The cave-in was deafening, the crashing of wood and stone above and around them louder than thunder. Most of the stone bounced off the magical shield, but it could only take so much of the onslaught before flickering out, its energy dissipated by the projectiles. Carver grunted as a few larger pieces of debris struck him about the head and arms.
Then everything went still. Besides the ringing in his ears, Carver couldn't hear much besides their ragged breathing.
"Are we alive?" Adara panted. Her voice was muffled as her face was still pressed against his chest—which probably wasn't comfortable, given the heavy plate he was wearing.
"Um. Yeah. I think so," Carver said. She lowered the hand that had been casting the shield, resting it on his shoulder. He could feel her other hand on the back of his neck. Her grip hadn't shifted or lessened, and even in these rotten circumstances, he didn't mind it. He was still holding her protectively beneath him, but now that rocks had stopped falling everywhere, he realized exactly how closely he was holding her. Vivian would have teased him mercilessly for his sudden gallantry, but his sister wasn't here. It was ridiculous to be embarrassed, so why was he?
Carver unwound his arm from around Adara's waist and cautiously sat up, letting out a huge sigh of relief to discover that he could sit up, at least most of the way. Some of the broken beams above them had become wedged against each other, holding back enough rock to create a safe pocket for them. "We have a little room," he announced. Not enough room to stand or give each other space, but they didn't have to remain entirely tangled together.
Another wisp flickered to life in Adara's hand and began flitting about in their little safe place like a particularly large firefly. It bobbed around in a way Carver could only read as curious. How much was Adara controlling it? Was it alive? The wisp bobbed around his head, and he swatted it away before he could think better of it. It seemed to flare brighter for a moment as if angry with him.
"I can't hear the others," Adara said. Oh, right, Jowan and Leo. Maybe the entire ceiling hadn't fallen in, or maybe they had found their own pockets of safety in the rubble.
"OY," Carver shouted, making Adara jump. His voice was louder and carried farther than hers. "IS ANYONE ELSE ALIVE?" Silence. In the wisp's light, Carver could see Adara chewing her lip with worry. Then he heard a very muffled and distant shout in response. Human, not darkspawn. "OVER THIS WAY," Carver shouted again.
"At least one of them is alive then," he said to Adara. Her brows knit together in a frown. "I mean, they probably both are. Leo is tough and quick, and Jowan is the luckiest bastard I've ever met," Carver added reassuringly. "We just have to get to them."
"You're bleeding," Adara said.
"Huh?" Carver reached out to touch his stinging temple, and his hand came away bloody. "Just got nicked by a rock is all. Nothing too bad."
"Let me look." It wasn't a request. The wisp fluttered into his face again, and Carver resisted the urge to flick it away with his thumb and forefinger. Adara reached up to move his hand away from his head, wrapping her fingers lightly around his. They had never been so close before, because if they had, this wouldn't be the first time he was paying attention to the curve of her lips. "It's not deep. It's going to bleed all over the place if you don't let me close it up, though," she said.
He was watching her lips move instead of listening to the words they were shaping. "Hmm? Oh, yeah, thanks."
"I do owe you for protecting me." Adara raised her left hand to his temple. Her hand began to glow blue, and he could feel—or hear?—the hum of healing magic before he felt its cool pressure against his head.
"Not sure about that," he said. "Might've been easier to get your shield up if you hadn't been tackled." He grimaced a bit as he felt the magical pressure increase. Healing magic never hurt, but it had always felt off to him: some external force cajoling his wounds into closing. It also felt a little different in every mage he'd met. His dad's healing spells had always felt warm and firm where Bethany's had been gentle. Vivian's were borderline uncomfortable, her magic as impatient as she was to fix what was wrong and be done with it. Anders… well, there was something kind of scary and intense about all of Anders's magic, not that Carver would have admitted that aloud.
