But then, hadn't Ellis been warned? Bastien's chosen approaches have been made clear to him, after all.
And it doesn't feel like such a stretch. Even straightening, Ellis is aware of all the rising aches on his body. One knee is throbbing from a stray kick. His torso, all those stretches over vital organs, are going to be blotched purple and blue in the morning unless he is somehow mistaken.
A nod, quick and careless, is followed by a more thoughtful shrug.
“I knew a woman who was deaf in one ear.”
He hoists himself to sit on the table. The single candle doesn’t provide enough light for him to see much of anything, when he pulls the neck of his shirt out to peer down at his own chest in search of red future bruises, but he tries anyway.
“She had been her whole life, so—I suppose that is as adapted as someone can be, never knowing the world any other way. She still didn’t like to have conversations in crowds. She didn’t like crowds at all.”
Bastien loves crowds. People. Busy places with music and tables full of friends talking over one another. The disorientation and added strain in the dining hall and nights out in Kirkwall are a greater loss than any blunting of his combat skills.
But he smiles, dropping his shirt back into place.
“Thinking I might do any better than she could after a whole life, that is peak arrogance, non? But it still helps. Learning my limits so I don’t get in over my head. Not more than we are all in over our heads all the time.”
More for the latter two statements than the former.
But it does ease some concern, knowing that Bastien is seeking out his own limits rather than risking pressing forward without consulting the change. Between them, it seems to Ellis that Bastien has the harder task. More hanging on his ability to maneuver in tight spaces like the ones they've practiced in tonight.
Palm pressing over his ribs, what Ellis imagines is a bruise rising, he leans against the table beside him.
"We can make a habit of it, until you're sure of your footing."
Bastien's feet swing, just barely, a couple of inches to and fro. On one swing the one closest to Ellis angles to kick him in the knee—gently, more of a nudge really, to accompany, "Thanks."
He doesn't need to smoke. If he needed to he would refuse as a matter of principle, to establish dominance over his physiology. But while they're here (and largely unaware of the health effects), he fishes a thickly rolled, slightly crushed and crooked cigarette out of the pocket of the jacket piled on the table behind him and dips it into the lamp to light it.
"What is training for the Wardens like?"
Is this a question that Ellis will take like another bruise? Does it count as personal? He does hope not.
"Not the secret parts," such as they are anymore, with everything the Inquisition and Riftwatch after it have learned or had blabbed to their leadership, "I mean, but—it seems like it would be hard to learn to fight darkspawn without actually doing it. Do they throw recruits right into it?"
But a frisson of tension meets it all the same, through no fault of Bastien's own.
An answer is held as Ellis relocates, taking all his new bruises and the small bop to his shin to occupy the space alongside Bastien. Not onto the table, because it was perhaps not built with the intention of bearing Ellis' bulk, but leant back against it as he observes Bastien, the cigarette lifted to his mouth.
"There is training, aye," comes slowly, attention downcast to his own hands. The skin is split over one knuckle, and Ellis applies the hem of his tunic there, staunching this minor blot of blood. "Not in the Deep Roads, but above ground, to be sure we can manage a sword without clipping our brother with it. More Senior Wardens would guide us through it after, so we have an idea of it before we descend."
A shrug, tunic hem released so Ellis might examine his knuckles once more.
"I'd thought it wouldn't be so different than how a templar would be trained to face a demon. All manner of preparation, but none of which could be judged until you've had to put it to work."
"I'd never seen one—a demon, I mean—until that poor man in the dining hall," is conversational. Improvement, too: that poor man instead of that abomination. Derrica's influence.
He takes Ellis' hand in both of his, stealing it for his own examination as if it were an odd knickknack from a merchant's stall, holding it as close to his face as he dares with the ember and threat of ash nearby and squinting at it in the dim light. That leaves his mouth to hold the cigarette in place, so his words are a little garbled. All teeth.
"And I've still never seen a darkspawn. Not that I am eager—or. I am a little. It's awful to be told you can't understand something until you see it yourself and then to never see it. But I would like to see one from a distance, in a cage."
Bastien is permitted his examination. Here, Ellis' hand. Minor speckling of blood, poorly healed fingers, scuffs and scars and knicks that predate this evening and have yet to heal, have healed and left a raised mark, have healed and left a white line—
It is a small collection, comparatively. And the marks much make sense; Ellis is a melee fighter, wields a large, spiked mace. Of course people struck at his knuckles to try and prevent him using it.
"I would like it better if you never saw one."
They are joking, Ellis knows. But it is hard to joke, even about the possibility of a grimy, malnourished darkspawn in a cage. Bars break. Locks fail.
His opposite hand reaches over, seeking the cigarette where it has been clenched in Bastien's jaws. Share.
Bastien offers up only a split second feint of jesting resistance, a twitch of his head that barely suggests the idea of turning to refuse, before he grins and opens his mouth enough to give it up.
His investigation continues unabated in the meantime, lasting several more seconds before he pats the top of Ellis' hand with his own—big for his height, bony and blunt-fingered, inherited from generations of miners on both sides of his family line. He avoids the region of the fresh split, in the patting, and lets go. "I think you'll survive."
Reassurance Ellis didn't need in the first place, delivered with extremely unwarranted gravity. Doubly so given his manly burden-shouldering, regarding the darkspawn, and triply so given the cruel scars on his neck.
"And I will not go looking for a darkspawn. On my honor."
