He’s quick and quiet as he can manage. An unpleasant business, one that pauses every time she turns. So it goes on in stop motion: the glint of metal, the brush of cloth. A little pile of quills collects on his abandoned shirt, threaded with glimmering ruby.
She spills it like a confession, and he has to wonder how many times she's rehearsed this in her head, slimming events into the optimal retelling, fussing over an explanation that must always feel too much too little. He has to wonder how often she says this aloud, to an open window and a hollowed man. Alan lets himself listen as he does the Chant, contemplates each snatched verse for its place within the song. It forces awareness. Gives him a different hurt to mull over than his own. In short: It helps.
By the time she sets the cups down he’s tying off the thread. A long sliver of something like bone lays beside the others, both potion bottles emptied. Faint green light collects around his hands as he presses them over his ribs. He already knows it won't do much, but it'd be stupid not to try.
Could you imagine what I thought? Of course. She wouldn't be the only Inquisition elf to die under ritual. She would probably be the only one doing it to save a broken manchild of a templar — well, unless Sabine strikes north for vengeance. So they'd been given each other's bargain. Cooperate, and your companion gets to live. A slow sort of suicide pact.
"No. You shouldn't have killed him." He's surprised to hear himself say it. It's the sort of thing that he used to say, before killing became only another way to solve a problem. Before the life of every captured agent became a liability. "That should always have been his choice."
The hard part of Alan suspects the lyrium chose for Cade as much as Beleth did. He's never struck him as a man of tremendous willpower, save perhaps in his drive towards self-isolation. But it’s a relief to not have to be that Alan, if only for a moment. It would be a relief to not have to be him at all.
Was it the trader's choice, yesterday? But that's different. Of course it is.
"He chose something else. So you tried to protect him. How far gone was he when they came?"
They. Merrill. And the pale elf, the one with the child. Alan avoids that one. Children aren't something he lets himself be around.
His eyes close. He’s just going to breathe a moment. Then he can worry about the bandages, about Beleth's aching guilt, about whether he really means what he's said of Cade or whether it'd be better to wait with a sharp knife for his return. For now, he'll just. Breathe.
no subject
She spills it like a confession, and he has to wonder how many times she's rehearsed this in her head, slimming events into the optimal retelling, fussing over an explanation that must always feel too much too little. He has to wonder how often she says this aloud, to an open window and a hollowed man. Alan lets himself listen as he does the Chant, contemplates each snatched verse for its place within the song. It forces awareness. Gives him a different hurt to mull over than his own. In short: It helps.
By the time she sets the cups down he’s tying off the thread. A long sliver of something like bone lays beside the others, both potion bottles emptied. Faint green light collects around his hands as he presses them over his ribs. He already knows it won't do much, but it'd be stupid not to try.
Could you imagine what I thought? Of course. She wouldn't be the only Inquisition elf to die under ritual. She would probably be the only one doing it to save a broken manchild of a templar — well, unless Sabine strikes north for vengeance. So they'd been given each other's bargain. Cooperate, and your companion gets to live. A slow sort of suicide pact.
"No. You shouldn't have killed him." He's surprised to hear himself say it. It's the sort of thing that he used to say, before killing became only another way to solve a problem. Before the life of every captured agent became a liability. "That should always have been his choice."
The hard part of Alan suspects the lyrium chose for Cade as much as Beleth did. He's never struck him as a man of tremendous willpower, save perhaps in his drive towards self-isolation. But it’s a relief to not have to be that Alan, if only for a moment. It would be a relief to not have to be him at all.
Was it the trader's choice, yesterday? But that's different. Of course it is.
"He chose something else. So you tried to protect him. How far gone was he when they came?"
They. Merrill. And the pale elf, the one with the child. Alan avoids that one. Children aren't something he lets himself be around.
His eyes close. He’s just going to breathe a moment. Then he can worry about the bandages, about Beleth's aching guilt, about whether he really means what he's said of Cade or whether it'd be better to wait with a sharp knife for his return. For now, he'll just. Breathe.