thecapitol | (no subject)

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Who| Tabris and Cullen
What| Tabris needs to plan with Cullen what's going to happen in the arena, before they make plans with the rest of the Thedas people.
Where| Some coffee shop, because where else do you plan vital meetings.
When| Today???
Warnings/Notes| Probably discussion of violence, death, and a lot of people dying.

She's nervous. Tabris is not usually a nervous person, because that implies that she's been thinking over a decision, which as a whole is not common. She leaps in with both feet, and takes whatever might come. But this is different. Because she's dealing with someone that she respects, but has no power over. It's an odd situation, honestly. And she supposes that she really ought to be bringing in Adella and Maxwell. But messing with multiple Inquisitors is a mess, and Cullen is the Commander, and this is a battle situation. Right.

Ah, fuck.

She stares out at the street, at the people bustling around to whatever bullshit Capitolites possibly have to bustle to. She's an idiot. She's going to piss Cullen off, and be stuck with a man that doesn't even know who she is. At least she'll have Alistair. That thought calms her somewhat, and she closes her eyes, taking a sip of the stupid, overpriced frappucino that she's become fond of. Caramel, or something like that. God, she loved caffeine. It was addictive. Maybe she should discourage Cullen from trying it....

Anyway.

She would wait for him at the designated location, looking a little nervous about all of this, because words are hard and she really does want to get along with Cullen.

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Tabris's insistence on seeing him - on how serious she seems - puts Cullen a little on edge. Maker knows, he wishes she'd take things a little more seriously once in a while, but it's strange enough to put him on high alert, so that when he arrives at the designated location, he's tense and ready for just about any kind of bad news.

"Warden-Commander," he says simply as he finds her, and seats himself across from her. "What's this all about?"

"You know, if we keep calling each other Commander, it's going to get real old real fast. Or hilarious! It depends on your view." She starts off with, trying to lighten the feeling of this meeting just a little. She shifted in her seat, staring back off to the street. She didn't say anything for a few moments, but she knew there was little use in procrastinating.

"...There's an elephant in the room, Cullen. A big, glowy blue elephant." She finally turned to look at him, her expression almost...sheepish. "Now, you've never spoken about the man to me, but all things considered, can I jump to this crazy assumption, that you're not particularly fond of this elephant?" How could he possibly support Anders, after all? Not when he'd spent years under Meredith.

It takes him a moment or two to realize who she's talking about - but then it hits him, and he sits back a little in his seat, eyeing her carefully.

"What about Anders?" Cullen asks, keeping his voice and expression neutral. "I wasn't aware you knew him."

"I--Know him? Maker's breath, Cullen, I'm his Warden recruiter." The words fell out with no grace at all, as she stared at him. Didn't he know--? Wasn't it common knowledge that she was the one who had managed to let him go, to let him escape with a spirit that she had recruited. Because Tabris' main claim to fame seemed to be taking the undesirables of society and throwing them in her camp to tag along with her.

She blinked at him, tilting her head. "You know he's a Warden, right?"

Cullen shrugs vaguely. "There were rumors, around Kirkwall, but I learned a long time ago never to trust in those. Besides, I've never heard of a Grey Warden just... leaving the Order.

"I knew of him at Kinloch - his escape attempts were legendary - some admired him, and others scorned him. I never knew him personally, though, and the next I heard of him was several years later when he appeared in Kirkwall, one of Hawke's companions."

She sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Andraste's flaming--Sorry. Okay. About six months after I killed the archdemon, I was given Arl Howe's lands. No torture chamber, luckily, I guess he only developed the taste in Denerim. Anyway, I went to Vigil's Keep, darkspawn had attacked it, caught the Wardens off guard. I cleared them out, because apparently I'm the only one in Thedas capable of killing a horde--Oh, well. This is where Anders comes in. He was there. A little fuzzy on the details, but he wanted out of the Circle, I needed Wardens." She waved her hand around vaguely.

"It worked out for everyone. Anders wasn't constantly trying to escape, he's a damn good fighter. He helped me deal with everything in Amaranthine." Now that, she was skipping over as much as possible. "And then he just. Disappeared. I came back from trying to track down another mage, and poof." She made a little motion with her hands.

"But the truth of it, Cullen, is that he's still a Warden. You can't stop being a Warden. I can feel him, just like I can feel Alistair. It's actually clearer here--There isn't as much, ah. Interference. The Wardens are even harder to get out of than the Templars--And I'm not trying to mock your ability to do so. It simply isn't done. Wardens are, until death." Pause. "Except Fiona. I wonder if she'd tell me how...?"

Cullen listens to all this carefully - even orders a tea when a serving girl comes 'round. He's not sure if Tabris feels like she owes him the explanation, or if she's just like this all the time, with everyone - in the end, does it really matter?

