She stops him, and asks him so earnestly. Marcus feels no compulsion to lie, but can imagine doing so. Yes, he loves his magic, and always has.
Instead, he says, "We weren't taught to," even, quiet. "It was in equal measures a thing to be afraid of, like a sickness, or a responsibility we never asked for, that we weren't permitted to indulge." His hand comes up, settles fingers gentle at her neck, a tender touch as if to say that he is well, how long ago it all was. "But I think I made allies with it despite everything, even if I couldn't make it my friend."
It never felt like the enemy, magic, no more than unbridled rage could be beaten back. Tamed, over time, honed, and his.
That pang in his chest makes the warmth of fingers at her neck into something incongruous. Even while they speak of something so weighted, she feels the way heat prickles on her skin in response to this soft, reassuring touch.
"I loved it, as long as I can remember."
What was there to fear? No one had ever taught her to flinch from what she could do, even when her emotions outstripped her self-control. (She had been an even-tempered child, not given to temper. That had helped.) She had grown into it. She had always cherished the way magic felt, cracking sparks in the palm of her hand.
"I'm sorry it wasn't that way for you."
Yes, he is well. She understands that he is not grieving. But she wishes—
Well, it is a wish she has for all the mages she knows. He is no exception.
It can't be grief all the time, paralysing force as it is. In another world, he'd sat on the banks of a river and tried to explain it to a rifter, which is a unique absurdity, but it felt important to explain why he'd been weeping at the time, and isn't certain he'd truly honed in on it, too quick to reach for anger. It isn't all the time for the injustices done, but for the absence of what could have been theirs. What a revelation it had been, to meet Derrica.
And it hurts, sometimes, to hear of Derrica's experience, and hurts, always, to remember how it had been stolen from her too. She should have grown more into it. She's still so young, in the scheme of things, and nearly a child still when it was all destroyed. A happy childhood doesn't mean that grave injustice wasn't done to her too.
But she always loved her magic. That, the Chantry couldn't take.
The hand at her throat sweeps a gentle touch of the pad of his thumb against her jaw and cheek for her apology, accepting it.
"I became better with it, later," he says, "in part because I realised so many of those other children I'd hated felt as I did. Children that would become men and women in a rebellion, but it was enough at the time to have them as brothers and sisters."
He goes to take her hand, to pull her back into walking with him.
"I'd have wanted something different for us all, but we didn't have nothing."
They are alone, moving through the hilly stretch of land here. There is no one to see the way he takes her hand. It is for her, and the moment of uncertainty is only out of long-held habit.
The points of time in which she has entertained someone simply keeping hold of her hand on a long walk are few and far between. It takes her a moment to link her fingers through his, as they wind their way back the way they came.
"Do you love it now? Or is it still something like what you are describing?"
An uncertainty.
Power that flows through them, infuses them, comes forth into the shapes they will it to manifest their hopes as much as their fears.
Marcus doesn't answer for a few moments. He doesn't want to lie to her to make everything feel neat or duck her sympathy; he doesn't want to make much of something that isn't, an amount of pride that would like to separate himself out from the other southerner mages who regard their own magic with distaste, fear, resentment.
"I don't now if it's love," he says, finally. "But there're moments. Like."
And another pause, searching around for the rest of that sentence. Strange to think how much he has spoken to mages of the Circles, the Chantry, of war and brotherhood and freedom, and so relatively little of magic itself. That hint of instinctive reluctance against speaking to its most dangerous aspects.
"Learning how to call fire and rock from the ground. That wasn't taught to me. We learned to light candles instead, and Chantry verses, or making feathers fall upwards. But then we were out, and it was like there was so much more to me. That I could rend the earth apart and make it do what I wanted. It was everything I dreamed."
It's the sort of talk that ordinary folk fear to hear from a mage, he knows. But none of those are around.
All at once, she is aware of wanting him. Of wishing to have this conversation tucked somewhere more intimate, where she might tuck fingers under the linen at his throat, balance across his lap.
It feels incongruous still; this newfound feeling spreading warm across her skin as they broach familiar topics.
When she is quiet, it is as much to observe the way that sensation settles, finds space within her body, as it is about turning over his answer. Finding a mirror to it in her own experience.
"I wish," she says, and stops.
