When I have lost all else, when my eyes fail me
And the taste of blood fills my mouth, then
In the pounding of my heart
I hear the glory of creation.
-Canticle of Trials 1:7
Khari pounded up the stairs at full sprint, uncaring of who was in the way or why. She blew past a patrol on the wall, calling out a halfhearted apology over her shoulder for just a second before fixing her eyes forward again, to where Leon's tower door grew closer.
Finally. Finally, there was a chance.
Her practice armor clanked with every step, uncomfortably chafing where it didn't fit so well as her real battle set. It was meant to be heavy and cumbersome, so that was hardly surprising, and she ignored it with little effort, turning aside just in time to avoid barreling into Reed on her way in, slamming against the door and turning the knob at the same time.
“Leon!" Her voice was too loud for the usually-calm atmosphere of the Commander's office. She couldn't be bothered to give a shit—not right now.
“Dragon! The scouts found a dragon!"
At first, it wasn't even entirely clear where he was; her shouts were not answered with either his voice or any kind of motion. It only took another moment to spot the problem—Leon lay on the other side of his desk, sprawled over the floor, blood oozing sluggishly from a gash in his temple. The matching smear on one of the corners of the desk, still shiny and wet, made the cause of the injury quite clear.
Even at the volume and fuss of Khari's entrance, he remained utterly motionless.
Shit.
Oh shit, no. Nonono.
“Leon?" A spike of cold fear lanced Khari's chest; she ran across the leftover space, dropping heavily to her knees at Leon's side. Yanking at her gauntlet, she forced it off without loosening any of the fussy straps and tossed it to some corner of the room, bringing a shaky bare hand to his throat, trying to feel for a pulse. She couldn't feel it, not at first—but she wasn't sure if that was just her panic numbing her to it or because it was really gone. He was warm at least. That was good, right? Warm meant alive. He couldn't have been here for too long. The blood was still wet. He had to be fine. He had to.
Something fluttered weakly under her fingers, and Khari nearly lost her balance when she slumped with relief. The tension left her as fast as it had come, but not all of it. He was alive. That was good, but... he looked like shit, and he'd obviously fallen unconscious somehow. This wasn't an afternoon nap. And the head wound—she grimaced.
Potions. He had to have potions around here somewhere, right? She knew he didn't like taking too many of them, but also that he basically had to at this point just to stay alive. There had to be something that would do for this wound. Standing on shaky legs, Khari searched quickly, motions clipped and minimal as she pulled open drawers and cabinet doors, rifling through Leon's belongings. Normally, she never would have—for all she knew there was private or confidential stuff around here, but that wasn't as important as helping him.
“Come on, come on. Potions. Where the hell do you keep them?" She nearly growled with frustration when the lowermost drawer of his desk yielded nothing, and she moved to attack the next cabinet, pulling out a couple bottles of liquor and then a couple more of lyrium. One of them missed the counter she'd been trying to set it on and crashed to the ground with a glassy shatter. Khari didn't even look at it, too preoccupied with the flash of red she saw at the back. Yes, that. Thanks to knowing Rom, she also knew what potions looked like, and what colors and smells meant what.
Snatching it up, she hurried back to Leon's side, using her bare hand to turn his face towards her where it had lolled to the left. The bones of his face were so prominent now—it felt like there was just a layer of paper-thin skin stretched over them. Carefully, she uncorked the potion, tipping it slowly into his mouth and holding her palm over it to force him to swallow.
Not now. Not today. Not when hope had just come back to bite them again like the demon it was.
Several long seconds passed, but Khari could feel him swallow under her hand, so that had to be a good sign. Sure enough, the bleeding, sluggish as it was, seemed to stop entirely within a few minutes, and the breath against her fingers grew stronger.
It took about five minutes in total for Leon to come to with a soft groan, violet eyes foggy when he cracked them open. One of his hands found its way to her wrist, easing it away from his face. "Khari, what—?" His voice rasped, the edges of the words lost to the stone-slurry of his muddled delivery. The remaining hand found the injury on his head, his fingers coming away sticky. He grimaced.
She squirmed; the urge to sag against him in relief, maybe wrap her arms around him and squeeze was just about too much to handle. But he was clearly not in good shape, and she'd been a patient in the infirmary enough times to know that the responsible thing to do here was not crowd him. Still, the smile she gave in response was a bit wobbly, and she turned her wrist around in his grip so she could clasp his hand.
