War Wounds and Gifts from High Places

[tevintage]

Who| The Dragon Age Cast and Anyone who would conceivably visit them
What| So many wounded, time to patch everyone up - wait, Dorian, did you get a gu--BANG
Where| The DA cast hideout cave oooo
When| post-Smilodons
Warnings/Notes| Violence, melodrama

He didn't completely remember being brought back to the cave. The pain had been excruciating, and the fever came quickly after, despite Maxwell's careful and timely first aid. He awoke, groggy and in pain, but alive, to find himself back in the hovel that they were more or less calling 'home'. Raising a hand to rub his face, he winced as his shoulder pulled the muscles across his chest - torn and ragged, rent deep with a smilodon's claws. He groaned, letting the arm fall back to his chest and press against the bandages there as he pulled himself to sit upright.

"Maker, but what does a man need to do for some water?" He complained a little too loudly.

He wasn't the only one wounded. The Iron Bull and Cassandra had both taken crippling injuries to the beasts - and they all lay in the cave now.

As he woke, a whisper on the wind signaled an incoming sponsor package, floating down to land at Dorian's feet.

Comments

SHOOTING CULLEN

[tevintage]

He grunted as he leaned over to grasp the package, frowning at it when he realised how heavy it was, for how small it was. Even his winter gear had been lighter. Carefully, he opened it, to find a pistol inside, and two small, heavy cardboard boxes with it. Frowning, he lifted the gun out of the case.

"What is this?" He muttered, his brows furrowing. He'd never seen anything remotely like it.

[revocation]

Cullen was tired. Tired, and sore, and he needed a bath, a shave, and a decent night's sleep, none of which he was likely to get any time soon. But he wasn't one to complain, and given that everyone left after the cornucopia was still alive, despite such things as giant monstrous cats attacking, not to mention a magical forest fire, he thought perhaps they were doing alright, all things told.

Cassandra would be chomping at the bit to help out again, despite her injury, but other than that...

Dorian's voice has him raising his head, his own brow furrowing. He stood, crossing the cave to where Dorian was sitting. "What's that?" Perhaps if he could take a look at it, he might be able to make heads or tails of it.

[tevintage]

"A present, it seems," Dorian said, turning the gun over in his hands. "For when Bull and I defeated that beast. Apparently it was some sort of test," He added wryly, "How good for me that I passed."

He finally figured out to hold it - the grip seemed at least somewhat similar to a dagger, even if the rest was all dull and bent wrong. The hole, though.

"It came with this," He said, holding out a box of ammo to Cullen. He still wanted to get a better look at the gun himself, for a moment.

[revocation]

Cullen had also never seen such a contraption before. It must've been some kind of weapon, but at a glance he couldn't discern its workings.

He took the box, opening it carefully and finding - lead pellets, of some sort. He took one out, inspecting it with a jaundiced eye. "I suppose these are projectiles," he said after a moment.

After the shooting - totally open idec

[revocation]

Cullen leans back against the wall of the cave, cautiously flexing his bandaged right arm and hand. He's checking his range of motion - the projectile, whatever it was that had been fired from the contraption of Dorian's had, thankfully, missed anything really vital.

Mostly it just hurts like the absolute dickens. And his ability to hunt is pretty much shot for the time being. He'll have to try and find other ways to contribute - he despises being idle.

[alwaysshielded]

Her leg still mostly bound, Cassandra is not able to properly stalk over to Cullen as she normally would, forced into an awkward gait. Her lack of normal grace does nothing to change her expression, however. That is precisely as unimpressed as it would have been were she in the peak of health. They were both alive. Her reaction would be different otherwise, but as it is?

"I find myself unable to decide which of you I feel the less sympathy for."

[revocation]

Cassandra isn't the only one completely unimpressed with this whole situation, to be perfectly frank. It's one thing to be injured for perfectly justifiable reasons - like in a fight with a very large, very angry lion.

To be injured by one of your own companions, in the (relative) safety of your own camp, by technology you don't understand?

Ridiculous.

"Good thing I don't want sympathy, then," he mutters darkly, closing his eyes against the impending headache. "This whole thing was stupid."

[alwaysshielded]

That gets a faint snort of- well, it isn't quite amusement. She can't be pressed to own that positive of an emotion after this whole display. But it's something. Of course Cullen would view the entire situation in a similar light.

It takes her a little shuffling and almost a skip somewhere in there, but she takes a seat by the man, on his injured side, so she can at least confirm the entire encounter was as inane as she had been lead to believe.

