One Skill Short

The Things we do For Nobles 15.1

15: The Things we do for Nobles Part 2 Dragon Hunting

(Drusilla)

Most of the stupidest things I have ever done happened while I was angry. Even now, I felt like I had never been moodier and it still feels like nothing could top the level of idiocy I knew I was about to reach.

I have faced off against mages and demons while fueled by rage. Now, I was about to use misdirected anger to fuck up a dragon and I could only grin at the words running through my head. Words Bull used often...

"We can use this."

Glancing over at him, I saw his own wide smile. Dude was practically high, right now. Dopamine rush. Sera looked about the same with her giddy little grin. Cassandra, Odessa, and Maven were more composed.

Maven was getting there, anyways. She was still as terrified as I was, but she was less prone to losing her patience. I might have missed the moment she switched to using her anger in place of courage, but I felt something was there, quietly coming to a boil.

"Do we have a plan?" Cassandra asked, looking from Odessa to Maven. Her eyes eventually made it to me.

Pull. I reached into the Fade as I imagined the shield the Seeker used. Then it was all very...stretchy. Barriers were the closest to healing, but it was still strange to move a barrier over everyone individually.

With my mind, no less. Doing this was like pretending I could force amoeba to divide at my command.

"We wing it." Odessa quipped, laughing at her own pun as my head shot in her direction. First the Dalish shit and now this? Sure, I had a general idea of what to do and how to go about executing said idea, but this was the Inquisitor.

Yet the only person who seemed to be on the same wavelength as me was Cassandra. Her usually stoic expression stretched downward, first in puzzlement and then disapproval.

"Are you serious?!" She demanded in my stead and Odessa nodded, not moving her eyes from the dragon beyond our giant cave hallway.

"Think about this, it is our best course of action. Those of us who have any idea about how to go about killing a dragon have never actually fought one. We fight her like we have fought everything else. You, Bull, and I direct her attention. Defense and offense. Maven, Sera, and Drusilla do there thing and we all do our best to avoid all the things Sera mentioned at camp."

Explained like that, this was less crazy. Why was I so worried? We had fought and won against the Guardian for fucks sake. Usually, Maven and I could only win against it with Vivienne using a stealth ring or a Knight Enchanter mage with it.

Somehow, despite that experience, our confidence against the Frostback hadn't increased much.

I am not even entirely sure who moved in first, but here we were dodging fire like it was a fucking Zumba dance while trying to get some good hits in.

The weirdest part of it was how much I was enjoying myself. This was also kind of bad because I was only just able to avoid some of the scariest ways to die ever.

Then I scurried around in search of Maven to see her fighting off a dragonling before going for one of the Frostback's legs. She was hacking and swerving around so fast I think the switch had been flipped. She was running on pure adrenaline and there was only one other time I had ever seen her like this.

Dragon claws scraped against metal as Cassandra leapt in front of me with her shield at her right. The direction and force of her movement had her pushing us out of harm's way while keeping us both unscathed.

"Do you want to die? Pay attention!-"

"Maven!" My eyes snapped away from her as I watched in horror as Maven's body soared away from the battle. Iron Bull had gone after her and my heart stopped even once I saw her land safely in his arms.

I scrambled to my feet and rushed over to them, skidding to a stop nearby.

"What happened?! How did she get launched?!"

"Sera was backing up after the wing whirlwind and almost took a hit, but Maven booted her out of the way and got a tail to the back." Blood pooled under her and I found it hard to breathe.

"Tail?! Fuck! Get her onto her stomach and get back into the fight. I got it from here." He didn't hesitate as he followed my orders.

She was unconscious but breathing with a face scrunched up in pain. I got set on healing the gash that had opened up her back, almost completely ignoring her armor. Who knew where her leather curaiss had landed?

"You are so fucking lucky you didn't break anything or die." What would I have done if she had died?

Against my better judgement, I sat her up and held her to me. First I made sure she didn't have a concussion and I held her to calm myself down. I needed to rejoin the fight, but not without cooling my nerves.

I could have lost my sister. The mechanics of this aren't like the game, but like real life. If Bull hadn't caught her or if she had been hit any harder...

Stop.

Stop.

Standing hurt and the pain of that got worse with every step I took away from Maven. At least she was safe from the fighting. Even the dragonlings were not a threat. They only seemed interested in attacking those going after their mother.

Mother...STOP.

Anger filled up where my worries usually were. There was no way to make it out of this alive if I projected or made this dragon human.

So, I did what I had learned to do months ago and pretended it was work. Because now it was.

Besides, everything and everyone who had ever hit my sister was either dead or didn't exist in this world anymore.