Venus Dee Milo (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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thecapitol2014-12-25 10:58 pm
celebrityskinned) wrote in thecapitol2014-12-25 10:58 pm
Entry tags:
Sun Breaks Over the Same Human Race By Whom You Were Erased [Open]
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.
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.
no subject
"Who decides what the wrong hands are?"
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It's part of why he left.
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"Did you do anything about it? The order losing its way?"
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"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."
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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.
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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.
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While he leaves, she wonders what the Grand Game is.