I
She opens her eyes, and the first thing she sees is Varric's hand over Bianca.
Cassandra suddenly felt her back and complain as she tries to move, the rock she was resting on a lot more uneven that she imagined it to be. Later on, her arm followed, and she held onto it like dear life as she still felt blood on it.
She felt like she hit her head on something, and she tries to go back to basics on her head as she runs through her memories —what she is, where she is, what happened. All she remembered was fighting Corypheus, and the bastard escaping after receiving the full brunt of Mithiin and Solas's spells. The inquisitor predicted that it would take most of the day before he will recover and return to fight them, now that Morrigan had Corypheus's pet dragon in her control. At least, that's what it looks like. But they cannot go back to Skyhold, since they're pretty much right on the temple's ruins.
She remembers a fight, and the wound, but apart from that, her mind is blurred down to a meaningless heap as the pain returns in her sword arm. Maker, she can't even prop it up for her to get a good look. But when she ran her hand on it, she noticed that her greave and pauldron in her right arm have been removed, the sleeve pulled up, and a bandage was haphazardly strewn around it. First-aid, most likely, just to stop it for getting worse, because she could feel the gash spurting out blood and it hurts still. It's not helping that the weather up here was terrifyingly unstable, and the discomfort with the weather and her position and the pain in her sword arm just made everything feel somehow hazy. With the Breach reopened and the sky a pitiful mess of clouds and Fade rocks and the sunlight, it did not help that the weather was so erratic on them. If it was a normal day in Haven with the snow and the pine trees, Cassandra would just pick up a handful of snow and slather it on the wound, half-hoping that it'd numb the pain, but there's nothing like that here, so close to the sun with no way down, a mixture of cold winds and hot rays of sunlight.
Cassandra was about to rip it off for her to replace the bandage, becase Maker knows how long have this thing been spitting out blood, and if there's something she doesn't want, it's to die of blood loss, especially that she still has—
"Seeker?"
"Varric." She calls on his name, intending to sound somewhat grateful with his presence. She does not say anything else, and tries to prop the injured arm up, with much difficulty.
"Careful," he says. "We don't want to hurt you further, unless that's your thing." He unrolls the bandage, intending to fix her sloppy bandaging, and he pulls up her sleeve and mail to reveal the gash—
"****." He stands up, placing down her arm on her lap. "This looks a lot worse than a simple wound. I'll call Wishes, seeker. She's been rather great on her healing lately."
Cassandra says nothing except a nod, as she watches him leave and look for Mithiin in the area, which was relatively small, so in a few moments, Varric was there with an obviously exhausted Mithiin, with a salve, some bandages, and a sewing kit on hand. She quickly sat down and cleaned the gash with practiced ease with the salve — seemed like some combination of mint and elfroot, from the smell — before she broke out the needle and thread, soaked it in the medicinal rum of sorts, knotted the ends and held the gash close.
"This may hurt." The elf turned to Varric, hands still on the gash and the needle. "Hold her down, just in case."
"Where?" He sounded incredulous.
"Hand's preferable." Mithiin soaks the needle again for extra measure, without batting an eyelash. "Keeps her from ripping it off while I work."
"I've had much worse, Mithiin." Cassandra tries to move, but the pain stopped her, and Mithiin took the cue to hold onto the arm gash a little more securely. Still, the seeker persisted.
She merely shrugs, and adjusts her hold on the gash. She nods to Varric, and he holds onto Cassandra as if on cue, and she calms down as she finally notices the needle, curved and dripping in medicine. The seeker didn't even feel the first jab of the needle as Mithiin worked. She's always known her, but Cassandra never thought Mithiin actually had the stomach for such things, or that she could actually hold back and be calm through everything. And she was surprisingly calm and collected through the battle earlier.
But Varric looks at Lavellan like he knew the exact words she was going to say, and was silent through the entire process. Mithiin worked fast and precise, and after a minute or two, she's knotted the thread and had already smothered another layer of salve on it. The elf hands Cassandra the salve, before going back to the wound. Her hand glows and she channeled her magic on the gash, closing it somehow.
