#the part at the end about faith is what prompts Adaryc to give Steadfast to Elan when they part ways

[weretoad-writer]

Terminal Velocity

Summary: A conversation between Adaryc and the Watcher in the aftermath of the events at Cayron’s Scar.

Note: In this timeline the White March (both parts) takes place after the events of the main quest, so the Watcher is on his own and the Iron Flail plays a much larger role. Also, for context, Elan technically has cipher abilities, but has been suppressing them for a long time, so he only gets involuntary reads on people when the thoughts/emotions are very loud.

Content Advisory: swearing, brief description of drowning

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Elan sat on his bedroll in the infirmary tent taking stock. He wasn’t dead; that was a surprise. Not a particularly pleasant one given how damn much it hurt just to breathe. He had already made the mistake of coughing and nearly passed out. Broken ribs, then. And whatever the fuck two lungs full of icewater had done to his insides. His clothes and armor were gone. But someone had mercifully left his weapons beside his bedroll. He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious; the last thing he remembered there had been daylight, and now it was full night.  

He shut his eyes, and he was back under the ice, in the dark and the cold, as the pressure crushed his insides and water filled his lungs. In his head he was still drowning. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d never made it out. 

His eyes flinched open. Someone was standing before him, an Orlan, their bloodstained apron and harried expression marking them as the medic. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.” Elan’s voice came out in a hoarse croak. “Where’s the commander?”

“How the Hel should I know?” they snapped, ears slanting backwards in irritation. “He’s supposed to be here, but does he listen to me? No!” They fixed Elan with a glare as though all of this was somehow his doing. He supposed, in a sense, it was. Breaking into the Battery was what had started this mess after all. “There’s not much I can do for cracked ribs, I’m afraid,” they added, relenting at last with a small huff. “Seida – our priest – might be able to speed things along, but that will have to wait.” They cracked a rueful smile. “Triage is a bitch.”

Elan nodded; he didn’t care about any of that. Adaryc had made it. He hadn’t just hallucinated that part. “Any chance of getting my clothes back?”

The medic’s eyes narrowed. “Why? You planning on wandering off too?”

“No, just cold.” It was only half a lie.

They looked unconvinced but nonetheless waved him towards the far end of the tent where washed bandages and items of clothing hung drying over a brazier.  

Dressing with cracked ribs was an ordeal, but it was hardly his first time. The clothes were mostly dry at least, save for his boots, but there was nothing he could do about that. He pulled the blanket around his shoulders as an extra layer against the cold and, when no one was looking, slipped out of the tent. 

He found Adaryc on the wall, spelling one of the sentries who had gone to join their fellows around the fires. The commander half stood, half slumped against the paling, exhaustion written in every line of his body, but at the crunch of snow underfoot he straightened sharply. 

“Elan –” He sounded surprised, but any trace of it was quickly replaced with earnest concern. “It’s good to see you back on your feet.”

“Just barely,” Elan admitted with a weary smile. 

“Does Marwyd know you’re out here?”

One of Elan’s brows twitched upwards and he cast a pointed glance at Adaryc’s bandaged head and the sling cradling his arm. “I could ask you the same question,” 

The corner of Adaryc’s mouth quirked. “I won’t tell them, if you don’t.”

They stood there for a moment in companionable silence, the low rumbling of a storm rolling up from the valley below. Behind them in the camp, the surviving members of the company not confined to the infirmary were celebrating their victory, the boisterous clamor muddling together in a comforting buzz, until a sudden outcry startled Elan back to alertness. He turned – they both did – hands reaching for weapons, the cold specter of the Eyeless – of that first night – brutally fresh in both their minds. But there was no threat, no looming shadow. The uproar crested and broke in a cascade of laughter. All was still well.  

He heard the quiet exhale of relief from Adaryc and smiled, “Sounds like they’re enjoying themselves.”

Adaryc’s gaze lingered on the chaotic scene, his face in that moment unguarded, watching the revelers with fierce affection. “They’ve earned it.”

