thecapitol | (no subject)

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The first thing that Dorian did when he awoke was reflexively touch his chest, only to find the scarred over flesh was instead smooth and unbroken, just as it was when he had first arrived in the capitol. He just breathed, for a moment, staring up at the ceiling with his hand resting against his lungs, feeling the breath fill them and then slip away. After a moment he got up - found the clothes waiting for him, and dressed, before spending a few long minutes carefully looking over himself in the mirror. Every cut, every gash, every scar was gone. The hunger and the illness no longer hollowed his cheeks, the bags were gone from under his eyes. He carefully waxed his moustache and tousled his hair, looking at his reflection and feeling, not for the first time, older than he appeared.

When he stepped out his door, he nearly tripped over the small candle burning at his feet, but somehow managed to keep his dignity. He frowned, leaning down to pick it up.

"Exactly how long have I been gone?" He wondered aloud.

~~~

Later, when he could finally steal a moment of peace from his escort's overbearing gaze, Dorian escaped into the city. He made a beeline for a small, but up-class, bar - the kind that seemed to cater to people of more peculiar tastes than the usual. He needed a drink. Or, you know, ten.

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"It's about time."

It was a rather anticlimactic way to greet someone you'd been certain you'd never see again, but Maxwell wasn't certain he trusted himself to say anything more.

Stopped at the end of the hall, he shook his head, relief doing funny things to his knees.

(The candle he'd brought disappeared quickly into his pocket.)

"Trust me, Dorian, you make entrance enough without resorting to all that."

Dorian looked up at the voice, a smile coming to his lips as he blew the candle out. "I may need to be caught up on what 'all that' entailed. Last I checked vigils weren't a common feature for a couple days escapade in Death, so it must have been longer than that."

He set the candle back down next to the door, and turned to smile even wider at Maxwell. "You're looking well. Perhaps I won't have to kill you for dying after all."

"Longer than that, yes," he confirmed, but he didn't clarify.

Did it matter now? The man was back, and he had likely been just a little foolish in worry. (The strangeness of it, he'd tell himself later. Two men, one face, tangled up in his thoughts.) Maybe even more than a little.

"You still could," he offered, smile tugging at his lips. "But then I would be truly dead and then you would be angry all over again and what could we do then?"

"I have to admit, I'm feeling a touch more 'pleased to be alive' than 'murderous rage', so I think you get a pass," Dorian teased. He noticed the lack of detail, but he didn't press it. He assumed he'd hear it from Jason, soon enough.

"Whatever they use to heal us must be quite something - I don't have a scar on me. Well, save for my beauty ones from back home, of course." And he had quite a few of those, to be honest. Hanging out with the Inquisition meant he collected them, even with the healers.

"Magnanimous of you." He half-bowed, bending at the waist, head dipping smartly. "I shan't forget your mercy."

Straightening back up, his eyes moved over Dorian's face. Checking for himself, before quickly meeting his gaze again.

"Science, they insist," he said. "Personally, I'm just happy not to be an undead."

Which was what he'd pictured when they'd spoken of it. Unable to imagine how it could possibly work otherwise.

"Long enough to make everyone worried." The elf replied grimly, peeking from the hall that she had been innocently walking past. She'd ducked her head in once or twice, for Maxwell's sake, to see if things had improved. "Nice to see you finally joined us. Nearly gave him a heart attack, you know." She continued on, not bothering to say who 'he' was, because Dorian knew perfectly well. "Have you done this before? The Capitol? You'll have to get used to being waited on by humans, not elves, but other than that, it's not bad." She paused, twisting her lips. Being nice to tevinter mages was not usually on her list of priorities, but.

"...Glad you're back." There. Not too mushy.

"I don't know, I can't imagine undeath is all that bad," He said - teasing and light and obviously sarcastic. Necromancers kind of had to get used to that particular line of jokes.

"But if I was capable of this sort of 'science' I imagine it would be rather easier to summon decent help."

He reached out, patting Maxwell's shoulder as if to make certain for himself that the man was healthy and whole.

"Everyone else? Are they-" He trailed off. All accounted for? Back in the Capitol? Still in the Arena...?

He really didn't know who 'he' was, though he assumed that it had something to do with the candles, so it caused a smile to twitch to his lips.

"Oh? Nice to know I would be missed, I suppose. You've seen the illusive shape behind my candle vigil, then?" The smile turned into a lopsided smirk. "Oh, I'm quite used to human slaves too, you know. But yes, I spent several weeks here already."

He raised an eyebrow to the last, but nodded his head. "Likewise. Everyone else? I assume that we're all accounted for, at least?"

"Well, I suppose if I were being raised by you..."

He let the joke fall, the humor tasting strange - and not just because the mage's next question wasn't funny at all. (Too true, too much more than just teasing. He pushed it aside to deal with later.)

"Tabris and Bull fell shortly after we did. Bayard as well. Only Cullen remains." His lips pressed into a line as he took a long breath. "Josephine and Lavellan didn't return."

In another time, another place, he would have made a joke about being 'raised', but his humour disappeared with the news. His hand fell in time with his face.

"... You're certain?" He asked, his voice grave. "Not merely... delayed, as apparently I have been?"

The answer was clear even before he spoke. His head dipped, regret flashing across his face. Wishing he could say otherwise, but unable to.

"They're rooms have been cleared," he said quietly. "And there are new tributes in their place... as if they never were."

Except for those who remembered. Like the arena, gone - even from their very skin - but not forgotten.

He didn't know what to say to that, something close to bile rising in his throat, and he turned his face to glare at something unseen.

"... I see," he said eventually, stiffly. "How very ceremonious of them." Lavellen. He hadn't even had a chance to ask-- but no. Probably for the best. And Josie...

