inachinashop: (grr)
The Iron Bull ([personal profile] inachinashop) wrote 2021-03-14 02:21 pm (UTC)

"She knows how to prioritise," the Bull points out, more to make sure Dorian knows than to push him. This is Dorian's loss, and Dorian's decision about what he needs in order to deal with it. Still, it's something to say. Need something to say that's worth focusing on, instead of something to look at. Having Dorian here is good, but not even he can do enough to improve the view.

The Bull's gaze roams over what space there is in front of him, fruitlessly. His horns scrape against stone when he moves. The sound of it, the feeling, fills the little box in his mind where he's keeping all the useless crap contained, pushes its lid just far enough aside that a little shudder slips out.

He holds himself still, muscles tense. He keeps on crawling. Focuses. A few seconds later than he'd intended to, the Bull keeps talking, jaw as tense as the rest of him, eye fixed on the back of Dorian's head, on Dorian's shoulder washed in the spirit's bizarre, lame little light. "She wouldn't send anyone to check it out unless she could spare them."

The Bull takes a slow, very even breath. He tries to find whatever solid foundation just slipped out from under his voice so he can shove it back in and realises he's clearing his throat as he hears himself do it, a tell that was supposed to be trained out of him decades ago. He was fine a second before. Couldn't answer Dorian's question right.

He was managing before, anyway.

He's managing now. He's good. It is what it is. And that's fine. "If this is like the, uh-"

Like the other crawlspace Dorian left him in, or whatever the tiny little hallway was originally meant to be. Like the one it kind of feels, right now, like he never left. Shok ebasit hissra. The line's already pushing itself, urgent, inside his thoughts by the time he knows he's thinking it.

Kind of macabre, that a line from a death prayer's the first thing his mind latches onto right now - he's probably got their conversation about losing people to thank for that - but parts of it actually aren't far off here; in a pretty literal sense, there's nothing in here to struggle against at all. It's fine. He'll be fine. The only thing that set this off was the stray scrape of a horn against a wall where he'd thought he had open space, and it's going to pass just as easy into something he can manage again.

"-that other place I was in," he finishes, again a couple seconds after he meant to. Some detritus of what's happening in his head makes it out into his words, nerves thicker in his voice than he'd wanted. He keeps pushing through anyway. Finish what he was saying. "Cause it kind of looks the same, uh, then there might be a dead end up ahead. If the layout's the same. Couldn't tell if there was a door in all that rubble though, but. You know. Probably."

It's not like a door just isn't going to be there. That would be a dumb way to design a building, and dwarven architecture is anything but dumb. Could be blocked, though. If there is one, and it's blocked-

They'll deal with it. If it is, they'll deal with it. The Inquisition's pretty good at that, dealing with things. Going to be fine.

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