Not because she is going to say something that would terrify someone ordinary to overhear.
"I wish that you'd grown up the way I did. Knowing all parts of yourself always."
It grazes against something tender, those words. A little painful, beneath layers of bone and muscle and a habit for stoicism. He still has her hand, so he can express something through the squeeze of his around and tangled through her fingers.
Him too, the gesture says.
"I intend to make up for lost time," could come out a little dry, defensive humour in the for of self-awareness, a subtle joke about how much he intends to use his magic in the present and near future, potentially not only in service of defeating Corypheus. It is a little too earnest for that, instead.
It would be pleasing to know that the things he says make her want him. It's more than enough to find what he expected, which is her understanding.
No, they aren't dawdling. There are tracks directed into isolation, and their quarry is likely not difficult to mark even at a distance. Demons and shades aren't subtle.
Still, she is aware enough of their function here to think twice about pulling him to a stop. He would oblige her, she thinks. Marcus had hesitated not at all in that room. Even with so little to compare it against, Derrica has the sense that if she did pull him down to her, he would come willingly.
"I'll be pleased to see you do so."
Something she can offer without any trepidation, even though the flicker of a dream in which she had been given a full understanding of what his magic could do living as a shadow in the back of her mind.
She is not afraid of him.
"Look," follows on the heels of that, a sweep of her fingers at the tracks before them. "I think it's close by."
The grass is still smoldering in front of them, path curving into the trees. No blood to signal further victims, a minor boon.
It brings about a subtle change in disposition, where inner reflection is abandoned for outward focus, snagging attention across scorch marks and then up towards the tree line. Nods, at that, and then where their hands are joined, sweeps his thumb across her knuckles before releasing her, reaching back to gather the lead of his horse.
Kevin, behind him, whickers gently, and it's only a second longer to catch the scent of burning plantlife.
"We can tie these two here," Marcus suggests. Then, something like concession, "I'll keep my distance if it's something we can both pin down." Rather than a fear demon and its ability to crackle through the Fade.
Lifting a hand to his arm, she squeezes lightly in acknowledgement.
But it prompts a concession from her as well: "It might take more than what I'm capable of."
All their training has improved her in many respects, she knows. She is not helpless.
But the ground is scorched and singed. Derrica has no ice at all in her magic, and what she has begun to develop trends away from the elemental in many respects. If they are trailing after a rage demon, they will have to do some evaluating between them as to how they might bring it down.
"I can cage it," she suggests, as she passes the reins to him so he might tether her mount alongside Kevin. "Is there something here you could throw at it?"
The humour in a simple, blunt answer (not unlike the material being offered) is not deliberate, but recognised on a delay, a small twinge to his expression as Marcus glances to her from where he's tying the leads to the low sling of a sturdy branch. "I can slow it first," he adds. "Then you cage it, and then I'll bludgeon it."
The horses will have enough room to themselves, moss and grass to nibble at—and Kevin already ducking his head in to investigate, temporarily forgetting that threatening smell of demon and fire. Doesn't acknowledge, either, the passing pat to his shoulder.
A splinter of humor finds its way to her expression, breaking some of the seriousness in the set of her jaw. It lingers, even as he outlines the plan.
A distance, he'd said. If they could manage it at a distance, he need not put himself within reach of fire and molten lava.
"You make it sound very simple."
Derrica would certainly like it to be.
Catching hold of his hand, she laces her fingers through his to stall further movement. Derrica lays her free hand over his chest, pressing a spill of magic to him. A cool blue barrier spreads outwards, clinging to the folds of his coat, liming his shoulders and arms, sparking down his hips. Protection, the only certain shield she can afford him.
There's a small scrape of sound from him at her casting, somewhere between surprise and amusement, both minor. His hand squeezes hers, and there's a glimmer of white-blue light, similar in the way it settles over her, motes of it snagging in her hair, in the weave of her clothing, ready to spring away like cold embers if she's struck.
"We can try to keep it that way."
And he has no desire to get in range of fire and lava. Having a good handle over those elements in his own casting grants him exactly no immunity at all from its worst effects up close.
Keeping their hands in a loose tangle when he goes to start them off, he adds anyway, "I may try to draw its fire if it has any capability for distance. It won't be as sacrificial as it looks, so keep your focus on caging it."