"Just have this on when it hurts or opens again. My healing is rather bad at this point sadly, so I'm not certain that it will hold long." Without another word, Mithiin stood up and left, obviously having to treat the rest of the circle, whom as Cassandra remembers, probably had worse wounds that she did. But Mithiin's disposition still rather worried her.
Cassandra notices only seconds later that Varric hasn't let go of her hand just yet.
"Are you well, seeker?" Obviously, he did not mean for it to be romantic of any sort, but rather a somewhat comforting move. She appreciates it as it is, even though it was from Varric, and holds it with the same amount of concern.
"Yes." Cassandra forces a melancholic smile for him, just enough to show that she's fine, she's not going to die just because of an arm gash. "Though I should be worried about you. I've been treated, but I don't see the same with your wounds."
"Compared to you, I was not slammed down by a darkspawm magister." He gestures to his head bandage, which is gladly not as blood-soaked as hers was before Mithiin treated it. "I've been through worse. Don't sweat it."
They were silent for a while, just their hands linked and the chaos somehow going around them yet not loud enough to reach them. Cassandra looks down, right on their handlink, unsure if she should break it. She felt his hand stiffen, but he does not let go. She does not, either. Cassandra has learned to speak without words, and this was more than enough. Injuries can be healed, but this was something else entirely that she needed Varric for.
"Is something the matter, seeker?" Varric asks.
She was silent. She'd stayed like that for a few moments, not responding, and she gripped his hand tighter before she finally speaks.
"Do you think that we'd make it?"
Silence.
He still gripped on her hand, as if she was still being treated, absently patting on her hands in thought. It took him a few moments before he was able to respond. "Did you read that Swords and Shields volume I gave you last week?"
"Yes." She wanted to ask why he is changing the topic, but she decided not to pry. "What about it?"
"And you know of the stuff she had to face? Bad mages, revolutions, practically the world ending? We face that everyday."
"And...?"
"If a fictional character who's faced with almost the same things manages to go and win it with just two of them, I'm pretty sure we can live through this with the ten of us." He takes a moment before he brings her hand to his lips. Still, she felt distraught, and her lips draw a thin line in thought.
"If we do live, what after?" She grasps both of his hands with both of hers, uncharacteristically scared. Panicked, even. "We have unfinished business to attend to."
Varric merely smiles back, but not until Cassandra cries out, the wound hurting once more. Mithiin's salve did quite the job to ease it somehow, to ease the pain, and Varric went closer and tried to fix it, drawing the clean bandages and wrapping them again around the closed gash, just in case it opens up again. Cassandra felt like crying — in all the times, it had to be now, and she held it back like poison she did not want to swallow or spit out — and in the end, she attempts to wipe away a few stray tears.
He says nothing. After he was done fixing the bandages, he comes closer, and just wipes the tears away from her face without a word. She doesn't look up to meet his gaze, feeling a mix of embarrassment and regret sinking down her gut.
"Look at you. A few months back, I'd be surprised to see you like this."
"Maybe if I did not come to you, you would be."
"Everything will be all right, Seeker." He kisses her forehead, and she felt her heart flutter like blooming roses, though the pain from her arm still sours her. "You've kicked so many asses before. This isn't any different."
"You sound certain." He did, Cassandra knew.
"I am!" He laughs, and carefully massages her hand while he racks his mind for memories to share and stories to tell, to distract her a little. "Heck, you've lived past that horde of bears back at the Hinterlands, and I do feel Corypheus is like an army of bears to come for—"
A screech stopped Varric's speech, and they all turned to the source of the noise.
It's a dragon.
A dragon.
Corypheus's dragon, specifically. It had Morrigan on its jaws, and it unceremoniously drops her to the ground like a rag doll he got tired with. Mithiin was quick to react and conjured a bubble of magic to catch the witch. Afterwards, it was evident that she's gotten so tired of all this nonsense that she drew her spirit blade and charged.
That was signal enough for all of them. There were some of them who just bolted upright and attacked like they weren't resting before the dragon arrived. Some, though — like Cassandra, who was somewhat injured — had difficulty even drawing her sword.