"So, what, you feel responsible for the man?" he finally asks. "His actions are his own, regardless of his status as a Warden or not. I'm not bringing him on as an ally, he will do nothing but put us all in danger, and he wouldn't want anything to do with me, regardless."

She'd wanted Cullen to understand, to know why she'd recruited him, and why it was that she had gotten into this position. When he speaks--He's not thrilled, that much is clear. But it's the response that she expected. She glances away, mouth twisting. "He is my responsibility. He's a Warden, and I am the Warden-Commander. I can't kick him out--That's not how we work."

She turns back to him, shoulders squaring. "But I won't ask you to work with him. Our group is already too big, Eight people, Cullen. We'd have eight people going into the arena together. So I propose this--I'll go with the Wardens. Alistair and Anders. Whoever wishes to go with your group may, whoever wishes to go with us, may. We stay close enough that we can communicate, but not enough to attract people." She proposes the idea, fidgeting with the straw of her drink. She wasn't sure how good of an idea it'd be, but she remembered the last arena. A large group of injured, which could only attract people trying to kill them off.

And this way, there'd be no fighting between Anders and any of the others.

"He's never expressed any loyalty to the Wardens as far as I know," Cullen pointed out bluntly. Permanent or not, the man had never seemed to care - it seemed silly to him that Tabris should take such a burden on herself.

"You'll do as you see fit. But you do know what he did, yes? He's the sort of man who will send all his friends and loved ones to the fire, in service to an impossible ideal - whether they're willing or not. The chances that he even cares about you are slim, and even if he does, it wouldn't stop him from betraying you in a heartbeat. I can't stop you from doing whatever you wish, but I'd be remiss not to warn you against taking up with him. He's not to be trusted."

"He showed loyalty to me." She replied, simply. Or he had, until he ran, she supposed. But he had gone with her into places that no person would willingly walk into. You can't just forget that someone went with you into a den of broodmothers and didn't turn right back around. And he knew secrets about the Wardens, secrets she knew he had kept, because she was pretty sure if it ever slipped out, she'd probably be put to death.

Maybe that was an exaggeration. But she didn't want to risk it.

Besides, taking burdens on that weren't hers to take seemed to be her modus operandi.

She looked down at her drink, stirring it with her straw as he spoke. She couldn't explain to Cullen why she trusted Anders--couldn't, didn't want to. Cullen had a right to be upset. More than Tabris had the right to lecture him. So she just nods. "Fair enough. I'm still going to do it--But Cullen. I'm going for the cornucopia, when we start the arena. I need a weapon if I want to get anything accomplished." She takes a moment, because what she was about to say wasn't...easy. To talk about, to think about.

"It's dangerous. If I don't make it, and Alistair does. Forget everything I just said, okay? Just grab him. Keep him with you. He's going to need it. He had a hard enough time watching me die on TV. If it happens right in front of him..." She glanced aside. "I don't need to tell you. So. Please, watch out for him, if I don't make it, alright?" She didn't say anything about whether or not she would go, if Alistair died. If she could handle it.

She was pretty sure if she saw Alistair die, she would follow shortly, even if she left a mountain of corpses behind her.

"You knew him ten years ago. A man can change a lot in ten years," Cullen pointed out logically - if anyone could speak to that, it was him, after all. "I simply fear that you'll find him not as you knew him, and that he'll lead you to a bad end."

But he also wasn't going to argue with the woman - she'd obviously made up her mind on the matter, and Cullen was unlikely to change it.

"You and Alistair are always welcome with the Inquisition - together or apart, it doesn't matter. That, you can count on."

"I know." She said, because he was right. Because people do change, and Anders changed. She was taking a risk based on hoping that someone who didn't even know her personally would be loyal to a different person, and an order that he abandoned. But she couldn't deny him the right to at least be given a chance.

She wanted to ask what Cullen would have done. Hadn't the templar order all gone kooky after Kirkwall? What would he do, faced with one of his old subordinates? But that might be a sore spot that she didn't want to press, because she still wanted Cullen's friendship. And she couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't be willing to make the sacrifice that she couldn't.

"Thank you, Cullen. Please, look out for Alistair if anything happens..." She sighed, looking off. "I know you don't agree. And you have the right to that. But. It's not easy for me to just give up on my companions." Hadn't she run across Ferelden, through dragon pits and deep roads, just for the possibility to find Morrigan? A year after she had disappeared? A thought broke through at that, and she sat up suddenly, turning to Cullen.

"...Speaking of apostate companions that took off right under my nose. You have Morrigan with you, right? She's got a child, right? Right around Bayard's age." She must, for Alistair and Cullen's Hero of Ferelden yet lived, unless Riordan had managed to survive to kill the archdemon, somehow. Which was doubtful. "Have you met him?"

"I'll do everything I can for Alistair, should the need arise. You have my word," he says graciously. What sort of person would he be otherwise?

