Ixi's body is sore. This is something she notes even before fully waking up. Her muscles feel like her mentor put her through the most rigorous workout while beating on her shield. She pushes herself up, one hand rubbing an eye as she finally opens them. It's still barely light, the fire is burning low. Iron Bull is propped up against a rock, head back and snoring loudly. She's surprised that didn't wake her up, she's usually a light sleeper.
"Good morning, Ixi," Krem says from his post on his bedroll.
"Good morning, Krem." It comes out shorter than she wants it to, but she's in no mood for pleasantries.
"Did you sleep well?"
No. No, she didn't and it shows. Her back is killing her, arms hurt too much to raise and she feels like the dead. Not answering his question because she doesn't want to complain out loud, she points at Bull, "Is he okay sleeping like that? I would've been fine in my cloak."
Krem looks at Bull and smiles. He opens his mouth to say something, but changes his mind. "Yeah. He's fine. Chief can sleep anywhere, trust me."
She rubs her hands together, not entirely sure what to say to the man. She isn't entirely convinced he likes her. Ixi pushes back the blanket, grabbing the satchel and starts to roll the bed up. Sitting back, she's cursing herself for being so slow to catch on things. This is something her mentor attempted to teach her, but she just couldn't.
Krem is suddenly beside her, pushing her gently to the side and folding and roll the huge bedroll until it's the right size. She sits back on her heels and crosses her arms. She could've done that. He takes the straps attached to the end and tie them into a tight knot. She stops herself from snapping at him.
Does he think she can't take care of herself? No matter how true that is... She shoots him glares that he can't see as his back is turned to her.
While he is putting it next to Iron Bull, she pulls her sword out of the sheathe. She cleaned it last night, but didn't get around to polishing it. Weapons are apart of you. Like family or your own body. You take care it before you take care of yourself.
Ixi pulls out the rag and polish she took from her family's manor and starts in on the blade. Her strokes are almost lovingly. If there is something she'd take good care of, it would be her sword.
"Ixi," Krem says quietly from her left. "It's a beautiful weapon."
She looks at him. Something angry on the tip of her tongue as he offers no smile, nothing to suggest he's being nice. Is he going to make fun for having a nice weapon? Nothing like that comes out of his mouth. Instead he sits next to her, grabbing the polish from her and pulling her shield into his lap.
"Thank you," she says hesitantly, "the blacksmith who did was a good friend of mine."
Krem laughs. "It shows in the craftsmanship."
Bull is awake and watching Krem. He knows the Tevinter didn't approve of Bull bringing Lady on when it's clear she's naive about many things, but it's good. All good and he didn't regret his decision at all. No, not at all.
But there is that niggling little voice he refused to listen to the night before. What if she gets killed in their care? Injured in some way? He shoves those thoughts away. Or tries to, but they remain. Haunting him like a ghost from his past. And he knows which ghost.
Clearing his voice, he draws the attention of Krem. Ixi is polishing her sword, intently looking at the blade.
The Tevinter leaves her where she sits and goes over to Bull. "Are you totally sure we can do this with her? You don't think she'll get in the way?" he asks quietly enough she doesn't hear.
"You were just helping her polish her weapon, Krem. I think it's a little late to go back, don't you?" Krem rubs the back of his neck, glancing back. He shrugs.
"I was being nice."
But Krem is right, Bull isn't sure of anything. But he has to be. If his people start questioning him, then he loses his ability to lead. "I'm positive." He smiles at Krem and starts clapping his hands. Stitches, Rocky and Dalish all startle awake. Dalish pulls her blanket over her head and turns over.
"Come on people, let's get a move on!" he yells.
Ixi is inspecting the inside of her sheathe. She pulls back in pure revulsion from whatever she finds in there. "Need some help, Lady?" he asks.
Ixi looks up at him, glaring against the rising sun over his shoulder. "No. I'm perfectly capable to take care of my own things."
He raises his hands in self defense. "I never said you weren't."
She seems to realize what she did, horror dawning on her face much like the sun behind them. She opens her mouth to perhaps fix it. Bull laughs it off, dismissing it easily with his hand. "Calm, Lady. I'm just messing with you."
"You can' though," Dalish pipes in, half-groggy and still wrapped in her blanket. "You defending yourself last night was blind luck, not skill."
Ixi stares at her. The elf is too tired to care, or likely doesn't care at all. There is a stubborn jutting of Ixi's chin Bull can't help but grin at. "You know, if you want to prove Dalish wrong, you can always spar with me."
Spar with him? Ixi opens her mouth to say no. There's no way in the Maker's fluffy white ass she's going to attack Bull. Not only is he bigger than her, she saw how he fought last night. The man has the grace of a halla. He lifts a great battle axe from the pile of weapons and gives it a few practice swings.
"Do you know how big you are?" Ixi says, getting up and putting her shield on her arm.
Bull pauses and grins, a glint in his eye she doesn't quite like. "Oh, trust me. I know."
Ixi crinkles her nose up at his tasteless joke. "I meant in size!"
