dragons with wicked eyes and wicked hearts; (OPEN)

[revocation]

Who| Cullen and Dorian; Cullen and YOU!
What| So a medieval fantasy knight walks into Panem...
Where| All around the tribute tower, possibly in the city itself! He's exploring and trying to figure out wtf is going on.
When| The first week or so after the end of the arena.
Warnings/Notes| Uhhhh... possibly some spoilers for Dragon Age Inquisition...? I can put him just about anywhere, so feel free to just toss up a location. If you're not sure if he'd be somewhere, feel free to PM me or ping me on plurk (frodabaggins)!

The place he wakes up in is no less surreal than the dark metal monstrosity he left, though it's obviously cleaner and more brightly lit - less overtly dangerous. It's all shiny, flat surfaces, with metal and glass and strange materials he doesn't recognize. No stonework, no masonry, no crenelations or battlements. Just strange flat squares showing moving images in practically every room. There must be some powerful magic at work here, to be able to light whole buildings with no candles that he can see, and make those framed faces talk.

He spends some time looking for his armor, for his sword, but he can't for the life of him find any of it - makes sense, he supposes, that their captors would want to remove his weapons, his outward defenses. Even though, as far as he can tell, he's free to move about the place as he wishes. No one tries to stop him.

In the kitchen area, he finds a box filled with cold food - more magic? And he pokes at strange boxes with buttons on them that look nothing like any oven he's ever seen before. At the elevator bank, he can be seen examining the doors and panels with a confused expression on his face, his brow furrowed slightly. Eventually, he finds his way to the training room, where there are actually weapons he recognizes, at least, even if much of it is still strange and alien to him. In the city itself, he is nearly overwhelmed by the number of people. The outrageous fashions remind him a little of Orlais, and when strangers approach him in the street to gawk and ask him questions he looks incredibly uncomfortable.

There isn't even a proper Chantry in this place.

Comments

[tevintage]

He hates the moving box, he decides. He hates it, because it has taken him to the same floor three times. He just sits in it, and then it dings again, and he yells at it to actually go somewhere. Finally he simply - pressed EVERY button, and when the elevator stopped at each floor he yelled "CULLEN!" very loudly into the room.

[revocation]

It's not the first time he's seen the doors open, by themselves, as if by magic. He doesn't think he'll ever get used to that, or the little ding sound they make, either.

But it is the first time the doors have opened and there has been a person inside the box. Yelling his name, even, in a voice he recognizes.

"Dorian?" He peers around the door frame. "Are you alright? What are you doing in there?"

[tevintage]

Finally! Thank the Maker. He hops out of the box before the doors can trap him in again, and immediately stomps over to Cullen.

"Trying to find you," He said, the slight panic making his voice crisp and sharp. Anger, to disguise the worry. "I've been up and down and - I saw you, I saw Cole, and then you both--" He made a face, struggled, and then: "... Are you alright?"

[revocation]

"I can't say I expected any of us to come out of that," Cullen agrees with a grimace. Nor did he expect such a sudden end to the proceedings, strange countdown or not.

"I'm fine, strange as that seems. Not even injured. I'm not sure if it was some kind of illusion, or if there are some truly remarkable healers here, but -"

He rubs the bridge of his nose. He's starting to get a headache, from the bright lights, the strange noises, being totally lost...

"We should try to find Cole."

[tevintage]

"We'll find him," Dorian assured him, but the hard expression on his face belied the fact that Cole was not his first concern.

"Is the Inquisitor here?" The question was sharp, and to the point, despite the way that it made his chest clench, despite the way it terrified him, utterly. He hadn't seen him, hadn't seen hide nor hair of him, but Dorian wasn't all seeing and with Cole and Cullen here, who knew how many of them...

[sizeofyourbaggage]

When Sam gets off the elevator at District 2's floor, the first thing he sees is someone he doesn't recognize, staring at the panels. He stops next to him, raising an eyebrow.

"...hey." Sam'd been planning on looking for Jet or Thor, but he's betting this guy's new, and he seems pretty damn confused. "You looking for something, or someone?"

[revocation]

Cullen blinks in surprise at the sudden ding sound, and then the doors opening as if by magic to deposit a man into the common area. Amazing.

