the shoes back in his tent just helps remind him that there's not going to be anyone around to put that particular show on for, with the Chargers gone, and leaving the skirt in his tent with the shoes means he can dig around here looking for anything sort of almost fruit-like without worrying about stains. The pants are casual, approachable, so stains are fine; the skirt's for the kind of immediate distraction that might stop a stranger's fight or flight crap from kicking in, so he should probably try to keep that looking nice.
Not that that's going to be a problem, probably. Having to look good for anybody. Which is fine. It's only been, what, two months? A little more? One of those girls had needed a distraction, something good instead of thinking about everything she was about to leave behind, and he'd been happy to give it to her. That'd been early on, before all the rumours about the monster in the woods - a fiend, surely, waiting to hypnotize the good hardworking people of this town - started to fly around, and people decided they had a good reason to stay away. It's fine. The one round a couple months ago, with how well fed he'd been up until then - fine. Not really a big deal. He's held out longer than that.
Some of those rumours must be his fault, too, and not just because of that string of missing girls. The guards are part of it probably, their injuries, and he wonders if he should have just killed them, if hiding bodies would have kept people from getting as worked up as they did seeing their friends come back from patrol all bloody and, in a couple cases, a little gouged.
Too late to do anything about it now. They're already alive to tell the tale: a monster coming right into the town under the cover of night! Stealing women! Attacking the brave, well-trained, and totally alert watchmen before they could blink! It'd given him a chuckle, the first time one of the girls told him about it. It's always funny, hearing someone talk you up just because they don't want to look bad for getting their ass kicked.
Got a little less funny when some of his regulars stopped coming around, when the rest got a bad case of cold feet and started warning him off. But he probably should have known that it was going to happen.
So. Berries. He thinks fruit has something to do with it, and fermentation, and sure some of this is poisonous to humans but with none of them coming around, he's going to be the only one drinking it. He focuses, pushing through some bushes, grabs another couple berries - and stops again, looking up at the sky in time for the first heavy raindrops to hit him right in the empty eye socket.
"Come on," he growls, like there's anyone around to hear. "Really?" Another round of thunder rumbles across the sky and he takes a slow breath, lets it out. Even when that guy with the cottage at the outskirts of the town isn't giving him the cold shoulder, when staying out of the big storms that way was still an option, thunder's not his favourite thing. Makes it harder to hear anything, including threats. But the town isn't big enough to have the kind of actually trained soldiers who'd have a chance at taking him on, and he thinks they know that. Otherwise they'd have started sending parties out into the woods by now. He'll just go back to his tent, he'll wait it out, and it'll probably be fine.
The rain, the thunder...it would be hard enough for The Bull to hear a regular man coming through the forest-- though, really, most of a village's untrained soldiers make such a noise in what passes for their armor-- but what's coming now isn't a man. It's death perfected, on near-silent feet.
But he's not coming for The Bull's head, not immediately anyway. The village had put out a contract but Eskel had been unable to identify the monster based on witness description (and one hilariously crude drawing), piquing his curiosity. Not a lot of novel experiences in the world when you've lived for more than half a century. He'd gotten a general direction to move in from some people who clearly knew more than they were telling, but could not be pursuaded to say more. Sure, he could have Axii'd the truth out of them, but it always made him feel dirty. So he'd set out in an approximate course and did it the hard way: studying every little detail of the landscape.
So he's moving quietly enough, and his silver sword is drawn but it sits defensively in a relaxed grip. The "monster" that's been attacking the town clearly isn't some kind of ravening beast, or there would far more bodies. Whatever it was was snatching women, but they weren't turning up violated or eaten (or both), and the guards had been badly hurt but as far as Eskel can tell the beast didn't have truly murderous intentions.
He was reminded of a man his brother Geralt had met long ago: an avaricious nobleman turned into a lonesome beast who accidentally found himself fielding "sacrifices" of local maidens (who were fed, clothed, fucked silly if they asked nicely, and sent home with caskets of priceless treasure). Perhaps this monster had appetites beyond the merely digestive. Eskel was a little amused by the idea of coming upon the great horned beast and his harem of missing women having a marvelous time in some forest bacchanal.
Ugh, not that the weather was conducive to such things, he thinks, as far drops of rain start to run down the neck of his flashy jacket. By the time he follows the almost imperceptible trail of tracks, tree damage and little bits of unidentifiable fur, the thunder rattles in his very bones as he keeps all his sense on high alert as he steps out into a clearing where an immense shape is just slouching towards a sort of tent that must be where it lives. It's wearing clothes, which is always an encouraging sign that it might be a beast of reason.
Funny, he can almost identify the scent he catches on the wind, something in the fiend category...but not quite. It's weird that it's almost something he's intimately familiar with. But that doesn't make any sense, so he shakes it off.
"You must be the guy that's grabbing girls from the village." He says, by way of announcing himself. He doesn't sheathe his sword, but he keeps it relaxed at his side, the posture of his approach open and non-threatening.
"Shit," Bull says, a reflex on being surprised - with ears like his, it's not something he's used to - and then, "Shit," once he spins around and sees what exactly it is that snuck up on him, a reflex on realising that he's fucked.
Krem's going to be so pissed off, he finds himself thinking with this wrenching, heavy feeling he doesn't have time to try and put a name to. When he comes back and finds out that I'm dead.
His eye flickers over the witcher. His short outings with the Chargers taught him enough about swordplay to know the difference between a grip that's just holding a sword and a grip that's about to use it, so he has that. He has what passes for armour too, painted all in black angular shapes up over the grey of his arms and shoulders, his chest and his back - not that it's enough to do more than give him an edge in a normal fight, like it'll do him any good against the kind of shit a witcher's going to be packing. And it's not like the witcher's loose grip can't turn into something deadly in an instant. But Bull's counting his advantages here, and this is what he has. And he has fire, too - well, sort of, unless this damned rain lets up.
He has all that, then, and he has the talking. That talking could be a good sign, if Bull can figure out what's making the witcher want to chat in the first place and figure out how to use it. Lust would be a good sign too, if he could swing it - keep the guy talking long enough for this rain to finish plastering Bull's pants, thin, shapeless cloth things, down against his skin, and maybe he'll be able to tell if there's anything in this witcher he can work with. Bull doesn't do it for everyone, he knows, and there's only so much you can do with someone who looks at you without any kind of spark, but maybe, maybe-
That maybe is his best chance. Keep him talking. Learn what he can, build from there.
"And you must be a witcher. Didn't think they had enough reach to swing one of you guys. Mayor manage to get a message out to somewhere important, or you just happen to be passing by?"
Oh, good, he can talk. Eskel's feeling more ever more optimistic about this encounter.
"Passing through." He explains. "It's a light purse to be sure, but beggars can't be choosers." He says, candidly. "The Mayor's holding out on me and thinks he's so clever I won't know. And he thinks I'll bring their missing womenfolk back alive." He looks around the clearing. "Don't seem likely, but I figured that." He blinks slowly at Bull in the blue-gray premature dusk that the rain has wrought, his eyes glowing like those of a night-creature. "Never seen anything like you." He says. "And the fact that you're standing here talking to me's got me curious. And it's saving your neck, for the record: we're always careful with sentient species, so as long as you don't try anything stupid, I'm not gonna hurt you. What happened to the women from the village? They seem to think it's something to do with you."
"They're okay," Bull says warily, eyeing him. "Alive. But you know I'd tell you that either way."
So maybe the witcher thinks he'll get more money if he does find the girls alive, if he can talk Bull into telling him where they are. Not that the witcher seems too invested in that, but it's worth paying attention to in case it turns out more important to the guy than he wants to let on. There's the 'sentient species' angle, too - Bull's not sure he buys that one, though, too wary of the sliver of hope that he might live through the day after all to believe in it. It'd be a good trick, make the monster think it's going to die and then offer a little hope, enough light at the end of the tunnel to blind it into thinking honesty might be the way out.
Not that he's going to give those girls up either way. No witcher's got a reason to keep a monster alive, not really, and what happens to any human mercenaries who were - whatever they'd call it, 'morally corrupt' enough to work with one? It depends on the witcher, he guesses. Any witcher who found the Chargers out might just want to be bribed, or he might turn around and just kill them. Krem and the boys are good, but Bull's heard too much about witchers to risk it.
