Morning Shock
You take medicine when the cold starts sinking into your sore bones, but while it makes you just as loopy as ever, it doesn’t put you to sleep. You spend the night staring vaguely up at the ceiling, wondering what you’re going to do all winter, when it’s too cold to leave the fortress and sleep in the woods outside Skyhold. You almost hate yourself for hoping it, but if Solas gets sent on another mission, you could probably find someplace to safely sleep… If not your room, where other mages or Templars might trip across you, perhaps his. Any stray magical tingling might be attributed to him, and you get the feeling people avoid it. The only thing that concerns you is how near it is to Madame de Fer’s room.
But barring that, you’ll just have to tough it out for as long as you can, and seize any opportunities for sleep that come your way. You’ve been through worse. That you’re having trouble thinking of anything right now is a sign that you’re exhausted and nothing more.
You wander out of bed shortly before dawn, honestly somewhat pleased with the opportunity to escape your room and the hollow, echoing trap of your own thoughts. You bundle up a bit excessively, and then head out into the courtyard. You meander towards the training rings, more out of habit than anything. While it’s not necessarily too cold for outdoor practice, you doubt you’re in any condition for it. Bull is out there, though. Not in your normal ring, but in one closer to the edge… closer, you note, to where your room is. Is the door to your hallway visible from there? Probably not, but he’d doubtless see you crossing into the Great Hall were you going that way.
He waves as you approach, stopping in his lone practice to walk over and lean against one of the posts that mark the edges of the ring.
“Don’t get me wrong, I like dedication,” he comments as you get close enough to hear. “But I don’t think you’re in condition for much right now.”
You nod, somewhat grimly. You’re in the in between stage of medicine right now… your head is clear, but the pain hasn’t set all the way in yet. It’s a good place to be dealing with Bull.
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” you say, voice lighter than you feel right now. “And tomorrow’s Sunday. Looks like I’m off the hook until Monday.”
“So why’d you come over? Just to make sure?” Bull asks.
You give a nonchalant sort of shrug. “I was up… and if I’m going to be cold, I’d rather be cold out in the open with other people, rather than bundled up in my room with nothing but my thoughts for company. Plus, I think Solas still doesn’t want me to be alone, after what happened.”
“How you been handling it?”
“I’m healing,” you reply. “I’m hoping I’ll be out of these bandages before too much longer…” You run a hand gently over your bandaged eye. “The longer I go without using this thing, the more nervous I get.”
“Adjusting to one eye can be hard,” he says, and you snort a bit. You hadn’t really thought about it, but yeah, he’d know about losing use of an eye, wouldn’t he? He’s being serious, however. “The loss of side vision is the worst. Anyone snuck up on you yet?”
You chuckle ruefully. “I’m not super observant on the best of days, and the medicine keeps me loopy. Solas can normally sneak up on me pretty easily, even without a blind side—” But as you say that, you pause. Come to think of it… Has Solas come up on your left side at all, these last few days? Every instant you can think of, he’s standing to your right, touching your right shoulder, saying your name to alert you of his presence.
You make a mental note to pay more attention to that in the future, out of curiosity. You wouldn’t put it past him to be doing that on purpose, but you don’t want to give him credit too soon.
“So, really… how are you coping?” he says, and you give him a slightly annoyed look.
“I just told you. With some luck, I’ll be out of these bandages before Monday, and—”
“I don’t mean physically,” he says, tapping the side of his head. “You got jumped and hurt pretty badly… and as I recall, you weren’t looking too hot right before that happened, either. How are you doing?”
Oh.
You size him up, uncertain of what you should be saying. You suppose it would be weird if you were just fine after that. You aren’t, if you’re being perfectly candid, but that really is mostly due to the physical injuries.
Ah, you’re even lying to yourself now. Haven’t you been dragging your chest in front of your door pretty much every night? Aren’t you more twitchy, glancing over your shoulder whenever you’re alone? Solas has had you staying in other people’s company, but the truth of it is, you’re a bit shaky when you’re by yourself, even just overnight.