"I -" Maker, but this place is strange. "I suppose I am, looking for someone that is - but what is this contraption? How do you use it? Is it an enchantment of some sort?" His brow furrows again in confusion as he stares at the strange doors - closing again with another soft ding.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Shit, definitely new. And definitely not from around here - Sam hasn't met anyone from a place less technologically advanced than where he's from, but he's heard they're around. Looks like they've got another one.

"No, uh, it's technology. I've heard what we call tech is just another world's magic, but-" That's probably not helpful to right now, so he finishes that thought with a shrug. "It's an elevator. You push these buttons to call it-" He points them out. "And when you're inside, you push the button with the number of the floor of the building you want to go to, and it takes you there."

Sam pauses, then asks, "You just get here?"

[revocation]

Elevator. A machine, then, that elevates? Takes one up - or down, too, apparently. Alright, Cullen can work with this.

"Ah - thank you," he says politely. It's an explanation he can understand, at least. "I was sent to the, ah - arena, and just recently - woke up here, I suppose," he says by way of explanation. "I have to admit, this looks nothing like any prison or captivity I've ever heard of."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

"Oh, damn," he says sympathetically. "I'm sorry, man. Guessing that means you didn't get a lot of heads up about what was going to happen, aside from that bit from the Peacekeepers when they grabbed you?"

Sam himself had had been grabbed two months before his first arena, but Bucky'd told him that happened to some people.

[ka_sera_sera]

Things have gotten to the point where Roland will enter nearly any building in Panem, so long as it's new. Spending so long in one place is hard, being forced to stay even more so. The arenas, little as he likes to admit it, do help keep that restlessness at bay but there are only so many empty, pointless hours he can spend in this empty, pointless city before he needs to move. At least far enough to see something new.

A new business, for Panem, isn't such a unique thing. Especially not a bar. But here he is anyway, and that this is nothing he would call a bar is probably obvious enough to go unsaid. Bright light shines on dancers here and there, and there are screens on the counter that seem to have something to do with ordering drinks. He stares at the one in front of him, unable to make out anything that might be on it, then looks up and around again. If he can't drink in this bar he must at least be able to do something.

[revocation]

It's easy to lose one's way in a city this big and this strange - or it is for Cullen, anyway. Add to that, the attention he tends to attract, and he's essentially ducking inside the nearest building in an attempt to escape - only to find himself in an environment even stranger than the one he left.

Blast.

He carefully averts his eyes from some of the more scantily-clad dancers - Maker's breath, what do they think they're doing? That should be private! - and tries to work out what the strange little picture boxes are for. These people seem to use picture boxes of various shapes and sizes for all sorts of things, and he can never quite guess what that might be.

"What - is the purpose of this?" he mutters aloud, almost without realizing it.

[ka_sera_sera]

Usually you can tell tributes from the rest right away - by their dress which, without the fashion this place so adores, often look comparatively plain, and by their faces which, without all that paint and glitter, often look comparatively human. With a couple exceptions. The question, one anyone who called this place home likely wouldn't ask, settles it.

"Might have symbols for drinks on there," he guesses, taking a couple steps closer so the man might actually be able to hear him over the general noise of the place. He doesn't glance at the screen in question, because he's already seen that they're just as fuzzy and indistinct to him as the TVs everyone here seems able to make sense of. "Or names, which you should be able to read if the machine in your head is working. Try pressing one if you want it; I haven't seen anyone actually speaking to the bartender."

[revocation]

"I'm not sure I want to know what gets served in the drinks in a place like this," Cullen says absently, uncertain whether he wants to touch the screen in question.

Magic is not something he particularly cares to meddle with.

"Wait - did you say a machine? In my head?"

[ka_sera_sera]

"Mhm." Roland studies the man's expression. Sighs. This really isn't the place to break this sort of news - and even as he thinks it a dancer jiggles past the corner of his eye and around behind the other tribute, as if to prove that point - but it's too late to be choosy. "If you know some other tongue, go ahead and try to speak it. Then maybe you'll be more in the mood to risk a drink."

[letthemburn]

For lack of anything better to do, Iskierka has once again taken to the streets of the city. There's not really anything that she's terribly interested in, or at least, not anything out the various stores. But walking is at least something to do, and it gets her out and about more than she might have otherwise.

(It keeps her from thinking so much about the people who haven't shown up yet too; the ones she both does and doesn't want to be here.)