He tilts his head at her change of subject - strange. "Er, yes, I met him briefly. Kieran, I think he's called? He seemed quiet, well-behaved. What about him?"

"Kieran." She tests the name out on her tongue, staring down at her now finished drink. Her expression is distant (10 years distant, or is it 11 years? It's hard to remember). "I'd heard that Morrigan had a child, after leaving on her own. I was just curious. Quiet and well-behaved...I find it hard to believe Morrigan could have raised such a child." She snorts at that. She clearly did a better job than Flemeth, if it was true. Surely, he didn't get it genetically.

"What does he look like, then? All I can picture is a little mini Morrigan, and her outfit just isn't as flattering on a young boy." There might be something more, or she might simply be curious about the child of an old friend. She didn't seem particularly keen on facing Cullen.

Cullen can't help but chuckle a little at the mental image of Kieran in Morrigan's favored outfit. "Well, he's dressed as a proper young lad of good family," he points out. "But he does look much like his mother. Pale skin, dark hair."

"He sounds like a lovely young man. I wonder who Morrigan stole him from." She laughed, and stood up, stretching. "No--I knew she had it in her. Don't tell her I said that. Let her pretend to be a wicked witch of the wilds still." A lovely young man. It tore into her, but she was good at hiding wounds. She'll brood over it at another time. "Unless she comes here. Maker forbid. She'd be killed by these chumps within a day for seditious behavior."

She paused, throwing her cup into the trash.

"I'm sorry to keep changing the subject," She started, which showed slightly more consideration than when she first came, and hammered Cullen with eighty questions ranging every which way. "But we'll have to talk to Bayard before the arena. He doesn't know what happens, but. He'll see the cornucopia. What can we tell him? Close his eyes and ignore the screams? We're going to have to...Explain things."

"He may have more knowledge of such things than you want to give him credit for," Cullen finds himself pointing out. "But you make a good point. I don't want him running for the cornucopia. I'll likely stay away from it myself, and try to find him and some of the others."

He gives Tabris a Look. "And while I know you want to trust Anders, and that is your business, I'd rather keep Bayard away from him if at all possible."

"Cullen, he didn't even know that--" Her voice breaks, despite herself, because that was a memory that was hard to come back to. "--That he died." The sight of him laying there, on the ground, eyes wide and lifeless. And then a scream with her voice, that boiling rage in her veins.

The pain of the gunshots dulled in comparison.

"I promise you that I will do anything--anything--in my power to protect him, but the man who did it the first time will still be there, and others besides. I have...clearly shown that I'm unable to guarantee his safety." And she hisses it out, hostile because that's the only option besides crying. Which is the last thing that she's going to do in front of Cullen, in front of all these Capitolites.

"Andraste's tits--Sorry. He doesn't know that Nick's even a bad person, Cullen. What happens when he sees people ripping each other apart for a backpack?"

"His death wasn't your failure," Cullen says. "You did the best you could - we both did, but we also know what the arenas are about. What other outcome did you expect?"

"You're changing the subject," She replied, crossing her arms. Even if she'd kind of...dragged the subject that way herself. "He needs to be told. Somehow. He's going to see people dying, Cullen. He might even see one of us die. Do you want to wait until we're in the arena for him to understand what's going on here?"

Cullen almost had to snort faintly at that - as though Tabris herself didn't jump through topics of conversation like an excitable rabbit more often than not.

"There's very little one can tell a child to prepare them for something like this," he points out to her. "I'm sure you well know. I've already tried to caution him from trusting in strangers - he heard me, but I doubt he fully believed me. And as for the death, and the violence, well. Unfortunately, that only comes with experience."

He's not trying to shelter the boy, it's simply that there are no words for it.

Okay but at least she usually talked about the topic at hand, along with eight other topics besides.

He's right, but she frowns anyway, crossing her arms as she tried to think of a good counterpoint. After a moment, she just wrinkled her nose at him, like a child who'd had her brother teasing her.

"Yes. Well. If that's what you want to do." She said, which is as close to, 'yes you're right cullen' as she feels like getting at the moment. "We'll just make sure to get him after the cornucopia."

"It's not what I want," Cullen points out quietly. "What I want is to keep him - and all of us - from having to go into that death trap at all, but that's simply not in the cards. We can speak to him, of course, but nothing we say will ever prepare him for what he's going to witness."

"...I know." She said, finally, though she still looks surly over it, as though judging Cullen's gall to be right. "I don't want any of this either, but. I want to try to do what I can. Speaking with him...May help him later, once he sees what's going on. There's no guarantee that we'll be there when he realizes what's happening."

"I've tried telling him he needs to be careful who he trusts," Cullen said with a sigh. "I'm not sure he heard me. He's very convinced that he can trust anyone who seems kindly at face value. As any child should, in just about any other circumstances. But not these."

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