“You fell, I think. I was coming to see you, and—" She gestured vaguely, letting their positioning fill in the details. A shudder crawled up her spine, the full weight of the event sinking under her skin like lead. “I thought you were—" The emphatic shake of her head smothered the last part of the thought. She couldn't make herself say it.
Even so, it was obvious that Leon understood her. Pushing himself up into a seated position, he sighed heavily, taking several deep, slow breaths in a row. "I think I blacked out," he said. "I don't remember falling, or the impact, so it must've..." His hand, knotted and abused with years of barehanded combat, tightened around hers. It was oddly cold.
"Thank you," he said softly, resting the other atop her riotous curls for a moment. "Do you think you could help me stand? I'm afraid I can't—manage it on my own just now."
That question didn't even need answering. Not with words, anyhow. Still feeling a little unsteady herself, Khari clambered to her feet, bending a bit and using her grip on his hand to shift his whole arm over her shoulder so he'd have plenty of support to lean on. Together, they got Leon's feet underneath him so he could stand at least mostly. She wasn't exactly tall enough to support him at his full height, but they managed.
“Chair?"
A soft hiss escaped Leon, who tensed momentarily around her before nodding. "Yes," he said, once the spell had passed. "Thank you."
He leaned heavily on her as they shuffled back towards the desk chair, lowering him as carefully as possible into the seat. A heavy breath left him then, halfway between a pained sigh and a relieved one. He swallowed several times. "If you can hand me the rest of that potion, I'll be all right. You said you'd come to see me?"
Khari passed over the half-full bottle from the floor without protest. If he'd noticed the mess she made looking for it, he hadn't said anything, so she figured he understood her reasons. The question did remind her of her original goal, though she wasn't entirely sure she was willing to bypass the rest of this just yet. Settling into one of the chairs across from him, she sucked in a breath.
“Leon... you're awfully calm for a guy who just passed out from nowhere." Her lips thinned, paling from pink to white under the pressure. Should she really be bothering him about this? He was so private, and a little bit proud, too, she thought. Not the kind of person who wanted anyone else to trouble themselves over how much he was suffering.
Normally Khari wouldn't care one whit about that, especially not with his health at stake, but what if asking just made him feel worse? He was already in such terrible shape. Her teeth clenched hard enough they nearly creaked, and she expelled a harsh breath from her nose. “This isn't the first time, is it?"
His eyes dropped to the desktop. They'd faded, it seemed, dulled to the color of a bruise where they'd been a more vibrant wisteria before. It might have been a trick of the light, but just as likely not. The rings underneath them were almost the same color. Leon looked like he'd already gone ten rounds with a dragon and lost. Or maybe a despair demon instead.
"No." The admission was stark for him, blunt. So was the follow-up. "Please don't ask me how many. I don't know. Usually I can get to a chair or something before it goes completely. They pass quickly enough." He shrugged, halfhearted at best. "I'd rather not discuss it, if you don't mind." That was almost a plea, from him, the slight plaintive note at the end of it an appeal to her mercy more than any sort of authoritative request or command.
She swallowed hard and nodded slightly. Maybe... maybe it still wasn't too late. And she had news anyway. News that would help him. “Western Approach." She blinked, trying to get her thoughts in the right order again. A lot harder now than it had been ten minutes ago, to be sure. “They found a High Dragon. The scouts, and some weird Orlesian scholar guy, I guess. They've got a plan to bait it and bring it to ground, but obviously we need to be there and make it happen, so. I was coming to tell you."
Leon did not immediately react to the news. At least not much. His face was difficult to read, still haggard but largely without expression beyond the obvious fatigue weighing him down. "One more," he said after a moment, finding her eyes and holding them with his own. "Suppose that I only had one more fight in me, before I give out. Should I... should I really risk it on this?"
Khari had no problem letting her facial expressions do a lot of the talking for her, and the scowl she wore now was probably pretty eloquent. “What—what are you talking about? One more? You can't possibly—" Know that.
Could he?
Leon shook his head slightly. "Unless this really is a solution, I think... I think my next is my last." He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, the wood squeaking softly with his weight. "I was thinking perhaps it would be better if it was Corypheus. If I just... did it then."
He was talking about dying.
The weight of it hit Khari like running smack into one of Skyhold's walls, all unyielding stone and sudden stopping. Her eyes rounded. Something about this was—not surprising exactly, but just—too much. Leon had been spending who knew how much time trying to decide which battle he was going to die in. How much longer he could afford to hold onto his life before it wasn't worth clinging to anymore.
