Dragon Age Inquisition: Their Wonderful Abnormality

Fenris

The rain lashed down and Elsa Trevelyan was soaked. Fawn trotted tiredly down the worn track and through puddles of dark mud that sloshed around her hooves. Fawn's graceful, proud head was bowed. Elsa's head was bowed. The piercing raindrops nipped at the back of her neck but she found she didn't have the energy to care. Her sodden hair clung to her armour like dark copper snakes and as she looked up, she watched the individual needles of rain falling from the deep grey sky to lash her numb skin again and again.

 "Shit..." She muttered to herself, desperately trying to think of things to get her through this; Varric's fireside tales, running a finger along the dusty spines of Cullen's books, Sera's laugh, Josephine's perfume, Hawke's letters. Especially Hawke's letters.

 Elsa prayed they were dry tucked into the inside pocket of her amour and the rain hadn't sept through. She prayed that they, unlike the rest of her, weren't stained with blood.

 Gingerly, she lifted her hand away from her side and swallowed hard. Her fingers came away that sickening copper of diluted blood, a metallic tang hung in the damp air. She bit down hard as a shattering wave of pain spurred through her as her hand returned to shield the wound inflicted deep in her side. Suddenly she keeled over, her entire body seizing as pain grasped her every bone and with a cry she slid off the saddle and landed hard in the mud. Fawn whickered and stomped worriedly but Elsa's vision refused to refocus, instead inky, shapeless figures circled her tauntingly as she struggled to lift her cheek from the ground and a dark rumble of thunder sounded their laughter and the wind shrieked through the trees in victory.

 A weak arm attempted to grab at Fawn's reigns but with a shudder flopped back into her chest, pale and dead, her own bones too heavy and too useless to command. A dark crow circled overhead, inspecting her corpse with little caws and cries, waiting for her to give up. Waiting for her to die.

 After all, the crows have to eat too.

Her heart hammered weakly in its cage of ribs, too exhausted and pain-stricken to panic. But Elsa watched with eyes beginning to flicker with exhaustion as Fawn lowed her gentle head towards her, snorting softly so her breath warmed her icy skin. She waited there for a few slow heartbeats, watching with knowing eyes, head bowed towards her until The Inquisitor summoned the strength to reach up for the reigns once more. Her fingers curled around the damp leather and slowly, Fawn began to rise her head. Elsa's mouth opened in a wordless scream as the muscles in her side were stretched but she slammed her lips closed before any sound could escape. Staggering, she got to her feet, most of her weight thrown across her dear mare as she grasped the saddle, face pressed into the familiar smell.

 Fawn, slowly, began to lead them both into the trees where the punishing rain could not quite bite them as much and the ground beneath them was a bed of soft pine needles and not muddied stone, jagged and jutting. They stopped a little further in, no longer in sight of their road and Elsa collapsed beneath a pine, her head against its trunk as she breathed, willing away the pain.

 She groped clumsily at the pack on her back until it fell off beside her in a sodden heap. With one hand, she fumbled shakily with the buckles until the strap slid out and she could reach inside. She felt around with fingers that couldn't really feel until they recognised the soft leather of a medial pouch. She tore it open and, with a small prayer of thanks, took out elfroot and a bandage. Chewing on the bitter root Elsa unfastened her armour without touching the wound.