Buy time.
"Mayor's trying to stiff you on your fee though, huh? Don't let him give you that shit, guy's loaded. Got enough money to do anything he wants, especially in a tiny town like that. Whatever he said he'd pay you, he can afford more." A little love-package for the mayor, there - even if the witcher kills him, he might go back to town and give the guy shit about his fee afterward, so. Got to make your silver linings where you can get them.
The Bull lets a harsh breath out through his nose, gritting his teeth and angry at himself. He's been going over that last fight, because just keeping his eye out for more assholes in their way's automatic enough that it's not a great distraction from all the bullshit radiating up his leg and because he needs to, because by now you would think he'd know how to watch out for the damn ankle in a fight. Couple things he could have done differently but he's still trying to think through it, figure out if he'd be thinking differently without the ankle, the knee, the bones and joints and every inch of tendon and connective tissue in between taking up so much space inside his head. Pain is greedy, Vasaad had told him about a million years ago. But you show that worthless vashebas who the tough one is, don't give it an inch, and it's going to make you unstoppable.
Little harder to do once the battle's done and there's no one left to turn the river toward, no one to get caught up in the force of it but the inside of his own head. Something Vasaad never realised. Something Hissrad never realised either, not until he came out here with Vidathiss' words fresh in the back of his head, the glue holding him together not yet dried, and became the Iron Bull and started getting hurt again. Makes sense, though. The way Hissrad learned to fight is a weapon with two edges to it, and by now the Bull is used to dealing with that. Doesn't make it any more fun though, when the weapon's still here inside him wanting to be used but there's no one around to turn it on. No one to fight and only himself to blame, maybe, if you don't count the corpse. That Venatori got the hit in but the Bull is the one here now, and he's still got to decide how mad at himself he should actually be. Not making a whole lot of progress there, but it's something.
Another heavy breath, louder than he wants it to be, the feeling and the noise of it sharp and intense as he catches himself, jaw going even tighter at the second round of invisible teeth tearing inside his leg as his foot finishes dragging over the root and then thumps back onto the ground. He holds himself steady, still, in the instant before he's able to catch his balance and shift his weight back to his right foot again. Dent in the damn brace, he forgot, means he can't lift his foot like he's used to. Going to have to get it repaired next time he gets a chance, and in the mean time he's going to have to be smart enough to stop tripping over shitting roots. Doesn't mean he can't fight, any of it. Just makes everything more of a pain in the ass until then.
A couple of the soldiers who got sent on the team with him give him a glance -- concerned but clearly nervous, hasn't had enough time with these guys to get them used to the Iron Bull so if he jerks his head just so, wears the right expression when he does it, focus on doing your job, they're too scared of him to push it. He might feel like that's a problem later, the guys who should be trusting him to watch their backs so clearly afraid of him, but right now he's only glad. No point in wasting anyone's time or attention on something that's going to give him an edge in the next fight, help the team protect the guy who needs them to stay on their toes long enough to get him to that temple and out of it again. It's going to be a pain in the ass, but it's going to give him an edge. He knows how to use it. Has to, so he will. It's not the kind of injury that won't keep for a while and it isn't going to stop him, and so he keeps going.
Linhardt glances over his shoulder at The Iron Bull. One of the soldiers acting as his escort to the ancient ruins mentioned that the Qunari was in a foul mood and seemed to be favoring one of his ankles. An injury, most likely, but the looks Bull gives them when they consider saying something has kept their mouths shut.
A practiced healer's discerning eye picks up on the issue far easier than any of the others.
While Linhardt wasn't asked to act as a healer for the Inquisition when he joined, that hasn't stopped him from aiding the injured when possible. His primary task is to research and locate power ancient artifacts and help retrieve them before their enemies have the opportunity, but if his sorcery is better suited to caring for a patient than another healer's, he won't object to lending a hand.
For this particular journey, Linhardt happens to be the only skilled healer on hand. He's fully prepared to aid the soldiers protecting him should any sustain injuries while keeping him safe.
Bull, however... well, he doesn't seem too keen on asking for assistance. Linhardt doesn't know if he's one of those people who hate the idea of healing through magic, or if he's just plain stubborn. Ordinarily he wouldn't bother getting involved. But if the others are concerned enough to tell him, and it is fairly obvious there is an issue, he can't just continue on without doing something.
The others might find Bull's stares intimidating. Linhardt is used to glares and stubborn soldiers who think they know best about their health, so those looks don't phase him. He falls back until he's walking by the Qunari's side and tries his best to keep up with the bigger man's much longer stride. It's fortunate that he's gotten used to long treks lately, or he'd have been winded far too easily.
"Ah, Bull? It's almost sunset, and I want to see you privately after we make camp. Your injury will only worsen without proper attention." No, he isn't offering a suggestion. And while Linhardt isn't Bull's commander, when it comes to issues of health, he tends to speak with a certain authority. Few ever reject him when he makes these demands, if only because they're surprised he has it in him.
If he doesn't watch his expression at times like this, he ends up looking like he's glowering. He gets shit for the bitch face thing those times the Chargers are around to see it; weird to be sort of glad they're not around right now, that the mission needed to be a tiny one, and be missing them at the same time.
No reason to watch his expression now, anyway. Good way to get his point across.
"We keep going an hour or two after sunset and we'll find a spot closer to the ruin." His voice is brisk, little clipped, but businesslike still, as long as you don't have too strict a definition for the word. Just letting the guy know what the situation is. "Got to give it the once over bright and early so we can get you in there. That last bunch of assholes was too close, and they've got the numbers; going to catch us if we drag this out too long."
Not giving orders, not arguing about being hurt. Not arguing about anything. Just laying out the facts. Which is what he's trying for, because probably he should be patient with the guy. He knows how healers are. Singleminded. That's why they do the stuff they do, and he admires that, he does. Gets in the way of the bigger picture sometimes, though. If he's lucky, this one's going to see that. Hard to tell, since he hasn't talked to the guy that much before. Shitty time to have to feel someone out, with this much of his mind trying to wrap itself around the other stuff. All he can do is try, and hope he ended up with one of the ones who knows how to cooperate so he doesn't have to see how far his patience can stretch out.
He'd been doing better. Sort of. Even talked to someone the other day. Sure, the guy he was supposed to sleep in a room with still gave him the creeps and looked like a demon and refused to actually talk to him for long enough for the Bull to try and shake the impression, but without the Chargers around, there was no one to get on his ass about actually sleeping when he starts leaning harder on naps, so he's even been getting a little bit of sleep.
It's weird, wanting to hole up and stay as far away from everyone as he can get. During the worst parts of his life that's never anything he wanted, not for longer than maybe an hour. It makes sense when he thinks about it though, thinks back to that time they all walked into the Fade together, what he might have done if they'd gotten stuck...
Better not to think about that too much, though, so he doesn't. If this had to happen, at least it didn't happen to any of them, this time. Even if this, whatever this is that he's stuck in, this nightmare without any chance of waking up, doesn't actually feel like the better option.
He's been fighting it, anyway, that need to pull away and wait and hope things just happen to get better. He's trying. And then there's something-- some dim awareness, the same kind of place he saw when he first went inside the damn living-Fade-train-thing, some impression of movement--
Metal under his feet. Long way down to his right, and when he turns to see, to his left too. Metal ahead. Metal built into rock.
There's a chunk of his memory that's gone. Or, not gone, but...
That isn't something that happens to him. Not before Seheron, and not after it, except for that little while after. And then now.
Worry about it later. This isn't a normal stop on the voidtrain-of-the-damned, because he'd remember getting off it. Probably. For now, assume that he'd remember it. And it definitely isn't home. Worry about the memory thing later, when he's safe enough that he can afford to think.
Not home, though. Home, he knows what the cities built deep into the rock look like. Home, no one can work with metal this way. Something like this, it would all be stone. He could point out what dwarven architecture looks like in his sleep. So. One thing the Bull knows right off: Wherever he is, it isn't anywhere close to the place he needs to be.
