Have mercy. Oh, have mercy.

[fatherlesskind]

Who: Alistair & Open | Alistair & Robyn
Where: Throughout the mansion
When: April 16th to 20th
Rating: PG-13 to start with, may be upped later
Summary: A Warden and some monsters that spread infection wherever they go. Business as usual really.
The Story:

April 16 to 18: Some people have no sense of personal space

These... things - Infected or whatever they were called - are enough like darkspawn that Alistair can't just hide out somewhere safe and hope everything will be OK. Even without that similarity he wouldn't feel right just sitting back while others might be in danger. Add to that the fact that he's not a hoarder by nature and has only what scraps of food the closet provides? He has no choice but to venture out sooner or later.

The important difference is, unlike darkspawn, he can't sense these. Hence, his current situation.

The deformed faces of the things that had ambushed him loom closer as he struggles to push them both off. His shield is keeping them off him for the moment but, off-balance and pinned against a wall, the weight of his own armour working against him, he can't easily force them back. His sword lays on the ground, just out of reach, where it had fallen when the creatures jumped him.

More worrying than his present situation - which really, he'll have completely in hand in just a second - is the sound of movement coming closer. If more are coming he... could be in trouble. Gritting his teeth he shoves harder against the snarling pair with designs on his nose. He just needs to get free before their friends arrive. If he can please manage that he'll be a good boy from now on and pray every day like he's supposed to. Just so long as he gets to keep his face.


Closed to Robyn: You are not the boss of me. She is.

Wardens on the whole are bad at staying home and avoiding danger. Maybe that's why they all have such shortened lives and it in fact has nothing to do with the taint. It's something to think about. Later. When there's not a pack of the creatures closing in on them with every clumsy step.

They haven't been detected yet but it's surely only a matter of time. Alistair has both sword and shield at the ready, peering around the corner to size up their opponents as they wander about the hall up ahead. Glancing over at Robyn questioningly he tilts his head towards them and asks softly, "Well? What do you think?"

She's by far the stealthier of them and knows what he's capable of while he's never seen her fight. If she thinks they should try to sneak around and avoid a fight then he'll be Mr Stealthy. Or he'll try. He makes no promises of success so if they are sneaking she's going first.


April 19: Nothing like a brush with death to make you... not like death much.

Once he'd recognised the infection for what it was and what it meant there had really only been one choice. He couldn't kill himself and it would be too much to ask anyone he knew to do so for him. Besides, he'd known since shortly after his Joining that sooner or later he'd succumb to the corruption in his veins and would become a monster if he didn't die first. This was just a different kind of monster with a different cause. But his course of action remained the same.

Alistair had shouldered his weapons and set out for the basement, searching out any of the creatures between him and it. If he runs into anyone fighting the things he throws himself into the fray, putting himself between them and danger with a blatant disregard for his own life or safety. On his own he engages the creatures without fear, slamming into one of the blind, deformed ones with a snarl, struggling to drive his blade into it as it forces him back.


(OOC: If he's not killed first Alistair will be turning on the last day so if anyone wants to run into him as one of the Infected feel free to throw something up or prod me for a starter. Prose or brackets are both fine, I'll match format.)

Comments

[heroica]

"Fine." She confirms, but she sounds uneasy. How can she not, in these circumstances? Thank Andraste, they'd managed to take down a small mob of the creatures without injury, and she uses the lull to catch her breath, leaning forward to press her palms to her thighs and panting.

"You haven't fought before, have you? You're very good," she breathes, admitting a small, weary smile. Levity comes as a welcome respite from the violence and terror that's been ruling their temporary home for the past few days, and she's about to speak up again when she hears it. Nearby, in one of the rooms, but not yet close enough to have been drawn out with the others, a strange sound echoes outward. The rogue stiffens, eyes widening, and it isn't long before an Infected that they haven't seen before stumbles outward. Instinctively, she lays a hand of alert and warning on the other's arm, but as she looks over the thing, her stomach turns. It isn't like the others, and seems... more progressed, somehow. Its head is a mess of fungus with vaguely human features, but no eyes, and she wonders if it's able to see them at all. The way it stumbles seems as if it suspects there is something nearby, but it doesn't make the same kind of beeline toward them that the others had.

Is it blind? Her mind reels with the disgusting sight, but without eyes, how could it? Her heart thrums, alert, as the Clicker continues to make its unearthly sound, wandering in their direction, but not in a hurry.

She's just about to whisper that they ought to get the jump on it when something shrieks hideously just behind them.

