thecapitol | Can you be forgiven, when the cold grave has come?

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Can you be forgiven, when the cold grave has come?

Who| Tabris and district 10 people, and Tabris and YOU.
What| Tabris adjusts to life after dying. Poorly.
Where| District 10 suite, the rooftop, and some shitty bar.
When| After her death in the arena.
Warnings/Notes| Petty tantrums, swearing, mentions of death and violence, probably really gross mushy fluff once Alistair gets involved.

I

She's alive. She was dead, but now she's alive. She guessed that Maxwell was right all along, and now she was in...the Capitol. She can remember dying, remember Bayard's corpse, remember tackling Nick, hitting him over and over, until that loud bang, the same that had been made when Bayard died--

It's overwhelming, and all it does is serve to make her angrier. Because, she is mad. She is so mad. When she arrives in the suite, she's fit to tied, and probably should have been, because all she feels is the rage coursing through her veins, and she wants to make sure that the people upstairs get a good show. That's what it's about, right? Putting on a show.

"DID YOU LIKE THAT?" She doesn't know where she should be directing her scream, so she shouts up at the ceiling, too white, too clean. Stomping around the suite, her presence, her rage takes up the entire room. "Was that fun? To watch him die? To watch a kid die? WELL!" She lashes out, kicking over a chair, watching it tumble across the room. "What about that! Is that funny?" Grabbing a vase, she hurls it at the floor, watching shards fly across the room. "Does this get your damned rocks off? Is this a good show?"

For a moment, she empathizes even more with mages, who have to worry about their emotions sending up flares for demonic possession. Right then, if a rage demon had offered, if anything had offered to take that boiling fury and turn her into something more, something with power, something that could destroy these people who had tormented her, who had tormented the people who had tried to protect, who had let a little boy get shot. She would have accepted. Death would have been welcome, if it would take this place down (of course, a single rage demon would never be able to do much, but Tabris would not realize that for a while yet).

She reaches for anything else that looks breakable. Feel free to encourage or tell her to get her shit together.

II

She's calmed down. Slightly. Walk it off, Warden. Walk it off. The only place that she can walk it off without having to see their damned demonic faces--Pink hair? Green skin? Even if they weren't demons, they were ugly--was up here. The wind blowing on her face, ruffling her hair into her eyes, was so much more calming, peaceful, than that hell hole of metal and white and unnatural. She walked to the edge, taking long, slow, deep breaths.

The city...it's massive. It's unbelievably big. And looking over it, she realizes what kind of bad guy she's dealing with. This villain is not a single person she can bring down, it's not an army that she can gather allies to defeat. This isn't the darkspawn, this is beyond every scope she could imagine. She might as well be facing down a whole country, with technology beyond her imagination. If there's any way to fight this, it's as far beyond Tabris as everything else in this world.

For the first time, she realizes that this is a situation that she has no hope of winning. For the first time, she feels...hopeless.

Her fingers grip the side of the rooftop, eyes darting over the city, and she voices her complaints to the wind.

"FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"

III

Okay, she's calm now, really. Or she's just really drunk. It's hard to tell, exactly, but it hadn't taken her long to find where the alcohol was kept. This was no simple tavern, but it was familiar. Some things never change, really. As she sipped her drink her eyes darted around the bar. Listening into conversations, shamelessly eavesdropping. But it was easy to figure out that she wasn't as comfortable as she acted. There was a wariness to her, and the way she drank, with a desperation to try to put everything behind her, tagged her pretty well as someone who had just spent the last month in the pits of the void.

At least the alcohol had improved. Refined. It had a good taste to it, and it decked you better than the shit that you'd normally find. Oh, Oghren, you would love it here. Unending fights and unending alcohol. She stared glumly at the glass in her hand, and chugged it in one go.

Then, proceeded to wince, and try really hard to pretend she wasn't having some paralyzing brain freeze, only made worse with the alcohol. Maker damn it all.

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Maxwell had seen her fall. Not as it had happened, but later, in one of the endless loops of death they seemed to be so fond of. The bright painted pair on the screen laughing about bets lost as their bloody ends were chained together, one after another.