Now his eyebrows waggle. "Again, trust me, I know. I've been known to leave a lo-"
She brings her hands up to her ears, clonking herself in the side of the head with her shield. The pain was instantaneous. "No...no more. I'll spar with you. Just stop with the jokes." Using her opposite hand, she rubs it. Bull allows her a moment to get her bearings.
Ixi takes a wide stance, her feet shoulder-width apart and shield in front with her sword just behind poised to strike. "Are you ready, Lady?" His grin tells her she'll regret this.
No she's not ready, but she nods slowly. Her arms still hurt, shaking at the elbows. She braces herself as Bull charges her much like his namesake and swings the axe down into her shield. Ixi drops to a knee, knowing this is going to hurt.
The axehead hits, jolting her bones. She grits her teeth as he pushes down. She swipes at his legs, raising the shield to reach under. Her swords makes him jump back, taking some pressure off her. With a surge of strength, she pushes up and throws him off.
Okay, Ixi, she thinks, don't get stuck under his axe. That could've ended terribly. She wants to look at the damage he did to her shield, but she has to trust it won't fall apart under his attacks.
Bull swings his axe again. Ixi rolls out of the way, but she isn't used to rolling with a shield on her arm and she barely makes it out of the way. It slices through the air to her right, blowing back tendrils of her red hair.
Fear makes her bolt to the other side of the dying fire. Bull looks on either side of his axe, probably for her squished body. Dalish points to her. "What are you doing over there?"
Ixi leans as well as she can on her sword, breathing erratically, in and out, fast enough to cause concern in Krem. Her heart pounds so hard it hurts. "He…"
Bull shoulders his axe. He frowns at her and says nothing as he comes around the fire, stops near her and inspects her for a wound. "Are you hurt?" he asks, his voice deep with concern.
Ixi tries not to laugh. Honestly, it's a laugh or cry situation and the last thing she wants to do is break down in front of a bunch of strangers. She's regrets coming, leaving her parents home far behind. Why did she think she could make it out here with them? "I'm fine. You scared me is all."
Dalish huffs. She's becoming Ixi's least favorite person in the little group. "You can't run from a fight."
Stitches fusses over her for a moment until she's finally let go and allowed to drop the weapons at her feet. "I… I think I'll avoid sparring with you for the time being." Weak words. Weak delivery. Just weak. You are weak. Weakling. Coward. She didn't belong in the mercenary group. She didn't even belong in the Templar Order. She should be a sister in the Chantry. Work that didn't require any physical confrontations with enemies.
Camp is packed up. Ixi has the least amount to carry. Bull even plucks the sword off her back and adds it to his much larger pack. Oh… Did he think she's weak? She says nothing to him as they walk down the main road. Dragging her feet and watching the dust clouds pillow behind her, she falls too behind. Soon the enthusiastic conversation was a distant sound around the edges of her conscious.
Bele is right. She's a good-for-nothing girl. Not useful. Not helpful. Even Bull thinks so with the way he grabbed her shield. What's the point in continuing? If she turns around right now, she can still go back to the manor. Beg for forgiveness. Go into the Chantry and train to be a Sister. Or marry into a loveless, political relationship and bear sons while she stays home and stitches their names into the collars of their shirts.
Seeing as the Chargers barely noticed her absence, she turns on her heel and begins the long walk back to the manor.
Iron Bull laughs as Rocky finishes his story. "So she comes into the bar and just sits down!" He has to stop for a moment, clutching his knees as the laughter erupts from him, leaving him breathless. Tears spring to his eyes and he wipes them away only for more to show up.
"Chief!" Krem's voice calls. He always makes up the rear to keep them from being attacked from behind. "Chief!" His voice heightens in what sounds like panic.
Bull is upright, laughter dead on his lips. "What is it?"
"Ixi. Where is she?"
Oh, for fuck's sake. Maker, he's going to knock some sense into the girl's head when he finds her. Bull gets everyone to stop. "When was the last time you saw her?"
Krem looks behind him. "Ten minutes ago, maybe. She was dragging her feet and falling behind, but I thought she'd at least keep up or stay in view."
He has to find her. When he dragged her from her home-albeit she went willing-he gained responsibility for her. Even as she was an adult, she couldn't defend herself well enough to stay alive. "What's the closest town?"
"Markham," Rocky says, pulling out his map. He lays it on the ground, dragging a finger on the small line that marked the road they were on. "About three miles."
Go to town and then go find her? Get a mount so he's faster? But the more he stands there to think about what to do, the further away she gets. "Krem take them into Markham. I'm going back to find Lady and we'll be back." He tosses Krem a coin bag. "Get us a few rooms to stay in."
Krem nods and catches the bag with ease. Bull stands there for a moment while he watches his Chargers disappear down the road before turning back the way he came.
"Stupid… stupid!" Ixi kicks at a prone rock in the road. Pain shoots up her leg when her foots connects. She hops momentarily, shaking it out.
A scream catches her attention. Where is it coming from? Her pain forgotten, her stomach twists. Is someone in trouble? She shakes off that thought, reasoning it as people just playing. Of course they're playing. The Maker wouldn't put people in her path that needed help. They'd no doubt ended up dead. Or she would. Another scream pierces the air confirming her first suspicion. It sounds painful, cutting off quickly.