As someone who could now consider herself a pretty smart strategist, Khari understood cost-benefit analysis. She could see the parameters. The most important battles were in the future, but at some point his body would become too weak to serve him, even with the rage of dragon blood hot in his veins. He was trying to choose the optimal moment.
Her hands clenched into fists. “Stop it!" Leaning forward, she slammed both of them into the surface of the desk. “Stop talking about this like it's inevitable! You don't get to do strategy with your own life! You don't!" She stood, leaning over the desktop to get in his face. “You don't get to give up. I won't let you."
He actually flinched back from her, grimacing under the weight of her scowl. When he spoke, his tone tried for placating, but the obvious weakness in it didn't allow for the same sturdy mildness he used to have. It ended up cracking. "Khari, I have to be realistic about this. I can't just pretend I'm not dying. The Inquisition—"
She wasn't about to let him get away with that. “Fuck the Inquisition!" Her own voice was a snarl. “Fuck being realistic. Not one person here is asking you to do this. Not one of them thinks you have to be the Commander right up to the point of dying at the most useful time! You're the only one who thinks that, and it's because you've already given up on living!"
His face blurred momentarily, but she blinked away the tears, too angry to let them stay. “You listen here, Leon. You never gave up on me. Not once. You do not get to sit there and expect me to give up on you." He'd practically beat the sense back into her after the whole Durand fiasco, and if that was what she had to do to make him see sense, then she would. Sick or not.
Reaching forward, she snatched up part of his tunic in her hand and curled her fist around it. “You might be dying, but you're sure as fuck not dead yet. Start acting like it!" He wanted to live. He'd told her so.
Khari was gonna make damn sure he remembered.
"Nothing's ever easy with you, is it?" Leon's throat worked as he swallowed, and he reached up to grip her hand, gently prying her fingers away from his tunic. His eyes were misty; a tear escaped the corner of the left one, then another on the right, sliding down the contour of his nose.
“No." She tightened her jaw, biting off the syllable, but already her fury was deflating. “Leon. Please. If you have to gamble your life on something... gamble it on living. At least try. I don't want—I can't lose you like this. I can't." Unvarnished by noble sentiment, that was the truth of it.
Screw blood. Screw race. Leon was her brother and her friend. And she didn't want him to die.
He exhaled a shuddering breath, but then his head dipped, perhaps the closest thing to a nod she was going to get.
"All right, Khari. Have it your way." He managed an awkward smile.
"We'll go slay a dragon."
“Hell yes we will."
Finally. Finally, there was a chance.
Her practice armor clanked with every step, uncomfortably chafing where it didn't fit so well as her real battle set. It was meant to be heavy and cumbersome, so that was hardly surprising, and she ignored it with little effort, turning aside just in time to avoid barreling into Reed on her way in, slamming against the door and turning the knob at the same time.
“Leon!" Her voice was too loud for the usually-calm atmosphere of the Commander's office. She couldn't be bothered to give a shit—not right now.
“Dragon! The scouts found a dragon!"
At first, it wasn't even entirely clear where he was; her shouts were not answered with either his voice or any kind of motion. It only took another moment to spot the problem—Leon lay on the other side of his desk, sprawled over the floor, blood oozing sluggishly from a gash in his temple. The matching smear on one of the corners of the desk, still shiny and wet, made the cause of the injury quite clear.
Even at the volume and fuss of Khari's entrance, he remained utterly motionless.
Shit.
Oh shit, no. Nonono.
“Leon?" A spike of cold fear lanced Khari's chest; she ran across the leftover space, dropping heavily to her knees at Leon's side. Yanking at her gauntlet, she forced it off without loosening any of the fussy straps and tossed it to some corner of the room, bringing a shaky bare hand to his throat, trying to feel for a pulse. She couldn't feel it, not at first—but she wasn't sure if that was just her panic numbing her to it or because it was really gone. He was warm at least. That was good, right? Warm meant alive. He couldn't have been here for too long. The blood was still wet. He had to be fine. He had to.
Something fluttered weakly under her fingers, and Khari nearly lost her balance when she slumped with relief. The tension left her as fast as it had come, but not all of it. He was alive. That was good, but... he looked like shit, and he'd obviously fallen unconscious somehow. This wasn't an afternoon nap. And the head wound—she grimaced.
Potions. He had to have potions around here somewhere, right? She knew he didn't like taking too many of them, but also that he basically had to at this point just to stay alive. There had to be something that would do for this wound. Standing on shaky legs, Khari searched quickly, motions clipped and minimal as she pulled open drawers and cabinet doors, rifling through Leon's belongings. Normally, she never would have—for all she knew there was private or confidential stuff around here, but that wasn't as important as helping him.