He didn't know how long it took normally for them to brought back - they were still waiting for Dorian, one way or the other - but he set out to find her, just the same. By this point, he expected more silence, more stillness, another empty room and so was actually more relieved than anything when he entered the District 10 suite to the sound of breaking glass and thundering curses.

Easing around a corner, ready to duck - just in case, he surveyed the damage, wondering distantly what the escort for this floor was more Swann or Jason and what that would mean for Tabris.

"I'd say welcome to the Capitol, but it looks you've already made yourself at home," he joked humorlessly.

She has a glass in her hand, and she spins around when she hears the voice, ready to hurl it in the general direction of whoever had come across her. But when she saw it was Maxwell, the glass slipped out of her hand, cracking and scattering more shards across the floor. He had died, just like she had. This really was happening. She had really come back. Or this was a really shitty afterlife.

For a few moments, she just glowered at him, because he wasn't close enough to be able to calm her with his presence, but certainly enough that she didn't want to lash out at him with the fury in her veins. She settled for slowly crushing the remnants of the glass under her shoe, careful to make sure none penetrated the outer sole.

"I feel all warm and welcomed already." She drawled out, kicking the crushed shards away, and contemplating finding something else to break. "I guess we have the answer to our question, huh? They really do bring us back for more nail biting action and fun." She looked up at the ceiling, and scowled. "Maker's breath, but I am glad they find lil ol' me a barrel of laughs."

He held up his hands, palms out, as the glass was aimed at him, a bemused placating gesture. His own revival had been less dramatic, but he certainly understood the feeling. (More, now, even, the longer he waited.)

"I know I've never felt more wanted," he muttered, leaning a shoulder against the wall as Tabris' anger turned elsewhere.

(An Avox hovered on the edges of the common room, looking uncertain and uncomfortable, undoubtedly wanting to dive in and begin to clean -- he shook his head at her gently and she drifted back.)

"On the bright side, this does mean we'll have the chance to show them how much we appreciate it."

"I'm all aflutter. How will I ever be able to thank the Capitol for being so kind, and generous?" She sneered, but talking helped, and the more they spoke, the more she relaxed. She knocked a chair over, anyway, just because she felt particularly spiteful, but the chair would survive to another day.

"So, this is it. We spend our days fighting to the death, being revived, and doing it all over again." She stared out the windows of the suite. What stopped someone from just throwing a chair through them, and either jumping, or pitching someone else? Not that she would do that, she knew enough to understand that there were certain limits. For now.

"Why do they bother? If they can pluck people out of wherever they want, they seem to have unlimited people. So why bring us back? Why make us do it over and over?"

"You know, I asked the same thing? Surely they could find people out there who want to be here, or at the very least, wouldn't mind as much. It could only be easier on them...."

He shook his head, mouth pressing thin as he pushed a breath out through his nose.

"But here we are, again." His gaze darkened, the humor, however dry disappearing, and the line of his lips turned down at the corners. "Some of us."

"I'm sure that they have only the best in mind, in their righteous consideration." She drawls, though stops, when she notes his gaze. She makes her way over the wreckage she'd created, to come face him. She frowns, looking him over, then recalling what he had said, about how some don't come back. Quietly, she reaches up, clasping his shoulder.

"...What's the score." Voice soft and quiet, trying to show some kind of consolation. Wondering who had returned, and who hadn't. She wasn't sure of Max's relationships, which ones would so clearly effect him.

"Two. ...We've lost two, for certain. And a third--"

And the weight of it on him was clear. The words were low, and his chin dropped as he shook his head again.

He blamed himself for not being there, for not doing more. Even they hadn't been his, even if they hadn't remembered him. They had deserved better.

"Josephine and Lavellan didn't return after they fell at the Cornucopia. And Dorian..." A muscle twitched beneath her hand - and Dorian. "They say there's still a chance he'll return, but as I understand it, it's less likely the longer it takes."

So, that's how that was. She had a mental note to be slightly less of an ass to Dorian if he did show up. If Maxwell cared for him, he couldn't be that bad. But she nodded in understanding, squeezing his shoulder. Her look did fall when she heard about Lavellan, though. "Typical. Kill the elf and don't bring her back. Maybe they have a status quo." She mumbled, more to herself, than Maxwell. Bitterness from a life time of ill treatment didn't go away, ever, really.

