Fictober Day 3: Bait, feat Blackwall and Gemma
“Milady… I must admit to having some… reservations… about this plan.”
Gemma tsked as she arranged her potions along her belt. “Oh, tush. It’ll be fine.” She flashes him a brilliant grin as she moves onto her quiver to count and straighten her arrows. “We all know the plan, right?”
The Iron Bull lets out a low chuckle, his whetstone grinding slowly against his sword. “Oh yeah. It’s gonna be sick.”
“I’m afraid I must agree with Blackwall, Inquisitor. This plan is riddled with danger.”
She rolled her eyes at that and hefted her quiver onto her back. “That’s why I asked you guys specifically along. Blackwall and The Iron Bull are our strongest tanks, and you’re our best healer.” She gave them a thumbs up and a cheeky grin. “We got this, guys. Relax.”
With that, she dropped a smoke bomb and disappeared into the shadows. Blackwall looked at the other two, his own worry reflected in at least Solas’s face, and the three men crept to the treeline to wait. Solas stood poised, staff raised to cast a barrier spell when she reappeared, and that at least gave him some small semblance of peace. A small, teeny, tiny, miniscule, almost nonexistence semblance of peace.
He could see her, just barely. The slight shimmering against the far tree line was just distinct enough to catch his searching eye. On bated breath, he watched as she made her way to her position in the field, in the far corner of the clearing from them but far too close to their target to ease his mind.
It happened quickly. With an explosive arrow, her disguise was cast aside and the signal given. Solas was quick to throw the barrier up around her, and not a moment too soon it would seem. No quicker than the barrier was up did the area around Gemma explode in a blast of fire before the high dragon let out an ear-splitting screech. Solas moved through the trees toward the center of the battlefield while Blackwall and The Iron Bull made their move, The Iron Bull to the dragon’s rear and Blackwall directly across from Gemma’s current position. It happened quickly—Gemma’s volley, Solas’s blizzard spell, The Iron Bull’s War Cry—all within what felt like the blink of an eye.
And then Blackwall was running, his sword raised, a battle cry of his own pulled from deep within him.
The diversion seemed to work, because while he and The Iron Bull charged, the dragon’s attention was kept squarely turned in the opposite direction, in Gemma’s direction. They both of them managed to strike fast and true, for all the good it did them. The only thing they seemed to be able to do was piss the beast off. The damage they were doing was negligible, no matter how long or hard the battle went.
“We’ve got to retreat!” he yelled over the roaring of the creature.
“Aw, come on! We’ve got it on the ropes!” The Iron Bull’s pout was practically tangible between his grunting.
“Inquisitor! We have to retreat!”
“No! We’re so close! I know it!” He cast a furtive glance in her direction, assessing her damage. Despite Solas’s best efforts to keep any of them from harm, her right arm was sporting a rather serious-looking burn that seemed to be causing her great pain as she knocked her arrow. Both her potion belt and her quiver were dangerously low, maybe a dozen arrows left and two healing potions.
“Gemma!” That got her attention. “Please. We cannot win this fight!”
She looked at him with no small degree of pain and turned her attention back to the dragon. No longer could he afford to give her his attention because the beast was lashing out at both The Iron Bull and him. The dragon screeched with such volume and high pitch that it dazed him, left him stumbling in a stupor until all of a sudden, he was in the air, and then he was sliding along the ground, a sharp, stinging pain in his side. Vaguely, Blackwall could hear someone’s voice, but his mind was having great difficulty sorting through the information at hand. When the world came back into focus at long last, he was greeted with the shiny dome of Solas, hovering over him, could feel the wash of magic across his body, stitching him back together.
“Inquisitor! We must leave, now!”
Well at least someone agreed with him.
“Go! We’ll cover you!”
Hands were on him, pulling him to his feet. His arm was swung over Solas’s shoulders as the (surprisingly strong) man helped him get away, casting a flurry of spells over his shoulder in their haste. They retreated into the thick underbrush, not stopping for several minutes until they found a small clearing. Groaning, Blackwall sat down with Solas’s help. Solas moved quickly to set up his healing equipment, muttering under his breath about hairbrained schemes and a lack of preparation. It wasn’t until then that Blackwall realized his plate was no longer on his body, and a quick glance at his wound gave him a good clue why: he’d been cut cleanly where the dragon hit. Likely, his armor had been ripped from his body. Swallowing hard, he laid his head back and looked up at the canopy overhead. “I’ve had worse,” he tried to joke.