“You’re not taking part?”

“I did, briefly. But I try to keep it short, give them their space.” He nodded towards the commotion, smile going crooked. “Particularly when non-regulation alcohol is involved. Not that I’d know anything about that, officially.” He shook his head.  “You should join them. They’d welcome it.”

Elan considered this briefly; he couldn’t deny the appeal of drinking himself numb after everything that had happened, but instead he found himself shrugging a little deeper into his makeshift cloak.  “I think I’ll stay out here a little longer, if that’s alright.” Adaryc looked at him in surprise, but quickly recovered. “Of course.” 

The conversation trailed off, but after a short while quietly watching the treeline, he asked, “What will you do now? Now that it’s over, I mean.”

Elan blinked. Over. It was over. He hadn’t realized how much he needed to hear someone else say it out loud. He breathed out a curse, his voice soft with amazement. “Hadn’t really thought this far ahead, if I’m honest. Wasn’t expecting to walk away from this one.” His brows knit as he considered the question. “Back to the Dyrwood, I suppose? See if Caed Nua’s still standing.”

“Your keep?”

Elan winced. “I, ah… It’s not really a keep. And it’s not mine. Just a ruin. And that’s not me being modest, it truly is a falling down pile of old stones. A very tall one, I’ll admit, but a ruin all the same. After…. after the whole mess with the Leaden Key, everyone went their separate ways. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so…. I started camping in one of the abandoned outbuildings. Some refugees from Defiance Bay turned up one day and decided to camp there too. Then a few more. Pretty soon they were patching up a couple of the outbuildings into proper shelters. Now they’re talking about tearing up the old overgrown hedge maze and planting, ah… something? Potatoes? Fuck knows. We’re all city folk down to our bones, so it’s bound to end in disaster.” He glanced at Adaryc, “What about you?”

Adaryc drew himself up a little straighter, a small, unconscious movement as if he were bracing himself. “Once the wounded are well enough to travel, we’ll return to Readceras. We’ll give the dead a proper burial. And – and their families need to be notified. And – ” He faltered, and for a moment he was not the Iron Flail Commander, he was just a man, exhausted beyond endurance, marking time in the bodies of friends whose deaths he had not yet had time to process let alone grieve. “And the Council will want a report,” he finished heavily, ramrod posture going slack. “Gods only know what they’ll make of all this. They think I’m half mad already.” There was a short, mirthless laugh and he shook his head. “I keep thinking that if I can just put it into words, that it will make sense, that the words will, I don’t know…..contain it somehow? But – ”

“But it just makes it worse?” Adaryc looked up sharply, his hollow eyes fixing Elan with a sudden intensity. It was the same despair, the same fractured sense of reality Elan had felt after Sun In Shadow and the realization felt like being kicked in the chest. The knowledge that someone else understood jarring against the knowledge that no one else should have to. 

“I don’t know,” Adaryc shook his head, dropping his gaze once more to his hands. “Is that blasphemy? Trying to confine the divine to mortal terms?”

Fatigue made every emotion feel like a struck match. There was no slow build, no moderation, just a dizzy binary of all or nothing. Elan’s face felt hot, anger flaring, not at Adaryc, but at the blinkered acceptance that was now expected of them after everything they had just been through. “Fuck the divine!”

Shock and hurt flashed across Adaryc’s face. “Elan – “

“It wasn’t the divine bleeding out on the ice today! How many people died just because Ondra didn’t want the world to see the giant damn skeleton in her closet? What kind of god is motivated by fear? They’re supposed to be better than us! Or else what’s the fucking point?”

“That’s not –” Adaryc broke off, his expression strained as if he were being pulled in a dozen directions at once. “I can’t pretend that I’m not – that what happened isn’t…. difficult … to come to terms with, but this can’t be – It’s a single example out of –”

“How many examples do you need?”

“How can you act like it’s so simple?” Adaryc fired back. “Our lives are a narrow window, a razor thin slit  through which we glimpse infinity. How can you possibly believe that there is nothing beyond your own experience?