It is the best they can do, she knows. There is nothing for the flicker of objection that sparks in her; she doesn't give voice to it.
Yes, she mislikes the idea of Marcus courting injury, and the prospect of him increasing the likelihood of it by making a target of himself.
But they are only two. They have a job to complete.
"I don't like it," is not an objection, not really. Just a lodging of dismay at the prospect, marked by her thumb swiping along his as she contemplates the spurt and flare of heat and lava consuming the copse of trees ahead of them. As one sapling falls, the outline of the demon grows clearer. It's movements are erratic, but no less threatening for it.
"Let's do it quickly," she acquiesces, hefting her stave in her opposite hand. Ready, even if she is reluctant still to begin in earnest. The heavy scent of ozone gathers in the air around them, power coalescing in preparation.
The smell of fire is quick to suffuse this patch of forest, but it takes barely a scrap of thought for Marcus to hold smoke at bay of them both as he brings his staff to bear, moving off from Derrica's position. It all does happen quickly as desired, and roughly to the sketch of the plan they'd made: stone cracks beneath the rippling form of the rage demon, turning lava into cracked obsidian as magic pulses up from beneath the earth to merge creature to ground.
Beneath the crack and snap of lightning that comes next, he sends jagged, gracelessly flung rock, flames trailing off the edges, gleaming with Fade green from whence it was summoned. There is but one instance of a jet of fire sent his way, and where it strikes, he only winces, Derrica's defenses flaring bright along with the radial deflection of fire from his body, instinctive magic of his own.
No burns, no scratches, only some initial shock of weariness cladding his bones by the time the last strike of bludgeoning stone disassembles the demon's form, leaving it an acidic pool of black ichor and scattered flame and lava.
Satisfying. If there is only a brief moment of checking each other over before Marcus is hauling himself up into Kevin's saddle, now untethered, it's only because he would rather they both be elsewhere.
Elsewhere being a small inn, a generous application of the identifier to the annex above the local tavern. The slant of the ceiling is a sort of inconvenience, as is the close quarters housed in that space beneath rooftop and above taproom, but it offers a degree more comfort than the hayloft in the stable. They're left with a basin and pitcher of cool water, a stack of clean cloths, the promise of dinner if they wish it. The bed has clean linen. Perhaps Marcus may graze his head on the ceiling, but Riftwatch has spent nights in worse accomodations.
The murmur of conversation drifts up to them, muted down to an indistinct rise and fall of sound as Derrica's fingers dip back beneath the strap and buckle of Marcus' armor.
"We'll need to send a report along to the Commander," she is saying, brow pinched into concentration. "Let him know that we've swept the valley and managed the danger."
He is tired, she knows. And she is too, but where Marcus' work is long finished now, hers isn't quite done.
"Hand me that cloth, please," is a murmured aside, as her thumb meets the sweat-warmth of his his skin.
Marcus has no complaints for it, this room, having experienced about every degree of Riftwatch-related accommodations, from a burrow dug into the Anderfels sand and his saddlebag for a pillow to palatial chambers that felt assigned to him by mistake. Much less likely, that latter example, and the former all too frequent, but all this to say: a private room with the luxury of a latching door and a low slung bed isn't anything to complain about, never mind the low down slant of the attic ceiling.
He hands her the cloth. The work of the day feels heavy in his muscles and bones in a way that still satisfies him to feel.
"In the morning," Marcus says, of a report, not the cloth, which is in her hand. "The Commander won't mind the wait, with good news. He'll assume it for the evening."
"We tend to deliver bad news more urgently," is a kind of agreement.
The Commander is most certainly awake at this hour, but Derrica doesn't pretend he is overly concerned with either of them. They are capable. They rarely create more problems when sent to remedy a dilemma on their own.
One-handed, she lifts the armor away from his shoulder. The inside is slick with blood, but not a worrying amount. A minute's inspection before she lets it drop to the floor, and diverts her attention back to his shoulder.
There is certainly a way to approach this professionally, with some detachment. Healing by its very nature requires proximity, though Derrica has always been careful of how she positioned her body. With Marcus, with what has thawed under that warmth between them, she puts her knee on his thigh. Leverages herself closer as she begins to sponge away the blood.
"It's shallow," she assesses. "It won't need a bandage after I've finished."