So far as worlds in a galaxy far far away went, Odessen was relatively unsettled in the grand scheme of things. The Alliance base was built into a mountain to make it easy to defend, difficult to destroy. The network of caves offering all who lived and worked there the safety of hallways that would turn any idiotic attack by unprepared assailants into a free-for-all shooting gallery. Aside from that and outside the base's walls laid an entire planet's worth of wilderness full of lifeforms that could be either vicious or benign depending on whether they were predator or prey.
Unfortunately for their otherworldly visitor- or perhaps fortunately depending on one's point of view- rather than out in the wilderness where the biggest concern were a few hungry predators, the Force or the Void or the train or whatever mystical power that was in motion decided that the base's front door was a good place for a person to be dropped off rather unceremoniously and entirely unannounced.
And security was not necessarily more lax just outside the doorstep.
"Halt, meatbag!" Cried a voice that was most decidedly not human, or even organic at all, the electronic twang matching the approaching being- metal in yellow and black, shiny with a few scuffmarks, rifle trained on his target. Not alone either, a similar metal monstrosity following close behind, the sound of metal clanking against metal as they moved over the walkway that connected the base to the wilderness beyond. Though they were both armed, neither were attacking yet.
All bets were off on the figures in black and the figures in robes though. Not there one moment. There the next, up on the railings, behind and in front.
Predators circling prey wasn't the best description, but it looked the part and probably felt it too. The darkly clad figures had already pulled their weapons- blades that looked like fire, red and menacing- while the ones in flowing robes were entirely more hesitant to open with hostility despite their wariness.
"Not one move, meatbag, or I will spill your slippery components onto the walkway and into the chasm below!"
The perfectly pleasant greeting of a community not fond of unexpected visitors indeed.
Of course however paranoid the people who called the planet home were, there was one man who outclassed them all. One living breathing hive of secrets and lies who never relied on luck and always relied on being in the know when his busy little worker ants worked themselves into a frenzy without asking nicely if they had permission first.
Two minutes. It had taken two minutes for one of his little pawns to come stumbling into his office and by then he was already ready to head out. Aden had felt entirely more comfortable since returning- back to having enough weaponry on hand to both start and stop a few wars which he by far preferred to having to borrow some dinky little knife with which to defend himself. Though he had preferred even that at the time over being entirely unarmed.
Both the man who had come to report and every other person in his way flattened themselves against the wall as he passed, knowing better than to go about their business when their Commander moved with such purpose.
--- Knife.
That was the interruption to whatever the situation had devolved into in the time it had taken Aden to move from his office and down to the walkway that connected the base to the hill where his starship usually stood. A well-aimed throw going right through the wrist of the most aggressive of the Sith who had decided to respond to the unusual presence alongside his friends and the pair of metal assassins, ensuring that the only thing going down into the chasm below the walkway was a lightsaber and some blood.
To the Sith's credit, there was no yelp of pain, though there was an exhale of surprise.
"Everyone stand down," Came the cool voice that was entirely more commanding here than it had been on a certain metal coffin hurtling through the unknowable Void going who even knew where, "Or you're going to have to get some very shoddy cybernetics to replace that hand."
Much as he would have preferred to be entirely more gentle because he understood, most of his people- except perhaps the very relieved Jedi who followed the Sith in defense of both base and commander- didn't understand and wouldn't listen, too enamored with their own aggression to be willing to speak any other language than violence at the moment.
The glint of knives inside that long dark coat certainly made his threat very real, given the accuracy of the first thrown dagger.
"Back inside," A nod towards the elevator that led up and into the caves, "And I'll want that back."
To the Sith with the knife through his wrist, who was thankfully wise enough to not just yank it back out of his flesh. Whatever and whoever Aden had been on the train could wait. Right now he was the Commander and Keeper of all the Empire's secrets and lies, holding himself with an air of importance that both did and did not suit him.
Being anyone else would have to wait until everyone except him and his fellow Voidtrecker had slinked off back inside with their tail between their legs. He certainly hoped the ever so subtle shift in his expression was enough to communicate as much.
If any of the things had moved on him he'd have fought back without taking too long to think about exactly what it was he was looking at. As it is they don't, and he doesn't, and he spends a couple minutes shoulder deep in that too-familiar out at sea feeling, stranded in the middle of the ocean with no tide to carry you. After he'd headed out from Par Vollen for what turned out to be the last time he'd heard sailors talking about it, being stranded out there with no wind and no way to move, nothing to look at but water, nothing to do but wait to get carried somewhere else or die. He's pretty good with Common these days, but he can't remember the word. Never been out at sea for longer than maybe three different trips each spaced years apart, and for every one of them he'd had things other than sailing on his mind. But he thinks he could probably understand what it feels like.
His mind doesn't understand what's in front of him. 'Meatbag' hits him like a clue, but like any of the million others that hit him each day on that shitting train in the middle of the shitting Fade, it's a clue to a puzzle put together by a madman, you can feel the solution there but it's only going to make sense once it's too late. Not big enough for a golem, which says demon, and the hooded ones are moving says demon, but here inside the Fade, on the other side of it, things aren't always what they should be.
He won't need to know what they are once the fighting starts. Most things stop getting in your way once enough of their limbs come off.
By the time a sure, familiar voice stops things the Bull's taking harsh breaths in through his nose, stance set, knees bent, arms a little away from his body and fingers curled, ready to grab whatever's stupid enough to come at him first.
He jerks back, reflexive, before he realises the knife went into one of the other guys, follows its path back to-- Oh. Even on the other side of the Fade body language seems like it's the same though, and it's almost a relief to read it, to know that what he's supposed to do right now is to stay quiet. So he stays quiet. He looks over the familiar face, the unfamiliar bearing, the glint of metal inside the coat. Knife in the wrist of someone who's supposed to follow his orders-- don't know what kind of healing's available here, don't know that much about Aden or where he's from, don't know enough to put it into context. Remember it, anyway.
He looks from Aden to the other-- the other whatever they ares, demons or mages or something else, and falls into step behind Aden the moment Aden starts moving as if the Bull belongs there, waiting until they're probably alone to murmur, "'Command', huh?" in a dry, ironic tone. Not exactly what the Bull was imagining, when he'd asked the guy the last time they'd talked. Then again, he's realising, he's not all that good at imagining much. Not any more, anyway.
Much as he was used to communicating in violence to get through to the more aggressive members of their little community, he didn't particularly prefer it and starting things off with a fight would likely give a worse impression of the world Bull has found himself in than anything else. As it was, it wasn't ideal, but then, Aden had learned that very few situations in life either were.
And in the grand scheme of things, knife was a relatively tame form of communication with a Sith on the verge of striking before asking any questions.
Knife kept the Sith in line and kept his otherworldly acquaintance from losing any limbs to weaponry and powers that the agent was quite sure he wasn't prepared to face given that their previous interactions had led Aden to believe that the Iron Bull's home wasn't quite so teched out as was common in his particular pocket of dimension or universe or however it would be best to put it.
"Command, yes," He said, tone equally dry, keeping any comment about commanding what often felt like a gang of violently inclined toddlers to himself- leading him away from the elevator that led up into the Alliance base and instead toward his parked ship that stood glinting in the sunlight, as he thought it best to avoid any crowds for the moment. The Phantom would likely not bring the other man any comfort in surroundings given that it would likely evoke thoughts of the train more so than anything else, but at least it was quiet and would give them a chance to talk without any curious onlookers.
While there were people who should be informed, and yet others who should have their movement and access to information restricted just in case, that could wait.
He headed up the ramp to the ship once they reached it, the metal doors sliding open to allow them access to the ship's interior, "It's a bit narrow until you get into the main hold."
Aden supposed it really was a bit like the train in that regard, though at least this would only be a brief stay until they'd gotten to have a necessary chat. And probably a drink.
When he sees the-- what it is they're walking toward, the Bull's step stutters. You'd think he'd be used to it by now, that freefall in his mind, the desperate grasping for anything like something he understands, but it's like something in him's always like, 'well, things can't get any weirder than that, so I must be done, right?' Stupid. It's stupid. It's been making him think about Dorian, Vivienne, how cool and together they were about all that Fade stuff back then. Vivienne had been proud, walking in the Fade sort of a status thing for her, even if they'd decided not to tell any body, and Dorian had been all excited afterward, curious, trying to figure out everything he could. The Bull had put that stuff down to them just being weird because mages are weird, figured you probably get that way after being neck deep in the freaky crap since you were a kid, but lately it's been like...