But he wasn't here to hear her tirade against shems. She gave him an encouraging smile, releasing the shoulder to give him a reassuring pat. "There's nothing we can do now. We just have to wait. But hey...Maybe when we die for real, we pass back to where we belong. That'd be nice, huh?"

If she'd mentioned it aloud, he might have tried to explain it, how it strange it all was, but she didn't. So he merely nodded.

"We can only hope," he said. "They certain deserve it."

Deserved better than to be toys, used and thrown away.

He wasn't sure he believed it, the way so many of the other tributes talked, but there was no harm in hoping they'd found something better. Either back home where they belonged, or at the Maker's side.

Looking back up, he met her gaze. "Though I am sorry you didn't get to meet Lavellan. She seemed like a good woman. I think you would have liked her."

She pressed her lips in a thin line, stepping away and nodding. The look on her face is...distant, upset. "I think I would have. Dalish can be...condescending to us city elves, but. I would have liked to meet her." Her eyes flick up to Maxwell, and she tries to smile, but it doesn't quite come out. "You must think me very odd, to be moved by the death of a woman I've never met. But when I first heard that they'd named an elf the Herald of Andraste, made her the Inquisitor..." She looked aside, the smile taking true form. "It was nice. I don't think you would understand. But...it gave me hope."

"Not odd, no."

He couldn't truly know what it had felt like for her, to hear of an elf Inquisitor, anymore than he could what it been like for the mages of Adella's world to hear of her, but he wasn't blind to how either of them were treated. He could imagine what it meant to them.

And while he didn't really feel guilt anymore over his own existence (not as much anyway), it did make him wonder why it was so different from one person to the next. Could it mean there were multiple Makers? Or was it all truly just random chance - whoever happened to be close enough to hear the Divine's cries?

"There was at least one other Lavellan that we know of," he offered gently. "Dorian's was an elf - a man, but Dalish."

"I wonder how many there are of us wandering around," She murmured, plucking her lip idly. She watched the maid, seeing the anger quelled, finally skirt around them and head for the mess. She shrugged it off, at least it wasn't an elf, turning back to Maxwell. "I'm glad to hear, though. That there are more elves running around. I was starting to wonder if we only got one each, or something."

She had to say, though, that she appreciated the way Maxwell handled her anger at the treatment of elves. It felt like plenty of others, even the other Inquisitor, hadn't quite grasped why she was angry, how she could be bitter. Maxwell didn't completely understand, in a way no human really could, but he sure seemed to try. He was given a friendly pat, and a smile.

Topic change time. Tabris had "Anyway, now that I'm done redecorating--Tell me about this place, Max. I know you haven't been here much longer than me, but give me the low down that you have." He seemed an observant man, and whatever he could tell her would be more than she already knew.

"Maker only knows," he sighed, shoulders rising and falling bemusedly. "Between us, other than Adella and Cullen, none of us have had a universe in common. Though--" His head canted slightly, thoughtful. "It seems some things do remain constant. My advisers were the same as Adella's, as were Lavellen's. And the inner circle..."

He trailed off, looking sidelong at Tabris' and offering a wry smile.

They could probably drive themselves crazy, trying to come up with an answer.

"Regardless, however it works, we're here now." And that was the immediate concern.

He moved toward the grand windows and leaned a shoulder against the frame, boots crossing one-over-the-other at the ankle as he looked out at the city. (Out, rather than down, even here on the highest floor of the Tower.)

"The city is The Capitol, and if it goes by any other name, I haven't heard it." He nodded his chin toward the buildings outside the glass, then looked back at Tabris. "The country is Panem. We're in The Tower, where tributes live when they're not in the arena. It's also home to our stylists, escorts, and previous arena winners - known as victors - though I understand they can also live elsewhere. There's also--"

He paused, glancing toward the silent woman in red as she hastily moved about the common room, cleaning up Tabris' outburst like it had never been.