Robyn turns in time to keep it from sinking its twisted mouth into her neck, but the clamor is more than enough. The original Clicker screams, too, limbs flailing wildly as it darts toward them. She can't even begin to worry about that one as she struggles against the other, too close to its rotting flesh, system wild with panic and reacting automatically, trying to push it away, to keep it from her skin while also reaching for her knife, since the crossbow is out of the question unless she can get it back farther.

This new Infected is stronger. Its skin is tough, she realizes by experience, as she finally looses the dagger and stabs it into the thing's head. The fungus is tough, apparently, and all but repels her motion. The thing gnashes is teeth and tries to bite and scratch and push her down and she has to use every ounce of strength she has to bring her knife home into its neck, to stab until it relents, to go after it and drive the point home until, finally, it dies in a twitching mess, and she's covered even more so in blood and gore and her skin is sheet white with true fear.

Her brain tells her to turn and make sure the other is dead, that Alistair managed it and that he's safe, but her eyes fall on her arm, the one that hadn't held the dagger, the one that she'd been using to fend off the monster. Her bracer is askew, tugged loose, and Robyn wipes the mess off in a dreamlike daze to reveal the wound beneath. It's a clear bite, only obscured by the mix of her own blood and the Infected's, and she stares at it for a long time, feeling very far away, mind completely blank.

The fear of death is in your eyes; its hand is upon your throat--

[fatherlesskind]

Grinning back, Alistair opens his mouth to respond only to snap it shut again when he hears the unnerving noise coming from nearby. He shifts as the thing stumbles out, tightening his grip on his sword.

The closest thing he's seen to the creature before is the abominations in the Circle tower. People twisted and deformed by the demons possessing them, as this thing has been by the fungus. It's more terrifying than a demon, for all that it lacks the deliberate malice. The influence of demons can be resisted. They can be seen and fought and killed. From the announcement over the network when this all began the thing doing this can't be fought, only avoided and even that is difficult when there's nothing to see to avoid. Except for the victims themselves.

The fact that this thing is just as blind is only marginally comforting but it does make facing it an easier prospect.

Until the one neither of them noticed coming up behind them lets out an unearthly shriek, drawing the attention of the first. As before, he has to leave Robyn to face her foe while he tackles his own. He doesn't expect it to be difficult to kill the thing and help Robyn should she need it. It's blind and he's killed enough of its kind already to know that no matter what afflicts them, they can still die.

That's what he expects but when he steps forward to meet the thing and prevent it attacking Robyn from behind it almost knocks him over with the force of its charge. Alistair is forced to dig his heels in and brace himself against it to hold it off. They grapple a moment, as it snarls and tries to force its way past his shield and he struggles to keep it back. It's strong, stronger than it looks and try as he might, he can't force it off him.

He has more than brute strength on his side though and it's leg gives way when he drives his blade through its knee and twists. Once it's down and off-balance he can turn his sword against its neck, the first blow doing little but cracking the mass growing over its face. The next reaches flesh and the third does the trick, more blood splattering up his arms and over his shield to join the rest already drying there.

Panting again, Alistair leans on his sword and stares down at the thing. It's quiet behind him. He knows Robyn has killed the other one already and not just because he'd be getting eaten by now if she hadn't. Even with things like that they still survive. The Warden's reputation as fierce warriors is not for nothing and it's with a sense of pride that he turns to face her.

She's looking at her arm, the bracer pulled aside.

With all the blood he almost doesn't see it at first. Then, for another second it simply doesn't make sense. When the bite mark finally slides into focus all his breath leaves him in a rush and it's all he can do not to drop his sword.

"Robyn?"

[heroica]

Her dagger clatters to the ground when he speaks her name and she automatically takes a step or two backward, eyes wide and on him. It looks almost as if she expects him to lunge at her, to end her before she, too, becomes a monster... or, that's what her wild, frenzied thoughts tell her before she can try and banish them. She thinks, too, of asking him for his sword, to take the offending arm in the hopes that it might save her, but... if that would work, why wouldn't they have heard of it before? And with the state of the mansion and their supplies as they are, it's still possible she'd bleed to death or succumb to the infection anyway.

The Warden trembles, hand closing around the wound, crimson leaking out from between white fingers.

"No," she speaks automatically, but her mouth and brain are not working together, have not bowed to logic just yet. "I'm fine, I'm--"

Dead. 'You died,' Leliana echoes in her mind, and she shivers again, more violently, taking another step away from Alistair. She feels incredibly cold, somehow, but she hasn't lost enough blood for it to be from the wound. If what they'd been told was true, the... change wouldn't take place for hours, maybe days. Whatever the truth of it is, she knows she has some time before she's no longer herself in which to figure out what to do. How to do what she knows will need to happen.