Ixi grabs her hilt out of habit. She quickly lets go, remembering Bull has her shield and what good would she do?
The last scream that rent the air sends her running towards the farmhouse it seems to be coming from. It's not an act of thought, but rather one of emotion. Whoever is screaming needs help and whether or not she can actually offer that up, she needs to try.
The door hangs ajar, blood drops splattered on the white paint. "Shit...shit...shit," she repeats as she pushes the door open gingerly and steps inside. The sight in the family room makes her want to puke. There is a family of four in the middle of the room, laid out all neat in a with their arms over their chests as if getting ready to be buried. A mother, father and two children. Their heads are missing.
Breathe. In and out. Which is a mistake because she gets a full nose of rotting corpse stench and she does puke, right there in the kitchen. She tries to make it as silent as she can because she doesn't want to get caught off-guard.
Now breathing out her mouth, she walks as quietly as she can up the stairs. Thuds come from the behind the third door down the hallway. The stench is less noticeable on the second floor, but still it lingers. Brandishing her sword as menacingly as she can, she puts her shoulder against the door and her hand jerks open the knob.
A man stands over a woman. Both are covered with blood. The man is holding a knife as he stands above the sobbing woman. "Step away from her," Ixi says. Her voice quivers in the middle of the sentence. She doesn't sound threatening whatsoever, but holding out her sword seems to be enough. He backs away, knife held in the air. Her eyes search for something to throw at him as she doesn't want to kill or injure him. Knock him out so she can attempt to get the right authorities here.
He wears a mask over his face obscuring any features she might identify him with. Ixi's eyes flicker to the woman to make she's okay and that's when the man decides to bolt out the door. She begins to run after him when the moaning of the woman stops her. She sheathes her sword and inspects the woman. She's no healer, but there are no life threatening wounds that she can see. Mostly fresh bruises and a forever scarred soul. Helping her up, Ixi leads the woman out of the house, turning the woman's face away from the decapitated family in the room downstairs.
The woman's name is Luna and she's a nanny for the two children Ixi saw next to their parents. "He just...burst through the house, He tired all of us and one by one took their heads. I… I don't know what he did with them. Oh Maker, why?" Luna wails, covering her face as sobs bend her body in half.
Ixi pats the woman's hair, unsure of what to do next. With no towns on the horizon, she couldn't go get help. But she couldn't leave Luna here alone. What if that guy strikes again to finish the job? She looks around, spying a nimble horse in the field. She points to it, speaking to Luna in a clear voice. "Did you ride that horse in?"
Luna takes a moment to process what Ixi said. "What? Oh, yes. I did."
"So you don't live here?"
Luna seems to grasp onto what Ixi is saying. "Yes. You're right. It's a good idea. I'll-I'll go home and bring back the proper authorities." She gets up and stumbles toward the horse, then stops and turns back. "Will you be here when I get back?"
Ixi smiles. "No. I'm just passing through."
She waits until Luna has her horse saddled and she's riding away from the farmhouse, then turns running face first into someone.
Her first instinct is to fight. She jabs her sword forward as she falls back blindly. The sword glances off something hard and she lands on her back from the force. Ixi's sword flies from her hand and lands somewhere with a thud.
She keeps her eyes close as her heart is very close to thumping a path of her chest and she needs to calm it. Breathing deeply does nothing. So she opens her eyes and see Iron Bull standing her with a frown on his mouth and a glare in his eye. He roughly helps her up, keeping her shield which she assumes is what her sword bounced off of.
"What are you doing here?" she asks, stopped in her tracks by the mere sight of him. Did he follow her? How much did he see her fail just now?
"You left. Do you know how much danger you brought upon yourself?" he says quietly, his brow furled deep over his eye and eyepatch.
"So you do think I can't take care of myself. Well, I'll have you know I took care of something in there!" She doesn't need to add that he got away, but still. Anger rears up in her, making her huff and puff like a dragon and tear at her clothes with her hands. She turns to him again. "I left because I don't why I left! I deserve to be in the home. Not holding this fucking sword."
What to say to her? What can he say that'll make her come back with him? His own anger once boiling was now ready to tip over. He wants to take her by the shoulders and shake her. Wants to tell her he wants her for the Chargers. That he believes in her and knows she has what it takes to be someone's rescuer.
But he doesn't.
Bull stops her in her path and looks at her. Into her deep blue eyes and finds himself stuck there. He shakes his head, not quite pulling himself out of her eyes and brings her into his chest. "You don't understand. You can do it. It'll take time but-"
Ixi leans into him. "What if I can't? What if Dalish is right?"
Bull laughs, his chest rumbling. "She isn't. She just likes to make conflict."
Ixi looks up at him, her chest flush against his stomach. It churns something in him he doesn't understand. "Alright. You've convinced me."
"Come, the Chargers are waiting with food and ale in Markham." He grins and pushes her down the road lest she change her mind again.