Sun Breaks Over the Same Human Race By Whom You Were Erased [Open]

[celebrityskinned]

WHO| Venus and you!
WHAT| Venus catches her second wind.
WHEN| Week three and onward, until a little past the end of the Arena.
WHERE|
WARNINGS| None.

When she first wakes in her bed, she's afraid to touch her face. She knows, deep down, that they won't have taken away the brand. She knows when she looks in the mirror and catches sight of that sprawling spidery blight, she's going to feel her stomach drop beneath the bed. She knows that the instant she puts her fingertips to her face she'll feel that warped, wrinkled slickness of scar tissue. She knows it'll destroy her all over again.

It takes her nearly half an hour of staring at the ceiling, making a mental list of the people she needs to make sure survived the Arena, before she reaches up and strokes her unblemished cheek. She all but catapults out of bed and stumbles to her dresser, to the mirror on top, where she stares with an uncharacteristic slackjawedness at the way she looks. She looks as if nothing has happened to her besides an unfortunate asymmetrical haircut. No being tied to a chair and mutilated. No nightmares that didn't end just when she left that jail cell.

It's stupid, probably, to care so much about how she looks, but it's difficult for a woman who's traded on her beauty to find purchase in anything but her body when it's mauled and mutilated, when its every corporeal reminder is one of torture and interrogation. And for a moment, just for a moment, she can imagine herself back in a time before so many of the people she loved died.

She can imagine herself renewed.

She returns to the Capitol with fresh energy, no longer curled into herself even though the windows in her have still been blown out. Her architecture no longer sags and creaks. She sings to the coffeemaker, sits on the couch of the District Suite with sodas and milkshakes, practices at the gym as a way to stay strong rather than merely to forget. She's social again, greeting people not out of a defensive way to hide her own pain but out of genuine interest in their lives.

She mourns, but it doesn't reduce her to some barely-functioning binge-drinking tragedy like it has in the past. At some point she realized that she was in love with all of humanity, rather than a handful of people. For the moment, she tries to hold onto that feeling, that hope that she so previously denied herself. For this moment, she makes herself free.

Comments

[celebrityskinned]

She pulls a bit of a face, halfway between abashed and apologetic for making him uncomfortable like that.

"I don't know what a Templar is," she admits. "What were you even fighting?"

[revocation]

"The Templar order was tasked with protecting the innocent from the dangers of magic," he says promptly, straightening a little. "In the wrong hands, magic is a dangerous weapon, and Templars have been trained for centuries to combat it."

[celebrityskinned]

And so, naturally, Venus hones in on the most obvious question, the one that all that time hanging around French law students and cyborg philosophers has planted in her brain. One she wouldn't have asked long ago.

"Who decides what the wrong hands are?"

[revocation]

Cullen blinks at that, surprised by such a seemingly simple question. "Mages are born, not made," he says after a moment. "No one chooses whether they have the ability to wield magic. But one power-mad mage can cause a lot of destruction. Templars are trained to nullify magic."

[celebrityskinned]

"But who decides who gets trained, and who decides who's power-mad?" She tilts her head like a bird would. "You can't just take these things as self-evident."

[revocation]

"It becomes rather self-evident when a mage begins to use blood magic, makes deals with demons and murders people," Cullen says with a humorless sort of smile. "However, I think I know what you mean. The Chantry kept a close watch on the Templars for several centuries, until very recently. The order has lost its way, the leaders more concerned about maintaining their power than protecting the innocent."

It's part of why he left.

[celebrityskinned]

"That's the answer I was looking for. A little doubt in the higher powers." She winks and swings her legs a little, letting plumes of her breath fog up the air in front of her.

"Did you do anything about it? The order losing its way?"

[revocation]

Cullen lets out a long, low sigh at her question.

"Not until it was too late, to my eternal shame. I left the order. The Inquisition was - is - trying to set things aright. It's a worthy cause." One he can be proud of again, in a way he hadn't been able to be proud as a Templar for a long time.

Of course, now he's here, so who knows? He frowns out at the city below. "This place isn't terribly different from Orlais," he comments. "Nobles vying for position."

[celebrityskinned]

"They don't really seem to be vying. I don't see a lot of upward mobility around here." She taps her lower lip to some rhythm he can't hear, one in her head. "It's more defending their position while the carpet gets yanked around under them."

She's afraid of what the Capitol could do to her, but she also knows - through bitter, painful experience - what would provoke them to do so. Stating the obvious should be a pass for her.

[revocation]

"Put it however you like," Cullen says, his lips twitching faintly. "It's the Grand Game, in a... more brightly-lit guise."

It's not necessarily a criticism. Well, Cullen is critical of it, because he finds it terrible and bloodthirsty. But he knows there are some who enjoy it.

"Regardless, I won't take up any more of your time," he says politely, sketching her a faint bow and turning to leave.

[celebrityskinned]

"See you around, man." By instinct, she curtsies back, some charm subconsciously animating her.

While he leaves, she wonders what the Grand Game is.