A wave of nausea sweeps through her and she presses herself against the wall, still watching him like a hawk.

"You have to go," the Warden breathes, because he isn't safe with her, not anymore. He may not be safe anywhere, but she isn't going to live to discover it. He can't stay to see her mutated. She can't ask for him to kill her.

"Please," comes the wavering request.

[fatherlesskind]

He jumps as the dagger hits the floor, taking an automatic step forward as she retreats. And stops. She can't really think he'd- He wouldn't even do that to Morrigan if she were in Robyn's position how could she think he'd turn on her so quickly? It hurts a little, somewhere behind the growing fear though he knows it shouldn't. It's fear making her act like that - not of him but of what this means.

He shoves his sword back in its sheath and sets down his shield - a foolish move when there could be more nearby, waiting to catch them by surprise again but he has to do something to show her he's not going to do anything. No matter what they've heard about the bites of those things and what they can do. He can't just kill a friend, he doesn't have it in him.

Alistair takes another step forward, empty hands spread out at his sides, movements slow like he's trying to calm a skittish horse. Robyn retreats again and he stops, mouth opening and then closing without a sound. She's not fine. They both know that and yet he wants to agree, to pretend that it's just a bite and they can tend the wound and move on.

It's only when she tells him to leave that he finds his voice. "Maybe we're immune. It could be enough like the taint that-" No, he knows that's grasping at straws. This is completely different to the darkspawn and the taint, from somewhere far removed from Thedas, and it would be almost impossible for either of them to be immune.

"I can't just leave you." Just walking off and leaving her to die or, worse, become one of those things.... He can't do it. It's too much to ask. "We can work something out. We-" His voice trails off and he shakes his head, staring at her pleadingly. "I can't just leave you."

[heroica]

He sets his shield on the ground and she exhales shakily, the long-gone ghost of a laugh. He's more vulnerable than ever, twice over now that he's down a fighter and has given up his protection to calm her. No. Working through her own death is one thing, but if he were to be bitten--

"I can figure this out," she says softly, because she knows how it has to end even if she doesn't know exactly how yet. She has weapons, of course-- the dagger, poisons, even, but... summoning the courage to take her own life, even with an unthinkable transformation creeping up on her, will be an immense challenge.

Even so.

"You can," the Warden insists, pressing back off of the wall, quieting her buzzing mind for just a moment's time so that she can do what she has to, which, first, is to get him somewhere safer. "You have to."

What other choice is there? She'll be the one to leave, if it comes to that, because she could never bear for him to see any of the possible outcomes in this situation. Robyn shakes her head firmly, meeting his eyes, wearing an expression of mingled fear and deep sadness.

"There are other people who need help." Who can still be helped. "Remember: vigilance."

He knows their words as well as she does. Better, even. And their vows. She steps forward and crouches to retrieve the shield, offering it back to him, eyes inadvertently falling on the place on his arm where her own bracer had failed her.

"If what they say is true, then I'll see you again." If. She's believed it, has heard of people coming back from the dead, but... time will tell. "Just... be safe, Alistair, please. That's what you can do for me."

[fatherlesskind]

He shakes his head again. Just walk off and leave her, knowing what will happen? What her choices are? Even if Robyn chooses to throw herself into fighting the creatures until she no longer can, it's a terrible fate to face alone. The least he can do is stand by her side and make sure she doesn't have to die alone.

But as she reminds him, it's not just them here. This isn't the Deep Roads where there's only the darkspawn to fight and no innocent victims to worry about. Wardens protect people. All people, whatever the cost to themselves. That's what they both swore when they took the Joining. He can't abandon that duty, not for anyone or anything.

Alistair's shoulders slump in defeat and he takes his shield when it's offered, sliding it back onto his arm and gripping it firmly. Drawing himself up straight he nods. "You will." He hopes. Maker but he hopes it's true and not just some crazy story people tell to make themselves feel better. That doesn't stop this feeling like goodbye and he's struck by how quickly people can come to be important - when he arrived he wanted nothing to do with Robyn. Now he knows if this really is goodbye forever the loss will hurt as much as Duncan's had.

Forcing himself to meet her gaze steadily he salutes and steps back. "I promise. I'll be careful. And once this is over I'll come looking for you." He wants to believe they'll see each other again, no matter what becomes of her. It's the only thing that will make walking away any easier.

"Maker watch over you Robyn."