He took a hard breath and let it out through his nose.

"I'm sorry, Dorian."

He meant it. Maxwell had barely known either of them, having arrived just shortly before the arena, but Dorian had spent more time with them. Had known Josie for more than what they all merely remembered, and Lavellan.... He could guess what that had meant to the mage.

A connection, however small, to his own world. To his own Inquisitor.

"Is... is there anything I can do?"

Cyrus had one seat at the bar; his briefcase had another. The fact that there wasn't a great deal of room at the bar otherwise didn't seem to matter to him. He had one hand wrapped around a drink blended of two brightly-colored liquors that swirled around each other without mixing, and the other propping up his communicator.

He read what was on it with the smallest of smiles tugging at the corner of his mouth; not happiness, nothing so obvious, but with a kind of quiet satisfaction. The look of someone for whom something has just gone right.

If anyone were trying to use the seat next to him, he took no notice.

"Far too long." Emily rises from the sofa in the common area as Dorian emerges from his room, relief spreading over her face. She looks overtired, and there are papers and business cards all over the table from where she and Jason have sat late into the night calling up potential sponsors for Nick, the last remaining hope for District Seven. "We began to worry that you weren't coming back."

The fact that the only seat remaining at the bar was taken up by a briefcase didn't even seem to phase Dorian. He simply strolled up to it, picked up the briefcase, and slid it onto the bar while he took the seat.

"Dreadfully sorry," He told it cheerfully, "But greater needs, I'm afraid." He waved a hand for the bartender.

The smile vanished from Cyrus' face, replaced by something between confusion and affront - an expression that couldn't understand why someone would think it was acceptable to move his things without his permission.

He paused before his reply to look Dorian up and down, trying to place him-- trying to decide what about him made him think that was permissible. Not Capitol was about as far as he got. It was as far as he needed to go.

"I'm afraid you're not in the Districts anymore," he said, and it wasn't unfriendly, at least in tone. "The tendency here is to ask first."

"...You don't know?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. She had assumed that he would be well aware of the person behind the vigil. Weren't they...? Maybe she'd been too quick to assume she'd known the lay of the land in regards to the two of them. Were they interested? Just friends? Doing that awkward courting thing where neither could spit it out? Tabris wasn't one for such dances, having made her feelings on Alistair crystal clear the moment she decided her interest.

Sometimes things needed a little push.

"I do. Is there anyone you suspect? Anyone you're...interested in?" She pressed, rubbing her chin. As blunt as a trainee's sword. "Everyone but Josephine and Lavellan have appeared, you're the last to trickle in. Adella, Cullen...Maxwell." At this, the chin rubbing continued, as she clearly was looking for a reaction. Dorian would surely have no idea what she was implying.

"You sound like a fresh mage new to the circle, blushing and green," He teased wryly, crossing his arms, even as mention of Josephine and Lavellan... He'd already been told, by Maxwell, that they hadn't returned, but he couldn't quite help the twinge of grief. Josie didn't deserve such a death. Not here. Not anywhere. He hoped that she was in peace, somewhere. Home, if the Maker willed it.

And he prayed the Maker did.

"Where my interests lie, should they even exist, is hardly business of yous," he said, but it was still in a light teasing tone rather than an admonishment.

He turned to the voice, his expression neutral when he spots her, until he does a quick scan of the room and finds Jason no where to be seen. His lips quirked into a smile.

"We? Somehow I think you mean you, and for that, I am incredibly grateful."

"Oh, he belongs to you, does he?" Dorian quipped, turning his head to flash a smile as Cyrus, not particularly keen to dissuade him of the notion that he was from Panem. Being an obvious tribute tended to have it's downsides.

As was unfortunately readily apparent as soon as the bartender came over, almost with tears in his eyes.

"You did good, Dorian," He said gruffly as he gave him his usual. "Don't you let it get you down. You'll get it next time."

Dorian sighed inwardly but smiled bemusedly, and raised the glass to thank the bartender before he shuffled off. Oh well. So much for anonymity.

"You'll excuse me, I've yet to fully understand the etiquette of the capitol. I take it that this seat was reserved?"

Oh. There was only one explanation for that exchange. Cyrus' eyebrows went up; he'd really been preoccupied this Arena, hadn't he. Learning Tributes' names and affiliations had never become a priority for him, but usually he wasn't this bad at recognizing them on sight.

"...Not at all," he replied, this time with a smile that is, at least, courteous. "I didn't notice how crowded it's gotten, I suppose." As he spoke, he picked his briefcase up off of the bar and set it down beside his chair; The space is all yours.

A pause. He sipped his drink. Considered whether or not to go on. Sighed inwardly. Added: "Condolences, by the way."

"None necessary," Dorian replied, offering a tight, but similarly courteous, smile. "Otherwise I'm afraid I would drown in them, and I would much prefer to drown in this." He raised his glass and took a sip.

"Now that my cover has been blown, however, it's only fair that you similarly reveal yours. Unless, of course, you'd prefer I call you Ser all evening."

He pushed that wave of grief away and forced a stilted smile that did not reach his eyes to his lips. "I don't suppose you have a good brandy? Beyond that, I think there's little any of us can do. There had to be some stakes, or who would bother to watch a death match without any death?" The sarcasm was sharp and dark and fairly bitter.

"...Not on me, I'm afraid." His mouth twisted with wry, dark humor, gesturing to the deep blue jacket he had on - the trousers made from the strange, though oddly comfortable, material. The pockets were limited and not nearly big enough to hide anything like that. "But I imagine we can dig some up, if we were to put our minds to it."

He paused a moment, then reached reach and rested a hand on the man's shoulder.

"Though, you should probably stop in with the others first. It -- has been a while. They'll want to see you."

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