“You were nearly ripped in two,” grumbled Solas.
“Eh. Just a flesh wound.”
He could feel Solas’s incredulous stare and could not hold in the slightly hysterical chuckle that bubbled inside him. Solas shook his head and grumbled, setting about cleaning and treating the wound.
A rustling came from the underbrush, and as if on instinct, a barrier flew up around the two of them.
“Solas, quick!”
Solas was on his feet quickly, rushing towards The Iron Bull’s voice, and Blackwall pulled himself to sitting, an icy cold fear gripping his heart. Within moments, they burst back through into the clearing, but he couldn’t see. “We must get her stabilized, place her there—”
“What happened?”
The Iron Bull shot him a pained look over his shoulder as he laid Gemma’s small body down. “She wasn’t—We weren’t—”
It was growing hard to breathe through his fear, his heart pounding in his ears. “Is she…?”
“No, not yet.” Solas was leaning over her, his hands glowing with the efforts of healing, running along her small frame almost frantically.
“Not yet? What does that mean, ‘not yet?’ Are you saying she could—”
“If you keep distracting me, perhaps!” His voice was sharp, biting.
The Iron Bull came to sit beside Blackwall, looking a vision of misery. “I… I tried to get to her, but I wasn’t… I wasn’t fast enough.”
Blackwall shook his head, struggling to keep his cool. “It wasn’t your fault. We never should have attempted the attack in the first place.” Though he could not tear his eyes from the blood upon her lips, the red a stark contrast to her blue tattoos, he patted The Iron Bull’s arm reassuringly.
While they waited, The Iron Bull moved to stitch up Blackwall’s side to spare Solas the need to heal him. Once he was put back together, they both turned to watch in silence as Solas worked. It felt as though years passed before her lovely multi-colored eyes opened, even longer for her to look around, but when she did, they all three let out a collective sigh of relief. “Thank the Maker,” Blackwall whispered.
She swallowed hard, smacked her lips a few times. “I feel like shit,” she whispered.
“I should think so, Boss. That dragon fucked you up.”
At The Iron Bull’s bluntness, she smirked. “Not as bad as we did it, right?”
“Is that all you can do? Joke? Maker’s balls, I don’t believe you!” Blackwall threw his hands up. If he’d not been injured, he would’ve gotten to his feet and walked away, but as it were, he folded his arms across his chest and looked away.
The Iron Bull and Solas seemed to know what was coming, so they slipped away quietly. For a long moment, silence passed between Gemma and Blackwall, only the ambient sounds of the forest to fill the void. Then, finally, she whispered a soft, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? Sorry for what, Gemma? For getting injured? For almost dying? For taking us into that fight in the first place even though I told you I didn’t like it? For what?”
She sighed softly and reached out for him, her hand lying in the grass a good two feet away from him. “Yes. For all of it. I’m sorry. But it’s fine, yeah? We’re all alright.”
He sucked his teeth and cast her a glare, but at the open way she was staring at him, his anger softened. With a heavy sigh, he reached over and joined his hand with hers. “This time.”
She nodded slightly and squeezed his fingers. “I promise, love, I’ll be more careful from now on. We’ll be more careful.”
“That’s all I ask,” he whispered. It took some doing, but he scooted close enough to her to take her head in his lap. His gauntlets tossed aside, he ran his fingers through her hair and looked down at her, his heart swelling with affection. “I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost you, Gemma.”
Grinning softly, she reached up and pressed her hand to his cheek. “Oh?”
He pressed his face against her palm and smirked. “Do you know how embarrassing it’ll be to carve your tombstone? ‘Died in the line of duty. As bait. For a bigass dragon.’”
She giggled then flinched and sighed. “You’re right. That would be a shame.” Then with a sly grin, “We’ll have Varric do it instead. He’s good at spinning stories like that.”
Blackwall rolled his eyes at her. “Yes, well, let’s wait a few years before we have to hire his services. I’m an old man, Gemma. My heart can only take so much before it’ll give out.”
She snorted and tugged on his beard playfully. “Is that another grey streak, I see?”
He laughed and pulled her knuckles to his lips. “With you? It very well could be.”