Survivors.

[lamar]

Lamar was knocked aside by a rogue fireball clashing against the templar's metal chest, knocking him promptly unconscious and also several feet in the air. After colliding against the ground a few feet away, he was a bloody mess, his breathing ragged, unheard over the sounds of war in Andoral's Reach. His templar armor pristine with shine was now dent and broken, coated in soot, blood, and dirt.

The sword emblazoned on his chest was especially covered in soot and pushed inward from the impacts. The once prideful warrior, hunter of Orlais, slayer of Wyverns, Abominations, and Demons was now fighting a different kind of battle, clinging between life and death, his faint breathing becoming harder to do.

The battle was over now, and his muffled intakes of air could be heard from the "Dead" soldier if one were by the corpse piles. Yet still the world was dark to him, and he was still dying there, wounded and weak. It didn't matter if his men had lived, if Lambert had survived, if their opposition fell...only breathing came instinctively.

There was but one question now for the otherwise soon-to-be-corpse.

Would anyone come and save him? Or would the Templar-Commander who sought equality die there?

[Mariana]

Little good though she could do on land, Mariana could at least ferry mobile wounded away from the battlefield. With the templars laying siege to the fortress, the battle was nigh impossible for the mages to win - which was not to say, of course, that Mariana wasn't going to hold out a little hope. She was just going to make sure as many of her allies had a way out as possible.

Picking her way through the battlefield after a heavy skirmish, she examined each of the wounded carefully with the healers she had with her. Hopeless... dead... hopeless... another corpse, and another there... So few left to save. Today... today there were none. Mariana sighed. However little she cared for life and the loss of it, death on this scale pulled at something inside her. She felt strangely heavy in a way she hadn't known since her father's ship was sunk.

But something was moving up ahead. The scant light thrown by the watch-fires gleamed off a burnt and blackened set of templar armour, and as they approached Mariana could hear the man's laboured breathing. Andraste's flaming tits, he was alive! An enemy. She could save him, but he was a bleeding templar and unless she was getting the rank insignia confused, a knight-commander. There was no saving him, not without putting the whole of Andoral's Reach in danger, but he was alive... He was the only one too save, and Maker damn her straight to the blackest, driest waste in the Fade if she wasn't going to do something decent in her life.

"Fix him up good enough to travel. I want him on my ship as quick as we can manage." There went that nagging voice in her head telling hre she was going to regret this later. Oh, wait, that was the mage with her.

"Captain Mariana, you realize this man is a templar, yes? He is dangerous to - "

"I am well aware of what he is, now you'll do as I say! Do you understand me?" The mage was taller than she by several inches, heavily built and were he to be stripped of his magic he could snap her in half. But something in her tone, or her bearing, made him blanch and nod. He healed the knight-commander as well as he could, and at a withering look from the captain took the man in his arms. "Time to piss of, eh mates?" she said darkly, "Let's go."

[lamar]

The darkness was comforting, despite the wounds, and pain racking his very core. The bliss of dreams overtook him from the living hell that was Andoral's Reach. Here a decisive fight was fought, yet the outcome he would not know for now. Yet his dream reflected upon it. The mere moments that were before.

He was floating in ephemeral darkness, yet light shone above him. Lamar contemplated about death, life...all that it meant for him to die here. Just another name to a list. Would Lambart even miss him? His hovering form levitated closer toward the illumination, and he felt...warmth. Comforting heat that wrapped his body so comfortably. He felt lighter then a feather.

Mages...They were his enemy, and he saw their havoc first-hand. So many good men lost to them. Yet still he tried for equality, still he desired a world where Templars WERE the heroes. Where morality did not lie in grey but in white. Yet the Maker did not give Lamar the chance for that desire it seemed.

His eyes readjusted to the rays that seemed to swallow him, and he merely smiled. It was time to take his side by the Maker.

"Time to piss of, eh mates?"

That didn't sound like the Maker.

The Templar gave a groggy groan as his body was shifted, and moved. Some of the pain had vanished, yet it still lingered. He would live it seemed....but what now? What hero had saved him? A sympathizer of templars? Lambert himself? A mage who was going to take him captive?

That voice said mates though. Wait. Was he going on a ship? That's where the terminology mates came from...

While Lamar took a long time processing these thoughts, he adjusted himself to being alive again, breathing better now then he did before. Oh well, whoever his savior was, he was glad he could taste one last breath of fresh air again.

