thecapitol | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Who| Dorian + OPEN
What| Dorian is quite determined to distract himself, and luckily, the Capitol provides ample opportunity
Where| District 7, out on the streets, a random bar somewhere in the capitol
When| spanning a week from the end of the arena on
Warnings/Notes| none yet, possible spoilers for Dragon Age: Inquisition but I'll keep it to a minimum

DISTRICT 7 SUITES

It had been a hectic day, racing around to find those he knew from home, but it hadn't ended as sweetly as he would have liked. The depression had settled on him like a heavy blanket, pulling down the edges. He was already trying to compartmentalize it away, to shut it somewhere deep and dark and not touch it again. He knew it would happen eventually and now it had, and the last thing he wanted to do was deal with it.

So he stepped back into his suites (having finally, finally figured out the 'elevators') and decided to do a thorough inventory of what was actually available to him here. He started with the common room. Turning every screen on (once he could figure out how), fiddling with the windows (if they were windows), slamming through the kitchen and opening and shutting the fridge with a frown (some kind of ice magic?).

There was only one thing that was bothering him incredibly deeply about it.

"But where are the books?"

OUT ON THE STREETS

He'd fallen asleep on the couch of the District 7 common room, having not been able to quite face his own quarters. When he woke he didn't want to be there at all, so exploring it was, and after a shower (which took him an hour and two avoxes to figure out), he strode out of the Tribute Tower and into the streets of the Capitol, determined to distract himself. And maybe find a bookstore in the process.

However, he stood out like a sore thumb - one shoulder bare in the middle of winter - and he had not expected it to be COLD - and he kept getting stopped by strangers asking to touch his mustache.

DOWN IN THE BAR

Inevitably, night after night, Dorian found himself in one of the bars in the Capitol. He was still having a difficult time facing his quarters, and nothing was better for distraction than a bar full of people who were at once utterly inane and completely irreverent - who could not see the world for more than four feet in front of them and those four feet were devoted to hedonism. It was completely natural to pretend that he was completely devoted to hedonism as well.

And a nice bottle of Brandy.

That, and the locals were very generous with their free drinks.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Of course I was, but out of ignorance. Out of fear. If I had a better grasp of the situation, I could have dealt with it peaceably. But no- I had to rise to the occasion." He scowled.

"Ah, well. Apparently she returned with us, just the same. Perhaps I should give her a bottle of brandy, if she doesn't punch me."

Cullen doesn't see what the problem is, if she's still alive. But he just shrugs it off and takes another sip of his brandy.

"Should I go along as your second, just in case?" he asks, opting to keep the conversation light. It's better that way, especially in public.

Dorian chuckled, despite himself.

He was more upset about doing what the Capitol had wanted from him than he was about the murder.

"Might be wise," he said wryly. "Out of the three of us, I think I may have the weakest punch. Certainly without any access to my magic."

"I don't know, you must build up quite a bit of arm strength swinging staves around all the time," Cullen points out amiably.

Not that he would know about the arm strength of a mage from personal experience or anything...

"Hush!" Dorian said in a stage whisper, and then leaned in. "I do wish to keep some of my talents in secret reserve." He was kidding, mostly.

He chuckled, and took another sip, but there was a burning question in the back of his mind, one that had been there since the day before and had yet to dislodge itself.

He wanted to badly to ask, but whenever he tried, inanity came out of his mouth instead. Like, "I think I found the perfect store for Cole, this afternoon. Absolutely stacked, floor to ceiling, with hats. Most of them are atrocious of course, but one or two..."

There are definitely a few awkward, unasked questions hanging in the air between them. Cullen is similarly unsure how to bring them up - if they should be brought up at all, frankly.

Maybe some things just - shouldn't be dealt with. That hasn't been his mindset of late, but in this strange place, without his usual support - perhaps it's best. Or maybe he just needs to get a lot more drunk before he'll bring it up.

"He - did seem to like the hats at the Winter Palace," he remarks instead. "I hardly know what to do with him, to be perfectly frank. He seems a bit... lost, here."

