thecapitol | (no subject)

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"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."