The sun, it rises slowly as you walk

[lex_paciferat]

WHO| Quintus and Terezi, Quintus and Emily, and anyone else on the rebel side who might want to interact with him
WHAT| Quintus has defected and joined his former enemies.
WHERE| A rebel encampment just outside of the Capitol
WHEN| Day 3 and afterwards
WARNINGS| None currently inherent


For Terezi:

He'd known, in the week preceding his defection, that he couldn't just walk into enemy-occupied territory and expect to be received. They could have interpreted his proclamation on the network as some sort of elaborate misdirection or a sign that he'd gone completely off the rails, transforming himself into a dangerous, uncontrollable element. There was no precedent for what he had done--some prominent Capitolites, he knew from his own investigations, had collaborated with the rebels, but no one as high-ranking and committed to the cause had ever publicly and definitively turned tail. Doing so would have been suicidal, and if not for the chaos of the war and his own control over the country's surveillance systems, he personally wouldn't have dared to make such a spectacle of it.

He makes it into the eerie emptiness of one of the evacuation zones, the quiet punctuated at points by far-off gunfire and shouts. He doesn't bother bypassing the electronic lock on one of the storefronts, breaking the glass display window with a steel garbage can. The sound seems to echo down the street, and he wastes no time in stepping inside, making a quick sweep of the room with his semiautomatic rifle in hand, his left lung--never quite the same after that first assassination attempt--drawn tight in his anxious breathing. Once he's satisfied that the place is empty, he sequesters himself in a storeroom, firing up a cheap computer that he'd brought with him and pulling out a sheet of handwritten notes.

He'd scoured what communications intelligence his men had been able to gather in those last days, trying to figure out what channels Rebellion forces were lately using. They had some talented individuals on their side, capable of applying high levels of encryption and obfuscating signals through a multitude of winding paths, but some of those codes had been cracked and byways hunted down. Hopefully his transmission would still be heard.

"This is Quintus Falxvale. I have renounced my Capitol citizenship and am prepared to offer you intelligence regarding Peacekeeper combat plans in exchange for my safety."


For Emily:

His interrogation takes hours--hours of justifying his motives, of walking Rebellion leadership through estimates and transcribed briefings he brought with him. He doesn't blame them for their caution, knowing he'd doubtless have put a former adversary through the same grueling process. When he's finally given some time to himself it's late in the day, and he makes his way over to where rations are being distributed, ignoring stares as he retrieves a vaccuum-packed sandwich and a much-needed cup of coffee.

Wrapped up in his own weary thoughts, he doesn't notice Emily, only retreats towards a chair beneath the shade of a tent. The setting is reminiscent of some of the places he was stationed in the Districts--between the crappy food and bare-bones amenities, the only thing missing is the familiarity of a white uniform, dressed as he is in a black jacket with body armor jutting beneath the fabric of his shirt. It's almost funny in a way, as though his life has come full-circle from those early days in Eleven, and he can't help something of a bitter chuckle.


For others:

(Have something to say to Quintus? Feel free to leave a starter or hit me up for one!)

Comments

[conifer]

She'd seen his broadcast, of course. She'd turned away revolted when his face appeared on the screen; it was first time she'd seen him since that day in his apartment, when she'd sworn that one or other of them wouldn't emerge alive, although she'd seen his image in her nightmares often enough since. But even when she turns away she can't block out his voice - that calm, measured voice with just a hint of a Districter accent creeping in no matter how he tried to hide it and pass as one of them. It's how pronounced the accent is today that makes her stop, makes her really start to listen, because she knows Quintus Falxvale and she knows it takes a lot for him to lose his composure.

By the end of his speech she's not sure whether she wants to cry, hug him, or punch him in the face. She feels sick, all the old hurt that had been paved over with fresh scars at the hands of the rebellion dredged up, and she knows she's not ready to face him again even though he must surely be on his way over here now. When she first glimpses him in the camp that evening, she walks away, clinging to the limp canvas wall of a nearby tent and breathing deeply until the tightness that's set into her chest subsides somewhat.

She takes a more winding path back out, both to try to compose herself and so that he won't see her coming until she's almost right in front of him, wanting to disarm him somewhat for once, and knowing that if she has a long walk toward him staring him down, she'll probably back out and disappear once more.

"That was a pretty nice speech."

[lex_paciferat]

He stops dead in his tracks, gaping at her as though seeing a ghost.

In a way, he is--he'd believed her dead after she left, though her body had never been recovered. Caught as she'd been in the crossfire between two forces of trained soldiers, he'd known from what little intelligence they'd been able to piece together that even had she fled into the arms of Thirteen, they had been engaged in their own power struggles, with no guarantees of protection for someone like her. The odds had, quite simply, not been in her favor. It hadn't seemed realistic to hope.