"The Avoxes. They... aren't slaves, they don't seem to be owned, but neither are they servants." His brow furrowed. "They were free men and women once, but apparently they did something to upset the government here. Their tongues have been cut out and they've been - reeducated."

Edited 2015-03-16 14:15 (UTC)

"Not everyone is constant, besides the Wardens, and the Inquisitors. Alistair, I've noted, is different from each universe--Let me tell you, if I hear one more time that he's king, I'm going to go piss right off the deep end." She grumbled, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "I bet he's a king in yours, too, right? I'm the only one who seemed to take offense to it." She loved that man, she truly did, but the void if she was putting him in charge of a kingdom, when he didn't want to lead the wardens when they numbered two people. And further than the void, if she would leave her love, because elves couldn't marry kings.

They had a hard enough time marrying humans who weren't kings.

"Panem, huh." She mumbled, listening to him speak. "The Capitol. The Tower. The Arena. These guys know when to be creative, and when to...not." She noted, trailing after him. The city was hideous, but she looked at it anyway. Too metal, too clean, too...neat. It felt wrong. It felt as unnatural as living inside a metal box.

Her eyes turned with his to the woman cleaning up her mess, and when Maxwell tells her what they really are, she feels...guilt. Shame. That woman was little better than an elven servant, skirting around and hoping to not get hit. At least the elves could talk. Her face contorted, and she turned around, crossing her arms.

"...Well, now I feel like an ass."

"...I'm not sure I dare say," he said when she asked him about Alistair. A gentle joke, if not particularly funny.

He understood.

He was living it.

"I meant only that they exist, from one to the other, where myself-- did they simply not know me? Did I die at the Conclave? ...Or maybe I don't exist at all in their worlds." His shoulders shifted again. A small gesture that belied how much he'd thought about it, trying to decide if that made him feel better or worse. "No one can say for certain."

It felt a little like he imagined being a ghost would. Existing outside the world, so close, but so very far. Watching it pass you by.

He exhaled a long breath, and looked back at the Avox, wanting to change the subject.

"Avoxing is a threat they use. It was the first I was given after I arrived. How often it's actually done, I don't know, but... they don't seem to run out."

Edited 2015-03-17 11:55 (UTC)

"You yourself said that we're going to drive ourselves mad doing that, Max." She gives him a gentle nudge with an elbow, smiling softly, though with understanding. If you started to think about where you were in the scheme of things...Tabris knew where she would be, if Duncan hadn't saved her. She had known her fate as soon as Soris slid her that sword. It had been a death she had accepted, worthwhile, for the sake of saving her kin.

And someone had to keep Soris from taking the fall.

She turned to look at the Avox as well, guilt still twisting her stomach. She hadn't really done anything against the Capitol--Just given their slaves more work.

"It's not hard to convince people they aren't people." She muttered quietly, voice distant. "That drudgery is all they deserve, and to question their superiors is unthinkable. I'm not sure how the Capitol does it...Maybe it's similar to making someone Tranquil." She sighed, looking away from the woman. She'd have to be more careful with her anger from now on.

"...So, that's how they threaten to keep us in line, huh? I'll have to be careful. I know a dozen people who'd love to have me shut up."

"It's one of the ways they threaten us," he clarified lowly. "Another popular one I've heard is to punish those we care about for our misdeeds: both those already here, as well as those who aren't."

He gestured between them, tracking an invisible line from her to him in example.

"If they believe we're important enough to each other, they might cut out my tongue to try and keep you in line. Or vice versa." The hand shifted, an uncertain tip. "Though I think that one's as much about keeping us in line, as trying to discourage inter-district alliances."

Keep them apart. Keep them disorganized.

"Like I haven't gotten enough of humans trying to break my mind to make me listen t' them." She drawled lowly, before turning away from the Avox. Too painful to think about. She'll be more careful to clean up after herself from now on. Now that she could see her own people's struggle reflected in them.

She frowned, as he spoke. Would she keep in line to protect him? The answer came to an oddly firm affirmative. He was a good man. The humans needed more like him. "Should I start acting like I don't like you, then? I'm good at that. I can start with a swirlie..." She smiled, rubbing her hands together. A joke to feel a little better about a colossally shitty situation.