It’s not even Underhill himself… It’s how much what happened with him has brought up old memories—and old habits—that you don’t like thinking about. Focusing on what to do with the increasing tension with the elves in Skyhold has been a helpful distraction, as has your work, but… it’s only been two days. You’re still…
Of course, you don’t really want to admit any of this to Bull. You sigh, rubbing your neck.
“I don’t know,” you say finally. “I’ve been drugged since it happened. I’m jumpier, but that could even be due to having just the one eye working. Sometimes, it just seems like, oh, yeah, that’s a thing that happened. Like an accident. Like I tripped or something. Other times…” You shrug. “I… can’t really make heads or tails of it yet.”
Bull gives you a pat on the shoulder. His hand covers pretty much the entire distance from the edge of your shoulder to your neck. Ridiculous.
“That’s pretty normal, especially if you’ve been on herbs for pain. Look, I don’t know if I’m really the person you’d want to talk to this stuff about—” You snort, and he grins ruefully. “Yeah, didn’t think so. But, y’know, Skinner’s a good listener, and Krem’s bedridden, so he’s got literally nothing better to do…”
“Has anyone told him yet?” you ask curiously. “Yesterday you said you were keeping it from him.”
“Don’t think anyone’s told him. He might have heard through the grapevine by now, being in the healing tent and all. I was actually gonna stop in and see him after breakfast, and give him the news if his condition is stable.”
“Would it not be?” you say with a worried frown. “He’s been getting better, right? He’s been there for over a week!”
“Well, he’s not getting worse, but he’s not healing the way they want him to,” Bull admits. “Problems with his lungs, and ribs. We’re having them take it really slow and easy to try and prevent any permanent injury. This is the kind of thing that could lay him out for good if it doesn’t heal right… or even give him the kind of long-term weakness that can you get killed prematurely in combat, in this line of work. I’d rather have him in bed for a month now than dead in two years because we rushed the healing.”
You nod. You hadn’t ever particularly worried about that, despite your, uh “line of work” in Orlais. Bards had a short shelf-life anyway, and while you’d had no real intention of dying, you’d honestly just been very confident of your ability to survive anything… much like Banal’ras is now. He had learned it somewhere, after all.
Not a day goes by that you don’t wonder whether not the two of you had ever done each other any good at all.
“You worried about that with your own injuries?” Bull asks, bringing you out of your thoughts.
“Yes and no… I’m worried about the eye,” you answer, bringing your fingers up to the bandages covering it. “But I also have a lot of faith that if it was actually at risk, Solas would be even more up in arms about it. He seems to think I’ll make a full recovery with minimum risk for complications… Though he sure does wish I’d spend the whole time on my back,” you add sourly.
Bull snorts, and you glare at him, realizing belatedly the second meaning of what you’d said. “You ever consider actually listening to him?” Bull asks, instead of taunting you about how much Solas wants you on your back. He doesn’t, but people sure do love teasing you about it.
“I do! Within reason,” you say with a frown, crossing your arms. “I almost have to; he’ll nag me into an early grave otherwise…”
“I think he’s more worried about nagging you out of an early grave,” Bull begins, but he trails off, his eye flicking to something behind you.
Your eyes follow Bull’s, and you see a man rushing towards you. “Excuse me!” he shouts out, only a second after you’ve noticed him. “Ser, um… Bull?” You would laugh, under different circumstances, but the man looks nervous. Something about the urgency with which he’s running towards you—at this hour, too—puts you on edge.
“Yeah?” Bull says, all business, ignoring the awkward butchering of his name.
“Um, the uh… mercenary, the one in the healing tent, he’s yours?”
“What’s wrong with him?” Bull says, deadly serious. You feel a knot of dread twist into your stomach.
“He’s taken a turn… I was sent to find the next of kin, and well, that’s… you.”
Next of kin?
