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

[allyorfoe]

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.

Comments

[dreadinquisitor]

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."

[allyorfoe]

"Well, thanks for that. With the Wardens up to...god knows what, keeping darkspawn off the surface is going to be harder than ever, for a while." She mumbled, sighing, and rubbing her head. "That mess is all my fault, too. Should've known better than to trust an Orlesian with my people. Maybe Loghain had a good point." She'd thought about that a lot lately, more than she'd like to admit--And more than she could ever tell Alistair. Growing older, and having a larger view of the big picture, she can see some of what he was saying, all those years ago.

It certainly didn't help that the Orlesian Wardens had spent the last ten years fucking everything up. She'll never get over them giving Ser Pounce-A-Lot away.

"Ahah. Well, damn. I've already got a contingency plan if the darkspawn show up. And it's take Alistair and get the fuck out. We can sense the darkspawn, but it's a two way street. They know where we are. They're attracted to us. Which is something we're both used to, being incredibly attractive." She batted her eyelashes at Max, grinning.

[dreadinquisitor]

He waved a hand idly at her thanks, shaking his head. It was as much his concern, and that of the Inquisition's, as anyone's, he thought. They were, after all, quite in it together. Darkspawn didn't recognize borders or race.

It was all death and destruction to them.

"If you promise to take the rest of us along with you, I'm sure we at least could all learn to contain ourselves," he joked instead. "And while we're not Wardens, we do have some experience with darkspawn."

[allyorfoe]

"I'd feel guilty bringing you guys along." She replied sullenly, crossing her arms. "We'd be attracting more darkspawn than usual. It's a two way street. We sense them, they sense us. And with there only two Wardens, they might chance it. We'll be attacked more." Of course, that was also an excellent reason to have them joined with the rest, but having them be attacked more often exposed them to the taint more than was healthy for a person.

"...And I can't put people through the Joining for just a few weeks. That shit is a secret I swore to keep. I can't just use it and then have the person hop out of the Wardens." She pursed her lips. She'd made oaths. If you couldn't stick to your oaths, what could you stick to?

"...But honestly, it's all conjecture. There is something I needed to talk to you." She crossed her arms, glancing out the window again, expression somber. Her fingers squeezed into her arms, taking a deep breath.

"...You trusted me with Bayard. And I failed. I got him killed. I'm sorry, Maxwell."

[dreadinquisitor]

"More guilty than leaving us here with these people?" he asked, an eyebrow cocking upward, but he was mostly teasing, knowing well the dangers involved.

But as went on and the conversation turned, his expression sobered, all traces of any humor - morbid or otherwise - disappearing.

"Tabris." He pushed off the wall and reached to take her elbow, giving her a gentle, but steadying squeeze. "What happened is not your fault. The blame rests squarely, first, on that man - Nick. Then on the Capitol for putting Bayard in the arena."

[allyorfoe]

Her mouth twists slightly, lips a thin line. "It's their faults, too, but it'd be the coward's way out to say that I couldn't have done a better job. I should have kept him in my line of sight, I shouldn't have let him wander. I knew people were out there, people who'd attack a kid." She runs a hand through short-cropped hair, words starting to rush out. Guilt was not something that some people might think Tabris incapable of--But she bore responsibility, and took on the faults. She may tend to rambo her way into being in charge, but by the Maker, she would take all the ills of command with the positives. And guilt has been eating her for her failure.

"I couldn't even take revenge. Maybe if I'd taken the hit, or killed the guy first, or something. But I just got mad. I just fucking berserked his ass, but I didn't even get any of the powers. Just being real pissed off. At least it didn't hurt too much." It was a burning in her, like someone had stuck a coal in her chest, but when she got like that...pain didn't matter. Until later. And there hadn't been a later.

[dreadinquisitor]

Maxwell was silent for a moment, grip slackening on her elbow and then releasing entirely.

"...Shortly after I arrived here, another tribute told me something I didn't want to believe," he said finally, voice soft and slow, the words carefully chosen. "Tabris, there people who have been competing here for years. People who have had to watch those they care about die over and over again. So... don't, please. Let's not start down this path."

He waved a hand gently and then folded his arms over his broad chest.

"At best, we'll lose all track of who's turn it is to apologize. At worst, it'll lose all meaning. Instead, let's vow to get them out so that's not something we have to look forward to."

[allyorfoe]

He's right, of course, and she knows it. She's not happy about it, for multiple reasons, because the whole thing is basically saying, you are doomed to failure no matter what, you'll never protect them. That may be how things are here, now. But it hurt. She'd always tried to do whatever necessary, to protect those close to her. Hell, she'd set a village on fire rather than risk her friends to a darkspawn attack.

"Getting them out. Winning the games? I could do that." She's very pointed in her words, because if she has picked anything up quickly, it's that general complaining is fine, but talking about rebelling...isn't. "I got close, last time. Nick only won because of that...weapon he had. I out-powered him in hand to hand. And did you see the newest Victor? I could've taken him on, too. Scrawny nerd." She huffed. So close to the end. Although, what would she have done, if Nick hadn't been there? Killed Bayard herself?

"But...you're right." She held out a hand, a bitter smile on her face. "No more blame game, for now. Not while we have bigger games to fry."

[dreadinquisitor]

He understood her reaction. It was the same one he'd had. ...But the arena had proved Shepard right, and as much as he didn't like it, he understood what his immediate goals would now have to be.

"Getting them in a place to win," he said with a small nod, holding out a hand -- just short of meeting hers. "Putting them first -- that's what the heroes do, isn't it?"

[allyorfoe]

Her mind was on two people in particular. Two people she would have to see die. One, she had already seen. The other...if they entered the arena, she might see him die, and she wasn't sure if she'd be able to stand it. But she'd have to acknowledge the possibility. But she knew, if she was putting someone first to win--It'd be Alistair. She would make him a victor if it killed her--A scenario that would probably be exactly how it played out.

Nodding, she took his hand, giving Maxwell a tired, wry smile.

"That's what I've been doing since I became an adult, Max. I won't let this place change that." A little derisive snort followed that, as she recalled the day she took the first steps towards becoming a hero. Taking that sword from Soris, and going forth, knowing she'd die for the rescue. Since then, the world had continued to demand her sacrifice, and she'd continued to do just that.

[dreadinquisitor]

Hero hadn't been a title he'd been looking for, but even from the start it had been there. A joke at first... then increasingly, startlingly, serious.

He hadn't asked for it, but he like to think he'd risen to the occasion -- that their trust hadn't been misplaced. He liked to think he could do so again.

He shook her hand, and offered her a small smile back.

"At least neither of us have to do it alone this time. Between the two of us, they won't know what to do with themselves."