[Ficbit] Uncharted // Let's check the replay

[spindizzy]

I swear, at this rate I am just going to keep writing random snippets of Nate and Elena being silly until I have enough that I can start stringing them together into a semi-coherent storyline.

On the plus side, I can look back at the one I posted on... Tuesday? And be like "This is how I would fit the description in! And if I had a plot, I could totally fit it in here!" so I'm hoping that the same will happen to anything else I might write for Uncharted.

This is another fic that I wrote a while ago for a prompt from thebaconfat, which I think was Nate and "I meant to do that." (Baco - I am going to reply to your comments! You are great and shiny!) I kinda... Went to town, a little. Unintentionally. Comes with the attendant disclaimers of "I know fuck-all about architecture beyond 'Here is how the Romans made and built with concrete' so I have no idea if the building I describe here is feasible. I was going for "this would be a platforming level in Uncharted" over common sense, but that proves nothing.

Uncharted // Let's check the replay
G | 687 words | Nate and Elena | No spoilers or warnings | In which Nate is completely unsurprised by anything that happens to him, but really hopes that this time he doesn't end up falling thirty feet. Again.

The tower was about two, maybe three, stories of crumbling white stone, scenically lit through all of the holes in the walls where some combination of weather, decay, and maybe canon fire had started it collapsing. There was a large, deep pool in the middle of the room, probably fed by the river, with wavering circular shadows dancing across it. He traced them up and up to their source, shading his eyes with his hands against the noonday sun; the domed ceiling had a circular opening at the very top, and wouldn't you know it? It looked like there was something suspended in that opening.

"Piece of cake," he said, more with hope than expectation.

Elena looked from him to the ceiling, then again. "Are you sure? That looks pretty high."

"Remember that fortress when we were looking for El Dorado?" Admittedly, she hadn't been there for most of the parts where Nate was hanging off the side of a cliff by his fingertips, but that'd been the problem in the first place. "After that, this is nothing."

Elena conceded the point with a grin and raised eyebrows, stepping back and pulling her camera out of its carry-case. She was probably going to start muttering into it.

There was a staircase hugging the inside curve of the tower... For like one floor. Half way up. Which meant that Nate had to do the now uncomfortably familiar routine of finding a pillar tall enough for him to climb up and use as a jumping off point (it MIGHT have been an altar or something at one point? He could feel the bas-relief figures under his fingers as he climbed over them, but he was going to leave the actual appraisal to the woman being paid for it.), flinging himself off it, knocking the breath out of himself because he'd misjudged the heights and had landed torso first against the stone steps...

After that it was easy. The stairs had collapsed beneath a window, which meant that Nate could haul himself up and through it to the outside. He edged along what was left of the balcony, then edged a lot faster when he realised that it was crumbling beneath his feet (because of course it was), and pulled himself back in through a hole in the wall on the other side. Piece of cake. All he needed to do was climb up six feet of dangling chain, unhook the circlet, and they'd be on their way.

Of course, he'd gotten half way up the chain before he noticed the ominous creaking, or the cautious way Elena was calling "Nate...?" And he was a hair's breath from the circlet when the winch holding the whole mess in the air - him included - gave up on them. Which meant that the return trip down to the pool was a whole lot faster.

Nate surfaced in a rush of bubbles and spray. He managed to tread water while he spluttered, trying to get his breath back and wipe the water out of his stinging eyes. The first thing that he saw when he could keep his eyes open was Elena, still frozen at the edge of the water like she'd lunged to grab him, mouth still shaping his name, and there was only one real response to the stricken look on her face.

He forced a grin for her and called back "I meant to do that!"

Elena took a minute to process that, then laughed shakily. "Sure you did. Looked real intentional there, cowboy." She settled on her haunches by the edge of the pool, and oh crap she'd had her camera out. She held it up, making adjustments to it that probably meant she was zooming in to get his expression. Or like she wanted Nate to be looking at it instead of her for a minute.

"Elena, please tell me you didn't get all of this on tape."

"I guess we'll find out on the action replay!" She glanced at him, then frowned. "Hey, what's that?"

Which was when something grabbed his leg and dragged him under.

Comments

[thebaconfat]

I don't remember this bit in the game! Remind me what happens?

[spindizzy]

There's a section where you have to follow numbers carved into the wall/floor (there's a waterwheel and flaming pendulums because OF COURSE there are, what is Drake's life), so they split up because Elena doesn't platform. And at one point Nate makes it to a point where he can see Elena, she gets as far as "is that safe?" and then the platform he's standing on collapses.