inachinashop | psl post

"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?"

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.

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.

Edited 2021-06-02 19:50 (UTC)

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.

Edited 2022-04-14 01:40 (UTC)

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.

"Shit."

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