#assigned to pair up with Varlen

[thereluctantinquisitor]

5. Nairi & Varlen

#5 - Help

The forest was almost entirely silent. Or perhaps that was just how it seemed to Varlen. He lay on the ground, face-down, only awake because the pain wouldn’t let him close his eyes. Wouldn’t let him go. 

Some stubborn piece of him screamed that he had to move. That his sister was waiting for him. His father. Ahvina. They were all waiting, and if he didn’t keep moving, he’d let them down. Mustering everything he had, he begged his body to work. To listen. Just... make it to that next tree... 

He made it to the tree. Then to the next one, too, legs dragging, arms torn and bleeding, dirt smearing into the wounds as he pulled himself over the forest floor. His heart hammered out a steady rhythm in his chest, slower than it should be for someone so afraid. But he was cold. Wet. Too much exposed skin, too much pain. He slipped halfway to the next tree, slick palm sliding out from beneath him, chin striking the ground so hard he tasted blood. And he just lay there, eyes half shut, shivering and sweating, too exhausted to move another inch. Too deep in pain and denial to consider what that might mean.

I didn’t mean to... I’m s-sorry...

A stick broke. The snapping sound was sharp enough that it stirred Varlen from semi-consciousness and he coughed weakly, the taste of it metallic. Groaning, he forced himself to turn his head; to open his eyes as far as he could. The world was nothing more than a blur of brown and green, the sky a fading blue; the preface of dawn. Get up... just get up... 

Varlen’s hand twitched in the dirt. That was it. 

“Varlen...?”

The voice was soft. So soft he almost missed it, and for a second, he thought it sounded eerily familiar. Like his mother, maybe, calling from beyond the veil. A part of him didn’t want to respond, too afraid of what it might mean. But when he heard his name again, slightly louder this time, he pulled together what little of himself remained. He swallowed dryly, chest aching in time with each shallow breath.

“Help...”

He wasn’t sure how long he lay there. Wasn’t sure if it took Nairi an hour or a second longer to find him. How she managed to carry him back, Varlen would never know. When she ran over and tried to get him off the ground, he’d only managed half a scream before blacking out; a dead-weight in her arms. But somehow, she’d done it. When Varlen next woke, he was in a healer’s tent, body wrapped in strip upon strip of cloth, head pounding, heart beating uncertainly as though questioning if he was truly alive. The pungent small of salves stung his nose.

He was alive. Nairi had saved him. They’d only met that morning. He’d disliked having to babysit her; ran off when they were supposed to be scouting together. 

And she’d saved him.

Slowly, Varlen closed his eyes, unable to care about the tears that rolled down the sides of his cheeks. He didn’t deserve it. Her. This. But soon he was unable to care much about anything. The pain crept back piece by piece, each addition building upon the last, fire in his skin, aching in his bones, loathing somewhere deeper still, until he couldn’t even remember what it was like to feel normal.

And that feeling remained long after the wounds had healed. 

[thereluctantinquisitor]

“You’re more than you think.” + Quiet campsite, for Hanin or Varlen?

Thank you for the prompt!

In which a mission goes terribly wrong, and Hanin falls back with a very injured squad. As he spends the night awake worrying himself sick, Varlen tries to help. (Approx 1300 words)

The crackling of the campfire seemed impossibly loud, after what had just occurred. It roared in Hanin’s ears, deafening him to his ownthoughts; his own pain; as the night limped steadily on towards dawn. He wantedit to leave him behind; for the sun to rise without him or turn back entirely, and make everything go away. Change whathad happened. The wrong decisions. The terrible timing.

But, of course, that wasn’t possible.

The ambush had been worse than anyone could haveexpected. Between lyrium-tainted Templars and their demon consorts, the DawnSquad had been no match. After a fight that drew them all to their limits, and some of them further still, they had managed to fall back to another scoutinggroup. That, alone, had been nothing short of a miracle.

Hanin hated relying on miracles.

Boots crunched against stone to his right. Hanin didn’t evenstir as he felt someone slowly sit beside him on the trunk of the fallen tree.

“They’re going to be okay,” a familiar voice said, soft butclearly attempting reassurance. On any other day, Hanin might have appreciatedthe effort.

But at that moment, he just felt nothing.

“I nearly lost them,” he replied, voice rough and low. “All of them. In onefight. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t…” He trailed off, voice failing himas he ground the heels of his palms even harder against his eyes. “Fenedhis, even now,all I can do it sit here. Wait.”

“I know.” Varlen inhaled so deeply that Hanin couldvisualise the rise and fall of his shoulders. “But it’s not your fault. You knowthat, right? It was an ambush. No one could have seen it coming.”

Hanin just snorted. He wasn’t in the mood for coddling. Henever was.

“I’m serious,”Varlen insisted, and Hanin heard the younger elf angle to face him. “Listen, ifit had been my group up ahead, we would have got our asses kicked too. It’sjust how it goes, sometimes. You can’t solve everything, Hanin. No one can.”

“I need to do better,” Hanin insisted, raising his head from hishands, the brightness of the fire making his eyes sting. “They’re myresponsibility, Varlen. Mine. I don’t expect you to understand.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Hanin saw Varlen flinch at hiswords. Good. He just wanted to be left alone, and Varlen’s pity was neitherwanted nor appreciated. The younger elf was just wasting breath, and breath was something manyof Hanin’s squad were fighting for at that very moment. The thought brought with it anotherwave of sour bile, flooding Hanin’s mouth. He turned aside and spat it intothe grass.