Varric grabs BIanca, and glances back to Cassandra as he draws his coat closer to himself. "I don't know if you want to fight with a bad arm, seeker, but this dragon is mine!"
"Bullshit!" Though injured, she managed to slap on her greave, and was only a few steps away from her shield and sword. Just moving her arm hurts, but she's had worse. She laughs out at the prospect. "You, killing a dragon?"
"Oh, come on! You're from a dragon slayer line, sure, but give away kills once in a while!" He loads Bianca and did a test shot in the dragon's direction. It just bounced off and did nothing but annoy it, who now comes stomping madly to his direction.
Oh, Maker.
Varric ran away as he can, doing useless shots to divert the mad beast's attention away from the lot of them who took most of the brunt from Corypheus earlier — Cassandra included. The dragon followed, and the dwarf later on saw Bull and co. chase after them as he finally slammed his hunk of metal on the back knee of the beast. It screams and shrieks and started trashing around, and Vivienne and Dorian took it as an opportunity to rain down fireballs and all sorts of mad spells they could think of.
Later on, Solas had the good mind to freeze the beast while they work their way through them, and Varric took it as a chance to pinpoint the dragon's eyes and it complained madly. Later on it gained its movement back and he made sure to chase after Varric first. And he just ran out of bolts.
Obviously, Cassandra knows Varric's fighting style — he's out of bolts now and he resorts to his traps while he goes back to his corner to grab the extra quiver. She sees this and she runs to his direction to cover him while he sets his traps up. It was going well for the first few moments — Varric was able to set up the basic claw traps and have already gotten hold of his extra quivers, and was loading Bianca like a madman while running to avoid the dragon's wrath.
Blackwall and Bull was doing a great job of distracting the dragon, while Mithiin had got out her spirit blade full-force and was working on making it limp by striking the leg and scaling off its defenses. Varric has himself perched up in a corner while Cass covered him by blocking the dragon's view at the slightest.
Suddenly, the dragon just stomped past the warrior group, and went after the dwarf, who was cornered in his spot, assumed that the dragon couldn't find him there. Having nowhere to go, he tried to run past the dragon. Cassandra tried to go between them, maybe try to block his jaw, slam the dragon around, maybe—
The dragon took Varric by the mouth, waved him around, and threw him like a rag doll to a nearby rock. The dragon picks up Bianca and throws the crossbow off to the same direction. And the dragon makes doubly sure that he's done with, slamming its head against the dwarf until he heard nothing but its own trashing—
— this is real.
She heard a scream, and it went on. Was it Varric? Or the Inquisitor? Or someone else, maybe? She gasps for breath and realizes that it was her, and she runs towards Varric's direction, deeming the dragon unimportant, seeing red all over her vision and feeling her head pounding against her skull — oh Maker, is it me is it me, it can't be him, it isn't, please save him, this couldn't happen—
— and the thoughts stop when Cassandra sees him smashed against the rock, arms in weird angles, Bianca lodged against his throat and his head bleeding as his lifeless arms still wrapped around the grip like it was the non-existent life he now had — this is not real this is not real this can't be real, please Maker make this a bad dream— There's the bit of the flesh spilling out his tunic, and she cries, and she chokes in her own tears, but she doesn't see the tears fog up her vision in the slightest as she looks back at the dragon, gritting her teeth, charging like a madman as she holds up her shield and charges with her sword, bearing through the pain—
And she remembers the words he's told him, how it is impossible for any of them to die for they work together and they're better than Corypheus and his lackeys because of this—
You're a good liar and I hate you. This is all real and it's your damned fault for believing you, that this is real, all real—
Retour en haut
On the other hand, I can see where posting one chapter at time is easier for the author. I haven't written in years (and only then for myself), but since DA:I, I've got a bug up my butt to write a story. Unfortunately I am stuck on the opening sentence and I'm sitting here going durr. So I have mad respect for people who write fanfiction or otherwise.
.
. Either way, I am much happier now!
. Can't forget Bill Murray! 
