"Again. Please."
Sweat slicked over Lyna's face, her petite features amplified by the intensity of her focus. She was dressed in her battle armor, with the dark leather pressing into her wet body, conforming to her movements as she paced up and down a flat expanse of ground several meters away from the camp's dying fire.
"Are you certain?" a lilting voice replied. The voice was smooth but tired, resembling the last cadences of a fading song than it did a regular melody. Zevran, with each gleaming dagger in hand, stood poised and as proud as ever, though the slackened lines around his eyes and mouth betrayed his words—exhaustion would soon overcome him.
Lyna stopped her pacing and paused, meeting Zevran's gaze with unsympathetic fire in her eyes. She nodded.
A deep breath stole into the chest of the assassin and he hummed, momentarily acquiescing to the Brecilian's natural scents of wood and pine. He tucked a few strands of stray hair behind his ears and swallowed, his hands flexing their grips on his blades as he shifted his weight from foot to foot, preparing himself.
"As you wish, Warden."
Lyna frowned, and although she was poised, bristling with unbridled energy, she looked visibly tense, and her eyes suddenly dropped to her feet before reluctantly rising up again. "You don't have to keep going," she murmured. How could she expect him to? Doesn't she ask enough of her companions?
But Zevran merely shrugged. "I wish to help, if I am able."
A stab that did not come from a blade pierced Lyna's heart.
"It's all right, Zevran. I'll take it from here."
Lyna's gaze flickered over to Alistair, who came striding towards them with a grim smile stuck on his mouth. He, like the two elves, was also adorned in his battle armor, and every movement of his body prompted shadowy glimmers of light that reflected off the campfire's glow. Right then, he looked more like a spirit than he did a man—perhaps a spirit of valor, as his bronze eyes stayed trained on the discomfort of Lyna's visage, which soon bloomed into an expression that hovered between wary and hopeful.
Zevran's studious gaze flickered back and forth between the Warden and her towering lover. A few moments passed as Alistair pressed in closer to their proximity, and he eventually smiled, a fragile, pitying gesture. He gazed once more at Lyna and turned, heading back towards his tent with sluggish movements that further drained his body. He smoothly sheathed his daggers and was gone.
"Alistair," Lyna said as he approached her. He did not extend a hand nor a physical gesture of comfort, but there was no denying the adoration in his eyes or the soft way they raptured her entire being with just mere moments of their hold. "I'm sorry if I've woken you, but… you should be resting. I'm okay." She, still bursting with discomfort, clenched and unclenched her jaw as if she was physically commanding her body to relax only for it to disobey her seconds later.
Alistair swallowed, allowing his brows to narrow upon his forehead as he chose his words carefully. "I can't sleep without you anymore," he replied, a sheepish grin tempting his lips. "I want to help you."
The forest around them buzzed with the sounds of wildlife, and the crackle of their campfire popped in the distance, intermittently punching up clusters of sparks and smoke at random intervals. Lyna tried not to let her gaze wander from the safety of Alistair's face, and her breathing accelerated with the task of mentally warding away images that her tortured mind produced. "You always help, though."
"Because I love you." And Alistair said this such ease, as if the words "I love you" cost nothing for him to materialize—a gentle prayer in her name. He still made no move to touch her.
Another blow struck itself across the expanse of Lyna's chest, pounding against her sternum and crunching upon the fleshy shape of her lungs. How special he was, her not-so-templar, the man who eagerly held her during the nightmares and then in other instances, refrained from laying even a fingertip upon her body. How completely intuitive he was, and how lucky Lyna was to have him. His existence was like a perpetual war to the brokenness of her existence; the more wonderful he was, the more painful it became for Lyna to accept him.
Unlike Alistair, no words rose to the cracked surface of her tongue, and Alistair remained wordless as he unsheathed the long blade at his belt.