"Mages and unknown powers. Some things remain the same."

[unlikelyherald]

Once everything has settled and people are no longer bleeding everywhere, Adella disappears to go wash the blood from her hands. She washes the strange jacket she was outfitted with too, despite the fact that it doesn't really provide much warmth, the fabric doesn't seem to stain easily, at least.

When she comes back into the cave and sees Cullen flexing his arm she sighs, walking over and picking up sleeping bag that came along with all his other surprise supplies.

"Stop that, you'll open your stitches," she scolds, although she can't muster much force behind the words as she unravels the sleeping bag. It takes her a moment to realize it's bound with a metal contraption she doesn't have a word for rather than being more like a bedroll, but once she figures it out she 'unzips' the bag, kneeling down beside him and settling the now-blanket over him. She knows enough about blood loss to know it makes it easier to get cold. There's an almost clinical detachment with how she's treating him, before she glances up and makes eye contact, clearly worried.

"How's it feel?"

[revocation]

"I won't," he says automatically, but he stops doing it when she says so, giving an annoyed sort of sight. Not at her, but at the situation as a whole. It's just so ridiculous, and now his sword arm is useless for a few days at least. For no good reason.

There's really no point protesting at her care - she'll do it whether he likes it or not, whether he complains about it or not. He's still a little self-conscious about it all - particularly in such close quarters with the others, and especially after Dorian's... rather extreme reaction to it all when she first arrived, despite the fact that he's calmed down considerably since.

Maker, but he wishes he were back at Skyhold where things made some kind of sense.

"It burns, odd as that sounds," he says after a moment, but waves her off. "Painful, but as long as it doesn't get infected, I'll be fine."

[unlikelyherald]

She knows he's frustrated so she doesn't take the grumping personally, settling down next to him on his uninjured side.

"Burns doesn't sound odd," she replies, leaning over to check his bandage, wanting to keep from sitting and stewing for too long. It's still fresh enough that she's happy. "Whatever that weapon is, the um, projectile that went through your arm was hot enough to at least partially cauterize it. We should just be able to keep it clean and it'll be fine." She's actually learned a few things from the healers at Skyhold. She's by no means a healer herself, most of her attempts at magically knitting flesh back together had been weak at best. The emergency triage has come in handy, though.

[tevintage]

Dorian had, in the meantime, taken the weapon outside - fired it a couple of times, far enough from camp - and since put it away extremely carefully. He returned to the camp several hours later, looking a bit like a dog who knew he had done something very, very bad and was slightly afraid of getting kicked.

"Are you alright?" He asked as he returned, half expecting Cullen to snap at him (he'd deserve it).

[revocation]

Cullen sighed a little at the question, giving Dorian what he hoped was a quelling look.

"I promise, I'm fine. I was more startled than anything. I can assure you, I've been injured far worse than this and come out the other side." It wasn't a lie, or even an exaggeration. He'd seen far worse in Kirkwall, the past few years, this was nothing in comparison. He hadn't even lost all that much blood, comparatively.

[tevintage]

"You'll forgive me," Dorian said, offering him a somewhat pained smile, "The last time I accidentally wounded someone so badly was when I was approximately 14 and directing where the fire should go was a brand new and slightly elusive theory."

He did, however, reach out to gently check the bandages, though he seemed fairly satisfied with them. "I have never known such a small weapon to have such power."

After Everything - Closed, Unless Someone Wants to Overhear

[dreadinquisitor]

He couldn't get the blood off his hands. Even after multiple washes, scrubbing with handfuls of snow until his skin was numb, it lingered. A telling black in the beds of his nails, a rusty stain in-between his fingers, inside his joints.

They'd been bloodied before, bruised and split, but this was different.

This wasn't his blood. It wasn't the blood of his enemies.

It was Bull's and Cullen's and Cassandra's and Dorian's.

It was Dorian's face on the insides of his eyelids when the drooped with weariness when the crisis seemed at last to be behind them. It was Shepard's voice in his ears as he trudged back into the cold and dark to take the lengthened watch.

You're going to watch them die, probably multiple times.

He lingered near the cave; in case Adella called for him (because he couldn't leave) and studied the night with a steady gaze belied by the small jerks of his fingers on the shaft of the makeshift bow, restless and uneasy.