“Come on, come on. Potions. Where the hell do you keep them?" She nearly growled with frustration when the lowermost drawer of his desk yielded nothing, and she moved to attack the next cabinet, pulling out a couple bottles of liquor and then a couple more of lyrium. One of them missed the counter she'd been trying to set it on and crashed to the ground with a glassy shatter. Khari didn't even look at it, too preoccupied with the flash of red she saw at the back. Yes, that. Thanks to knowing Rom, she also knew what potions looked like, and what colors and smells meant what.
Snatching it up, she hurried back to Leon's side, using her bare hand to turn his face towards her where it had lolled to the left. The bones of his face were so prominent now—it felt like there was just a layer of paper-thin skin stretched over them. Carefully, she uncorked the potion, tipping it slowly into his mouth and holding her palm over it to force him to swallow.
Not now. Not today. Not when hope had just come back to bite them again like the demon it was.
Several long seconds passed, but Khari could feel him swallow under her hand, so that had to be a good sign. Sure enough, the bleeding, sluggish as it was, seemed to stop entirely within a few minutes, and the breath against her fingers grew stronger.
It took about five minutes in total for Leon to come to with a soft groan, violet eyes foggy when he cracked them open. One of his hands found its way to her wrist, easing it away from his face. "Khari, what—?" His voice rasped, the edges of the words lost to the stone-slurry of his muddled delivery. The remaining hand found the injury on his head, his fingers coming away sticky. He grimaced.
She squirmed; the urge to sag against him in relief, maybe wrap her arms around him and squeeze was just about too much to handle. But he was clearly not in good shape, and she'd been a patient in the infirmary enough times to know that the responsible thing to do here was not crowd him. Still, the smile she gave in response was a bit wobbly, and she turned her wrist around in his grip so she could clasp his hand.
“You fell, I think. I was coming to see you, and—" She gestured vaguely, letting their positioning fill in the details. A shudder crawled up her spine, the full weight of the event sinking under her skin like lead. “I thought you were—" The emphatic shake of her head smothered the last part of the thought. She couldn't make herself say it.
Even so, it was obvious that Leon understood her. Pushing himself up into a seated position, he sighed heavily, taking several deep, slow breaths in a row. "I think I blacked out," he said. "I don't remember falling, or the impact, so it must've..." His hand, knotted and abused with years of barehanded combat, tightened around hers. It was oddly cold.
"Thank you," he said softly, resting the other atop her riotous curls for a moment. "Do you think you could help me stand? I'm afraid I can't—manage it on my own just now."
That question didn't even need answering. Not with words, anyhow. Still feeling a little unsteady herself, Khari clambered to her feet, bending a bit and using her grip on his hand to shift his whole arm over her shoulder so he'd have plenty of support to lean on. Together, they got Leon's feet underneath him so he could stand at least mostly. She wasn't exactly tall enough to support him at his full height, but they managed.
“Chair?"
A soft hiss escaped Leon, who tensed momentarily around her before nodding. "Yes," he said, once the spell had passed. "Thank you."
He leaned heavily on her as they shuffled back towards the desk chair, lowering him as carefully as possible into the seat. A heavy breath left him then, halfway between a pained sigh and a relieved one. He swallowed several times. "If you can hand me the rest of that potion, I'll be all right. You said you'd come to see me?"
Khari passed over the half-full bottle from the floor without protest. If he'd noticed the mess she made looking for it, he hadn't said anything, so she figured he understood her reasons. The question did remind her of her original goal, though she wasn't entirely sure she was willing to bypass the rest of this just yet. Settling into one of the chairs across from him, she sucked in a breath.
“Leon... you're awfully calm for a guy who just passed out from nowhere." Her lips thinned, paling from pink to white under the pressure. Should she really be bothering him about this? He was so private, and a little bit proud, too, she thought. Not the kind of person who wanted anyone else to trouble themselves over how much he was suffering.
Normally Khari wouldn't care one whit about that, especially not with his health at stake, but what if asking just made him feel worse? He was already in such terrible shape. Her teeth clenched hard enough they nearly creaked, and she expelled a harsh breath from her nose. “This isn't the first time, is it?"
His eyes dropped to the desktop. They'd faded, it seemed, dulled to the color of a bruise where they'd been a more vibrant wisteria before. It might have been a trick of the light, but just as likely not. The rings underneath them were almost the same color. Leon looked like he'd already gone ten rounds with a dragon and lost. Or maybe a despair demon instead.