But here she is, alive. She is hurt and conflicted and weathered by a lifetime of struggle but alive nonetheless, a feat of survival as unexpected as that in her Games, and he can't help but stare. His mouth moves wordlessly; he is astonished, relieved and angry all at once, and it's the loosening of his own fingers that compels him to get ahold of himself, turning to set down his food and mug before they drop to the ground.

"I'm sorry," he says, and though the apology is meant in regard to his awkward silence, it carries with it the weight of older hurts. "It's--it's been a long day. Heck, it's been a long year."

[conifer]

Emily lets out a short, bitter laugh. "You can say that again." Both the apology and how long and gruelling time has become. There's something cold and cruel within her that enjoys seeing how confounded he is at seeing her in front of him; it's so rare that she gets to have the upper hand in any situation, to pull the rug from under someone the way they've been doing to her all her life.

[pythianjudgment]

Quintus's broadcast did not go unnoticed. Terezi caught the announcement in the middle of her shift, and despite her poor sleep as of late, she's pretty sure that she didn't hallucinate it. That being said, she's not sure that she believes it, either. It's hard to reconcile the man who had tortured someone on a public broadcast with this heartfelt confession, even if he had made some small efforts to help them back in District 2.

The worst part of it all is that Terezi wants to believe him, to think that he's finally reached a place where he can admit that she was right. Where his heart has won out over his mind, where Right has triumphed over Reason. And she knows how dangerous it is to want that, and the bias that it places on her own thoughts. The reality of the situation is that it could be a trap.

She doesn't really have the time to scry for him. She promises herself that she'll look for it later, when the troops aren't in the middle of navigating the worst arena that the Capitol has devised so far. She's too busy trying to keep her people out of harm's way to worry about anything else right now--

Until the transmission comes across one of the communication channels. Terezi freezes where she is, her thoughts blanking for a moment. She didn't expect him to try and contact them directly, and certainly not so soon. Maybe part of her hoped that he would simply flee the battle entirely, but that wasn't like him. He wouldn't run while there was a battle being fought. He wasn't the kind to hide. But that meant she had to deal with this now instead of later.

She can't say that she's happy to hand over her instructions to someone else in order to field this conversation, but she does it. The first thing she reaches for is a switch for the voice modification filter, a bit of technology that they hadn't needed to employ when speaking to their own troops. But with a former enemy on the line, it was better safe than sorry. She flips the switch and begins to speak, her voice skewed an octave lower and given a tinny quality.

"Message received, Quintus Falxvale. We are aware of your declaration, but we are not prepared to open our doors to you. What proof can you give us of your allegiance?"

[lex_paciferat]

He recognizes the modification for what it is--a sign of distrust, an attempt to protect whomever is on the other end of the line. He doesn't take offense to it, only sets a portable drive atop the computer, reading in some files.

"I can send you one of the documents I retrieved from our private servers. This one details current squad locations that you are welcome to confirm through your own intel."

He sends one of the files along. It spans about twenty pages, digitally certified as classified correspondence but free of the encryption that it had originally been stored beneath. There are timetables and animated maps meant for holographic display, Peacekeepers moving like swarms of dots against a backdrop of gray terrain, all corresponding to a section of the Capitol not far from one of the larger evacuated sectors.

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi receives the file, switching off the microphone on her side as she gives it a once over. It's...certainly useful. He doesn't seem to be playing around on that regard. The file is quickly transferred to another of Thirteen's support units to confirm and disseminate through the troops in that area.

She turns back to the communication console, switching the microphone back on. "We will verify this information. In the meantime, would you care to outline your expectations of safety? By all rights, we should arrest you for your crimes against Panem and its citizens. Much of the damage that we are seeking to undo wouldn't have been possible without your efforts and those of your predecessors as the Head Peacekeeper. A heartfelt speech does not undo your actions or bring back the lives that were lost because of them."

[lex_paciferat]

"I'm not expecting amnesty," he says levelly. "I want assurance that I'll be protected from torture or execution. I ask not just for the sake of my own well-being, but because I'll be most useful to you as part of your military. I not only have intimate knowledge of Peacekeeper surveillance and long-term strategy, but also of combat tactics. I spent a decade deployed on the ground; I know how these men think, what they've got, how they operate. I'd like to put that knowledge to use to help you come through on these engagements and win this war."

[pythianjudgment]

"Excuse me if I'm a little incredulous over a man who recently tortured one of our soldiers on public airwaves, asking to be protected from that possibility himself." The comment comes out dry from her lips, but with the modification in place through the microphone, it likely sounds a little more snide than she means for it to be. She presses on regardless, focusing on the more logical aspects of her argument.