The gentle chime of the silver parachute, so long after the others, nearly had him loosing an arrow out of instinct, but he caught the glint of it against the moon a heartbeat after the fletching touched his cheek. Relaxing it back, he watched it drift closer, brow furrowing at it plopped lightly into the snow at his feet.

The wrinkle only deepened when he cracked the case open to find nothing but a slip of paper and a note. He nearly tossed it away, paper balling in a sudden fist - but then he hesitated.

He didn't know what this Valentine's Day was meant to mean, but if they were offering... if there was a chance....

He glanced back toward the cave, the glow of the fire within cast soft and yellow across the ground around the mouth, then turned again to the inky dark of the night. Where they were watching from, he couldn't say, but he trusted that they were.

"I don't know your celebrations, but I take it to mean you want to know what's in my heart." He pointed back with one arm. "They are." His voice dropped, a quiet, broken whisper to no one. "And I can't just watch this happen. I need tools I understand, that can make a difference."

He held up the bow of twigs and sinew, the green arrow clutched between his fingers.

"You know what I can do with a proper bow. You know with that, I have a chance of keeping them safe."

His eyes roved over the dark, silence falling but for the rush of the wind and the slide of loose snow over packed.

"Please."

[alwaysshielded]

"There was a time I would have given anything- my flesh, my blood, my very soul- to know with absolute certainty some power heard my pleas."

Cassandra does not move with her typical grace these past few days. Nor with the sharp, violent march that came so easily to her in moments of anger. Rather her approach is a slow, audible one as she shuffles forward with one bound leg. She had not missed the magical variety of the healing arts quite so keenly ever before, but there was little point in bemoaning one's fate. The injury, along with speaking with their allies these past few weeks, had granted an additional perspective. And as little as Cassandra enjoyed backtracking from previous sentiments, she was not one to remain in the wrong simply to please her foolish pride.

"Of course, at the time I had the Maker on my mind. But it would seem life often partakes in the unfortunate habit of granting us precisely what we wish in the manner we would least have had it."

[dreadinquisitor]

She must have approached while he was speaking, otherwise he certainly would have heard it. The snow and the new limping gait giving her away while in advance.

He turned from the dark to meet her, no shame on his face, but concern.

A touch of uncertainty. The Seeker hadn't gone out of her way to approach him before.

"It would seem the Maker isn't without a sense of irony -- if it is truly His hand in this."

Which would only beg the question why.

Camp Arrival (otherwise known as Hawke Hears a Who)

[hereliestheabyss]

Common sense would usually dictate to run in the opposite direction when you hear a gunshot.

Hawke, as she said herself many a time, lacked a good deal of sense. And didn’t know what a gunshot was, for that matter. A short, confined explosion was the best description she could come up with for the sound as it ricocheted, and she knew what that was, at least. Death and destruction, smoke and char. But it was a sign of activity, and she found herself flocking towards it all the same. At best, she’d find some dead bodies to loot supplies off of. At worst… She’d find herself in a fight to the death with whoever caused the explosion, yes, but at least that was something. She’d rather go out with a bang than a whimper.

Voices filtered in earshot as she crept closer to the source— A cave? Smart thinking— And while she couldn’t make out the words, the panic that bled through them was obvious. Someone was alive. No, more than a someone, more than one voice was echoing, and there went the logistics of her plan. Think… Think… She could still salvage this. She could offer help, or overcome them if they were all injured or looked weak enough, the cave would provide a nice bottleneck that could work to her advantage if there weren’t projectiles involved.

It was with that thought in mind she approached the entrance in as non-threatening a manner she could muster, one hand already held up defensively while the other hid her make-shift spear behind her back.

“Do pardon my interruption, but I couldn’t help but— Overhear…”

Her helpful words stopped about as soon as she got close enough to see the chaos. The chaos revolving around members of the Inquisition, no less.

“By Andraste’s flaming— What is this?”

(muffled cursing in the distance)

[revocation]

It stood to reason that the sudden commotion would draw attention. If anything, Cullen was more worried about that than his own wound, which was relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.

He thought there might be trouble - he did not expect exactly this kind of trouble to appear, however.

"Andraste preserve me," he heard himself say. "How long have you been here?"

Okay, maybe that wasn't the politest thing to say to the Champion of Kirkwall, but he'd lost a lot of blood recently and wasn't exactly in a happy mood.

(muffled snickering following shortly)

[hereliestheabyss]

“About as long as you’ve been bleeding, I expect.”

Hawke smirked in spite of it all, blood loss be damned. His sour reaction was more or less what she’d come to anticipate, no less deserved with the circumstances at hand.

