#isobel killed him with a guiding bolt from the second floor

[justanotherignot]

Was talking to @traceofexistence about how Marcus has a thing for Isobel and then this happened.

[underdark-dreams]

I'm a slut for hurt/comfort and I'm obsessed with this trope tbh: Can we get Rolan/Tav where Tav gets downed in battle? (Obvs they can be brought back bc scrolls and revivify and what have you, I just want that sweet sweet angst.)

Rolan x Unnamed Fem!Tav: she/her

Whoo boy, we may have angst'ed too close to the sun with this one. Can't say much else without getting choked up--just love Rolan even when he's in pain. Thank you for this request!

Life, Death, Resurrection

During the ambush at Last Light Inn, the young wizard stares down the very real possibility of his dear one's death. A bittersweet night seen through Rolan's eyes.

Tags: Fem Unnamed Tav, Angst, Major Injury, Hurt/Comfort

Word Count: 2,430 [Read on AO3]

It was like the very skies above had cracked open to let the hells stream through. 

Everything roared around Rolan all at once—nightmares on wings descended in ambush through the roof of Last Light Inn, the din of screams and ripping flesh and thudding bodies against the floor overwhelming his senses before he could gather them.

Only reflex saved him as a winged horror stretched its claws high above to strike—then was pushed backwards by the thunderous force from both his hands. An arrow from Lia’s bow whistled past his ear, close enough that he felt the rush of air against his cheek.

“Fuck is happening—!” She yelled aloud to no one, another arrow already notched against her bowstring. Lakrissa sprinted in to form a line with her despite the bleeding gash on her bow arm.

Jaheira burst through the fray with eyes like steel. “Harpers, to the cleric!” The druid hit the ground on four paws—powerful teeth tore through one hellish creature’s translucent wing like it was parchment, its shrieking figure hurled against the back wall by the panther’s jaws—

Rolan wasted a precious second glancing to Isobel’s quarters above. He saw the flashes of rapid-fire spellcasting, heard the vicious scrape of metal against metal, and grasped Jaheira’s meaning in an instant. All the chaos on the lower floor was just a diversion to occupy their forces—the cleric’s room was the true focus of the ambush. And she was up there somewhere.

“Die and I’ll kill you both,” Rolan shouted to his siblings as he broke for the stairs. The blunt end of Cal’s spear swung past him in response, landing a killing blow on the ghoul Jaheira had just flung past their heads.

Supportive forces from outside the inn walls were rapidly gathering. Harper Skywin's crossbow bolt sang true through the wide front doors, piercing one monster's throat a moment too late, its claws already dripping with the warm blood of the disemboweled Harper on the floorboards.

Dammon rushed across the threshold just as Rolan's boots reached the first step. Their eyes met for only an instant as Rolan dashed upward. Behind him he heard the sharp sizzle of flesh as the smith’s blade, still glowing from the fires of his furnace, seared through the belly of the creature standing over its kill. 

Rolan reached the balcony just as yet another winged ghoul touched down outside the cleric's room. He threw handful after handful of icy shards through its chest, overcome with impatient fury. Finally its impaled body fell back over the railing with a death rattle. He wheeled round in the doorway to face the scene within.

The colossal Flaming Fist's greatsword swung outward in a reckless circle—his face was disfigured by necrotic energy, dark unnatural wings sprouting from between his shoulders. 

She and her companions flanked him on all sides—Rolan watched her face reflect the radiant magic of her own sword as it slashed for Marcus's shoulder. Shadowheart's arms guided a blinding bolt into the Fist's back, while from the corner Isobel called down healing energy upon her allies as rapidly as she could. The fight was nearly theirs.

Rolan joined to aim a spell through the fray, channeling every bit of the Weave he could reach to bind and weaken the monster. Marcus roared in frustration as he felt their numbers rapidly turning the tide against him.

Several things happened all at once. With a raging strike, Karlach swung her battleaxe down upon the Fist’s neck to cleave at the exposed gap in his armor, landing the death blow that would bring him to his knees. 

And in the same instant—maybe because his savior was closest, or just the last face Marcus glimpsed in death—Rolan saw the Fist's hand raise toward her too late to intervene. A final burst of necrotic magic pushed out from his collapsing body, rushed through her chest, exited like black smoke from between her shoulder blades.