The press of her knee to his thigh draws focus, manifesting as his hand coming to rest atop it. A gentle tucking under of his fingers, thumb brushing along the ridge of bone. He can focus on that, the play of muscle and tendon beneath warm leathers, and not the gentle but still stinging touch of the cloth to the laceration.
A muscle-deep twitch, first, a tightening at his jaw. By the second press, he's braced better for it, an indrawn breath of patience following. Can, after that, extract some enjoyment for attention.
And watch her, in this comfortable proximity. "Good," he says. "I'd rather scars be worth the memory." And a random fear demon in a field does not qualify.
Their present position creates the illusion of leverage, of height. With her knee braced and his hand settled there at the bend, the movement of his thumb catching at the edge of her awareness. She leans up, damp cloth laid over his chest as her free hand lifts to his face.
When Derrica touches the scar there, the skin of her fingers is featherlight. She must have put her hands here before, that first night. Or maybe even before that. But never with this specific intention, mapping the fading outline of the jagged scar here on his face.
There's a lot of appeal in her nearness, the press of her knee and that sense of her leverage. There is appeal in affording Derrica in particular some measure of trust and doing so easily, where it might otherwise bristle. Her handling is, as ever, gentle and considered, just like the fingertips tracing the path of his scarring and the question put to him.
"It makes for a worthy reminder," Marcus says, after a moment of thought.
There is space, here, to say more, so— "An error on my part. I sought to stagger a Templar who was wielding a wall shield, but it had some enchantment to it. My magic was fired back towards me. I'm told," he adds. "I don't remember it striking, just waking later." He speaks, and his hand slides up the outer of her thigh, palm warm and flat.
Her thumb skates over his cheek, the slight bristle of stubble and the ragged, raised edge of scar by his jawline.
"Are there others?" she asks. If she thinks back to that shared dream, the violence of their clash in the stables and Richard's timely intervention, she recalls the way blood had pooled across his tunic even though Derrica hadn't landed a single blow.
The shift of his hand spurs her closer, up onto the tips of her toes. By necessity, she tips his head back. Her palm splays carefully over the damp cloth, fingers at his throat, over his collarbone. A cool flow of magic lights against his skin, a minor flex of magic knitting the wound and leaving the last traces of blood as it goes.
The potential for some problematic associates between the cool prickle of her healing magic and the warmer internal shiver of response that everything else she is doing gets is
clearly an issue for some future time, given the way Marcus' hand settles at her hip, the press of a thumb making this touch more assertive. It carries no particular order. Communicates desire, only.
"On my side," he tells her, chin lifted under the flex of her fingers. Studying her face in kind. It would be easy to feel particularly flawed and battered in her presence, if not for how gently she asks and touches him. "The first of them. We hadn't left the Circle yet. He got his sword up under my arm, cut through the robes. We were all still learning."
When her hand lifts, it's only to begin the process of loosening the straps securing his armor over his chest. The cloth is left to fall to the floor, discarded for the moment.
"How old were you?"
Older than she had been, maybe. But the shock of it would be the same regardless, she thinks. The first time that kind of pain was visited upon him had to have carried the same kind of shattering revelation it had for Derrica. Their experience of Circles was very different, but knowing that someone considered their freedom such a threat that killing them was preferable—
Maybe he had suspected it. But maybe it had been hard for him to have it confirmed.
Maybe he won't speak of it at all. Derrica leaves space for that too, even as the intent to pin him into his seat under her weight becomes more and more clear.
Older than she is now currently, probably, says the slightly wryly calculating pause before his answer. "Thirty-three," Marcus provides, anyway, relaxing back in his seat. And if there is a prickle of vanity, it is as much if not more so about the long years he'd been more captive than rebel, rather than the years between he and her.
He could assist with the armor, but she has the better angle besides, and that wanting thing in him that settles his hand where it is would like her to do the task. The twinge of his most recent injury is gone, and so there is no bodily distraction from focusing instead on the comfortable weight of her, keeping him where he is. The hand at her hip rises, to fidget with the tunic.
"We'd no proper healers with us, at first," he adds. "But we'd practice with thread and needle. Simple mending."
