In Search of a Wolf - The Elves of Fen'Harel Book 1 (Dragon Age)

Slipping Away

Harith had known something was wrong from the moment the Iron Bull had drifted over to Laisa. The man was too perceptive for his own good. He should have known that Laisa would do something, she wasn't one to simply sit back and let herself be captured unless it served a purpose. But he had never dreamed they would end up there, on the side of a cliff, with her falling to her death.

They had tried to talk her down, and Harith had tried to reach her, to guide her back, but she had stepped away.

She fell.

There was nothing either of them could do but watch, as her limbs flailed, her mask falling away as she hit the surface of the hungry river and was swallowed beneath its surface. "Laisa!" He screamed. He couldn't lose her too, not just after Canon.

He turned to the mercenary beside him, who was staring down at the river, stunned. "It is fortunate that she missed the rocks." Bull muttered, and then without a word to Harith, dived into the river.

The gray-skinned qunari moved through the water with a surprising grace. Harith turned on his heel and ran, making his way down to run parallel with the river. Swift and the others were all in hot pursuit, clearly wondering what was happening. "Shadow..." He gasped out, "She fell off the cliff."

The Iron Bull rolled a limp figure onto the banks of the river, and Krem and Skinner helped to haul their leader out of the water. "Is she breathing?" Bull groaned, "I'm going to have some bruises after that!"

Tevinter, the mage and Swift knelt over Laisa, "She's breathing. But she's badly hurt." There was fear in their eyes. Harith looked at her properly and wished he hadn't. One leg was clearly broken, twisted in the wrong direction. Her ribs were obviously misshapen and bloody. Her face was heavily bruised and scraped, the skull cracked. How she wasn't dead already was a miracle.

The mages and healer were crowding around, working on the dying girl. Harith looked away, squeezing Swift's shoulder. He had to be tough now, he had to become cold, callous. The Iron Bull was watching him.

"My people don't pick leaders from the strongest, or the smartest, or even the most talented. We pick the ones willing to make the hard decisions...and live with the consequences. I said that to the boss once when she was having a crisis of confidence." Bull said. "This girl, she's just like that. She leads because she has no choice. She made a hard choice to save the people she cares about."

"You sound like you respect her." Nanin said bitterly. "Even though you forced her into this."

"This was never my intention." The mercenary seemed genuinely concerned.

Almost an hour later, Laisa was still breathing. They had set the broken bones, and healed them as best they could as well as the wounds. It would still take a long time for any of it to heal properly. She was still dying.

"It's the head wound." Tevinter said, "She might be brain damaged. She's just fading. We're clinging on to her, but if she doesn't want to wake, then we can't save her."

They were all just sitting around waiting for the inevitable, keeping her warm by a fire. The Iron Bull needed to see one way or another it seemed.

*

Laisa was in the Fade. She knew it immediately, the black city just out of sight. She wondered whether this meant she was dead, or just dying. She wasn't too bothered either way. It was a beach, a bit like the Storm Coast. That place had been wild and strangely beautiful, despite being in captivity at the time.