"What was that line you said earlier this morning? Something about fairness? It's going to be hard to convince our people that you don't deserve the same. Some might even take that as a flaw in our leadership. They might lose confidence in us. Even if I make the precarious assumption that you come with good intentions, we want to avoid taking that hit to our soldiers' morale. You might be an asset, Mr. Falxvale, but not a well-received one."

[theflyingone]

Altaïr had gone after Quintus mostly for being Head Peacekeeper. Now he added torturing people to Quintus's list of crimes. The drive to kill Quintus had not changed, but the circumstances had. Quintus's apparent determination not to harm general civilians kept both Thirteen and Altaïr in check. The people might not warm up to the former Head Peacekeeper, but they would love to have a security-savvy Districter on their side. Altaïr was not naïve enough to believe that the people's opinion would make him behave, but it might give the man something to believe in. Give a thief another means to survive, and he might not steal again.

Altaïr's own father had once been tasked to bring a message to Salah ad-Din in a way only the Assassins could. As a result, the great leader never laid siege upon the Assassins again. The time called for Altaïr to employ the same tactic. He planned this infiltration with as much care as an actual kill. The rebel bases and encampments were almost as inconvenient for assassination as the Tribute housing Quintus once guarded.

The note was neatly written in pen by the hand of someone used to drafting letters. The script was flowing, antiquated, but otherwise undecorated.

Quintus Falxvale of District Two:

The battlefield does not afford one many opportunities to issue warnings. However, in my own way, I have spoken to you through my work. You know by the men I have killed that I will not stand for the harming of innocents by either side of this war. Your change in allegiance means nothing to me.

You have caused great suffering to many. I was among that number, but you cannot best me by blackening my heart with thoughts of revenge. That is not why I kill. I seek peace in all things. You live now only because I have decided it be so. One misstep, one blink, if you lift so much as a finger in the direction of an innocent or continue to leave undue misery in your wake, I will come for you.

It was signed only with an odd, pointed symbol. It was sealed with wax (from emergency kit candles) and pinned right next to Quintus's bed with a sprig of oleander—even as Quintus slept, undisturbed except perhaps by his own dreams.

Altaïr would take no pains to avoid him. It was difficult to anyway, in their small ranks and limited ration stations. He threw no dark looks at him over the water jugs beyond the occasional stare, no more than anyone else here was doing while grabbing their sealed rations. The note should be enough, he hoped, it should be the end of all this. Would that words alone could end a war.

[lex_paciferat]

He hadn't seen Altaïr over those first few days--the man didn't exactly make himself conspicuous, and Quintus had had a few old allies and more vocal opponents to contend with. He'd barely slept the first night, in part because of his own paranoia and in part because he'd taken to dividing his sleep schedule into short naps over the past few months, catching rest at intervals in his office or one of the headquarters' breakrooms. Given that he wasn't managing crises or standing at watch here, that pattern had quickly proved inconvenient, and he'd eventually resorted to requesting a sedative from one of the medics, drugging himself into a dreamless eight hours.

And of course, that had been the morning that he'd woken to that note, with the comforting knowledge that he wouldn't have stood a chance against someone trying to knife him during the night.

He hadn't placed the culprit immediately, but upon seeing Altaïr over breakfast he knew it had to be him. The formal speech, the description of killing as 'work'--and who else would see fit to go out of their way to issue such a warning but the man that had tried to take him out once, the one he'd tortured for a whole country to see?

He didn't want to start anything, didn't want to push his luck, but he felt the need to make some remark, side-eyeing him as he poured himself a glass.

"I appreciate you not trying to kill me again. Though that warning didn't need to be quite so dramatic."

[theflyingone]

He studied their reflections in the roughened plastic, warped by the water. Quintus looked only slightly less haggard than when he arrived. Altaïr had counted on him to figure out who the author of the note was, but he didn't think he would approach him so soon.

"Was my attack on you in broad daylight not dramatic as well? Messages of importance must be memorable. It was done as I was taught. No more, no less. Men of higher rank and mettle than you have received the same. You should feel honored." At the last, the corner of his scarred lip turned up just slightly. That ghost of a smirk flitted away almost immediately, and Altaïr turned to look Quintus in the eye.

His body had been healed with his "death", but his mind remembered. Even now, burning flesh was all he could smell. The ends of his nerves sparked with a phantom pain that remembered electricity coursing through him. The fingers of his left hand, all nine of them, twitched. It took the last reserves of his discipline not to take him out now. His face was a mask, not only because of his training, but also because he found it hard to express the humanity torture robbed from him. It would take time to get it back. There were many things he wanted to say to this man, clambering over each other in his mind to be first, but all he managed was,

"You looked like you were sleeping well." His lips barely moved.