You wonder if you look nearly as pale as Bull does. You hear a ringing in your ears; the man’s voice seems to echo. Bull’s jumping over the rope and running in the direction of the healers’ tent. After a moment of dizzy confusion, you’re following him.
What makes someone get the next of kin?
You know the answer to that question, but it’s still rattling around in your head. You trail behind Bull… not because you have no hope of keeping up with him, but because he’s tearing across the courtyard and you have just enough presence of mind to remember you don’t want Bull knowing just how fast you can move. By the time you catch up to him, he’s at the tent, and two people are standing between him and the entrance. To your surprise, he isn’t rushing in… But it looks like he’d really like to. You dart up to his side.
“—in surgery now, you’ll have to wait out here, but the healer wants you here in case.”
“In case?” a voice says weakly, shaking. You realize it’s yours only when one of the people glances over at you.
“The, um… Krem, has taken a turn. There’s internal bleeding, and… Well—”
“Do you have some relation to him?” interjects the other one, apparently more concerned with protocol.
“I’m… I’m…” you stammer, mind reeling.
“Yeah,” Bull says simply, and while the second person man seems a bit skeptical of the vagueness, they both accept it. “When can we go in?”
“We’ll let you know absolutely as soon as we can,” the first one promises. “For now, please wait out here, both of you.”
And then the two of you are left standing outside the healers’ tent. Helpless. You gaze frantically up at Bull, but he’s not looking at you. His face is horribly neutral, but he’s betrayed by the tension in his muscles.
You wonder, briefly, how Qunari deal with grief. What death means to them, culturally, religiously. Then you cut off that line of thought. You don’t want to have cause to learn how Qunari deal with death. Krem isn’t dead, he’s just in surgery. He’ll be fine. Obviously, he’ll be fine.
He has to be fine.
You want to stand stoically still like Bull. You don’t want to cause a scene, but you’re antsy. You wind up pacing back and forth outside the tent, rubbing your arms in an attempt to ward off a chill that has nothing to do with the mid-Kingsway weather. Time crawls by as the sun continues to rise, likely over the horizon but not yet over the walls of Skyhold. A few times, you open your mouth to say something to Bull, but stop short. You don’t know what the right thing to say is, and you’re quite confident you’d only make it worse. A few times, you wonder why you’re even here… You’re not even a Charger. You’re far from “next of kin” to Krem.
If you hadn’t been standing right next to Bull, you’d probably be off getting breakfast, no idea that Krem was… that Krem could be…
“Bull? Emma?”
You stiffen at the sound of a voice you weren’t expecting, and glance over to see Dalish, looking equal parts quizzical and concerned.
You’re glad Bull’s there, because you have no idea what in the Void to say.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, her eyes glancing over to the tent.
“It’s Krem,” Bull says finally, and Dalish tenses even further.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s bleeding, inside. They’re treating him but we’re… well, we’re waiting.”
Dalish nods tersely. “Is it okay if I tell the others…?”
“Yeah, go ahead,” Bull says with a nod. “I don’t want to leave, in case… something happens. But you should get the others.”
You wonder briefly if it didn’t occur to him to ask you to get them, or if it just isn’t your place. Thinking about it, it’s sort of weird to have the Chargers and you waiting outside. You start to feel acutely out of place, especially after Dalish runs off and other Chargers begin showing up, most at a run. Do you really have any right to be here? Not that you’re going to leave… Your stomach is twisted into knots, your heart hasn’t stopped pounding in your chest. You can barely even comprehend it, that something could happen to Krem, after he was safe here, safe with the healers. You’d just taken for granted that he’d recover. He’d seemed fine, when you last saw him… Well, not fine at all, but healing.
By the time people have stopped arriving, there’s nearly a dozen of you milling about in the courtyard outside the healers’ tent. You all look up when a person steps outside, and the woman looks a bit startled to suddenly have so many eyes on her.
“Erm… Are you all here about Krem?” she asks. You nod wordlessly along with everyone else. The woman takes a deep breath. “The good news is that he’s stabilized. He’s lost a lot of blood, but he has two healers sitting with him. He should be fine.”