“Are you calling me arrogant?”

“Is there another word for it?”

Elan bristled, voice rising in consternation, “How can you just accept it? How does it not make you angry?”

“Do not presume to tell me my own mind!” Adaryc snarled, raw emotions splashing across Elan like splatter from a wound. Shame, hurt, anger, confusion, the sense of smothering, the impression of a door slamming shut and a body braced against it, the partitioning of self. It left him reeling like a sharp backhand. 

Silence fell between them, the sudden contrast dousing both of them like a bucket of cold water,  leaving them flustered and shamefaced, and neither could quite meet the other’s eyes.

Elan shifted uncomfortably; he opened his mouth to say something, but it was Adaryc who spoke first. “I’m sorry. That was -”

“No. Don’t apologize.” Elan sighed, scrubbing a hand across his face. “You were right. That wasn’t fair to you.”

“It wasn’t fair to you either. I – I don’t think  you’re arrogant.”

“Well, let’s not be hasty.”

The little huff of breath could almost have been a laugh. 

“Differences aside, I –” Adaryc hesitated, all his prickly awkwardness receding for a moment. He seemed strangely naked without it. “I envy your certainty.” 

The painful earnestness with which he said it caught Elan off guard. It felt like a confession, an admission of guilt, and he frowned, concern and confusion creasing his brow.

“Certainty has its flaws.” He had meant it as reassurance, but something in the words struck a nerve and Adaryc bristled, all sharp edges once more. 

“The lack of it is hardly a virtue!” he snapped, “Doubt is a sickness! A rot that must be cut out before it infects everything around us!”

“And certainty leads to assumptions,” Elan retorted, feeling is own temper flare again. “You know damn well how dangerous that can be in a fight!”

Adaryc flinched, his face flushing crimson. There were several heartbeats of uncomfortable silence and then, all at once, the fight seemed to go out of him. “I was certain about this mission,” he conceded bitterly. “Or at least… I performed certainty.” His hand twitched towards his belt where his sword hung – a different weapon from the one he’d carried that first night –  his expression pained. “I think the doubt was always there. But my men believed me. And I lead them into a fight we were utterly unprepared for. I imprisoned civilians – I risked starting the war I was supposed to be protecting us from!”

“Only because that Ondrite cultist escalated the – “

“Don’t!” Adaryc cut him off. “You do me no kindness by excusing my mistakes. I acted out of fear. There is no excuse for that.”

“But you were right!” Elan spluttered, “Alright, sure –  you fucked up with Stalwart, you made a mistake. But you were right about the vision, you were right about the attack, you were right about where it would happen. You were where you needed to be when you needed to be there, and you held the fucking line. Stalwart is still standing because you were here! You just got the details wrong because, shock of shocks, the goddess of secrets is a a cryptic fucking asshole!” 

Adaryc stared at him wide-eyed, for once too startled to argue, and then, to Elan’s surprise, he laughed – not a real laugh, there was no mirth in it, just overtaxed nerves and tension spilling over, but the rigid set of his shoulders relaxed the barest bit. 

There was another rumble from the storm in the valley, closer this time and Adaryc glanced at him, the tired shadow of a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.

“I think she heard you.”

Elan’s face split into a grin.  “You worried she’ll smite the wrong Watcher?” 

“That’s not–”

But Elan was already taking a step back, face tilted skyward. Gods, he felt strange. He felt drunk, with exhaustion and pain and relief and the dizzy sense of connection to another person. “Ondra! Hey!” He shouted up at the night sky, ignoring the sharp stab of pain, and spread his good arm wide. “Take your best shot! I know we probably all look alike to you, so remember to aim for the mouthy Aedyran heretic, yeah?”

“What in Hel is wrong with you?” Adaryc yanked his arm down in alarm, pulling him off balance, and Elan stumbled into him laughing. 

