Nathaniel Howe (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
noble_son) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
entrancelogs2016-04-02 11:42 pm
noble_son) wrote in entrancelogs2016-04-02 11:42 pm
[OPEN]
Who: Nathaniel & YOU
Where: In the grounds
When: Far too early in the morning (4am - 6am), April 1st
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Nathaniel finds his way outside with a rudimentary archery target and a couple of lanterns. In the dark.
The Story:
He found it chilly when he stepped outdoors, but not enough to make him shiver. The cool air prickled through his clothing and nipped at his fingers for a few minutes before the mild exertion of walking warmed his blood enough to drive it off.
Carrying a large, round archery target under one arm and two lanterns in his hand, he moved far enough from the mansion to not be too much at risk of hitting anyone with a stray arrow (though close enough to be seen should someone peek out of the door or glance through a window) and carefully hung the target on the lowest bough of a tree. Beneath it and slightly behind, he set one lantern, retreating with the other and putting it down by his feet some three hundred yards away from his target.
THUNK
The first arrow hit with a satisfying sound and swung the target back, making the tree branch bob up and down.
He could be found there for the next couple of hours, long after the sky began to turn light and the lanterns became little more than ornaments. He paused briefly to turn them off when they were no longer needed, setting them together not far from where he stood. Almost anyone venturing near would find themselves easily spotted, the bow in his hand lowered and a small nod given to allow them to pass without danger.
[while Nathaniel is not overtly affected by the event in this post, I welcome anyone who is :D]
Where: In the grounds
When: Far too early in the morning (4am - 6am), April 1st
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Nathaniel finds his way outside with a rudimentary archery target and a couple of lanterns. In the dark.
The Story:
He found it chilly when he stepped outdoors, but not enough to make him shiver. The cool air prickled through his clothing and nipped at his fingers for a few minutes before the mild exertion of walking warmed his blood enough to drive it off.
Carrying a large, round archery target under one arm and two lanterns in his hand, he moved far enough from the mansion to not be too much at risk of hitting anyone with a stray arrow (though close enough to be seen should someone peek out of the door or glance through a window) and carefully hung the target on the lowest bough of a tree. Beneath it and slightly behind, he set one lantern, retreating with the other and putting it down by his feet some three hundred yards away from his target.
THUNK
The first arrow hit with a satisfying sound and swung the target back, making the tree branch bob up and down.
He could be found there for the next couple of hours, long after the sky began to turn light and the lanterns became little more than ornaments. He paused briefly to turn them off when they were no longer needed, setting them together not far from where he stood. Almost anyone venturing near would find themselves easily spotted, the bow in his hand lowered and a small nod given to allow them to pass without danger.
[while Nathaniel is not overtly affected by the event in this post, I welcome anyone who is :D]
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"You must be a soldier," he comments dryly, turning his steps to match and heading directly for the door. It's a good thing he's become used to holding up the weight of injured Grey Wardens.
"Not far," the muttered remark is mostly to himself. Would they find the place empty, as he fears?
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"Templar," he comments back instead, because years of habit outweigh the ex- and much else, in moments such as these.
He spots the familiar door, and pushes against it, finding it give away so lightly as to make him stumble. He catches himself and breathes a sigh of relief. The blurred outlines of strange devices swims into his vision. He closes his eyes against the blinding light, even brighter than the corridors before.
So brightly lit, and yet completely empty.
Cullen's legs give out, and he crashes to his knees.
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Templar, then. Wait. Templar? Hadn't Anders said something about-
He doesn't get the chance to finish that thought as the man goes down barely a step into the clinic. Nathaniel, unblinded by pain and blood loss, surveys the empty room with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Ah.
Nathaniel had dropped with the wounded man if only to keep him from falling too heavily, or keeling over onto the arrow still sticking out of his side. Now, he reaches for the small communication device that he has already grown the habit of carrying around with him and contacts the only person he can think of.
Anders was going to love this.
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--All the others? As far as he knows they could treat the wound no better or worse than he. That will have to be it, then.
"Might still be nearby," he mumbles a half-voiced thought; that the clinic is lit, that its abandonment may only be temporary. That the man should check their surroundings if it could be so.
That energy for clarity must go towards something else, however. His legs don't budge, at first. Only on third try do they move, shakily, and steady enough for Cullen to rise again. Bandages. He ought to find bandages, so he can finally pull this blighted arrow from his side.