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no subject
Instead, he says, "We weren't taught to," even, quiet. "It was in equal measures a thing to be afraid of, like a sickness, or a responsibility we never asked for, that we weren't permitted to indulge." His hand comes up, settles fingers gentle at her neck, a tender touch as if to say that he is well, how long ago it all was. "But I think I made allies with it despite everything, even if I couldn't make it my friend."
It never felt like the enemy, magic, no more than unbridled rage could be beaten back. Tamed, over time, honed, and his.
"How was it, for you?"
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That pang in his chest makes the warmth of fingers at her neck into something incongruous. Even while they speak of something so weighted, she feels the way heat prickles on her skin in response to this soft, reassuring touch.
"I loved it, as long as I can remember."
What was there to fear? No one had ever taught her to flinch from what she could do, even when her emotions outstripped her self-control. (She had been an even-tempered child, not given to temper. That had helped.) She had grown into it. She had always cherished the way magic felt, cracking sparks in the palm of her hand.
"I'm sorry it wasn't that way for you."
Yes, he is well. She understands that he is not grieving. But she wishes—
Well, it is a wish she has for all the mages she knows. He is no exception.
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It can't be grief all the time, paralysing force as it is. In another world, he'd sat on the banks of a river and tried to explain it to a rifter, which is a unique absurdity, but it felt important to explain why he'd been weeping at the time, and isn't certain he'd truly honed in on it, too quick to reach for anger. It isn't all the time for the injustices done, but for the absence of what could have been theirs. What a revelation it had been, to meet Derrica.
And it hurts, sometimes, to hear of Derrica's experience, and hurts, always, to remember how it had been stolen from her too. She should have grown more into it. She's still so young, in the scheme of things, and nearly a child still when it was all destroyed. A happy childhood doesn't mean that grave injustice wasn't done to her too.
But she always loved her magic. That, the Chantry couldn't take.
The hand at her throat sweeps a gentle touch of the pad of his thumb against her jaw and cheek for her apology, accepting it.
"I became better with it, later," he says, "in part because I realised so many of those other children I'd hated felt as I did. Children that would become men and women in a rebellion, but it was enough at the time to have them as brothers and sisters."
He goes to take her hand, to pull her back into walking with him.
"I'd have wanted something different for us all, but we didn't have nothing."
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The points of time in which she has entertained someone simply keeping hold of her hand on a long walk are few and far between. It takes her a moment to link her fingers through his, as they wind their way back the way they came.
"Do you love it now? Or is it still something like what you are describing?"
An uncertainty.
Power that flows through them, infuses them, comes forth into the shapes they will it to manifest their hopes as much as their fears.
Does Marcus love it now?
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"I don't now if it's love," he says, finally. "But there're moments. Like."
And another pause, searching around for the rest of that sentence. Strange to think how much he has spoken to mages of the Circles, the Chantry, of war and brotherhood and freedom, and so relatively little of magic itself. That hint of instinctive reluctance against speaking to its most dangerous aspects.
"Learning how to call fire and rock from the ground. That wasn't taught to me. We learned to light candles instead, and Chantry verses, or making feathers fall upwards. But then we were out, and it was like there was so much more to me. That I could rend the earth apart and make it do what I wanted. It was everything I dreamed."
It's the sort of talk that ordinary folk fear to hear from a mage, he knows. But none of those are around.
no subject
It feels incongruous still; this newfound feeling spreading warm across her skin as they broach familiar topics.
When she is quiet, it is as much to observe the way that sensation settles, finds space within her body, as it is about turning over his answer. Finding a mirror to it in her own experience.
"I wish," she says, and stops.
Not because she is going to say something that would terrify someone ordinary to overhear.
"I wish that you'd grown up the way I did. Knowing all parts of yourself always."
no subject
Him too, the gesture says.
"I intend to make up for lost time," could come out a little dry, defensive humour in the for of self-awareness, a subtle joke about how much he intends to use his magic in the present and near future, potentially not only in service of defeating Corypheus. It is a little too earnest for that, instead.
It would be pleasing to know that the things he says make her want him. It's more than enough to find what he expected, which is her understanding.
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No, they aren't dawdling. There are tracks directed into isolation, and their quarry is likely not difficult to mark even at a distance. Demons and shades aren't subtle.