He'd be doing a lot better if he was a little more like them, that's all. It's a weird realisation to have. He's never needed to be more like anyone else before. But for this, there's just no part of him that's going to be able to handle it.
He keeps walking toward the thing anyway. That's what Aden's doing. He listens to his footsteps echoing against the metal ramp and his mind is mostly empty.
Whenever Aden stops the Bull stops too, leans back against a wall, lets out a slow and heavy breath and crosses his arms and lets his gaze dart all over everything in the room. He tries not to think too hard about whatever it is he's looking at.
"I'm going to lose it at some point," he says calmly, matter of factly, still looking around. "Might not be pretty. Might be best if I leave first, get away from..." He pauses, sighs, goes on in a defeated kind of tone. "Wherever the shit this is now, I don't know. Seems like things are a little tense for you right now, probably better if I don't make trouble."
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"Possibly, why?" the boss had asked, and he'd just shrugged.
"Just hoping my horns fit," he'd said, because that was the only part of the truth he was going to come out and tell her. How he'd been with her for a hot minute back in Skyhold, getting all precious about which jobs he'd go out on at all, that's something that's been in the back of his mind ever since they set out; if he's going to deal with the looming - unlikely, definitely a really outside chance - possibility of losing himself again like he did back in that temple, then he's going to deal with this, too.
And that had been that. The Bull had been quiet, trying to pay more attention to the echoing sound of their footsteps than to the weight of all that earth over his head. But it's been too long now with nothing happening. No fights, no questions, nothing else to think about at all. After a while, the sound of footsteps stops really doing the job.
"So," he says again, his tone not exactly jumping for joy, but close enough to casual this time that it doesn't matter. "How do we feel about a game of I Spy?"
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The Inquisitor was sure to outfit everyone with new armor for this outing – something that covered them up entirely, with sturdy materials meant to withstand physical assault. Hardly fashionable, Dorian had noted.
The darkspawn are a problem, you see. Their blood carries the taint, can kill a man within a few hours or leave them fading and fading and fading for several days, wishing for death. Dorian saw it first hand, when Felix was at his worst, and while his and Alexius' combined efforts bought Felix months, then years of extra time, it was never enough. Felix had accepted his fate and suffered his sickness with aplomb – something Dorian doubts he would have been able to manage, were their roles switched – but he did suffer. There were no doubts about that.
So back at Skyhold, when the Inquisitor had asked him to come along on this mission, she had him with new armor and a face covering meant to protect him from accidentally ingesting darkspawn blood – sturdy cloth treated to be water-resistant. Dorian accepted it all without complaint.
He covers up his uneasiness with sarcastic jokes, facetious comments. He complains about the slowness of the lift, wonders aloud how it is that they never face normal-sized spiders, and worries about tripping over a stone and spraining his ankle.
Evelyn laughs, of course, but Dorian doubts he's making a very good impression on their guides, Shaper Valta and Lieutenant Renn.
The Inquisitor, Cassandra, and the two dwarves have taken the lead, wandering ahead and discussing the history of the Deep Roads and the Legion of the Dead. They're speaking about something called a "Titan," and Dorian had paid only a little bit of attention to their conversation earlier, though he knows he should probably have more to say on the topic. Instead, he's fallen behind, walking in step with the Iron Bull.
He nearly jumps in surprise when the Bull suddenly breaks the silence, but he has mind enough to let out a laugh at the man's suggestion.
"'I Spy'? Really?" His tone is bright – almost aggressively so. All this darkness, all the threat of darkspawn and earthquakes, has left everyone slightly out of sorts. "Is there even anything to 'spy' down here, aside from stone, stone, and more stone?"
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"My word," he says dryly, "you're right. We're completely spoiled for choices."
The Inquisitor has jogged ahead, the dwarves and Cassandra not too far behind. Evidently they're hunting strange gears made of foreign metals – Dorian hasn't been paying them much attention. He probably should, he realizes a little guiltily.
But he and the Iron Bull are something like kindred spirits, in this case. Evelyn seems in decent mood, though understandably wary, and Cassandra is— well. Cassandra, and thus, she's fine. He's not entirely sure why the Bull seems so uncomfortable, but he's exuding a vaguely anxious air, nevertheless. And meanwhile, a portion of Dorian's mind is currently dedicating itself to imagining them being overrun by darkspawn. If pressed, would he be able to remember the tinctures and tonics he and Alexius created to keep Felix alive? Would he be able to acquire the necessary ingredients in time to give any of them more time?
"All right, I'll humor you." He waves a hand imperiously. "And I'll allow you to start off, besides."
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He has to twist his neck even more than he's used to to see the same thing. His narrow range of vision is a little narrower. Hasn't gotten used to that yet.
He stops looking around.
The conversation happening up ahead is too much, though - what he should be helping the boss with up there has enough people on it that it doesn't need him that much, and the conversation happening along with it is too detailed, all history and the background of this place, for him to really focus on in the way he needs to. But he still needs something.
"Alright," the Bull mutters, trying to channel his urge to grumble into something that, in this context, might sound like a joke, as if he'll admit that Dorian was right but won't be happy about it. "So maybe there are just rocks. You got a better suggestion? I probably know more drinking games than you but that's not the kind of thing we're going to get a lot of use out of down here."
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"Let's see," he says, a hand going to his chin. His gloved finger taps against the treated cloth covering his mouth. "Well, when I was a small boy on long trips, my parents would quiz me on our family tree, or have me name every Archon in chronological order. I doubt either of those would be very interesting for you."
Evidently Dorian's parents used long trips as opportunities to reinforce his education, rather than entertain him. He hums quietly, trying to think of the inoffensive games his nannies would play with him to keep him amused.
"There's twenty questions, I suppose. You think of something, and I ask yes or no questions to narrow down the possibilities. Or word association? I think of a word, and you offer the first word that comes to mind, then we keep trading words until one of us grows bored or we have to stop the game when someone says something entirely outlandish."
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Evelyn sits with him, babbling the entire time as the healer scrapes the darkspawn blood from Dorian's head and hair. She tells him how terrified she had been when Dorian and the Bull had fallen over the edge, how Cassandra had to talk her down from scrambling down the face of the cliff after them. At first, they had decided to find a safe place to prepare an encampment and hope against hope that the two of them would managed to find their way back up. Instead, all the noise drew her to the two of them. Convenient, Dorian supposes, that the wide, open spaces of the Deep Roads allowed the sound of his casting to carry throughout the caverns.
He'd be more appreciative if they hadn't nearly been mauled to death by darkspawn.
He moves as the healer directs, keeps as still as he can, silent and fuming and a little terrified the entire time. It's fitting, somehow, that he should survive that entire ordeal, only to be infected by the taint at the very last second. That's just his luck, he supposes. His mind races, going through the various spells and potions and powders that had and hadn't worked on Felix. Would Vivenne or Solas be willing to perform the work if Dorian became too ill for it?
("There are worse things than dying, Dorian," Felix had told him as they parted. The words echo coldly in his head.)
The healer scrapes off that last bit of blood, flicking it away with disgust. They nod, letting him know they've finished.
Unluckily for Dorian, there's no real way of knowing if he's been infected aside from waiting it out. To be safest, the healer tells them, Dorian should be isolated for a few days to see whether or not the infection takes.
"Chances are good that you're clean, though," they say, and Evelyn lets out a sigh of relief. Dorian, however, continues to create his mental checklist of ingredients he'll need.
The trip back is a chore, but Dorian is kept in a covered wagon of his own. He spends the first day dead to the world, exhausted from the ordeal in the Deep Roads, but after that, he spends the rest of his time with a quill and pieces of parchment, writing down what he recalls of his and Alexius' work. His original notes are lying in a pile in his study in Ventus, assuming his father hadn't decided to be rid of them, and only the Maker knows what became of Alexius' notes. For all Dorian knows, this may be the final written record of their research.