But Varlen didn’t leave.

“Yeah… you’re right,” he said instead, voice barely above a whisper, butstill too loud. Louder than the fire. “Maybe I don’t understand. But I lost a family too, youknow. I thought I’d lost Riven for weeksafter the Conclave.” He sniffed, reaching up to rub his nose stiffly. “Sosure, I might not get your whole duty andresponsibility shtick. But I get howscary it is to lose. The thing is… everyone loses. That’s just life, Hanin.”

Hanin had nothing to say to that. No words to convey howbadly he wanted Varlen to leave; how badlyhe wanted to apologise for how he always treated the younger man. The two desires were in sharp conflict,and they left Hanin stranded somewhere in-between. In that place, there wasonly silence, and Hanin did not have the strength to break it.

“They don’t blame you, you know,” Varlen continued. He held no such respect for silence, no matter how heavy. “They probably figureyou’ve got that covered all on your own.”

Movement across the campsite drew Hanin’s gaze. A healeremerged from one of the tents, peeling off a pair of gloves stained crimson. Dark circles hung under her eyes like lead weights, but she strodeto a secondary fire and grasped the handle of a pot that had been boiling over it.Without even pausing, she walked carefully back into the tent. Hanin tried notto look too hard as the flap was drawn back, choosing instead to close his eyesand pull in a slow, deep breath. They aredoing all they can.

It was more than he could do.

“I failed them.” At first, Hanin wasn’t sure who wasspeaking. His own voice sounded so… distant. “I gave my word that I would keepthem safe; teach them to protect themselves, and I couldn’t.”

Varlen’s brow pinched into a tight frown, the linesshadows emphasised by the campfire. “What? That’s not true. I saw what they were like when Cullen assigned them to you. They werea mess, Hanin. You’ve done more for them than anyone ever expected.”

“It wasn’t enough.” Hanin shook his head; pressed his tremblinghands to his knees. “I wasn’t enough.I never was. I shouldn’t have made them trust me.”

Silence flooded in the wake of his words; his realisation.Hanin had never said it aloud before, but now that he had, the truth of it hungheavy and harsh in the air. There was no denying it; no hiding behind falseplatitudes and reassurances. Hanin had failed them. It was simply a fact.

“You’re more than you think.”

Hanin stiffened. Varlen seemed not to notice the suddentension, or at least, he pretended not to. Absently, the younger elf reached down and plucked a strand of grass from the ground. Twisting it between his fingers, he contemplated the green blade for a time, as though its colour and shape were somehow captivating. When Varlen eventually spoke, his voice was soft but clear. Firm but gentle, all at once.

“I mean it, Hanin. What you want to be… what you think you need to be… no one can be that. Not you,not me, not Riven. Creators, not even Mythal herself. It’s not possible.” When Haninopened his mouth to protest, Varlen raised his hand sharply, that strand ofgrass whipping through the air to hover in front of Hanin’s face. “No. Listen. Your squad? They think the worldof you, and it’s not because they see you as their knight in shining armour, okay?They like you, Hanin. As a person. Amentor. A friend. They fight besideyou and follow you because they chose to trust you, not because you, what, tricked them into it?” He shook his head, snorting softly. “They don’t think you’ll stop them from ever getting hurt. They all knew the risks when they joined the Inquisition. Their best shot is with you, but that doesn’t mean they’ll never get hit.”

Slowly, Varlen lowered his hand, twirling the grass between hisslender fingers. This time, Hanin knew better than to interrupt, so he sat in silence, waiting for Varlen to finish. He might not agree with the younger elf, but he could at least respect him enough to let him speak. It was more than he usually offered.

“Theyknow you care about them. More than is probably healthy, sure, but still…”Varlen shrugged, but a faint smile crept its way onto his lips, softening his expression before the flicking campfire. “That kind of thing… it means a hell of a lot more than yourealise. So what if you can’t run in and save them every time something bad happens? They know you can’t. But they also knowthat if it does happen, you’ll be up all night like a worried mother hen. That’s the part that counts. More than anything.”

Again, Hanin said nothing. The fire crackled, the campsitestiller in that moment than it had been all night. With a deep sigh, Varlen gotto his feet, the blade of grass slipping from his fingers to spiral to theground. “I’m going to go ahead and assume you’re taking first watch,” he mumbled, shoulders slumped, seeming almost disappointed. Although with who - Hanin or himself - it was hard to say. “Just… don’t sitout here all night beating yourself up over it, okay? I said you’re more than youthink, and I meant it, but you’re no god.” He glanced briefly towards the distant tent. “And they don’t want you to be, either… so I guess it all works out.”

With those parting words, Varlen left, and Hanin was onceagain alone before the fire. It was softer now, somehow. The entire campsitewas just… quieter. So, Hanin closed his eyes for a moment, picking out the crackling ofwood; the sound of drifting embers. They weren’t deafening anymore. They just… were.

Sometimes, Hanin wondered what he’d done to deserve thethings that had happened to him; the people he had met. Often those thoughtscame paired with frustration and anger, and it was difficult to separate theemotions from any form of objectivity. Any form of reason.

But in that moment, sitting alone by the fire, Hanin wondered for the first time what he’d done to deserve Varlen… 

… and the only emotion he felt was guilt.