The laughter hurt like hel, but he could handle the pain until the coughing set in. His body hunched, one arm curling around his ribs trying desperately to brace as each spasm sent agony knifing through his chest. Dark spots flickered in front of his eyes, and then his vision blacked out. His knees buckled, but he didn’t fall. 

“Fuck.” The word hissed between his teeth as the fit passed. He leaned into whatever it was that was keeping him from falling, drawing in shaky, shallow breaths. 

After a moment, his support shifted – carefully – and Adaryc’s face swam into focus, his brow furrowed with concern. “Elan?” 

“M’fine.” Effigy’s eyes, everything hurt. 

Adaryc’s eyes flicked upwards in exasperation. “You’re not one of my men, I can’t order you to go to the infirmary tent.”

“Probably for the best,” Elan croaked with a smile that was still half grimace, “Never been much good at taking orders.”

“Why does that not surprise me?”

Adaryc released his arm, but neither of them made any attempt to move apart, only shifting to face outward towards the perimeter again, close enough to brush shoulders. They were quiet for a time after that, watching the dark silhouette of the tree line and listening to the offkey singing and laughter from the fort behind them. 

The minutes crept by and after a while Adaryc asked, “If not the gods, what do you have faith in?”

Elan’s shoulders tensed and he looked up, but there was no challenge in Adaryc’s face, only genuine and slightly puzzled curiosity. 

He didn’t answer right away. He had to fight down the urge to simply brush the question off; sincerity was vulnerability and vulnerability would get you killed, at the bare minimum it was an invitation for abuse. But….. 

But. 

“I don’t know.” He paused, frowning down at his hands. “I don’t say that to mean I’m above it, only that….. Well….” His mouth opened and shut several times. His hand brushed the sword at his side, nervously fingering its hilt like a talisman. “You saw enough of my soul to know that I’m no saint. I’ve made mistakes. A lot of them. Sometimes because I couldn’t see any right choices, and sometimes because I was running headlong towards the wrong ones. Faith and – and belief…. they can be a lot of things, I think. You could probably give me some real nice examples. And I’m not saying you’d be wrong. But they can be bad things too. A blindfold, a leash….puppet strings. In the wrong hands. And the choices I’ve made….Let’s just say there weren’t many kind hands around.” 

Elan drew in a shallow breath, shrugging – half-shrugging – uncomfortably. “I don’t know. Fire’s real pretty, but you can only get burned so many times, you know? Suppose there’s always this.” He glanced down at his hand still fidgeting with the hilt of his sword. “Always been able to count on a sharp piece of steel in my hand. Maybe that’s faith of a sort.” He hesitated, but the silence was worse than two back-to-back coughing fits. “Do you think that’s pathetic?” 

“No. I don’t,” Adaryc answered, his manner so earnestly serious it might have been comical under any other circumstance, but when Elan gathered the nerve to look up, he saw an echo of his own uncertainty in his face. “Do you think I’m naive?” “No.” Elan shook his head. “I know we don’t exactly see eye to eye on the gods, but… I don’t think that makes you naive. I just think you deserve better. And –” He broke off, fumbling awkwardly for the right words. “And your faith in your men, in what you’re doing, protecting your people…. I think I could believe in that.”

There were several beats of thoughtful silence. 

“I don’t suppose you’re looking to get back into mercenary work?” Adaryc ventured.

Elan looked up in surprise. “You really want to recruit the foreign heretic with authority issues?” he teased, “I’d be a thorn in your side and you know it. That’s not to say I take it lightly,” he added, smile faltering, “I – I don’t. No one’s, ah …. No one’s ever asked me to stay before.”

Adaryc was quiet for a moment, his hollow, fever bright eyes searching Elan’s face. “During the war, my first company…” he began, his gaze shifting to trace patterns in the snow at his feet. He spoke slowly and deliberately. “That was the first time in my life that I felt like I had a place anywhere. It’s part of why we formed the Iron Flail; when we got back home – the few of us who made it back –  we didn’t…. didn’t fit anymore. Except together.” He looked up then, meeting Elan’s eyes. “Consider it a standing offer.”