Blood Wound Chapter 29

[miri1984]

Title: Stopped a blight, can't complain
Words: 1200
Characters: Alim, Anders, Nathaniel, Justice

Title art by cave_fatuam 

"It smells," Anders said. "And I have a horrible feeling I know what it smells like."

"I wonder if the broodmothers talk too?" Alim flicked darkspawn blood off his hand and absently healed the burn it left. The architect had gone down after a brutal fight. Alim was still mind-boggled that the thing could even suggest uplifting more of his brethren, it had gone so terribly well for the ones that he'd helped so far. Weisshaupt was beseiged enough without adding thinking, talking darkspawn to the things they had to worry about.

"Oh please don't put that image in my head," Anders was busy healing Nate's shoulder. The dwarf woman had been fast - far faster than they'd expected from someone gone in the taint as she had seemed to be, and she'd managed to get a good slice in that was going to take a bit of time to heal.

Alim had rested in worse places, he supposed. At least there were no giant spiders down here, although the childer grubs could be considered just as bad. He slumped against a wall with Lamppost across his knees and watched Anders work, the slight tingling of his connection to the fade soothing and sending him back to other times - times in the tower, or at camp during the blight. If he closed his eyes he could almost imagine a body next to him, warm, the scent of leather and sweat and blood, the slide of callused fingers on his arm…

"Commander?" Justice's voice was gentle. "We are not finished here. Are you well?"

He nodded. "Just tired, Justice," he said. "Just… tired."

"I am fortunate not to suffer from fatigue," the spirit said. "It is a disadvantage to a mortal body."

"It is. Fortunately wardens don't get as tired as regular people. At least, that's what I keep telling myself."

"Regular people don't have to fight mutated childer grubs and wade through tainted sludge," Anders pointed out. His breath was coming quickly and Alim glanced at him to find him wrapping a bandage around the wound on Nathaniel's shoulder. Anders noticed his look and nodded. "It'll hold," he said. "But I hope the Mother isn't as tough as the Architect or we'll be having a hard time getting back up the stairs."

"Should have… made the deal…" Nathaniel croaked out. "Could have… gone back on it…"

Alim's eyes widened, then he laughed. "Oh, Ser Howe. Nobility, eh?"

The archer narrowed his eyes, but his lips twitched a little. "I am a Howe," he said, shifting.

"We're not going anywhere for a few hours, Howe or no," Anders said, moving Nathaniel into a more comfortable position on his bedroll. "It's not the nicest place to camp, but we can throw the dismembered body parts into that chasm and set up a watch. I need to let my mana regenerate and have another go at that shoulder any way."

"You should sleep," Justice said. "I will stand watch."

A few moments ago Alim had felt that sleep would never come again, but with Justice's offer a wave of tiredness washed over him with enough strength that he nodded. "Thank you, Justice," he said. "Wake us in two hours. I don't want to risk any longer."

"As you say, Commander."

He lay down on his bedroll and was asleep within seconds.

The campsite was completely empty. Alim picked his way over the corpses of Shrieks, puzzled as to where everyone had gone. Sten was supposed to be on watch - it had been his cry that had alerted them to the attack, but the Qunari was no where in sight.

"You linger here, always," a voice whispered in his ear. "Yet you had peace when you lived in the palace. What draws you back to war and blight?"

In the way of dreams he was suddenly in the office of the Chancellor in Denerim. HIS office. He could hear Zev's hearty chuckle from the corridor and he moved to the door to go and greet his lover, but the door would not budge. Frustrated, he called forth magic to force the lock, but the power stuttered and died on his hands. He thumped the wood, but Zevran's voice faded and he knew the Antivan had moved away.

"As though everything was always out of your reach," the voice mused, "despite having it all at your fingertips."

He frowned and the scene changed again. This time he was in the harrowing chamber of the Tower, surrounded by the corpses of his friends and former collegues. He sat with his hands on his knees against the wall, right in front of the corpse of the pride demon Ulric had become. Funny, how hard it was to remember exactly what Ulric had looked like before his change. He had a vague memory of shiny baldness and barely contained anger, but aside from that, the horned purpleness was all that he could conjure when he thought of the man.

That, and the blood.

"Why do you not use the power I have given you?"

Alim sighed and looked up. She looked like a desire demon. Purple. Naked. "Why do you keep appearing to me like that?" he said. "You have to know it's not really my thing."

She shrugged. "I am not trying to tempt you now, mortal. I simply… desire to understand."

"I thought you lived off the desires of others?"

"You have a limited understanding of my kind."

"That's true." He smiled at her.

"Is that why you will not use the blood?"

"Partly," he got to his feet, and picked his way through the corpses to the lyrium font. "You brought me here. Why don't you try to guess the other reasons?" He reached into the lyrium font, but it was an illusion, there was no power there, and it did nothing.

She glanced around at the carnage. "You won," she said. "And Ulric's stupidity doomed him. The demon he joined with should have known better."

Alim shook his head and grinned ruefully. "How exactly? I mean, it's not as though you manage to join with every second mage you meet. For all you know I could go mad and stab myself to death as soon as I start letting you help with my spells…"

"You were made to use the power of the blood," she said, stepping closer. "It sings to you in a way it does not to other mages. You could be greater than any sorcerer living or dead."

"And here I thought you were a desire demon. Sounding awfully like you're trying to appeal to my pride, there."

"You are proud of your achievements," she said.

"Stopped a blight," he said, shrugging. "Can't complain."

"But you want so much more!"

He closed the distance between them. "Do I? Why don't you tell me exactly what it is I want, and then maybe I'll get you to give it to me."

Her eyes narrowed and she stared back at him, for a long, long moment.

"You want him back."

He nodded. "What else?"

"You want him never to have gone."

Alim laughed bitterly and pointed at her. "Exactly."

"I cannot give you that."

"Shouldn't you be lying and saying you can?"

"You would know I lied."

"I would."

"What can I give you?" Her voice was almost plaintive.

He sucked at his teeth, then looked down at his hands. Dream hands, he knew now, as he usually knew whenever he entered the fade. Sometimes he willingly let his consciousness drift, but today, here, there were too many things at stake.

Too many things.

When he lifted his gaze and stared into her yellow eyes, he knew what he needed, and he knew exactly how to get it.