The movement caused a quiet scraping noise to pierce the faux-serenity of the evening, and without hesitating, Lyna fastened her grip on the daggers she still clutched in her hands, slinking back several steps as to put distance between herself and the towering warrior in front of her. She was feline and smooth and suddenly transformed. The graveness which darkened her features dissipated into a mask of concentration, both tightening and loosening her face until all she saw was the body ahead of her and the familiar length of the sword it carried.
"Tell me when to start," Alistair said in a near-whisper.
Now. Start now.
Lyna stiffened with dormant energy that begged to be release through her limbs. "Now. The pictures are coming back." Her voice resembled not a whisper but a plea, as if wounds wrongly bled the words from her throat.
Well…better her throat than her mind.
And then Alistair attacked, his muscular frame flicking out with such speed that Lyna barely had time to parry the blow with her own blades. Acid flushed into her arms and torso and filled them with adrenaline that she could direct and manipulate, a purposeful, chemical reaction to combat—there was nothing insidiously emotional about a battle of this sort.
Lyna relished the strike and ground her heels in the dirt floor of the ground before shoving away from Alistair. She twirled, side-stepping away from his guard and slashed out at his side, gently grazing the metal of his armor before he was able to defend the counterattack.
She felt no remorse for the attack; Morrigan could repair that scrape later on.
Neither did Alistair pause or halt in his rhythm. His face, too, was a mask of calm determination, and his eyes—amplified by the small mountain of flame mere meters away from them—were narrowed, creating lines around them, as if they too were a product of intention. Though he did not carry his shield, Alistair physically vibrated with strength while he executed a barrage of quick strikes, stepping lightly on his feet and twisting out of Lyna's guard as she moved likewise.
Each warrior moved with precision, and a certain familiarity leaked into their rhythmic cadences, revealing what was obviously the physicality of a routine performed a thousand times. They seemed to hold nothing back as they collided, one mass of fury and metal until sweat slicked over their skin and dripped down their faces. Alistair sprang backwards, out of reach, and held his sword in front of him, blocking his entire torso with the defending position.
His breath came out in gasps, though his voice was as clear as ever. "Enough?"
Lyna choked back a cough; her lungs felt shriveled from air deprivation, as if the acid in her body had eroded the function of the organs into dust. She paused for one half a moment, closing her eyes, and delved into herself to determine whether or not she was okay. Yet, horror flashed like lightning inside her mind, stirring a plethora of memories tainted by repulsion and shame, and the acid that rose inside her was nothing like adrenaline, and everything like poison.
The cough nearly escaped her throat and Lyna flinched, shrinking away from the clawed thoughts and their needle teeth. With her eyes shut, her limbs taut, and her breathing vanished, Alistair's face grew alarmed, though like before, he did not move to touch her.
"Not enough?"
Eyes still closed, Lyna shook her head, her brown, rippled hair sticking to the wet on her neck and shoulders. "Not enough. They're still there." She made a noise of frustration that echoed gutturally at the back of her neck—somewhere between a hum and a groan of pain. "Please, let's keep goin—"
Alistair was already there, leaping forward with one, powerful bound that closed the distance between them. Steel flashed before her, the dangerous edge of the blade driving itself deep into the body of her unease and calling her out to him once again. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Lyna was unconditionally grateful for this distraction, but the forefront of her injured mind could not do anything else but anticipate Alistair's attack before it came. He was swift, though his size did hinder his ability to defend himself, and especially without his shield. Lyna battered away at him, slicing through the air with a string of flurries as though her daggers weighed nothing, and she broke into his guard time and time again, though Alistair was able to fight off her reach. She was quicker than he was and much smaller, allowing Lyna's strikes to slip further past her companion's defense and render his counters ineffective as she dodged them without falter.
This. This is what it took for Lyna to defend her own mind. When she was like this, loving touches and embraces would only make her worse. Encouragements would rotten her soul and prolonged inactivity brought about certain death to the sanity she was so cleverly able to hold on to.