Still, she is aware enough of their function here to think twice about pulling him to a stop. He would oblige her, she thinks. Marcus had hesitated not at all in that room. Even with so little to compare it against, Derrica has the sense that if she did pull him down to her, he would come willingly.
"I'll be pleased to see you do so."
Something she can offer without any trepidation, even though the flicker of a dream in which she had been given a full understanding of what his magic could do living as a shadow in the back of her mind.
She is not afraid of him.
"Look," follows on the heels of that, a sweep of her fingers at the tracks before them. "I think it's close by."
The grass is still smoldering in front of them, path curving into the trees. No blood to signal further victims, a minor boon.
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Kevin, behind him, whickers gently, and it's only a second longer to catch the scent of burning plantlife.
"We can tie these two here," Marcus suggests. Then, something like concession, "I'll keep my distance if it's something we can both pin down." Rather than a fear demon and its ability to crackle through the Fade.
slides under your doorstep
But it prompts a concession from her as well: "It might take more than what I'm capable of."
All their training has improved her in many respects, she knows. She is not helpless.
But the ground is scorched and singed. Derrica has no ice at all in her magic, and what she has begun to develop trends away from the elemental in many respects. If they are trailing after a rage demon, they will have to do some evaluating between them as to how they might bring it down.
"I can cage it," she suggests, as she passes the reins to him so he might tether her mount alongside Kevin. "Is there something here you could throw at it?"
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The humour in a simple, blunt answer (not unlike the material being offered) is not deliberate, but recognised on a delay, a small twinge to his expression as Marcus glances to her from where he's tying the leads to the low sling of a sturdy branch. "I can slow it first," he adds. "Then you cage it, and then I'll bludgeon it."
The horses will have enough room to themselves, moss and grass to nibble at—and Kevin already ducking his head in to investigate, temporarily forgetting that threatening smell of demon and fire. Doesn't acknowledge, either, the passing pat to his shoulder.
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A distance, he'd said. If they could manage it at a distance, he need not put himself within reach of fire and molten lava.
"You make it sound very simple."
Derrica would certainly like it to be.
Catching hold of his hand, she laces her fingers through his to stall further movement. Derrica lays her free hand over his chest, pressing a spill of magic to him. A cool blue barrier spreads outwards, clinging to the folds of his coat, liming his shoulders and arms, sparking down his hips. Protection, the only certain shield she can afford him.
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"We can try to keep it that way."
And he has no desire to get in range of fire and lava. Having a good handle over those elements in his own casting grants him exactly no immunity at all from its worst effects up close.
Keeping their hands in a loose tangle when he goes to start them off, he adds anyway, "I may try to draw its fire if it has any capability for distance. It won't be as sacrificial as it looks, so keep your focus on caging it."
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It is the best they can do, she knows. There is nothing for the flicker of objection that sparks in her; she doesn't give voice to it.
Yes, she mislikes the idea of Marcus courting injury, and the prospect of him increasing the likelihood of it by making a target of himself.
But they are only two. They have a job to complete.
"I don't like it," is not an objection, not really. Just a lodging of dismay at the prospect, marked by her thumb swiping along his as she contemplates the spurt and flare of heat and lava consuming the copse of trees ahead of them. As one sapling falls, the outline of the demon grows clearer. It's movements are erratic, but no less threatening for it.
"Let's do it quickly," she acquiesces, hefting her stave in her opposite hand. Ready, even if she is reluctant still to begin in earnest. The heavy scent of ozone gathers in the air around them, power coalescing in preparation.
no subject
Beneath the crack and snap of lightning that comes next, he sends jagged, gracelessly flung rock, flames trailing off the edges, gleaming with Fade green from whence it was summoned. There is but one instance of a jet of fire sent his way, and where it strikes, he only winces, Derrica's defenses flaring bright along with the radial deflection of fire from his body, instinctive magic of his own.
No burns, no scratches, only some initial shock of weariness cladding his bones by the time the last strike of bludgeoning stone disassembles the demon's form, leaving it an acidic pool of black ichor and scattered flame and lava.
Satisfying. If there is only a brief moment of checking each other over before Marcus is hauling himself up into Kevin's saddle, now untethered, it's only because he would rather they both be elsewhere.
hits fast travel button
The murmur of conversation drifts up to them, muted down to an indistinct rise and fall of sound as Derrica's fingers dip back beneath the strap and buckle of Marcus' armor.