Well, he always seemed a bit lost, but it's even more apparent here.

"If you don't feel lost then you've one up on the rest of us," Dorian teased mildly. "I never really knew what to do with him even back home. He--"

Ah. But there it was again. Feelings. The exactly things he'd been trying to avoid by talking about hats instead, and yet he somehow came back here.

"-- has a very strange fashion sense," he ended, lamely. "He does seem to be... I hesitate to say, more solid? I caught him eating, which was possibly one of the strangest things I've been witness to since arriving."

"That... is rather odd to think about," Cullen says after a moment's consideration. "Although, the Inquisitor did mention something to me about him being... more human," he adds before realizing what he said.

They've been rather dancing around the whole idea of the Inquisitor since the realization that they seem to have different ones.

Ah. And there it was. The elephant in the room. "Yes," he agreed vaguely, his Inquisitor said something similar.

His Inquisitor.

He frowned down into his glass.

"What is she like?" He asked finally, the tone conversational, though it was hardly idle banter. "Your Inquisitor."

That is such a strange question to hear from him. Dorian knows as well as anyone what the Inquisitor is like - they spend hours in that library of his, talking, sharing books, and Maker knows what else. He's one of her closest friends, and she always leaves him with a smile on her face - or nearly always.

Cullen frowns into his drink. "She's - strong, and kind. Compassionate. Always ready to listen, to help. I don't - she counts you as one of her closest friends. Perhaps it's a mage thing - I think she's curious about Tevinter."

Another sip of his drink. "And - yours?" This is one of the most bizarre conversations he's ever had, that's for sure and certain.

Dorian wished this conversation felt bizarre to him. But instead it feels much like what he was afraid of, ever since his time magic theory had actually been proven to work. Like the shoe would drop, eventually, on his hubris. He'd been determined to make sure the magic did not show its face again, and yet... here they were.

He smiled, a sad wistful expression, watching the brandy in his glass. "Oh, much the same," He said, taking good effort to sound light. "Though he's no mage. He didn't... care for the titles, the Herald talk. Maker knows, Andraste has little to do with the Dalish. But he... still wanted the world to be a good one. For all of us. And he-- trusted me." The final two words were almost something else, but he couldn't bring himself to say them. Couldn't even bring himself to think them. He took a drink. "I find it difficult... to think of our world, our Order, without him in it."

"A Dalish," Cullen says, shaking his head a little. "It seems strange. And a man, no less." Obviously, he has nothing against men in general, but the Herald of Andraste, a Dalish and a man?

"Nadia is Andrastian, but far too humble to claim the title - she says it makes her uncomfortable," he says, the first name slipping his lips without much thought. "I - also find it difficult, to imagine a world without her."

And then he frowns, turning his head to look at Dorian a little more closely. "You speak of him as if he were dead. Why?"

He hesitated for a moment. He'd been thinking about this basically non-stop since their first discussion.

"You know what happened in Redcliffe, presumably. With the Herald and I, when he came to our aid." A frown, "When she did, I suppose, in your time. You know about Time Magic?"

"Yes," he says, the memory coming to him easily - a wild story about traveling a year into the future, and with it - the knowledge of some of Corypheus's plans.

"I know only what I was told, about how you went forward in time and what you saw there," he says. "I don't imagine I would be able to grasp the intricacies of how it worked, though."

He nodded. "It's fine. I will attempt to make my point without... intricacies. Suffice to say that... I believe I am the 'odd man out' in our particular party," he murmured. "The Herald, the Inquisitor - the choice of who gained that mark was a moment of time easily changed, and one that I know for a fact Corypheus was trying to reach. The course of action that makes the most sense - find the Herald, and kill him, before he ever reaches power."

He couldn't quite keep the grief out of his expression then, staring off into some space before him.

"... What he didn't know was... it didn't matter, who interrupted. Whatever intervention it was - fate, divine - it needed only a vessel. So with the Herald - my Herald - killed, history needed another to take his place."