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"Ser, I'm going to have to insist that you sit. I know very well the damage my arrows can do."
If he had to knock this man out to keep him from moving further then so be it. He doubted there was much he could do to defend himself at this point in time. Pulling the arrow out before proper help had arrived would only be another mistake to add to what had turned into an entirely undesirable early morning.
"I have sent for aid and should someone be nearby they will find us sooner. Unless you wish to bleed out the remainder of your life over this floor, sit down."
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He'd sit and watch me bleed out, Cullen says, or- thinks he says, did he? It doesn't matter. If all the help he has left to hope for is Anders, then it must be in his own hands now. He takes a step before he slumps a little, but the step was enough- underneath him he feels a shelf of metal, which to prop himself against.
Underneath his fingers he feels fabric of sorts, white cloth rolled up, clean. It will do. Cullen looks up at the man, who waits for him to sit. With all the swiftness left in him he snaps off the arrow's feathered shaft end, and pushes the rest of it through on the other side.
In brighter news: If anyone is indeed nearby, then the scream will have alarmed them to their presence.
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He swears vehemently once again and grabs a bundle of the white bandages off the shelf, pressing hard against the wound.
"Blighted idiot," he snaps out, the pressure of his hand firm enough to do much more than smart but the urgency of keeping this man alive has been increased tenfold by his sudden action. "Why did you do that? I know they teach Templars more than how to deal with runaway mages."
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He only groans quietly at the pressure, and bunches his fingers around some of the bandages in return. Presses more to the wounds where there is still room. Has to tilt his head uncomfortably, because the white fog narrows his vision, and he needs to see-- There. Cullen nods at the closet by the wall.
"Poultices," he sums up eloquently.
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"I'll get them. If you don't stop moving, you will bleed to death. Do you hear me? It already looks as if someone has been murdered in here." And he'll have to clean up. It's hardly fair to leave it.
And why was Anders choosing now to take his time? Nathaniel could kill them both and be done with it. It was starting to feel worryingly like a sane decision.
"Stay there, or I will knock you out. I'll let that be your choice."
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Instead he feels himself sinking backwards, somehow idly wondering if the mattress underneath is truly that soft, or if he's become too numb to feel otherwise.
His side almost feels fine now-- and he quickly remembers to press the bandages down harder, until it doesn't, anymore. He tries to lift his head to check on the other man's progress, without success. Groaning Cullen accepts that measure of defeat, and lies still, to gather his strength for whatever is to come next.
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When he returns with a couple of poultices in hand, a thought intrudes abruptly on his concern.
"I saw you at Kirkwall," he says. One templar can look much the same as another until you see them alone. He's sure he knows this one. It's with some measure of care that he eases Cullen's hand away to check the measure of the bleeding, only to just as quickly press it back again. "Do not move your hand."
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--flies past his head, and he thinks it was the statue whose blow he dodged, until the very same topples, knees slamming violently into the ground. Pulsing red lyrium gives the statues their unholy life, but its veins crack the metal as well. That is where they must seize their chance to strike. That is where an arrow protrudes from the bronze monster, crack turned to debilitating gap by the sheer precision of it. He remembers his surprise, because it could not have come from Varric's direction. He remembers risking a glance over his shoulder. He remembers...
He doesn't remember his name. Fleeting introductions after the battle, and too much to take up his focus in the aftermath. Too much to blur it, now. Grey Warden? He groans as he presses down on the wounds again, and mumbles some vague compliance with Nathaniel's order. --Nathaniel?
"...Nathaniel? At the battle, you- you were a fine shot."
Cullen laughs at that. Cullen... thinks he meant to laugh at that, but he can hear no such sound, so somewhere he must have forgotten to follow through.
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Anders' tired mumbling announces his arrival to the clinic. He walks in still adjusting the clothes he'd hastily thrown on, blinking under the clinic's harsh fluorescent lighting, but when he sees who's there, he stops.
Nathaniel is there as promised, but much to Anders' eternal surprise, so is an injured person covered in blood. When Nathaniel had said to come downstairs because he'd shot someone, Anders hadn't known what to expect--but he hadn't really believed Nathaniel was serious about that part.
The identity of the injured party is even more of a shock.
"Nathaniel! You really shot Cullen!?" His mouth falls open. "Maker, I was only joking when I said that..."
Unbidden, a swell of something resembling fond surprise steals the rest of the words. He looks at his fellow Warden with a peculiar look of one deeply affected by some grand gesture they're only just starting to process.