"We'll need to send a report along to the Commander," she is saying, brow pinched into concentration. "Let him know that we've swept the valley and managed the danger."
He is tired, she knows. And she is too, but where Marcus' work is long finished now, hers isn't quite done.
"Hand me that cloth, please," is a murmured aside, as her thumb meets the sweat-warmth of his his skin.
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He hands her the cloth. The work of the day feels heavy in his muscles and bones in a way that still satisfies him to feel.
"In the morning," Marcus says, of a report, not the cloth, which is in her hand. "The Commander won't mind the wait, with good news. He'll assume it for the evening."
He thinks, anyway. Has decided.
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The Commander is most certainly awake at this hour, but Derrica doesn't pretend he is overly concerned with either of them. They are capable. They rarely create more problems when sent to remedy a dilemma on their own.
One-handed, she lifts the armor away from his shoulder. The inside is slick with blood, but not a worrying amount. A minute's inspection before she lets it drop to the floor, and diverts her attention back to his shoulder.
There is certainly a way to approach this professionally, with some detachment. Healing by its very nature requires proximity, though Derrica has always been careful of how she positioned her body. With Marcus, with what has thawed under that warmth between them, she puts her knee on his thigh. Leverages herself closer as she begins to sponge away the blood.
"It's shallow," she assesses. "It won't need a bandage after I've finished."
no subject
A muscle-deep twitch, first, a tightening at his jaw. By the second press, he's braced better for it, an indrawn breath of patience following. Can, after that, extract some enjoyment for attention.
And watch her, in this comfortable proximity. "Good," he says. "I'd rather scars be worth the memory." And a random fear demon in a field does not qualify.
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When Derrica touches the scar there, the skin of her fingers is featherlight. She must have put her hands here before, that first night. Or maybe even before that. But never with this specific intention, mapping the fading outline of the jagged scar here on his face.
"Was this one?"
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"It makes for a worthy reminder," Marcus says, after a moment of thought.
There is space, here, to say more, so— "An error on my part. I sought to stagger a Templar who was wielding a wall shield, but it had some enchantment to it. My magic was fired back towards me. I'm told," he adds. "I don't remember it striking, just waking later." He speaks, and his hand slides up the outer of her thigh, palm warm and flat.
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"Are there others?" she asks. If she thinks back to that shared dream, the violence of their clash in the stables and Richard's timely intervention, she recalls the way blood had pooled across his tunic even though Derrica hadn't landed a single blow.
The shift of his hand spurs her closer, up onto the tips of her toes. By necessity, she tips his head back. Her palm splays carefully over the damp cloth, fingers at his throat, over his collarbone. A cool flow of magic lights against his skin, a minor flex of magic knitting the wound and leaving the last traces of blood as it goes.
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clearly an issue for some future time, given the way Marcus' hand settles at her hip, the press of a thumb making this touch more assertive. It carries no particular order. Communicates desire, only.
"On my side," he tells her, chin lifted under the flex of her fingers. Studying her face in kind. It would be easy to feel particularly flawed and battered in her presence, if not for how gently she asks and touches him. "The first of them. We hadn't left the Circle yet. He got his sword up under my arm, cut through the robes. We were all still learning."
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When her hand lifts, it's only to begin the process of loosening the straps securing his armor over his chest. The cloth is left to fall to the floor, discarded for the moment.
"How old were you?"
Older than she had been, maybe. But the shock of it would be the same regardless, she thinks. The first time that kind of pain was visited upon him had to have carried the same kind of shattering revelation it had for Derrica. Their experience of Circles was very different, but knowing that someone considered their freedom such a threat that killing them was preferable—
Maybe he had suspected it. But maybe it had been hard for him to have it confirmed.
Maybe he won't speak of it at all. Derrica leaves space for that too, even as the intent to pin him into his seat under her weight becomes more and more clear.
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He could assist with the armor, but she has the better angle besides, and that wanting thing in him that settles his hand where it is would like her to do the task. The twinge of his most recent injury is gone, and so there is no bodily distraction from focusing instead on the comfortable weight of her, keeping him where he is. The hand at her hip rises, to fidget with the tunic.
"We'd no proper healers with us, at first," he adds. "But we'd practice with thread and needle. Simple mending."
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