We'll Bleed For This Cause
Chapter 4: Damaged Eye
"Andraste's flaming sword!" Elissa exclaimed as the bandit's flailing punch caught her right in the eye.
Forgoing all training, she dropped her off-hand dagger and brought her hand up to cover her eye. With her one good eye she watched the bandit laugh, a self-satisfied smile on his face as he readied another punch. Elissa was faster and slashed out with the dagger in her right hand. She only managed to nick the bandit's chest as he jumped back before the dagger's bite could really be felt.
Elissa scowled and followed the bandit who danced out of the way of every slash and slice of her blade. She knew when she was being toyed with and by the Maker it absolutely drover her up the wall. Any other time the bandit would have been lying in a pool of his own blood by now, but her lack of depth perception was proving to be a problem. That and she probably shouldn't have dropped her other dagger but damn her eye stung.
In the end she deliberately faltered in her attack and let the bandit step in close so he could attack. Then she lashed out with her foot and kicked him in the shin. Hard. Because maybe she was feeling a little vindictive by that point.
When the bandit half bent over to clutch at his leg, Elissa grabbed his head, taking her left hand off her eye to do so, and slammed his face down into her knee. She followed this up by sinking her dagger into the bandit's back, yanking it back out, and then pushing him to the ground. When she was sure he wasn't about to get up again, and the rest of his fellows had been disposed of by her companions, Elissa finally allowed herself to groan in pain, dropping her dagger and slapping both hands over her wounded eye.
She turned to scowl at the bandit laying by her feet and gave him a sharp kick in the side, just because she could. "Bastard!"
"You called?" Alistair said, sidling up beside her.
"Not you, Alistair," she groaned. "Why would I even- you know I don't- ugh! Nevermind. Shut up. I was talking about this bandit." She gave the bandit another shove with her foot.
"Hey now, what did he ever do to you?"
Elissa turned to Alistair and removed the hands from over her eye. The vision through her injured eye was blurry, though that could have been the tears that kept welling up. Besides that it stung every time she blinked, and Elissa found herself half squinting to try and limit the movement of her eyelids.
Alistair winced when he saw her eye, however his view of the injury was one Elissa wouldn't get until she looked in a mirror later that night. Around the eye was swollen already and the white of the eye itself was bloodshot to the point of the entire thing looking pink.
"That looks like it hurts," he said.
"Does it, Alistair? How about I nearly poke your eye out and you can tell me just how much it hurts." Elissa rolled her eyes and regretted it immediately. She quickly slapped her hand back over her injured eye, if only to remind herself not to do anything with it.
"I believe it is times like these where the charming phrase 'don't poke the bear' is most apt," Morrigan said as she approached the pair.
"Charming, Morrigan, and ever so helpful," Alistair sneered.
The other woman gave a light shrug. "I do what I can."
"Can the pair of you just not. Please." Elissa sighed and dropped her hand from her eye, testing it with a few tentative blinks. It was no better.
"How bad is it?" Alistair asked.
"I can still see, mostly, if that's what you're asking," she replied. "It just won't stop watering. And it stings. Really stings."
"It is fortunate, then, that we were already on our way back to the campsite," Morrigan said.
Elissa shot Morrigan an exasperated look. "Alright, back to the camp it is." With her initial anger about the situation beginning to dissipate, she turned her attention to the ground to search for her dropped daggers. Elissa knew they couldn't be too far away.
"Looking for these?" Alistair asked, holding up her daggers.
"How'd you guess?" Elissa couldn't help the small half smile that flickered across her face briefly.
Alistair took a step closer to her then paused. He eyed Elissa warily from where he stood. "You're not going to bite my head off again if I come near you, are you?"
Elissa remembered not to roll her eyes this time. "No."
Alistair's wary look was easily replaced with a warm smile. He flipped the daggers in his hand so he could hold them by the blade and handed them back to her grip first with a short bow.
"Thanks," she said.
Alistair nudged her gently in the side, "You know, you can get really grumpy when you're injured."
"She's in pain. I do not blame her for taking it out on someone, especially if that someone is you, Alistair," Morrigan chimed in. "And did your tiny brain not comprehend my warning about poking the bear?"
"Can we stop referring to me as a bear? I'm right here."
"Well, if someone hadn't decided healing magic was beneath her, maybe we wouldn't have to rely solely on Wynne to deal with injuries," Alistair shot back at Morrigan.
"I do not think I heard you correctly, Alistair. Is the templar trying to tell me what I should and should not be using my magic for?"
"We can't always have Wynne with us so another healer would be helpful, but Maker forbid you actually decide to do something for other people's benefit."
"And just how is the view from your moral high ground, Alistair? Hmm?"
"You know what?" Elissa interrupted, "Why don't you two stay here and see if you can find anything useful. I'm going to head back to camp." With that said she turned on her heel and began walking down the road and away from the ambush site. She hadn't taken more that ten steps before Alistair and Morrigan were back at each other.
"Look what you've done now, Morrigan."
"Excuse me? And just what makes you think that was not your fault?"