There’s a sort of collective exhalation, the release of pent up tension and fear, as a group. Your vision is spinning; you actually feel light-headed. It feels a bit like your heart just started beating again after lying dead in your chest, though you’re acutely aware it had in fact been racing the entire time.
“Is he awake?” Dalish is asking. “Can we see him?”
“Not all of you!” the woman says quickly, holding up her hands as if to ward them off. “He’s still in a delicate state, and he’s going to be at risk for illness. One of you can see him for a few minutes, but the rest of you will have to come back later… one or two at a time, preferably.”
All eyes go to Bull. There’s not even a question about it, for any of them—or even you. As much as you would love dearly to see Krem, you know exactly who has the right, and who Krem would most want to see. Bull is “next of kin” for a reason.
He enters the tent, and the rest of you share anxious looks. It’s a huge relief to know he’s alright, but it doesn’t sound like he’s really out of the woods yet.
“Do you think the job is gonna be delayed?” one of the Chargers asks another.
“I dunno… Maybe? You know the boss isn’t gonna want to leave with him like this…”
“I don’t really want to leave with him like this either,” adds another, eyeing the tent.
“Damn, I thought he was getting better…”
“Yeah, same here.”
Yeah. You too, though you don’t voice your concerns. You wish you had something to lean on… you feel like you might fall over. You can’t even feel the chill in the air; your whole body is numb. How close had he come? How long would it take him to recover? Would he recover? When can you see him?
You shouldn’t, you realize suddenly. If he’s been in rough shape, he probably doesn’t know what happened. Doesn’t know about the state of you. Why would seeing you bandaged up and looking like you’d been savaged by an ogre make him feel better?! It would do the opposite! You can’t see him looking like this! You want to claw the damn bandages off.
Fucking Underhill. You wish you could just take Skinner or Sera up on their offer, just… just to be rid of him. But Solas had mentioned that the Commander wanted to make an example of Underhill, perhaps even in public. That would be much better than a private assassination. The wheels of justice grind slowly, but you’d rather a spectacle of the man’s fate. It would be good for the elves, if nothing else. They deserve to have that satisfaction, with how much fear this attack has instilled. And the humans deserve to have to see it too, so that they know what might happen if they do the same.
You don’t know how long it’s been when Bull finally comes out. You were lost in your thoughts the whole time, standing shakily in a corner. The Chargers flock to him, and you realize rather quickly that you’re going to be intruding on what should be private time together if you remain with the Chargers. So, despite the fact you’re still somewhat in shock, you make your excuses and leave. No one even particularly tries to stop you; they’re all distracted. They must deal with this sort of thing regularly, but would anyone have been expecting it here, in the middle of a safe spot? Krem had been healing, heading for a full recovery. The sudden turn for the worse had probably caught them off guard the same way it had you.
You don’t even really remember walking up the stairs or through the Great Hall, but here you are in the rotunda. You say something vague to Solas when he remarks on how haggard you look. How he can tell, you have no idea; your face is still bandaged. How can anyone read an expression when you’re in this condition?
You slump down at your desk. You have work to do, but your mind is still swimming. Relief has begun to sink in now, but the adrenaline wearing off just leaves you feeling sicker. You give it a few minutes to get better, realize it isn’t, and then peel yourself off your desk to power through it anyway.
You blame the herbs for the foggy state of your brain, so you let them wear off rather than taking another dose, working slowly—painfully slowly—all through the morning. It’s perhaps a good three hours before noon when you feel like they’ve worn off completely. Your mind is less foggy; you can almost focus. The pain is its own distraction, but you’ve healed to the point where it’s a manageable level of pain. It aches, but it’s easier to work through pain than work through the dizziness.