Her mouth formed a soft “oh!” of surprise. In the next moment, Rolan watched her figure crumple and fold over itself on its way to the ground, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

“No—” The hoarse word barely escaped his throat. The Gods couldn’t be so fucking cruel to take her now, not after she’d just given him back the only family he’d ever known—

Rolan scrambled toward her through pools of cooling blood, kneeled where she lay. An iron fist gripped around him. "Wake up," he ordered her limp and unresponsive body, even as he gathered it in his arms. "Damn it, wake up!"

All the rest of them standing around him were forgotten. Somehow he was stumbling down the stairs with her, rushing into the barracks that had rapidly begun filling with the other wounded and bleeding. The rest of them could wait; she must be the first.

He laid her body out on the nearest empty bed. Not body—he corrected his mind in a wild panic—her eyes would open and she would live. Right now, her features lay so still it filled him with dread.

Why was no one descending instantaneously to heal her? He would’ve shouted if he could find his voice. Isobel was practically on death's door herself—Rolan watched her slump against the wall and wipe dark blood from her mouth. He turned away, unable to bear the fucking sight of her anyway, not after what her life may have just cost him. He cast around desperately for the Sharran.

Shadowheart was beside him in a second, already peeling off her bloodied gloves. 

"Please," he begged. "Tell me she's not—"

Shadowheart's hands gripped his shoulders, vice-like. "If you want her to live, go. I need to concentrate." Her words broke through, and Rolan stumbled backwards in mute obedience.

Only his other fears for Cal and Lia could have drawn him from the room. He found them gathered around the central hall with the rest of the able-bodied, wiping the infernal blood from their weapons and taking stock of the casualties in a daze. The three of them all held each other wordlessly. Through the heat rising from the open hearth, Rolan glimpsed Alfira and Lakrissa doing the same.

With that concern eased, his mind was consumed with the one that remained. He paced across the hall in an effort to follow her companion's warning to stay away for as long as he could stand.

Once he couldn't, Rolan returned to the makeshift infirmary to stand helpless at the foot of her bed. Shadowheart took no notice of him; her eyes glowed blank as her hands directed a powerful flow of magic into her patient's chest. In this wan light, Rolan found her features more fragile and delicate than he’d ever seen them.

As the ritual came to an end, Shadowheart leaned across the unconscious figure to check the pulse at her wrist.

"How is she?" Rolan asked, terrified of the answer.

“She’ll be all right,” the cleric told him as she rose to take her leave. “But that was powerful magic; her body needs time. She probably won’t wake for hours.” He ignored the note of suggestion in her voice.

"I'll stay with her," Rolan said, final. Shadowheart didn’t question him as she moved away toward the next injured.

Rolan slumped cross-legged on the floor near her shoulder. From this angle, he could see the rise and fall of her chest under her tunic. Her bloodied half-plate lay against the wall behind him; no doubt Shadowheart had removed it to heal her wounds. Her breaths were shallow but steady. 

Rolan found his own chest rising and falling in tandem, as if he might lend her some of his strength by doing so.

At the long table near the center of the room, he heard Jaheira's Harpers grouping around her in deep conversation about their next move. Marcus had been with them since the beginning, Rolan was aware—which meant that Ketheric Thorm had been one step ahead of their strategy this whole time. Rolan heard her name brought up several times in urgent excitement. She was their secret weapon. She could infiltrate Moonrise Towers this very night, and she still wouldn't be expected.

Rolan closed his eyes against the incessant discussion. He couldn’t care less about Marcus, or Thorm, or Isobel, or the entire Shadow Curse itself for that matter. There they all stood alive and well, plotting the next bloody feat she was meant to undertake, as if her spent body wasn't fighting for life in the bed a few steps away. Angry disbelief rose in his throat.

"For fuck's sake," Rolan interjected through them, "can't you all just let her rest for one fucking night?"

Surprised faces turned toward him. He didn't care if it branded him a traitor to their cause, didn't care what they thought of him at all, as long as she was left in peace for once.

It seemed Jaheira was the only one wise enough to understand. "The cub's right," she decided. "We regroup at dawn. Tonight, we rest."

Once the Harpers had filed out of the room on her orders, Jaheira turned back to him from the doorway. “Look after her,” she said, almost with gentleness. Rolan didn’t need the druid or anyone else to tell him that. But he said nothing as she left the room.

