Strings Attached - a There and Back Again side story

Part 13

Thirteen: Nathaniel

Nathaniel woke with a terrible but familiar taste in his mouth: elfroot. His head ached worse than the worst hangover he'd ever had, and he tried to think back to what he might have been drinking that would have affected him like this. He gradually became aware of the rest of his body, as he thought; his leg was sore, the ribs on one side felt bruised, and he was almost unbearably cold – and slightly damp.

It was this last that convinced him to do something despite the pounding in his head; he reached up to cover his eyes before trying, at first unsuccessfully, to open them. After a couple more attempts, he had adjusted to the flickering light, and he turned his head to the side with a groan, suppressing the urge to vomit.

The ceiling above his head was stone, and the walls around him were as well. He was in a small circular...cave? And the entire thing was lit by the flickering light of a large bonfire just outside the entrance. He appeared to be alone, and he slowly, carefully sat up, holding his head until the dizziness waned. The cave was small – tiny, actually – barely allowing enough headroom for him to sit. As he looked around again, he spied his saddle bags up against the wall beside a stack of firewood, and realised he was sitting on a contraption made of wood and his cloak – a sledge, of sorts. It triggered his memory, and he gasped. The wolves, being thrown from his horse...where was Leliana?

As if thinking her name was some sort of magic, she appeared in the entrance to the cave, her sodden red hair shadowed by the fire behind her. "You're awake!" The relief in her voice was obvious. "Thank the Maker. That elfroot must have done its job." It was still raining outside, and he could see little streams of water pouring off her cloak.

He cleared his throat roughly. "What happened?"

She remained outside, but twisted her body to sit facing in. "We were attacked by Blighted wolves, do you remember? You were thrown from your horse. I managed to kill most of the wolves – except for the one you killed – but they bit your horse and mine ran off. I was lucky to find this cave – but we're stuck here for the night, I think."

He gestured to the wooden structure underneath him. "You pulled me here?" She nodded. "Thank you."

She grinned, and water dripped off her nose. "Well I couldn't very well go back to camp without you, yes? I doubt the King would be forgiving if I left one of his supporters unconscious in the woods just to save my own neck."

He raised one eyebrow, and his lips curled in a smirk. "I'll have to thank his Majesty later, then, for not being abandoned."

She giggled, though it was interrupted by a shiver, and little droplets of water scattered off her.

"Is there a reason you're sitting out there in the rain?" He scrabbled back until he bumped into the wall of the tiny cave, trying to make space. He gestured for her to come in.

"There's no room," she objected, "and it's partially covered out here. Besides, you've been injured."

"So have you." He pointed at her bare forearm, still wrapped in bandages. "And you've got to be cold. Please, Leliana."

She sat for another moment and he thought she might refuse, but then she was struck with another body-shaking shiver, and she sighed and crawled into the cave, close enough he could reach out to touch her, if he'd wanted to. Water sluiced off her cloak – fortunately flowing towards the mouth of the cave – and she settled facing the entrance, her knee just touching his.

"I'm amazed you got a fire going, actually."

She hummed in response, and as he squinted at her in the dim light, he realised her jaw was clenched tight, the muscles flexing under the skin. "Leliana? Are you alright?"

She nodded sharply. "I'm f-fine."

Nathaniel frowned; had he actually heard her teeth chatter, or was he imagining it? He reached out to touch her, and his fingertips came into contact with her bare arm. She was freezing to the touch, and he almost recoiled from the brief tremor the cold caused. Instead he wrapped his hand around the slender appendage – he wasn't warm, but by comparison he knew he probably felt scalding to her. She shuddered, sucking in a breath through her teeth, and this time he was sure he could hear her teeth chattering.

"You're not fine. You're freezing!"

"I'll be fine," she replied – or she tried to, but she was shaking too hard to speak properly, and the words came out slurred.

His hand trailed from her forearm up to her shoulder, and he swore when he realised just how wet she was. She must have been out there for hours, dragging him to safety, collecting firewood and elfroot, and it should have occurred to him how chilled she would be. She was trying to be stoic, but he'd been in enough situations over the years to know just how serious this was. Hypothermia was nothing to sneeze at.

"Look, don't take this the wrong way, but...you're soaked. And cold. And if we don't do something about both of those things, it'll be Aedan and Sierra murdering me when I get back to camp without you because you died of hypothermia."

She tried to laugh, but her breath just wheezed out of her alarmingly. "What did you have in mind, then?"

He sighed. "I hate to risk what you're going to think of me later, but frankly, you have to get out of that wet armour."

She looked over at him, a smile pulling at the corner of her lips despite their rather blue hue. "I bet you say that to all the girls."

He chuffed out a surprised laugh. "I think it's just you." The silence that followed that was uncomfortably quiet, and he cleared his throat. "Can I help you with the buckles?"

Between the two of them, they stripped off Leliana's leather armour and her sodden cloak, leaving her just in a thin cotton chemise – fortunately it was long, but it still left her legs bare, and left little else to the imagination, given how wet it was. Nate, determined not to look at her inappropriately, dug through his saddlebags, but everything in there was equally soaked, and he sighed in frustration.

"I'm sorry, Leliana."

"It's all right." She clenched her jaw against another shiver. "I'll be fine here."

"Nonsense." He sighed again. "This isn't exactly how I imagined today going, but..."