"Did you shoot him because of me?" he says, hushed now, approaching Nathaniel as if about to take him by the shoulder.
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And groans loudly in frustration. The sound of an opening door gave life to a small piece of hope, that one of the clinic's healers might have returned to their duties. The sight of Anders crushes that fledgling hope in cold blood.
The best Cullen can say for the scenario is that he had anticipated it, that he would endure until Anders has refused him and left, so the archer might acknowledge that other measures were required. Poultices. Thread. Hot iron, better hands to help- anything other than a mage that would much rather see him bleed out the last of his life than move a finger to preserve it. All he prays is that Nathaniel comes to grasp the futility of relying on the healer's help soon and quickly--
Unless he already knew from the start.
The gestures and words only come to him in fragments, quiet and dull and further away than they ought to be. Really shot him. What if both their nightly practices were no coincidence at all, if it was not carelessness on his, but careful deliberation on the part of another? Shot him because of Anders. If fetching a healer was no reassurance or token of innocence, only a gift to the healer, who'd wish to see the outcome on a silver platter.
This is irrational, a quiet voice tries to reassure him, but something inside him refuses to let the fleeting suspicion go. Feeds it instead, until it grows hooks to sink into his mind, the pain of his wound and humiliation of such a betrayal stirring a flare of disbelieving rage.
Before he knows it, Cullen is back on his feet. Back against the wall, snarling at the both of them, drawn sword in his hand impossibly heavy to hold. He mustn't hope for his victory. Only for enough strength to sour theirs.
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"Honestly?" Nathaniel blurts out in utter disbelief, not even moving to reach for the small dagger concealed on his person. He looks to Anders with something akin to aggravated helplessness. "He keeps doing this. I think he actually wants to bleed to death."
Given the mess currently all over the floor, which Nathaniel is finding ever so subtly distressing, it doesn't look like it's going to be long until Cullen passes out from blood loss anyway.
"Can you knock him out? Gently."
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It's unfortunate for a man to be shot with an arrow, of course. Bad. Very bad. Cullen probably hadn't deserved it unless he'd been threatening someone's life at the time. But still... If Nathaniel had roughed up a templar on his behalf--even a one-time templar--he doesn't know what to say. The Warden Commander had taken a huge gamble drawing a line against the templars, and it's an act of loyalty and kindness he may never be able to fully repay.
Would Nathaniel stand up against the templars like that as well? He wouldn't have been sure ten minutes ago. Perhaps he'd misjudged the man...
Distracted by his newfound regard for the Warden at this side, he doesn't notice the injured party in their midst staggering to his feet until Nathaniel reacts. He turns his head to see Cullen turning fifty shades of white with his sword raised at the two of them. Clearly Cullen still has some life left in him. Anders won't feel too bad for ignoring the state he's in for a few moments.
"You want me to use a spell?" He sounds doubtful.
Cullen holds an unusual position on Anders' moral map. On the one hand, he's wounded and Anders isn't one to deny someone aid if they're not a pressing enemy. But on the other hand, how hard is he supposed to try to help an ex-templar who doesn't want help? A little? A lot and subsequently put himself in reach of that sword? A little sounds better. After consulting his conscience, Anders decides he can live with a little.
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Spell, he thinks he hears one of them say, and Maker, where are his wits? Two against one he may face, but Cullen can at least divest one of them of his main weapon. Years of training have made the required focus second nature to him, but the recent drought in his veins and the fog clouding his mind make such concentration difficult to grasp at. He tries, regardless, to force the bright light that would silence the mage's powers, and somehow his back aches from the effort and he hears a ring like the clattering of metal, but he... but he...
Can't? Cullen can't see them anymore, instead he finds himself looking at lights above, the colour of the ceiling, and why can't he feel the sword in his grip anymore? He reaches for it hurriedly, in his mind, rolls to the side and pushes himself up on his knees, a swift strike at the both of them before it is too late, in his mind. Only in his mind.
In the clinic as it stands in truth, Cullen lies on his back on the floor, half-lidded eyes without focus, the last of his consciousness flowing from him in sluggish red.
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Not that he wouldn't shoot a Templar for Anders' sake, no matter what Anders might think, but he wouldn't do it for no reason and certainly not because he had just been asked to. They would have to have a talk about just how far Nathaniel was willing to go for the sake of friendship.