In the beginning of their journey, Lyna had wondered if her companions thought her weak or disabled with her constant nightmares—nightmares that sometimes stole into the surface of her own consciousness while awake and crippled her. She also wondered if she was weak, a mutation that nature had left behind to perish, though she had done anything but. Her companions—her friends, however, had given no indication that they indeed believed her unfit for command. In fact, they had acted the opposite and trusted her directions with an implicit obedience, never questioning or doubting her judgment. Lyna never knew if that was commendable or foolish of them.
And Alistair…
Her beloved. He was there for her even more than the others, although there had been times when he'd acted impulsively and behaved as though affection was the cure to such illness, and Lyna had ripped herself away from him only to retreat within the quietest parts of herself. Lyna tried not blamed him. How was he to know how to be when even she could only guess?
Sparring seemed to be the only remedy for nights when Lyna's mind was unescapable. The grating noise of metal on metal, of musical, focused breathing, of the ground giving way to the numerous parries and preemptives executed—this was a battle Lyna could win, and her companions routinely took turns training with her even though she exhausted them quickly, such was the situation with Zevran tonight. Never Alistair though; he was always there to resume where the last friend left off, and thankfully, after much coaxing on Lyna's part, he almost held nothing back during these sessions, making him the most formidable opponent of them all.
Their gazes locked, flushing the rest of the world away. Lyna, with irises so much greener than his, ceased all of the defensive maneuvers she favored and gripped both daggers tightly. She clutched on to their hilts as she slashed the both of them towards Alistair with all of the strength she had left. When he deflected the blow with his own sword, Lyna beat down on his sword again and again and again, the slow, heavy collisions sounding off like cannon-fire in the shadowy hour of night. She could feel the power leaving her body with every swing and yet she continued to cleave away at the sight of metal before her, as if she were chopping wood instead of sparring, until sweat slipped down her neck beneath her armor and pooled there, collecting like puddles of physical exertion. And then she swung at him again.
The towering man she attacked soon became a swimming mirage of gold and darkness as her vision became increasingly blurred. But still she persisted, her arms aching, her lungs screaming, her head filling with the most mysterious kind of spell that sapped the insanity from her mind, clearing it away of the illness once again, which left her feeling sleepy. The absence of her sickness made her feel hollow and weightless, stealing the last of her energy, and she lurched at Alistair one last time, blades meeting and parting before she stumbled and dropped to one knee. The little elf gasped for air, squeezing her eyes shut with the effort to find some, and let herself keel over until her back met the softness of the Brecilian ground, and the spring air evaporated some of the wetness on her skin.
Lyna extended her arms out beside her like bird wings and swallowed down the dryness that came from such activity. Nearby, she heard the ground absorb another impact—this one much louder and denser than her own—and moved her head to the side. Alistair was positioned similarly, and he too choked to breathe, his bronze stare fixated the heavens above of them. For a few moments, all they did was slow their hearts.
"Are you all right?" he soon asked her, his voice reduced to a mere whisper.
Lyna nodded and then furrowed her brow, realizing that he couldn't have seen the gesture. "Yes. I'm better."
Alistair chuckled, the birth and end of a low laugh, and Lyna couldn't help but smile at the sound, at the beautiful sound of her lover's joy.
"Good. I'm glad."
I am too.
"Thank you," Lyna breathed, her eyes flickering open. Stars and lights of every shape glowed in the sky, twinkling back down at her as if Mythal herself had witnessed the events of tonight. She imagined that all of her gods had watched, and that their gazes remained somewhere in the collage of starlight she could see. Perhaps they had drained the sickness away for her, as they have many other nights.
She heard Alistair shift and then suddenly felt his warm hand touch hers, his calloused palm sliding over hers and tangling with her fingers. His touch felt like relief and understanding… compassion and love all at once, and Lyna flexed her wrist so that her hand curled around his. He'd probably wanted to do this all night long.
"You're welcome."