[Mariana]

It was a long bloody trip to the coast from Andoral's Reach and Mariana hoped taking the templar to her ship wasn't going to cost any allies their lives. They'd had a system in place that had been working well enough - three people treat any wounded well enough to move, then load them up and take them to the next port on her ship's route. The next day the next group did the same, taking the wounded straight to the next port after.

But this load was made up of a single templar - no allies, no civilians, just the enemy. The mages with her weren't happy about it. Void, she wasn't happy about it. For once in her pathetic life she'd genuinely tried to do the right thing for the sheer sake of helping something, to prove she was better than just a pirate, and she wasn't even sure it was the right thing. Times like this she missed the simple straightforwardness of being one of the bad guys.

"How's he doing?" She already knew, of course - she was mostly just asking for the sake of the noise. He was still unconscious, still alive, improving slowly. No different than the last time she'd checked on him, no different than the last time she'd asked. The mage confirmed it, and she handed over the reins. He could drive for a while, she'd take her turn in the cart.

"You best be grateful when you wake up mate. You're not even conscious and you're more trouble than any of my crew." Mariana sighed. "Believe it or not, I usually have people who'll answer to talk to. As a rule people either love me or want me dead - I'm not used to this whole silent treatment bit." With a low chuckle, she folded her hands behind her head and lay back. It was a sad state of affairs when the only person she had to talk to was an unconscious templar. "Well, if you decide you want to talk I'm here love."

[lamar]

He kept breathing, his eyesight having returned, the majority of being foggy however and the pain keeping him from the foggy vision and his helmet removed since then. Lamar breathed in, taking it all in. Wyverns, Abominations, Demons, Blood Mages, and once he even fought a rich Magister's golem. But death wasn't something he couldn't fight with a sword or even wit.

Slowly, slowly air rushed in, only to exist, his chest rising with the breathes. Oh how he wished he could remove the Templar Armor if only to end the blasted heat that covered his body. The soot was probably still covering the sword on it's cuirass. Being unconscious was just getting on his nerves. He could hear everything, even SMELL. But his mouth couldn't move, and his eyes wouldn't open.

Still rest wasn't a bad thing...oh that voice from earlier. People love or hate her. Blah blah blah. Silent treatment. Ugh.

Lamar gave a mental sigh. He knew it was wrong to shrug off his savior, but he was more focused on trying to wake up. So with the minor thought of his savior in mind, and perhaps gratitude; he attempted to speak.

"Gurgle."

Well that was embarrassing. Coughing for a few moments afterwards, he kept trying, mostly gurgling, but after a few attempts he got out a crappy

"Thank y-gurgle."

Better then nothing. Stupid, stupid fireball. Blast those revolutionaries and their magic. The ability to speak that came so naturally to him was now lost for the moment, and the more he tried the more he choked on his saliva. What he wouldn't give for a Spit Mage right now.

[Mariana]

"Gurgle."

Mariana sat bolt upright as the templar tried to speak, working her arms around his armour to lift him into a sitting position as he coughed. Damn he was heavy. And no wonder with all that armour still strapped on - probably didn't help his wounds, either. Well, nothing for it but to pull it off. Damned stupid of her not to have thought of it earlier, the poor bastard had probably been choking with all that weight and the heat trapped inside. She'd bet it hurt like a bastard when she moved him, but at least he'd have an easier time breathing. And Maker's balls he was easier to hold up.

"Thank y-gurgle."

She stared at him wide-eyed for a moment before laughing, a hearty belly-laugh that came all-too-rarely these past few days. "Well piss on me, the templar speaks! Don't strain yourself Shiny, I can talk enough for us both!" Keeping a firm grip around his chest, Mariana reached out with her other hand and gave the second mage - taking his turn sleeping up to that point - a good shake. "Our mate here's awake love, mind giving him a zap so he's not quite so miserable?" It wasn't meant as a request and the mage didn't take it as one, immediately pouring healing magic into the templar's body. The little hairs on Mariana's arms stood on end, the magic tingling as it touched her where her body was pressed against the templar's.

"Easier to talk now, mate?" she asked him as the mage settled back down to sleep. "I'm Captain Mariana Dacosta and we're taking you somewhere you can heal up a bit." She couldn't help but chuckle a bit at the irony of the situation. "Your shiny little nickers just got saved by a pair of mages and a pirate! How's that sit with your high-and-mighty templar code?"