Evelyn, of course, visits him near religiously, and those spare moments are a small balm. Her first question is always, "How are you feeling?" And Dorian's first question is always, "How is the Bull?"
It's only when they arrive at Skyhold that Dorian starts feeling more at ease. The taint is an unpredictable thing, killing in a matter of hours or weeks with no apparent reason; he hasn't suffered much more than a bone-deep exhaustion, but that isn't much different than his usual returns to Skyhold. Still, Dorian goes straight to his room, waiting out several more days in seclusion. Aside from drinking himself into a stupor and slumming in seedy brothels, research has always been his favored outlet; Evelyn brings him his books and notes, and he returns to his work.
After a week of waiting in Skyhold, after one final meeting with a healer, Evelyn finally flushes Dorian out of his chambers. In the same breath, though, she tells him in no uncertain terms to stay out of the library. Dorian has been cooped up for far too long, she says, and Skyhold has suffered without his presence to grace it. She extracts a promise from him, and she runs off to a meeting with Josephine, leaving Dorian to his own devices.
He's not entirely sure why, but the first place he thinks to go is the training grounds. It's still early enough, he thinks; the Chargers would still be out there.
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It isn't that bad. They all already know how to deal with him when his usual high standards and demands turn into something crabby and distracted. They all know how to weather it for a few days while their chief's mood levels out and they don't ask questions, except for Krem who asks with the looks he's been giving when he knows that the Bull sees.
So it's been more than a few days now. So he's been feeling the Iron Bull's friendly face slip at times he doesn't mean it to. He's benched till the healers give this useless shitting ankle the okay and the Chargers all know how that's a pain in the ass, the way that it wears on you. And he knows everything else that's wearing on him, the reasons all this is built up the way it is, and he's going to sit here and ride it out.
And he knows it's not just the Dorian thing that's built it up. Not on its own.
No- call it what it is. Not 'the Dorian thing'. The only way this works is if he doesn't hide from any of it. Having a good, close member of his team turn into a darkspawn for him, or get the blight and die, or whatever ends up happening, those details are pretty new but the losing people part isn't. He knows how that part works, and he can get through it. If he couldn't, couldn't handle losing just one guy, that would be a problem. He's thought about it, decided he isn't that bad yet. It isn't like there wasn't a whole lot of other crap weighing him down at the same time, what with the way it went down, the place his mind went when it did, and the leg and everything. When he sits back enough to think about it, it all mostly makes sense.
Knowing the forecast inside his head doesn't mean that he can tame the storm. It does tell him that he can wait it out. It tells him he's waited these storms out before and tells him he can do it again, nevermind the way his eye keeps focusing past his men and their footwork and their form onto the stairs, the ones Vivienne ordered him off climbing, chastising him for taking the risk. He hadn't bothered to ask how she'd already known he couldn't afford to walk more than down from his bed in the morning and up to it again at night, how even that had made the healer make a face back before his brace was all fixed up. Vivienne had let him stay there for a while, that was all that mattered.
Surprised the shit out of him the next day when she'd had that little table set up near the steps to the great hall, like she was demanding his company, like they both don't know that he puts that submissive part of himself out there for her on purpose, that she takes that bait only because she's decided to do it, like she gets a single thing out of bringing herself down here for hours at a time and making that evening a whole habit, the evening they'd just gotten back and Dorian was swept into more isolation while the Bull climbed all those stupid stairs and sat with her to leech off her unshaking certainty, her strength.
The latest makeshift cane jerks out of his hand and out of reach over onto the crate he should be sitting on and his brace slips on the same powdery snow Rocky's shoes just slipped over and the Bull catches himself against the wall, all his muscles tight and jaw clenched and fingers curled up to reach for his axe and he looks over into his blind spot and sees - who else - the one Charger they'd been missing. Rocky opens his mouth, and the Bull interrupts before he can explain. "Don't bother. I don't give a crap why you're not paying attention."
Rocky gives a couple slow nods, eyeing him, and turns to take his place near Krem. "Hey!" the Bull snaps, before Rocky can even take two steps. "Get back here."
Rocky stops, turns with his eyebrows raised. He opens his mouth and, on the look on the Bull's face, goes ahead and closes his mouth again.
The Bull jerks his head, gesturing with a horn away from the field. "The rest of us aren't a high enough priority to get you here on time, you don't get to get in their way. And go get some better shoes, for shit's sake, you put those on and try to fight on snow and the next thing you skid into's not going to be some damned cane. Get out of here."
Krem shouts for the rest of them to focus, forcing their attention away from Rocky and the Bull and the Bull looks away too, looking over the courtyard without really thinking about any part of it, straightening up slowly and carefully and trying not to really think about that either. He knows. He knows, and the Chargers know, and Rocky knows, and they're all just going to ride it out. Except Dorian, maybe. There's only so much riding it out that you can do when you're living on borrowed time.
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And sure enough, there are the Chargers practicing on the training grounds, going through forms or sparring or wrestling in the mud or whatever it is they do – and there stands the Bull.
Stubborn oaf of a man, Dorian thinks; he doesn't realize how fond the words sound in his own head. Damned fool. It hasn't been that long since they all returned from the Storm Coast. Dorian may not consider himself a healer – he lacked the appropriate temperament for it – but he's almost certain the Bull ought to be sitting.
The Bull seems to scan the courtyard without seeing him, which is likely just as well – Dorian has to force the look of disapproval from his face with a slow breath; instead, he schools his expression into something lightly amused. To one side, Rocky storms past him – too distracted to notice Dorian's presence, as well. Odd, Dorian thinks, though perhaps not too odd; the two of them were mere acquaintances at best, and Rocky certainly seemed agitated enough to not notice a bear until it was mere inches from him.
Dorian approaches the Chargers, sweeping over the scene. The Chargers are busy with their training, of course, and the Bull is standing to one side, apparently ignoring the presence of the crate and cane sitting blithely to one side. He wonders, briefly, if he's merely imagining the strange tension in the air.
The Bull must certainly be distracted, Dorian thinks as he scoops up the cane from its place atop the crate. He tests its weight in both hands.
"Rocky seems in quite a state," Dorian says, in lieu of a more conventional greeting.
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"If he's really pissed off Krem'll let him bitch about me later, I'll buy him a couple drinks, he'll get over it. Hey, so." He shouldn't have to ask, it should be clear already, but something in him needs to hear it. "They finally let you back into the world, huh?"
Not, he guesses, that he's not going to chicken out of asking Dorian so are you going to die or not outright. He got close enough. Sometimes with Dorian you don't have to ask outright, you just have to ask a little and let him keep talking and he'll get there himself and it's weird to think that, like Dorian's going to be around long enough that the Bull's going to have to remember techniques for dealing with him. It feels like opening up a locked box you already tucked away in the dark before it's even had time to start getting dusty. This isn't like a teammate getting bed-bound for a while or even going into surgery, it sits in his head different, and he can't take his gaze off Dorian.
He can. He could. But Dorian is in front of him and the last time the Bull saw him Dorian was a number, the latest of many, a calculation about how much the boss might slip when she started grieving and here he is, whole and alive in front of him, he doesn't need to look away just yet. He wants to see the look on Dorian's face when Dorian answers, one way or the other, and it's okay if that's more than a little obvious.
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"In all fairness to the Inquisitor, sequestering myself in my quarters was my idea." His tone of voice is light, conversational. "The Blight can be a fickle thing, you know. It's fully possible that one may not exhibit symptoms of the sickness for some time. Hours, for some. Days, for others. Better to isolate myself to be completely certain – and the lack of distractions allowed me to better focus on recreating my old notes from when Alexius and I treated Felix."
He holds the handle of the cane toward the Bull, looking a little pointedly at the Bull's brace. The brace, at least, is in a much better state than the last time Dorian saw the other man, though Dorian has some doubts as to whether or not the Bull has allowed his ankle to heal along with it.
"You ought to be sitting, you know."
Without waiting to see if the Bull takes the less than subtle hint, however, Dorian continues.