Adara's felt… calm. Magic flowed out of her hand like water in a slow-moving river that knew where it was going and didn't need to hurry to get there. It could have been relaxing if it was less weird. One side of her lips quirked up in a small smile. "Easier, maybe, but I'm not sure I would have reacted before it was too late. You were quick." She sounded impressed, right? He could feel his ego inflating a bit.
She moved her hand away and leaned in to inspect her work. "It'll do. Sorry, healing isn't my strongest suit. My education was… disrupted."
Carver shrugged. The motion caused his armor to scrape against rock in their tight quarters, creating a sound that made his teeth ache. "I don't have any complaints. Now we just need to get out of here. I, ah, I might need my other hand back, though." Her right hand was still wrapped around his.
"Oh!" She dropped his hand so quickly one might have thought it had burned her. Her spell wisp bobbed close enough to her face for Carver to make out a look of embarrassment. "Sorry. I forgot."
"It's fine. It was cute."
"Cute?" she echoed. She sounded a little bit indignant, and he worried that he'd pushed his luck.
"I mean, you're cute." Balls. That didn't come out right. "Pretty, I mean. What I meant was, I didn't mind it, is all," he stammered out. He winced. This had to be worse than the time he'd told Merrill she wasn't like other girls.
Or maybe it wasn't. In the wisp-light, he could see that Adara was smiling. "Well. You're cute when you're floundering." She reached out and brushed her fingers across his cheek, and Carver caught her hand before she could pull it away. For a moment, they were frozen like that. It would be so easy to kiss her. He would barely have to lean forward at all…
"Adara! Can you hear me? Where are you?" The nasal tones of Jowan's voice were still muffled, but he was clearly getting closer. "Hawke?"
There went the whole moment. Carver sighed as she pulled away, leaning against the rocks that were closest to the sound of Jowan's voice. "We're here! Is Leo with you?"
"Thank the Maker! Yes, he's here. He's finishing off the last darkspawn. Not everyone was crushed."
Carver cursed loudly enough for Adara to look sharply at him. "Our body counts were neck and neck before this. He's probably pulled ahead of me now."
Adara rolled her eyes. "I'll find more for you."
"That's sweet of you."
Jowan kept yelling: "Just hang on for a bit, we'll dig you out."
'A bit' turned out to be a few hours, but the time was mostly spent trying to determine which rocks were safe to move and how quickly. Finally, Carver saw Jowan's face appear in a small gap that he and Leo had created in the walls of Adara and Carver's confines. The mage's face was bright red with exertion and streaked with dirt. "Give me your hand, 'Dara. I think you can squeeze through here."
Carver scowled. "Sure, but I can't."
"We'll widen it," Leo shouted from somewhere behind Jowan. "Take your plate off first and pass it through."
That was another endeavor that took a frustrating amount of time, but eventually Carver found himself standing atop rubble in a mine cavern that was a quarter of the size it had been prior to the cave-in, if that. He put his armor back on piece by piece while Adara surveyed the cavern with her hands on her hips.
"The good news is that whatever hole the darkspawn were crawling out of must be buried under all this mess, too," Jowan said.
Adara sighed. "The bad news is that I think the townsfolk were hoping to resume operations here."
Carver snorted. "They can just be bloody grateful that no more of them are getting dragged off. Bugger the rest of it."
Adara looked at him and quirked a brief smile, but Carver recognized the look on her face before and after, because Maker knew he'd seen it in the mirror often enough: disappointed in herself but not surprised. Whatever Adara's expectations were of herself, she hadn't met them. He worked his jaw, trying to think. He wanted to say something reassuring, something to keep the weight of whatever shortcomings she saw in herself from settling on her shoulders.
Words weren't his strength, though. Vivian had done all the talking in Kirkwall, and before that, Bethany had known him well enough to speak for both of them. He settled for reaching out to lay a hand on Adara's shoulder (causing Jowan to raise his eyebrows, but Carver didn't have a single fuck to give about that). He left it there for just a moment before saying: "Can we get the hell out of here now? I'm starving."
