Darkest Timeline AU Flashback Meme

[faderifting]

DARKEST TIMELINE AU FLASHBACK MEME
Did you work out something for your character's darkest timeline AU that you love so much it would be an absolute crime not to be able to write it out for real? WHAT LUCK! This meme is here for all your flashback-from-the-future needs. It's also the place to display sad single-character vignettes, letters that were never sent to dead friends, and anything else your dastardly little heart desires. Go forth and suffer.

The contents of this meme do not count for AC. For AC, you must participate in the real logs for the event, which will take place in Cloudreach 9:48, or else continue your normal non-event RP in the present (Guardian 9:43). However, you can count log threads in this meme toward your rewards points for the month.

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9:47

[justice_is_blond]

He hears the song on the crystals and waits a few minutes after it's ended before coming over to sit next to Cyril. Loss is something he knows, something he knows well, but it's not something he knows how to fix the pain of. But he can offer company, at least.

"I've tea." It's weak. There aren't many leaves left, and Anders has been rationing his small supplies so that there's still weak tea for a few weeks to come. He offers over the second cup anyway.

Even hope isn't something he can give Cyril, because he's all out. Nate's started to hear the Calling. It's not fair. It's not right. But nothing ever is.

[samahl]

Cyril's eyes are blurry and he blinks hard to push them back. Before Taas's death, the last time he had cried he had been a child beside the death bed of his mother. He hadn't even cried when Sam disappeared because there had been no body and no sign of what had happened. He had felt numb more than anything and Taas had been there, strong and warm, to support him.

Then Taas had died and Cyril had watched his body fall back after the arrow's impact broke through his skull and the sobs that had left him after had been so loud and painful they left his stomach sore for days. Now, it feels like tears keep springing to his eyes every quiet moment, but he never let them fall.

Seeing Anders gives him something to focus on. He takes the tea with thanks and sips. "Frieda bought blackberries and made pie for Sina," he says after a moment. His voice sounds a little hollow and worn. "If we find anything nice while we're out here, we should bring it back to them. That can't have been cheap."

[justice_is_blond]

"Mm. No, it couldn't have been." Blackberries. Maker, when was the last time he'd even seen berries? His memory doesn't provide an answer so Anders shakes his head and sips his own tea.

"I saw some mushrooms on the way out. I figured I'd save them for after the mission, if we came back this way. We can find them and bring them back for Frieda and Gunter instead." It's not easy to focus, with the hollow sound of Cyril's voice reinforcing the pit Anders has found his heart and faith in, but his loss is yet to come. Cyril's is new and raw yet. He has to push past.

"It won't be the same," he continues. "Dwarves are used to mushrooms. But it will be fresh and they're not Deep Mushrooms, at least." He takes a breath and looks over at Cyril. "Did you... Did you want to talk?"

[samahl]

Cyril nods at that idea. That's better than returning empty handed and mushrooms could be used for a lot of different recipes.

He sighs a bit at the question and then, very carefully, he moves closer to Anders and puts his head against the mage's shoulder. The touch is so casual and comfortable.

"What I want," Cyril says after a moment. "Is to go back to being the sort of man who would go to the nearest village and find a mercenary to bend him over and drive any thoughts out of his head." It was a little lewd to say, but his voice wasn't flirtatious or scandalous at all. He just felt and sounded so empty.

He couldn't be that man, not any more.

[justice_is_blond]

Anders puts an arm around Cyril in return.

"It would be almost nice, wouldn't it. The ability to find satisfaction in strangers again." He'd liked casual sex, a lot, and he knew Cyril had as well. And then very good people went and ruined that, and went around dying and starting to die... and yet he knows neither of them would trade it.

He exhales. "He loved you." They both know that, but hearing it might help. "He loved you very much. And he did all that he could. Falling wasn't a failure; he'll be remembered for his strength."

[samahl]

"I know," Cyril responds, but a part of him is comforted by the fact that other people know it too. He sighs a bit.

"I shouldn't be so pathetic," he says eventually. "People have been dying basically every day, and I'm not the only one who has to watch someone slip away." The Wardens were dealing with that more than anyone else. Anders was dealing with it too.

[justice_is_blond]

That gets a hard swallow and a hasty look away. It's selfish to want Nate to stay as long as possible despite the Calling, but he's doing it anyway. Selfish, and even dangerous. But he can't let go. Not yet.