"Evelyn invited herself to this morning's meeting with the healer, and afterward, I was practically ordered to make my presence known throughout the keep," he says lightly. "Skyhold has been sorry, miserable place without my chiseled profile to brighten it, I've been told, and I have little reason to disbelieve it."
He pauses for a moment, lips pressed together and brow furrowing before he forces himself to brighten.
At length, he says, "The contact with the blood was brief, and it didn't find its way into any open wounds. Everyone seems rather confident that I should be fine."
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The Bull grabs the cane and tilts his head, looking at the side of Dorian's face that the blood hit. The Bull hadn't even seen it. He'd seen the back of Dorian instead, arms spread out, and then saw him ushered away to the closest healer, and that had been it. He'd seen the blood the darkspawn left on the lift behind it, but he hadn't seen the blood that mattered.
He leans on the cane about as much as he trusts it to hold him, leans on his bad foot enough to take a step, doesn't hurry to put his weight on the other one instead but just lets his jaw tighten, lets his breath out slow, lets it hurt while he leans on that side just enough to study the part of Dorian's face that took the hit.
"With the angle, the blood probably sprayed you at..." He raises his right hand to trace a line in the air down from Dorian's temple to his jaw and the angle's awkward but he doesn't resist moving his hand closer, bumping the backs of his knuckles here and there like accidents against Dorian's skin. Most people outside Par Vollen are weird about touching, like you can't want it just to have it, like you want it cause you want to fuck. The Bull has a lot of fun with that, usually. Gives touching a new dimension, a new power it didn't always have back home. On any normal day, he'd like that just fine.
If the conversation works around to something a little less tense and on-edge - maybe some of that's him, he'll try to keep his eye on it - maybe he'll be able to get away with throwing an arm around Dorian's shoulder. "Hard to say, but it wouldn't be weird if it all missed your eyes, your nose, that whole area. You have a reason you're not as confident as everyone else, or are you just being cautious?"
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witcher au for wolfdogwitcher
But no. No, of course it's just a deer. He should know better. He knows no one comes out to the woods any more. His own fault, probably. Now if he could just get it through his head that he's decided to stick around anyway, that this is just how things are until he's done, whatever 'done' ends up meaning, if he could just ignore that pull inside him making him so alert for anything that can think and speak and fill this heavy, empty thing inside of him-
The berries he'd been picking pop in his fist, red juice spilling over his hand. He grimaces, watching as it stains his skin, and rubs what isn't already drying there off onto his pants. Pants today, even if the fleshy tail sticking out over the low-slung waistband and the black, furred legs and hooves coming out from their cuffs all sort of ruin the look. Leaving the shoes back in his tent just helps remind him that there's not going to be anyone around to put that particular show on for, with the Chargers gone, and leaving the skirt in his tent with the shoes means he can dig around here looking for anything sort of almost fruit-like without worrying about stains. The pants are casual, approachable, so stains are fine; the skirt's for the kind of immediate distraction that might stop a stranger's fight or flight crap from kicking in, so he should probably try to keep that looking nice.
Not that that's going to be a problem, probably. Having to look good for anybody. Which is fine. It's only been, what, two months? A little more? One of those girls had needed a distraction, something good instead of thinking about everything she was about to leave behind, and he'd been happy to give it to her. That'd been early on, before all the rumours about the monster in the woods - a fiend, surely, waiting to hypnotize the good hardworking people of this town - started to fly around, and people decided they had a good reason to stay away. It's fine. The one round a couple months ago, with how well fed he'd been up until then - fine. Not really a big deal. He's held out longer than that.
Some of those rumours must be his fault, too, and not just because of that string of missing girls. The guards are part of it probably, their injuries, and he wonders if he should have just killed them, if hiding bodies would have kept people from getting as worked up as they did seeing their friends come back from patrol all bloody and, in a couple cases, a little gouged.
Too late to do anything about it now. They're already alive to tell the tale: a monster coming right into the town under the cover of night! Stealing women! Attacking the brave, well-trained, and totally alert watchmen before they could blink! It'd given him a chuckle, the first time one of the girls told him about it. It's always funny, hearing someone talk you up just because they don't want to look bad for getting their ass kicked.
Got a little less funny when some of his regulars stopped coming around, when the rest got a bad case of cold feet and started warning him off. But he probably should have known that it was going to happen.
So. Berries. He thinks fruit has something to do with it, and fermentation, and sure some of this is poisonous to humans but with none of them coming around, he's going to be the only one drinking it. He focuses, pushing through some bushes, grabs another couple berries - and stops again, looking up at the sky in time for the first heavy raindrops to hit him right in the empty eye socket.
"Come on," he growls, like there's anyone around to hear. "Really?" Another round of thunder rumbles across the sky and he takes a slow breath, lets it out. Even when that guy with the cottage at the outskirts of the town isn't giving him the cold shoulder, when staying out of the big storms that way was still an option, thunder's not his favourite thing. Makes it harder to hear anything, including threats. But the town isn't big enough to have the kind of actually trained soldiers who'd have a chance at taking him on, and he thinks they know that. Otherwise they'd have started sending parties out into the woods by now. He'll just go back to his tent, he'll wait it out, and it'll probably be fine.
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But he's not coming for The Bull's head, not immediately anyway. The village had put out a contract but Eskel had been unable to identify the monster based on witness description (and one hilariously crude drawing), piquing his curiosity. Not a lot of novel experiences in the world when you've lived for more than half a century. He'd gotten a general direction to move in from some people who clearly knew more than they were telling, but could not be pursuaded to say more. Sure, he could have Axii'd the truth out of them, but it always made him feel dirty. So he'd set out in an approximate course and did it the hard way: studying every little detail of the landscape.
So he's moving quietly enough, and his silver sword is drawn but it sits defensively in a relaxed grip. The "monster" that's been attacking the town clearly isn't some kind of ravening beast, or there would far more bodies. Whatever it was was snatching women, but they weren't turning up violated or eaten (or both), and the guards had been badly hurt but as far as Eskel can tell the beast didn't have truly murderous intentions.
He was reminded of a man his brother Geralt had met long ago: an avaricious nobleman turned into a lonesome beast who accidentally found himself fielding "sacrifices" of local maidens (who were fed, clothed, fucked silly if they asked nicely, and sent home with caskets of priceless treasure). Perhaps this monster had appetites beyond the merely digestive. Eskel was a little amused by the idea of coming upon the great horned beast and his harem of missing women having a marvelous time in some forest bacchanal.
Ugh, not that the weather was conducive to such things, he thinks, as far drops of rain start to run down the neck of his flashy jacket. By the time he follows the almost imperceptible trail of tracks, tree damage and little bits of unidentifiable fur, the thunder rattles in his very bones as he keeps all his sense on high alert as he steps out into a clearing where an immense shape is just slouching towards a sort of tent that must be where it lives. It's wearing clothes, which is always an encouraging sign that it might be a beast of reason.
Funny, he can almost identify the scent he catches on the wind, something in the fiend category...but not quite. It's weird that it's almost something he's intimately familiar with. But that doesn't make any sense, so he shakes it off.
"You must be the guy that's grabbing girls from the village." He says, by way of announcing himself. He doesn't sheathe his sword, but he keeps it relaxed at his side, the posture of his approach open and non-threatening.
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Krem's going to be so pissed off, he finds himself thinking with this wrenching, heavy feeling he doesn't have time to try and put a name to. When he comes back and finds out that I'm dead.
His eye flickers over the witcher. His short outings with the Chargers taught him enough about swordplay to know the difference between a grip that's just holding a sword and a grip that's about to use it, so he has that. He has what passes for armour too, painted all in black angular shapes up over the grey of his arms and shoulders, his chest and his back - not that it's enough to do more than give him an edge in a normal fight, like it'll do him any good against the kind of shit a witcher's going to be packing. And it's not like the witcher's loose grip can't turn into something deadly in an instant. But Bull's counting his advantages here, and this is what he has. And he has fire, too - well, sort of, unless this damned rain lets up.
