serindrana - Scattered Coin :: G is for Gangrene [Athenril ABCs]

29th January 2012

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Scattered Coin :: G is for Gangrene [Athenril ABCs] →

[This installment follows directly on E and F. Warning for implications of gruesome injury.]

G is for Gangrene

“Hold still,” Hawke hisses, and Athenril grits her teeth and lets her head fall back against the crate she’s leaning against. Her knees are threatening to buckle and she can’t remember the last time she felt this much pain. It feels like the skin on her right arm has been flayed from fingers to elbow, and even with her steel stomach she can’t look at it for more than a few breaths without beginning to feel woozy.

“And what are you going to do?” she growls through gritted teeth. She doesn’t want her life or well being in Hawke’s hands, not even after saving the siblings from that bastard Tevin, now dead in a gutter with piss all over him; it’s not a matter of trust so much as it is of pride, and she digs her heel hard into the ground. “Tie it back on with your charm?”

“No,” Hawke says. “Bethany!”

Athenril groans and closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to see the girl right now. She doesn’t want either of them to have any idea of what she’s done on their behalf. Coin was the only protection she ever swore them.

Not her blighted arm.

“Oh Maker-” Bethany gasps when she sees the damage, and she must have pushed her sibling out of the way, because Hawke’s grasp loosens on her shoulder and is replaced by Bethany’s gentler touch. “Maker’s mercy. I- I’m not a healer. I’m not-“

“As convenient as it would be for her to die and release us from our bondage, Bethany, I think we’d all appreciate it more if she didn’t get the rot and lose her arm,” Hawke snaps, and Athenril finds the strength in her to nod, to laugh unevenly.

“Get to it, girl,” she whispers, and Bethany whimpers.

And then there’s a soft, tentative touch at her brow and the blossoming spread of magic through and under her skin, and Athenril tries to banish the thought that Bethany is sometimes unsure and unsteady with her magic on the best of days when she’s not fighting for her family. Hopefully, fighting for her employer will be a decent enough substitute.

In the end, she loses only the use of her ring and little finger, and feeling up the outer side of her arm to the elbow. The flesh there is withered and useless, and she can’t so much as twitch her fingertips. She supposes she should be grateful. She fought for this, after all - a mage in the wings, though she did bargain for a hunting hawk instead of a graceless nurse.

Still, when she has a special glove fitted that hides the damage, that braces her fingers so she can still hold a weapon if she just relearns a few movements, she finds it in herself to offer a quiet thanks to a little mage girl who didn’t know what she was doing but tried anyway.

Money well spent.

[Masterpost]

Tagged: athenril scattered coin dragon age alphabet meme alphabet meme bethany hawke Hawke