“A hello would have been nice, too. Or an explanation. I suppose you’re too busy being injured to offer either. Tsk, tsk.”

She began to kneel down, ready the healing magic in her palms— Except. No magic. Ah. Well, that’s awkward. Her hands floundered for a moment, fingers twitching listlessly before she pretended to dust off her pants instead and stood up straight, offering a polite cough behind a closed fist. Nice save.

“You could tell me if it’s life-threatening, at least. A good funeral pyre takes ages to get right.”

let me know if you'd rather only have one first meeting?

[alwaysshielded]

Cassandra had spent the last few days with one leg bound out flat before her, unable to do much more than sit and wait and watch. And so, at any other time, Cassandra would likely not have been in camp when Hawke appeared. At any other time, she may not have had the time to sit and fully appreciate the irony of the moment. Years she had searched for the Champion, had dragged Varric by the ear to the very feet of the Divine over her, had then endured the dwarf's inescapable presence as her penance for such an 'abduction.' And now, when she had given no small number of prayers that no others would be torn from Thedas, now when Cullen was currently trying to stem an ally-induced flesh wound, Hawke would simply appear out of no where and find her.

Oh, but the Maker tested her.

"Champion."

nah it's totally fine! the more the merrier

[hereliestheabyss]

If the Inquisitor had divinely bad luck, Hawke was no stranger to it. The chain of events that followed her did not always affect the entirety of Thedas, no, but that did not make them any less far-fetched or catastrophic. They occurred on a smaller scale, that was all, and that only served to make them all the more jarring, too personal and too close to home. All things considered, the spectacle in the cave aligned with her sense of destiny exceedingly well, fit like a glove in the series of unfortunate events she called her life. The Maker must have a sense of humor that could match her own in cruelty.

She ventured further into the cave, stopping at Cassandra’s side and stooping down on her knees to close the distance. Standing tall while addressing her from the floor felt wrong, even for her. Disrespectful, somehow.

“Seeker.”

post shooting

[meravas]

The Bull's left shoulder harness was useless to wear, his skin gashed through down from his shoulder to under his chest, a bite ring of teeth left to the thickness of his shoulder muscle, some of the fangs penetrating deeper than the others and nearly severing his left arm entirely. His left arm was practically as useless as the harness, any movement causing that side to seize from the pain and making him grunt back the muttered exclamations and colorful language.

Keeping his left arm tucked close to his side, the wounds bandaged up as best as they could be and his blanket draped over him with his parka now in ruins from the fight, Bull wasn't going to sit about idly. It didn't matter the blood loss he had suffered, he was going to move around the camp and check on the others - unless they came across him first. Dorian being his first stop, he had tried to make sure the mage had stayed out of the way and unharmed but...

Now he had Cullen to check on, after that loud bang, the gunshot ringing out through the bush and startling even the likes of him.

lmk if you're prefer their intro to be later on instead!

[hereliestheabyss]

Once Hawke recovered from the initial shock of coming across so many members of the Inquisition in such compromising positions (she still doesn’t know what a gun is, what even caused that explosion), she set off to assess the individual damage. The consensus seemed to involve the best fighters retaining the worst injuries. Typical behavior for warriors, throwing themselves into danger headfirst and protecting the weak. It’s not a concept she would think twice about, if her access to magic wasn’t so completely and utterly cut off. Without it… The carnage left a sour taste in her mouth. Too permanent, too vulnerable.

But those thoughts were best left to rest. Tensions were high, people were scattered, and there were still faces Hawke had yet to reacquaint herself with. She hardly expected a warm reception, not with her reputation preceding her and written in ink for all to see. Yet as her tale would bluntly point out, such trivialities had never stopped her before.

She approached Iron Bull before he could do the same, wearing a hint of a crooked smile that was too sobered to match her usual exuberance. Not that the gravity of the situation would stick for long. She was too guarded for that, full to the brim with irreverence waiting to spill over.

“I hope you have a good story behind those newest battle scars.”

I'm good with whatever!

[meravas]

The dark-haired woman was someone he didn't recognize, even as he stopped at her approach to squint his good eye at her. Bull looked down at himself, his bandaged injuries to be exact, and huffed out a grumble as he looked to her once more. "When isn't there a good story?"

Bull was still trying to place her, moving to do a slow walk around, step shuffling from a strain to the muscle in his thigh.

"All right, since we get a lot of randoms - what am I calling you?"