"No." The admission was stark for him, blunt. So was the follow-up. "Please don't ask me how many. I don't know. Usually I can get to a chair or something before it goes completely. They pass quickly enough." He shrugged, halfhearted at best. "I'd rather not discuss it, if you don't mind." That was almost a plea, from him, the slight plaintive note at the end of it an appeal to her mercy more than any sort of authoritative request or command.
She swallowed hard and nodded slightly. Maybe... maybe it still wasn't too late. And she had news anyway. News that would help him. “Western Approach." She blinked, trying to get her thoughts in the right order again. A lot harder now than it had been ten minutes ago, to be sure. “They found a High Dragon. The scouts, and some weird Orlesian scholar guy, I guess. They've got a plan to bait it and bring it to ground, but obviously we need to be there and make it happen, so. I was coming to tell you."
Leon did not immediately react to the news. At least not much. His face was difficult to read, still haggard but largely without expression beyond the obvious fatigue weighing him down. "One more," he said after a moment, finding her eyes and holding them with his own. "Suppose that I only had one more fight in me, before I give out. Should I... should I really risk it on this?"
Khari had no problem letting her facial expressions do a lot of the talking for her, and the scowl she wore now was probably pretty eloquent. “What—what are you talking about? One more? You can't possibly—" Know that.
Could he?
Leon shook his head slightly. "Unless this really is a solution, I think... I think my next is my last." He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, the wood squeaking softly with his weight. "I was thinking perhaps it would be better if it was Corypheus. If I just... did it then."
He was talking about dying.
The weight of it hit Khari like running smack into one of Skyhold's walls, all unyielding stone and sudden stopping. Her eyes rounded. Something about this was—not surprising exactly, but just—too much. Leon had been spending who knew how much time trying to decide which battle he was going to die in. How much longer he could afford to hold onto his life before it wasn't worth clinging to anymore.
As someone who could now consider herself a pretty smart strategist, Khari understood cost-benefit analysis. She could see the parameters. The most important battles were in the future, but at some point his body would become too weak to serve him, even with the rage of dragon blood hot in his veins. He was trying to choose the optimal moment.
Her hands clenched into fists. “Stop it!" Leaning forward, she slammed both of them into the surface of the desk. “Stop talking about this like it's inevitable! You don't get to do strategy with your own life! You don't!" She stood, leaning over the desktop to get in his face. “You don't get to give up. I won't let you."
He actually flinched back from her, grimacing under the weight of her scowl. When he spoke, his tone tried for placating, but the obvious weakness in it didn't allow for the same sturdy mildness he used to have. It ended up cracking. "Khari, I have to be realistic about this. I can't just pretend I'm not dying. The Inquisition—"
She wasn't about to let him get away with that. “Fuck the Inquisition!" Her own voice was a snarl. “Fuck being realistic. Not one person here is asking you to do this. Not one of them thinks you have to be the Commander right up to the point of dying at the most useful time! You're the only one who thinks that, and it's because you've already given up on living!"
His face blurred momentarily, but she blinked away the tears, too angry to let them stay. “You listen here, Leon. You never gave up on me. Not once. You do not get to sit there and expect me to give up on you." He'd practically beat the sense back into her after the whole Durand fiasco, and if that was what she had to do to make him see sense, then she would. Sick or not.
Reaching forward, she snatched up part of his tunic in her hand and curled her fist around it. “You might be dying, but you're sure as fuck not dead yet. Start acting like it!" He wanted to live. He'd told her so.
Khari was gonna make damn sure he remembered.
"Nothing's ever easy with you, is it?" Leon's throat worked as he swallowed, and he reached up to grip her hand, gently prying her fingers away from his tunic. His eyes were misty; a tear escaped the corner of the left one, then another on the right, sliding down the contour of his nose.
“No." She tightened her jaw, biting off the syllable, but already her fury was deflating. “Leon. Please. If you have to gamble your life on something... gamble it on living. At least try. I don't want—I can't lose you like this. I can't." Unvarnished by noble sentiment, that was the truth of it.
Screw blood. Screw race. Leon was her brother and her friend. And she didn't want him to die.
He exhaled a shuddering breath, but then his head dipped, perhaps the closest thing to a nod she was going to get.
"All right, Khari. Have it your way." He managed an awkward smile.
"We'll go slay a dragon."
“Hell yes we will."