"It's not pathetic," he manages after a couple of moments. "Loss never gets easier. I was, I was a mess about Purrelden for weeks. Or maybe that was pathetic and I'm just trying to cover for myself." If he doesn't say that he's watching Nate slip away, it's a little less real. Anders has lived in denial before, about how Justice had become Vengeance. This is just as messy and just as personal and just as much a truth he's not sure how to face.

"War is loss and we have so very far to go still. I wish..." He still can't talk about it, even in a sideways way. The hunt for a cure for the Taint had gotten abandoned a couple of years back due to necessity and that hurts. Even if they'd been close to finding a cure and resumed today, it would do nothing for Nathaniel. It would be too late.

[samahl]

Cyril shifts a bit and lets Anders trail off. He puts a hand on the mage's leg and lets himself just sit there for a bit. There were a lot of things he could think of that he wished for. He wished Sam hadn't disappeared. He wished Pel was still alive. He wished that Taas had let him die rather than stepping in the way of that red lyrium attack.

"Do you regret your Joining?" he asks after a long moment of quiet because he realizes that he's never thought to ask that of any Warden before. "Do you regret being a Warden?"

[justice_is_blond]

"I didn't have a choice." Anders looks down, into the depths of his mug. "I'd escaped the Circle for the seventh time and been caught, two Templars died to Darkspawn right near where I was setting Darkspawn on fire, I was going to be killed."

Not executed. Yes, it was legal to kill him, but it wouldn't have been right in his eyes.

"Jonas conscripted me and spared my life. I don't want to have died, so therefore there's no room for regret." He wouldn't have lost Karl, but he wouldn't have met Nate. He wouldn't be in this war, but he wouldn't have had the chance to know and lose Varric and Isabela and so many others. "Do you regret joining the Inquisition rather than staying with your clan?"

[samahl]

Cyril shakes his head. "I've never regretted it," he admits after a moment. "Even before I left, I had started doing reckless and stupid things." A pause, as he sips some of the drink.

"I used to track down bandits in the woods and seduce them. I would find smugglers and offer myself and my body to them without a care. The first time I had sex was rough and terrible and I bled for a couple days." He rubbed at his face for a moment. "Eventually, one of them would have turned out to only like women and would have killed me, or I would have gotten sick and died, or I would have pissed off the Keeper enough for her to expel me. Or, worst of all, I would have eventually married and settled down and then died slowly until the Venatori showed up and finished me off."

[justice_is_blond]

He nods slowly.

"My first, the first man, at least, was kind. Careful, despite how we had to rush in the Circle for fear of being caught. Outside some of my experiences were... less patient. But as I've had the ability to set someone on fire for as long as I've been sexually active, it's balanced out." He's glossing over a lot, but thankfully he'd been lucky in the Circles. None of the Templars had tried that particular form of assault.

Anders sighs. "So we're both better on this path, despite, despite all it entails. We're alive, and we'd the opportunity to make these choices."

[samahl]

Cyril had read Varric's book, so the details of what he knows about Karl depends greatly on how much of that was actually written down. He doesn't say anything about the man though, just sort of nods a bit and then shifts so that he can hook his arm around Anders.

"I suppose this is the part where I talk about how I'm grateful to have known him, no matter how things ended." He doesn't say Taas's name, but they both know who he is talking about. "I'm sorry but I just can't muster it right now." He does sound apologetic about it.

[justice_is_blond]

Varric had been kind there, at least. There aren't many details other than a mage who mattered to Anders being made Tranquil as a trap in the book.

"I don't expect you to. Honestly, I don't expect any of the words you or I say to be the right ones, or..." Anders shakes his head. "I lost the first person I loved, and who loved me. There was nothing anyone could have said that would have helped. Otherwise I would have offered it already. But I can give you company, and I know that to help a little."

[samahl]

Cyril is quiet for a moment, as he considers Anders. His expression isn't unkind, it's just mostly unreadable, almost bland.

"You do," he admitted after a moment. "You help. Your company helps." Even if he feels depression and grief weighing down on him he can't help but admit that. Anders has always been someone that Cyril enjoyed being around. "It helps to know that someone understands too."

[justice_is_blond]

Anders reaches over to take Cyril's hand and hold it.

"Then let's not worry about words. Let me simply be company to you, and you be company to me, and we can ignore the pain for a little while."