"Don't even understand this district nonsense. Should've let us group up by worlds. We were bound to do it anyway."

"No need," he replied easily to the teasing, barely missing a beat. "I've already decided I can't stand you."

But it was said with a flash of warmth in his eyes. Honest and fond. He'd heard all the stories about the Hero of Ferelden, had only interacted with her in the most distant of senses as the Inquisitor, and never truly expected to know her... But he already liked her.

Loud and brash and brave, it was hard to see things quite so dire with her around.

Smirking gently, he nodded his head toward the window again. Offering the little bit more explanation he had.

"Outside of The Capitol, the rest of the country is divided up into districts: one through twelve. Before they started bringing in 'off-worlders,' as they call us, the games were populated by them. Two, every year. Children. A boy and a girl." He still wasn't entirely clear as to how to the games had come about and why. Swann's story had opened as many holes as it had closed. "The winner earned their district extra food and supplies for the year. We are assigned a district when we arrive, so they might still receive their reward if we win."

He tipped his head at her.

"Or so I'm told."

"Ah, if only I had a gold every time I heard that. I'd be able to bribe the darkspawn to go away." She replied, a smile on her face as well. She hadn't expected to like one of the human inquisitiors--Adella certainly hadn't managed to leave a very good impression. But Maxwell was easy to get along with, and didn't condescend, with an easy humor.

She listened when he spoke, though. Frowning, when he told her that they had used their own children for the games beforehand. She had thought it barbaric to put any children in at all. And before, the games and been populated with them? "What is wrong with these people." She muttered, shaking her head. "How can anyone think that's okay?"

She sighed, the districts thing still didn't make too much sense, but she knew Maxwell had told her all he could. "Maybe I can find one of the older tributes around here, and try to make some sense out of this." Rubbing her chin, she glanced out the window, staring at the little specks of people. "How people like this can even exist."

"If I had a coin for every time I've asked that," he murmured. "Just when I think I've heard the worst they can possibly come up with, there's something more."

He fell silent for a moment, eyes tracking the lights far, far below as they passed along the street beside the Tower. Like stars... ripped from the sky.

"If there is one small benefit to us being here, it means they aren't. It shouldn't be up to us, but if they're own people won't care for them--"

He had wanted the Inquisition to be a force for good. To make things better.

And it was one small thing he could hold onto when everything else in this place closed in around him.

"I think you're right." She muttered quietly, leaning against the window. "They still have children here, but. I guess if it's mostly adults...I'd rather have to do this than be replaced by a kid." She glanced over at Maxwell, and reached up to pat his shoulder. Things were looking as grim now, as they had in the arena. But if they let themselves give into it, that'll just make things worse.

"Hey. Think about all the other good things. You get to see me, for instance. We can get chocolate. A lot of chocolate. There isn't darkspawn! No Deep Roads. And like, 90% of the adults here are really attractive. And we get to watch them work out in spandex."

Maxwell snorted, not quite a laugh, but smiled and bumped her arm gently with his elbow.

"No meetings, no reports. No need to wonder if someone is planning to stick a knife in me when my back's turned because everyone is...."

He slanted her a mischievous look.

"It's practically a holiday."

She snorted, thunking her forehead on the glass, to look over the city. "You know, I was in the Deep Roads when I got pulled. You ever been in them? The arena was an improvement, honestly. Fresh air, no darkspawn, meat that isn't dried, darkspawn, or spiders. The thing that gets to me is the Capitol, the puppet strings they put on us when they brought us here." She turned back to him, for a moment mimicking a puppet's arm movements.

"But hey, hopefully the next place won't be so cold. That'll be nice, eh?"

He shook his head. "I found a few entrances, but never ventured inside. We actually sealed most of them that we came across."

Mainly because of most of them had been opened by Venatori - by accident or design - and sealing was beneficial to both keeping the darkspawn where they belonged, and ruining the cultists day. A win-win, so far as he was concerned.

"I would say a beach would be nice. Sunshine and sand, but I imagine they could make anywhere unpleasant... and, now that you've said it, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't craft a Deep Roads just for us."

Can you be forgiven, when the cold grave has come?

I, not in 10, but the Inquis does he wants

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