He has all that, then, and he has the talking. That talking could be a good sign, if Bull can figure out what's making the witcher want to chat in the first place and figure out how to use it. Lust would be a good sign too, if he could swing it - keep the guy talking long enough for this rain to finish plastering Bull's pants, thin, shapeless cloth things, down against his skin, and maybe he'll be able to tell if there's anything in this witcher he can work with. Bull doesn't do it for everyone, he knows, and there's only so much you can do with someone who looks at you without any kind of spark, but maybe, maybe-
That maybe is his best chance. Keep him talking. Learn what he can, build from there.
"And you must be a witcher. Didn't think they had enough reach to swing one of you guys. Mayor manage to get a message out to somewhere important, or you just happen to be passing by?"
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"Passing through." He explains. "It's a light purse to be sure, but beggars can't be choosers." He says, candidly. "The Mayor's holding out on me and thinks he's so clever I won't know. And he thinks I'll bring their missing womenfolk back alive." He looks around the clearing. "Don't seem likely, but I figured that." He blinks slowly at Bull in the blue-gray premature dusk that the rain has wrought, his eyes glowing like those of a night-creature. "Never seen anything like you." He says. "And the fact that you're standing here talking to me's got me curious. And it's saving your neck, for the record: we're always careful with sentient species, so as long as you don't try anything stupid, I'm not gonna hurt you. What happened to the women from the village? They seem to think it's something to do with you."
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So maybe the witcher thinks he'll get more money if he does find the girls alive, if he can talk Bull into telling him where they are. Not that the witcher seems too invested in that, but it's worth paying attention to in case it turns out more important to the guy than he wants to let on. There's the 'sentient species' angle, too - Bull's not sure he buys that one, though, too wary of the sliver of hope that he might live through the day after all to believe in it. It'd be a good trick, make the monster think it's going to die and then offer a little hope, enough light at the end of the tunnel to blind it into thinking honesty might be the way out.
Not that he's going to give those girls up either way. No witcher's got a reason to keep a monster alive, not really, and what happens to any human mercenaries who were - whatever they'd call it, 'morally corrupt' enough to work with one? It depends on the witcher, he guesses. Any witcher who found the Chargers out might just want to be bribed, or he might turn around and just kill them. Krem and the boys are good, but Bull's heard too much about witchers to risk it.
Buy time.
"Mayor's trying to stiff you on your fee though, huh? Don't let him give you that shit, guy's loaded. Got enough money to do anything he wants, especially in a tiny town like that. Whatever he said he'd pay you, he can afford more." A little love-package for the mayor, there - even if the witcher kills him, he might go back to town and give the guy shit about his fee afterward, so. Got to make your silver linings where you can get them.
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i'm giving in to temptation and giving bull wiggly ears since he's sort of a goat person and all
Eeeee! <3
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(Anonymous) - 2021-06-06 21:40 (UTC) - ExpandGod replying on mobile is a disaster, sorry.
it's all good I knew it was you
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for sleepyscholar
Little harder to do once the battle's done and there's no one left to turn the river toward, no one to get caught up in the force of it but the inside of his own head. Something Vasaad never realised. Something Hissrad never realised either, not until he came out here with Vidathiss' words fresh in the back of his head, the glue holding him together not yet dried, and became the Iron Bull and started getting hurt again. Makes sense, though. The way Hissrad learned to fight is a weapon with two edges to it, and by now the Bull is used to dealing with that. Doesn't make it any more fun though, when the weapon's still here inside him wanting to be used but there's no one around to turn it on. No one to fight and only himself to blame, maybe, if you don't count the corpse. That Venatori got the hit in but the Bull is the one here now, and he's still got to decide how mad at himself he should actually be. Not making a whole lot of progress there, but it's something.
Another heavy breath, louder than he wants it to be, the feeling and the noise of it sharp and intense as he catches himself, jaw going even tighter at the second round of invisible teeth tearing inside his leg as his foot finishes dragging over the root and then thumps back onto the ground. He holds himself steady, still, in the instant before he's able to catch his balance and shift his weight back to his right foot again. Dent in the damn brace, he forgot, means he can't lift his foot like he's used to. Going to have to get it repaired next time he gets a chance, and in the mean time he's going to have to be smart enough to stop tripping over shitting roots. Doesn't mean he can't fight, any of it. Just makes everything more of a pain in the ass until then.
A couple of the soldiers who got sent on the team with him give him a glance -- concerned but clearly nervous, hasn't had enough time with these guys to get them used to the Iron Bull so if he jerks his head just so, wears the right expression when he does it, focus on doing your job, they're too scared of him to push it. He might feel like that's a problem later, the guys who should be trusting him to watch their backs so clearly afraid of him, but right now he's only glad. No point in wasting anyone's time or attention on something that's going to give him an edge in the next fight, help the team protect the guy who needs them to stay on their toes long enough to get him to that temple and out of it again. It's going to be a pain in the ass, but it's going to give him an edge. He knows how to use it. Has to, so he will. It's not the kind of injury that won't keep for a while and it isn't going to stop him, and so he keeps going.
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A practiced healer's discerning eye picks up on the issue far easier than any of the others.
While Linhardt wasn't asked to act as a healer for the Inquisition when he joined, that hasn't stopped him from aiding the injured when possible. His primary task is to research and locate power ancient artifacts and help retrieve them before their enemies have the opportunity, but if his sorcery is better suited to caring for a patient than another healer's, he won't object to lending a hand.
For this particular journey, Linhardt happens to be the only skilled healer on hand. He's fully prepared to aid the soldiers protecting him should any sustain injuries while keeping him safe.
Bull, however... well, he doesn't seem too keen on asking for assistance. Linhardt doesn't know if he's one of those people who hate the idea of healing through magic, or if he's just plain stubborn. Ordinarily he wouldn't bother getting involved. But if the others are concerned enough to tell him, and it is fairly obvious there is an issue, he can't just continue on without doing something.
The others might find Bull's stares intimidating. Linhardt is used to glares and stubborn soldiers who think they know best about their health, so those looks don't phase him. He falls back until he's walking by the Qunari's side and tries his best to keep up with the bigger man's much longer stride. It's fortunate that he's gotten used to long treks lately, or he'd have been winded far too easily.
"Ah, Bull? It's almost sunset, and I want to see you privately after we make camp. Your injury will only worsen without proper attention." No, he isn't offering a suggestion. And while Linhardt isn't Bull's commander, when it comes to issues of health, he tends to speak with a certain authority. Few ever reject him when he makes these demands, if only because they're surprised he has it in him.
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No reason to watch his expression now, anyway. Good way to get his point across.
"We keep going an hour or two after sunset and we'll find a spot closer to the ruin." His voice is brisk, little clipped, but businesslike still, as long as you don't have too strict a definition for the word. Just letting the guy know what the situation is. "Got to give it the once over bright and early so we can get you in there. That last bunch of assholes was too close, and they've got the numbers; going to catch us if we drag this out too long."
Not giving orders, not arguing about being hurt. Not arguing about anything. Just laying out the facts. Which is what he's trying for, because probably he should be patient with the guy. He knows how healers are. Singleminded. That's why they do the stuff they do, and he admires that, he does. Gets in the way of the bigger picture sometimes, though. If he's lucky, this one's going to see that. Hard to tell, since he hasn't talked to the guy that much before. Shitty time to have to feel someone out, with this much of his mind trying to wrap itself around the other stuff. All he can do is try, and hope he ended up with one of the ones who knows how to cooperate so he doesn't have to see how far his patience can stretch out.
for stabgremlin
It's weird, wanting to hole up and stay as far away from everyone as he can get. During the worst parts of his life that's never anything he wanted, not for longer than maybe an hour. It makes sense when he thinks about it though, thinks back to that time they all walked into the Fade together, what he might have done if they'd gotten stuck...
Better not to think about that too much, though, so he doesn't. If this had to happen, at least it didn't happen to any of them, this time. Even if this, whatever this is that he's stuck in, this nightmare without any chance of waking up, doesn't actually feel like the better option.
He's been fighting it, anyway, that need to pull away and wait and hope things just happen to get better. He's trying. And then there's something-- some dim awareness, the same kind of place he saw when he first went inside the damn living-Fade-train-thing, some impression of movement--
Metal under his feet. Long way down to his right, and when he turns to see, to his left too. Metal ahead. Metal built into rock.
There's a chunk of his memory that's gone. Or, not gone, but...