The same belief Ellis had in him when he had put two sealed letters into Bastien's hand holds as true now as it did then. And even if it didn't, Bastien has never struck Ellis as a reckless man.
"Is this going to be enough?" is a redirection, reorienting them here in this room, focus on the task at hand. Will it be enough to fight Ellis is small dark rooms? Will that make up what Bastien lost?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
points, post satinalia
But then, hadn't Ellis been warned? Bastien's chosen approaches have been made clear to him, after all.
And it doesn't feel like such a stretch. Even straightening, Ellis is aware of all the rising aches on his body. One knee is throbbing from a stray kick. His torso, all those stretches over vital organs, are going to be blotched purple and blue in the morning unless he is somehow mistaken.
So yes, he could concede now, but first—
"Did this help?
no subject
“I knew a woman who was deaf in one ear.”
He hoists himself to sit on the table. The single candle doesn’t provide enough light for him to see much of anything, when he pulls the neck of his shirt out to peer down at his own chest in search of red future bruises, but he tries anyway.
“She had been her whole life, so—I suppose that is as adapted as someone can be, never knowing the world any other way. She still didn’t like to have conversations in crowds. She didn’t like crowds at all.”
Bastien loves crowds. People. Busy places with music and tables full of friends talking over one another. The disorientation and added strain in the dining hall and nights out in Kirkwall are a greater loss than any blunting of his combat skills.
But he smiles, dropping his shirt back into place.
“Thinking I might do any better than she could after a whole life, that is peak arrogance, non? But it still helps. Learning my limits so I don’t get in over my head. Not more than we are all in over our heads all the time.”
no subject
More for the latter two statements than the former.
But it does ease some concern, knowing that Bastien is seeking out his own limits rather than risking pressing forward without consulting the change. Between them, it seems to Ellis that Bastien has the harder task. More hanging on his ability to maneuver in tight spaces like the ones they've practiced in tonight.
Palm pressing over his ribs, what Ellis imagines is a bruise rising, he leans against the table beside him.
"We can make a habit of it, until you're sure of your footing."
no subject
He doesn't need to smoke. If he needed to he would refuse as a matter of principle, to establish dominance over his physiology. But while they're here (and largely unaware of the health effects), he fishes a thickly rolled, slightly crushed and crooked cigarette out of the pocket of the jacket piled on the table behind him and dips it into the lamp to light it.
"What is training for the Wardens like?"
Is this a question that Ellis will take like another bruise? Does it count as personal? He does hope not.
"Not the secret parts," such as they are anymore, with everything the Inquisition and Riftwatch after it have learned or had blabbed to their leadership, "I mean, but—it seems like it would be hard to learn to fight darkspawn without actually doing it. Do they throw recruits right into it?"
no subject
But a frisson of tension meets it all the same, through no fault of Bastien's own.
An answer is held as Ellis relocates, taking all his new bruises and the small bop to his shin to occupy the space alongside Bastien. Not onto the table, because it was perhaps not built with the intention of bearing Ellis' bulk, but leant back against it as he observes Bastien, the cigarette lifted to his mouth.
"There is training, aye," comes slowly, attention downcast to his own hands. The skin is split over one knuckle, and Ellis applies the hem of his tunic there, staunching this minor blot of blood. "Not in the Deep Roads, but above ground, to be sure we can manage a sword without clipping our brother with it. More Senior Wardens would guide us through it after, so we have an idea of it before we descend."
A shrug, tunic hem released so Ellis might examine his knuckles once more.
"I'd thought it wouldn't be so different than how a templar would be trained to face a demon. All manner of preparation, but none of which could be judged until you've had to put it to work."
no subject
He takes Ellis' hand in both of his, stealing it for his own examination as if it were an odd knickknack from a merchant's stall, holding it as close to his face as he dares with the ember and threat of ash nearby and squinting at it in the dim light. That leaves his mouth to hold the cigarette in place, so his words are a little garbled. All teeth.
"And I've still never seen a darkspawn. Not that I am eager—or. I am a little. It's awful to be told you can't understand something until you see it yourself and then to never see it. But I would like to see one from a distance, in a cage."
no subject
It is a small collection, comparatively. And the marks much make sense; Ellis is a melee fighter, wields a large, spiked mace. Of course people struck at his knuckles to try and prevent him using it.
"I would like it better if you never saw one."
They are joking, Ellis knows. But it is hard to joke, even about the possibility of a grimy, malnourished darkspawn in a cage. Bars break. Locks fail.
His opposite hand reaches over, seeking the cigarette where it has been clenched in Bastien's jaws. Share.
no subject
His investigation continues unabated in the meantime, lasting several more seconds before he pats the top of Ellis' hand with his own—big for his height, bony and blunt-fingered, inherited from generations of miners on both sides of his family line. He avoids the region of the fresh split, in the patting, and lets go. "I think you'll survive."
Reassurance Ellis didn't need in the first place, delivered with extremely unwarranted gravity. Doubly so given his manly burden-shouldering, regarding the darkspawn, and triply so given the cruel scars on his neck.
"And I will not go looking for a darkspawn. On my honor."
no subject
The same belief Ellis had in him when he had put two sealed letters into Bastien's hand holds as true now as it did then. And even if it didn't, Bastien has never struck Ellis as a reckless man.
"Is this going to be enough?" is a redirection, reorienting them here in this room, focus on the task at hand. Will it be enough to fight Ellis is small dark rooms? Will that make up what Bastien lost?