You have to wave Solas off a few times throughout the morning. He’s wanting you to sleep, of course. When is he not? He finally stops pestering you when you tell him that if he wants to help you so badly, he can enchant your wrist. There’s so much active magic on you right now that it’s a terrible idea, honestly, though you think you could handle it. Solas is having none of it, of course, but at least he stops pestering you to lay down.
You actually get hungry before the candle tells you it’s time to get lunch. You’ve actually been hungry for a while, but a loud grumble in your stomach causes you to actually notice. Come to think of it, you had skipped breakfast, in all the chaos. That’s not particularly unusual for you, mind, but you’re fully justified in an early lunch. It’s not like Solas will complain. And you’re getting nowhere slowly on your work.
You put your quill away, after taking a moment to admire it. It really does make the work more smooth. That quill is going to be traveling with you everywhere, like your journal and your other valuables. No way you’re leaving it behind if you have to cut your losses and run.
You make your way sort of slowly towards the kitchen. You feel a bit dizzy despite having not taken more medication… probably the last of it wearing off. All you really want to do is get to the kitchen and get some food, then get back and sit down. As soon as you noticed your hunger, you were suddenly ravenous, and now all you really want to do is eat.
A few people in the kitchen want to know how you’re doing. You make yourself sound as cheerful as possible, emphasize how quickly you’re healing, and how you hope to have the bandages off soon. While you know there are benefits to playing up sympathy, at this point you are honestly just sick and tired of everyone’s concern.
You finally manage to exit the kitchens, a little more irritated for all the attention. There is a limit to how much fussing one person can stand! So it’s Servis’s misfortune that he happens across you then. He’s standing in the hall, leaning up against the wall and reading. His Templar is nowhere in sight. You don’t know if you should be happy you don’t have to deal with a Templar’s attention, or irritated that he’s doing such a poor job of watching the Vint.
Servis glances up at you, then does a bit of a double take. Then he frowns; Maker only knows why.
“You know, your not-boss could give you a break from fetching his meals given the fact I’ve raised undead that look more alive than you right now,” he comments sardonically.
Oh, good. You can take your mood out on him without feeling guilty.
“It’s my food,” you snap back. “And I loathe being waited on. Some of us aren’t as naturally comfortable being served as they are in Tevinter. Comes from not being raised thinking the world and everything in it is your birthright, I think.”
To your disappointment, he just holds up his hands—one still clasping the book—in apparent surrender. “Did that book ever do your mage any good, then?”
You have to think for a second before you remember what the hell he’s talking about. Right… the book of runes you swiped, along with his notes. You’d barely had any time to look over it, in all this chaos. “He hasn’t sent it back yet,” is all you say, then turn and stalk away before he can get in any more probing questions you haven’t prepared answers for.
You’re feeling extremely dizzy on the way back… as bad as when you’d first been injured, although the sensation is different enough that you’re willing to just blame the herbs. You glare bitterly—and if you’re being honest, a bit nervously—up the stairs. You begin to climb shakily, and you’re glad there’s no one around to see how frequently you have to balance the tray on one arm and desperately grasp the railing to keep from losing your balance. You take your time, however, and manage to make it up, though the arm on which you were balancing the tray is trembling violently by the time you reach the top.
Well, now that that’s done, you just have to cross the Great Hall. You’re certain with every step that you’ll begin to feel better, that the dizziness will level out. Instead, it’s only getting worse. Maker, you need to sit down. Maybe you’re having a side effect from coming off the herbs after taking them consistently for days? The healers hadn’t mentioned that, but of course, they hadn’t intended for you to stop taking them.
You focus on keeping your steps as even and normal-looking as possible as you enter the rotunda, not wanting to deal with Solas if he sees you staggering about like a drunk. You can barely see straight by the time you get to his desk, but your stool is definitely there… you accidentally kick it with a foot.
You begin unloading the food onto his desk. You think Solas might be saying something, but he’s saying it really quietly… you can’t quite make it out, despite your sharp ears. You glance over at him, and then frown in confusion as the room begins growing dim. What happened to the
lights
The room tips sideways as everything goes dark.