Perhaps more relevant to at least Cullen's interest is the fact that Iskierka very much stands out, even in the crowds of Panem. Most of this is the fact that dragons are generally hard to hide, and there's little denying that she very much is a dragon. A small one, yes - she doesn't stand much taller than most horses at the shoulder - but a dragon nonetheless.

[revocation]

Iskierka most definitely stands out, even in this place that is full of utter insanity as far as Cullen is concerned. Dragons aren't a terribly common sight in Thedas - they've been appearing more frequently in the past few years, and the Inquisitor has slain several, in fact, but Cullen has never personally fought a dragon.

Certainly not a high dragon of legend.

Still, this is definitely a dragon, or perhaps more accurately a dragonling - maybe a drake. Maybe some form of wyvern. What he can't work out is how it's moving about the city streets, not causing any panic, and not setting anything ablaze or eating cattle or anything like that. Of course, all of this runs through his head as he reaches for a sword that still isn't there, and -

"Maker's breath!"

Yeah, that's about all he can manage to say.

[letthemburn]

The not setting anything ablaze is mostly due to the fact that someone in power (she's not sure who, exactly, but mostly likely one of the people in charge) has managed to make it so that she can't. Not for lack of trying, admittedly, but she knows better than to continue to repeat the attempts, now. She is, however, not above at least bluffing that she might still be able to, if the need suits. Even if this is mostly relegated to not mentioning that she can't, if she can at all get away with it.

As for how she can walk down the street without causing a panic... that's probably due to the fact that she's been around long enough that most of the denizens of the Capitol are used to there being a dragon in their midst.

That said, she does catch Cullen's comment, even if it doesn't mean anything to her and she turns to look in his direction without even much a pause.

(This is likely not any more comfortable in the long run, for all that she isn't moving directly into attacking.)

"Oh, I do not think so. Unless you had meant the wind, but it is hardly much of a wind."

[revocation]

It talks.

It talks.

Cullen takes a shocked step or two backwards, his hands still gripping for the sword that isn't there.

"What manner of creature are you?" he asks, incredulously.

[letthemburn]

Fortunately, Iskierka is well-used to reactions similar to that one. Better still, it's not a question that she minds answering, even if the tone of her voice is one that suggests that she thinks the answer should be quite thoroughly obvious.

"Why, I am a dragon, of course."

[earthborn]

So her first impression of the man was very good. There wasn't much she could say about it-- something about the Tribute base favored tall, blond, well-muscled men with fantastic buttocks. It came of stake-outs in the lobby, what what it was, sitting cross-legged against the wall in the lee of the stairwell where most people didn't immediately look. Times had been, she'd put up a pillow fort in protest. Didn't seem worth the trouble, this time around.

Still, this was a new guy. She'd have remembered seeing that. Him.

"Hey, new guy," she's clearly caught him on his first sojourn out into the city proper, "What's your name?"

[revocation]

New guy. Well, that's one way to put it. Cullen turns to look at the stranger, his eyebrows going up, almost as if to ask Who, me?

But the rest of the room is mostly empty, and obviously she is. Talking to him. Another Tribute, presumably, if she's here.

"Ser Cullen Rutherford," he says formally, opting for the ser as opposed to Commander of the Inquisition's forces. He's still a bit reluctant to give away his allegiance in this place. For the moment. "And you?"

[earthborn]

"Commander Shepard, Alliance Navy," Did he...did he actually just check to see if there was anyone else she could have been talking to? Holy shit, what a dork, "They've got me stuck up in District Five. Yourself?"

[revocation]

A commander, as well. Interesting. Though he can't help but find the - red glowy bits eerily uncomfortable. It's not red lyrium - he would know the feel of red lyrium a mile away - but it looks like it could be.

"Ah, two, I'm given to understand. What sort of Alliance are you the commander of?" He's far more interested in her service record, frankly.

[earthborn]

"The Systems Alliance of Earth and Human colonies," Right, because even still some people heard Navy and thought about boats floating on water rather than ships floating among the stars. She was never going to get used to that, "I guess you could call the uh...umbrella government for most of Humanity, if you wanted to be really vague."

Really, really vague and.. inaccurate in the specifics, and completely totally honest insofar as a lot of humans were concerned right now. And a lot of aliens too.

"Ser Cullen, was it? You some kind of knight in shining armor?"