He finally looked back at Cullen, sadly. "Everything else - you, Cole, Josephine, I- we're all the same. It is that one moment in history that was so easily changed, and had someone so desperate to change it."

Edited 2015-01-03 07:31 (UTC)

Cullen takes that in for a moment, the thoughts swirling around his head. It's not that he doesn't accept what Dorian says is true - he does. The information the Inquisitor brought back with her from Redcliffe was compelling, and everyone witnessed her and Dorian vanish - if only for a few moments.

"That's all well and good," he finally says - well, not good, certainly not, not if Dorian cares for this man as much as he seems to, and that much is obvious. "But is that what happened here? It seems to me this has nothing to do with Corypheus."

He shook his head. "Likely two utterly unrelated events happening to coincide. How else would we come from two different histories? Time... If someone changed it, it would change in a moment, like it never existed. If these people - these Capitolites - brought me from my time, and then brought you, any gap at call could mean that the second time they brought someone, everything had already changed."

He frowned, taking a sip of brandy. "Don't... tell the Ambassador, but I- I already know, that I'm from her future. Far into her future. Or, well, her future if it hadn't been changed. I likely am from a time in your future, as well. Not that it matters - everything I remember will be at least subtly different, if not completely."

Cullen isn't sure he buys that. Different Inquisitors, Dorian being from the future, time magic fine, but -

"That would be quite the remarkable coincidence," he finds himself saying. "Frankly, I see no reason to believe Corypheus had any hand in this. His influence clearly does not extend to this place, and you said yourself that you have no magic here. There is no magic here. Believe what you like, Dorian, but perhaps you should try having a little hope."

"Hope for what?" Dorian asked with a slight smile, though it didn't reach his eyes.

"A vain hope that somehow everything will go back to normal when I close my eyes? Why torture myself? I knew I would have to leave, eventually. I'd planned Tevinter, planned to make a difference, if I could- but it seems that decision was made for me."

Cullen is, frankly, rather surprised by the other man's words. And, well. A little angered by them too.

"So you're just going to - give up? Accept this as inevitable without fighting it? Without even knowing for sure? And yet you clearly care about him - your Inquisitor. You'd give him up for dead? Just like that?"

Dorian bristles, but keeps it in check. Clearly care about him, indeed.

He case a sidelong glance at Cullen, the humour gone from his expression.

"Do you have a better idea?" He said, crisply, each word carefully enunciated. Because no, of course he wasn't. It was going to keep him up at night for weeks, as it had already for the last three days. He was going to waste countless hours fretting and trying to come up with a way to at least test the hypothesis. But part of him didn't want to know, if he was right or not.

"I thought you wanted me to have some hope," He added after a moment. "What good would confirming his death and my complete inability to home do?"

He was not even going to address the caring about him bit. Wasn't even going to acknowledge it. Where his heart lay was his business - especially when it lay in tatters.

"My idea involves finding out what actually happened, and working to fix it instead of simply accepting the worst-case-scenario," Cullen says, ever the staunch and hopeful one.

"Did you just accept it when you and the Inquisitor got sent to the future?"

"That was completely different. That was something I was responsible for, at least indirectly, and something I knew I could fix. Had to fix."

"I'm hardly not going to do my research, Cullen, but I'm not going to fool myself either. The likelihood of him being alive is... too small, to pin any hope on it."

His head dipped, looking down into his glass. "I am not sure I could cope, otherwise."

"I know what it is to do too little, too late," Cullen says firmly. "I'm not going to let that happen again, and I for one am not going to lose faith. If we don't have faith, or hope, then what do we have?"

Dorian sighed, and then offered him a bemused smile. "Good fashion sense, I suppose? No. I-- of course you are right."

Or at least, Dorian recognized that Cullen needed to be right. Dorian's grief, as always, would have to be his own.

"Unfortunately my study is somewhat limited, but I'll do what I can to ascertain exactly how they brought us here."