"Yes, I want you to use a spell, before he actually--" The clatter of the sword on the ground catches his attention and he turns sharply from Anders to step over, catch the blade with his foot and move it out of Cullen's reach. Much safer, even if the man looks in no state to be trying to get up again anyway.
"Faints, apparently. Never mind. Now will you do something? Preferably before he doesn't have any blood left."
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The warm and fuzzies drain out of Anders as quickly as consciousness drains out of Cullen. He retrieves his hand, looking decidedly less appreciative.
"He just happened to be walking by as you fired off an arrow?"
Someone on high is smiling down on Anders, even if it's not Nathaniel... and it's not actually worth smiling about. The coincidence is too great not to at least appreciate the timing of it on a cosmic scale.
Now that Anders has been set straight, he sighs wearily at the man floundering on the floor like a fish out of water. Cullen's movements slow, then finally he flops over. Anders waits for the alarm to set in, for bells in his head to start clanging urgently. They don't. There's a rumble from the corner where his sense of moral obligation resides, but the corner with his enthusiasm is noticeably silent. "It's better this way. He can't blame me for using sleeping spells on him later."
He steps around to Cullen's wounded side and rubs his hands together, resigned to the task.
"I'm only doing this because I need to know how he managed to walk in front of an arrow. He's going to owe me for this. Me saving the life of a templar, tch! Who'd believe it." He spreads his hands, now aglow with magic, over Cullen's body. With the arrow shaft out, it's a simple enough process to start healing the damage left by it.
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...of warmth? Is this it, to be called to the Maker's side? To feel your pain washed away, and hear your own breath of relief? To know that you are filled with light, before you even open your eyes to see? To wake up beyond the mortal word to--
--stiff limbs, a throbbing head and ice cold nausea, and the blurred vision of something which looks remarkably like a certain blighted Warden mage. Cullen lets out a frustrated groan.
Passing out of the world, in that Void shall they wander;
O unrepentant, faithless, treacherous,
They who are judged and found wanting
Shall know forever the loss of the Maker's love.
Only Our Lady shall weep for them.
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"Thank you, Anders," he says quietly, then lets his hand drop loose to his side. His attention goes up to Cullen's face, a kind of satisfaction there as the Templar begins to stir.
"If you hadn't made such a blighted fuss, you wouldn't be in this situation," he points out as Cullen opens his eyes. "There really is no excuse for that kind of carrying on."
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Once satisfied that the wound is closed and that the spell had done its job, he rests his weight on his heels. Silly though it may be, he's still a little disappointed mere coincidence is what had brought him here. But if it hadn't, he wouldn't have gotten to see one of Kinloch Hold's templars lose a fight with gravity and fall to the floor in a puddle of his own blood.
Worth it.
The glow of magic fades from his hands. He extends one over the groaning man's face and snaps his fingers a few times, saying, "Wakey wakey. That's twice you've been sleeping on the job. Can you hear us?"
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This... is not the outcome he expected. He should think this incredulous, shouldn't he? Baffling? Rather than... merely unexpected.
"I should have kept my composure," he concedes dully, and looks up at Nathaniel as he rises to his feet. Weakly, but he disregards the lightness that fills his head. Embarrassment and shame linger in the distance, but they don't reach him. Little seems to, suddenly.
Cullen looks at Anders intently.
"You saved me. Why?"
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"Why would he not save you," he continues, loosely folding his arms once he's been relieved of the sword. "You must have missed the notice that said 'mages are people too'."
Nathaniel did have his own ideas about Anders' particular moral compass, but he'd had full faith in the fact that he would not let an innocent person die, even if that person was a Templar.
"You know, rather than mindless abominations with no sense of a conscience."
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Though surely they could've kept a hold of Cullen's sword a little longer, just to be sure he wasn't going to try using it again. Just a little longer.
Surprisingly, Nathaniel answers Cullen's disbelieving question before he can and Anders looks at the other Warden sidelong, arms folded across his chest. Okay, so Nathaniel may not have attacked someone unprovoked in his honor, but it's still a nice gesture for the man to assume Anders has some principles regarding standing by and letting people bleed out on his shoes.
... Then he gets to the abomination part. That sort of tarnishes the sentiment.
Suppressing a wince, Anders tosses out a lofty reply, hoping to squelch this line of talk before it can really start. "Chalk it up as one of life's mysteries. Don't question it," he answers Cullen. Then he flicks his gaze from one man to the other. "But I'd sure like to know how Nathaniel here drew first blood before the sun was even up."
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