That isn't something that happens to him. Not before Seheron, and not after it, except for that little while after. And then now.
Worry about it later. This isn't a normal stop on the voidtrain-of-the-damned, because he'd remember getting off it. Probably. For now, assume that he'd remember it. And it definitely isn't home. Worry about the memory thing later, when he's safe enough that he can afford to think.
Not home, though. Home, he knows what the cities built deep into the rock look like. Home, no one can work with metal this way. Something like this, it would all be stone. He could point out what dwarven architecture looks like in his sleep. So. One thing the Bull knows right off: Wherever he is, it isn't anywhere close to the place he needs to be.
"Shit."
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Unfortunately for their otherworldly visitor- or perhaps fortunately depending on one's point of view- rather than out in the wilderness where the biggest concern were a few hungry predators, the Force or the Void or the train or whatever mystical power that was in motion decided that the base's front door was a good place for a person to be dropped off rather unceremoniously and entirely unannounced.
And security was not necessarily more lax just outside the doorstep.
"Halt, meatbag!" Cried a voice that was most decidedly not human, or even organic at all, the electronic twang matching the approaching being- metal in yellow and black, shiny with a few scuffmarks, rifle trained on his target. Not alone either, a similar metal monstrosity following close behind, the sound of metal clanking against metal as they moved over the walkway that connected the base to the wilderness beyond. Though they were both armed, neither were attacking yet.
All bets were off on the figures in black and the figures in robes though. Not there one moment. There the next, up on the railings, behind and in front.
Predators circling prey wasn't the best description, but it looked the part and probably felt it too. The darkly clad figures had already pulled their weapons- blades that looked like fire, red and menacing- while the ones in flowing robes were entirely more hesitant to open with hostility despite their wariness.
"Not one move, meatbag, or I will spill your slippery components onto the walkway and into the chasm below!"
The perfectly pleasant greeting of a community not fond of unexpected visitors indeed.
Of course however paranoid the people who called the planet home were, there was one man who outclassed them all. One living breathing hive of secrets and lies who never relied on luck and always relied on being in the know when his busy little worker ants worked themselves into a frenzy without asking nicely if they had permission first.
Two minutes. It had taken two minutes for one of his little pawns to come stumbling into his office and by then he was already ready to head out. Aden had felt entirely more comfortable since returning- back to having enough weaponry on hand to both start and stop a few wars which he by far preferred to having to borrow some dinky little knife with which to defend himself. Though he had preferred even that at the time over being entirely unarmed.
Both the man who had come to report and every other person in his way flattened themselves against the wall as he passed, knowing better than to go about their business when their Commander moved with such purpose.
--- Knife.
That was the interruption to whatever the situation had devolved into in the time it had taken Aden to move from his office and down to the walkway that connected the base to the hill where his starship usually stood. A well-aimed throw going right through the wrist of the most aggressive of the Sith who had decided to respond to the unusual presence alongside his friends and the pair of metal assassins, ensuring that the only thing going down into the chasm below the walkway was a lightsaber and some blood.
To the Sith's credit, there was no yelp of pain, though there was an exhale of surprise.
"Everyone stand down," Came the cool voice that was entirely more commanding here than it had been on a certain metal coffin hurtling through the unknowable Void going who even knew where, "Or you're going to have to get some very shoddy cybernetics to replace that hand."
Much as he would have preferred to be entirely more gentle because he understood, most of his people- except perhaps the very relieved Jedi who followed the Sith in defense of both base and commander- didn't understand and wouldn't listen, too enamored with their own aggression to be willing to speak any other language than violence at the moment.
The glint of knives inside that long dark coat certainly made his threat very real, given the accuracy of the first thrown dagger.
"Back inside," A nod towards the elevator that led up and into the caves, "And I'll want that back."
To the Sith with the knife through his wrist, who was thankfully wise enough to not just yank it back out of his flesh. Whatever and whoever Aden had been on the train could wait. Right now he was the Commander and Keeper of all the Empire's secrets and lies, holding himself with an air of importance that both did and did not suit him.
Being anyone else would have to wait until everyone except him and his fellow Voidtrecker had slinked off back inside with their tail between their legs. He certainly hoped the ever so subtle shift in his expression was enough to communicate as much.
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His mind doesn't understand what's in front of him. 'Meatbag' hits him like a clue, but like any of the million others that hit him each day on that shitting train in the middle of the shitting Fade, it's a clue to a puzzle put together by a madman, you can feel the solution there but it's only going to make sense once it's too late. Not big enough for a golem, which says demon, and the hooded ones are moving says demon, but here inside the Fade, on the other side of it, things aren't always what they should be.
He won't need to know what they are once the fighting starts. Most things stop getting in your way once enough of their limbs come off.
By the time a sure, familiar voice stops things the Bull's taking harsh breaths in through his nose, stance set, knees bent, arms a little away from his body and fingers curled, ready to grab whatever's stupid enough to come at him first.
He jerks back, reflexive, before he realises the knife went into one of the other guys, follows its path back to-- Oh. Even on the other side of the Fade body language seems like it's the same though, and it's almost a relief to read it, to know that what he's supposed to do right now is to stay quiet. So he stays quiet. He looks over the familiar face, the unfamiliar bearing, the glint of metal inside the coat. Knife in the wrist of someone who's supposed to follow his orders-- don't know what kind of healing's available here, don't know that much about Aden or where he's from, don't know enough to put it into context. Remember it, anyway.
He looks from Aden to the other-- the other whatever they ares, demons or mages or something else, and falls into step behind Aden the moment Aden starts moving as if the Bull belongs there, waiting until they're probably alone to murmur, "'Command', huh?" in a dry, ironic tone. Not exactly what the Bull was imagining, when he'd asked the guy the last time they'd talked. Then again, he's realising, he's not all that good at imagining much. Not any more, anyway.
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Much as he was used to communicating in violence to get through to the more aggressive members of their little community, he didn't particularly prefer it and starting things off with a fight would likely give a worse impression of the world Bull has found himself in than anything else. As it was, it wasn't ideal, but then, Aden had learned that very few situations in life either were.
And in the grand scheme of things, knife was a relatively tame form of communication with a Sith on the verge of striking before asking any questions.
Knife kept the Sith in line and kept his otherworldly acquaintance from losing any limbs to weaponry and powers that the agent was quite sure he wasn't prepared to face given that their previous interactions had led Aden to believe that the Iron Bull's home wasn't quite so teched out as was common in his particular pocket of dimension or universe or however it would be best to put it.
"Command, yes," He said, tone equally dry, keeping any comment about commanding what often felt like a gang of violently inclined toddlers to himself- leading him away from the elevator that led up into the Alliance base and instead toward his parked ship that stood glinting in the sunlight, as he thought it best to avoid any crowds for the moment. The Phantom would likely not bring the other man any comfort in surroundings given that it would likely evoke thoughts of the train more so than anything else, but at least it was quiet and would give them a chance to talk without any curious onlookers.
While there were people who should be informed, and yet others who should have their movement and access to information restricted just in case, that could wait.
He headed up the ramp to the ship once they reached it, the metal doors sliding open to allow them access to the ship's interior, "It's a bit narrow until you get into the main hold."
Aden supposed it really was a bit like the train in that regard, though at least this would only be a brief stay until they'd gotten to have a necessary chat. And probably a drink.
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He'd be doing a lot better if he was a little more like them, that's all. It's a weird realisation to have. He's never needed to be more like anyone else before. But for this, there's just no part of him that's going to be able to handle it.
He keeps walking toward the thing anyway. That's what Aden's doing. He listens to his footsteps echoing against the metal ramp and his mind is mostly empty.
Whenever Aden stops the Bull stops too, leans back against a wall, lets out a slow and heavy breath and crosses his arms and lets his gaze dart all over everything in the room. He tries not to think too hard about whatever it is he's looking at.
"I'm going to lose it at some point," he says calmly, matter of factly, still looking around. "Might not be pretty. Might be best if I leave first, get away from..." He pauses, sighs, goes on in a defeated kind of tone. "Wherever the shit this is now, I don't know. Seems like things are a little tense for you right now, probably better if I don't make trouble."
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