Rolan was finally left alone with his thoughts as the fire in the stone hearth behind him burned down to coals. Before long all the other infirmary occupants were sound asleep, drifting away to join the one beside him. From across the dark room Art Cullough whispered the same snatches of his halting song.

Rolan’s weary back ached despite his resolve to keep watch over her. He’d only rest his head for a little while, he told himself. He folded his arms on the edge of her mattress and lay his cheek across them so he could still face her, one hand brushing against hers. He took it without thought.

Her hands were cold. It didn’t worry him; he knew by now that they usually were. Many times in the past she’d laughed with embarrassment whenever her hands met his skin for one reason or another. Nevertheless, he wrapped her fingers under the warmth of his palm.

Rolan closed his eyes as he listened to her soft breath rise and fall.

-

He awoke some hours later to the sensation of something tickling his hand. Rolan raised his head groggily, realizing through the dark that it was her thumb brushing across his knuckles.

“Rolan?” Her voice whispered.

“I’m here—” He straightened up, trying to see her face through the dim light. His bent legs had gone painfully numb under him.

“What time s’it.”

He had no clue, just having awakened himself. “Past midnight,” he guessed, judging by the spare red glow of the coals in the hearth.

“Where’s Isobel?” She croaked out.

Rolan’s relief at hearing her voice again was colored with disbelief that she was already asking after others. “She’s fine, asleep upstairs. How do you feel?”

“It was Ketheric’s orders,” she explained, ignoring his question. “Taken alive…why he sent Marcus.”

To Rolan’s mind that didn’t begin to explain the attack, but he couldn’t care about all that now.

“It’s over,” he assured her. “Your companions are all safe. Everyone’s sleeping off the fight. You should too.”

He heard her sigh in relief, and then the sound worked itself into a pained cough. “Feel like Karlach clocked me in the ribs,” she winced.

“Should I get Shadowheart?” Rolan was ready to wake her friend without delay. He had half-risen before her fingers clenched against his to keep him where he knelt. 

“Stay,” she requested, then added almost shyly, “please.”

Rolan was back beside her in an instant. Wherever she wanted him, that’s where he’d be. He settled himself against the edge of her bed once more, their hands still connected.

She was quiet for a long moment. “I suppose now we take the fight to Moonrise Towers.”

“By all the Hells,” Rolan muttered. He wasn’t upset at her—just at every other circumstance that weighed and pressed down on her shoulders. “Don’t you think you can take one night for yourself before you have to rush off and save us all again?”

She shifted against the bedding. “The element of surprise won’t last forever, Rolan. You know that as well as I do. The sooner we dispatch Ketheric, the sooner we can finally make our way to Baldur’s Gate, all of us.”

Rolan knew she was appealing to his personal motives, but he resisted. “Think about yourself for once,” he instructed her. “Just rest for now. Sleep. Gods know you deserve it.”

She fell silent for a while. Rolan tried to make out her expression in the dim light; he wondered if he’d been too harsh.

“Oh, just come here,” she said suddenly. “My back hurts just looking at you.” With a soft grunt of effort she scooted to the far side of the bed; Rolan realized she was making a spot for him.

He hesitated only for a moment before climbing up beside her. The mattress was firm and lumpy, but after the unyielding wood floor, it felt soft as a cloud against his stiff limbs. She settled on her side to examine him up close.

“Your face is all bloody,” she said. Her eyes reflected just enough firelight that he could make out their expression of concern.

Rolan glanced down at himself, realizing his skin and clothing were still flecked and stained head to toe from the night’s battle. His face must be in a similar state. “I don’t think it’s mine,” he answered honestly.

“Goodness,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “What a dashing hero.” Rolan couldn’t make out if she was teasing or serious, and wasn’t sure which possibility made his heart thump faster. He deflected by bringing her knuckles up to his lips.

Rolan felt her sigh again in reaction, more relaxed this time. 

“Rolan?”

“Mm.”

“Hold me for a while?” She asked quietly. 

He didn’t need to be asked twice. Rolan’s arms slid under and over her, drawing her frame near to him. Her head bent to his chest as he held her close. Her brave, reckless, kind, vulnerable self.

Before very long, her breathing reached the heavy cadence of sleep. Rolan drifted toward unconsciousness not far behind her. It was dreamless; his arms held all he could want.