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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[alankazam]

You never show anyone how bad it is, not if you can help it. Weakness gets you killed as surely in the streets as in the trees, the only difference is, the streets get other people killed with you.

He stills as she holds him, does his best to remain motionless, but even as his eyes threaten to close, he can't help craning his neck to watch the halls they slip through: Trying to memorize faces, floorplans. He doesn't shift in place until they reach the door, talons curling in against themselves. Alan's never cared for locks, and he's not so dim as to miss their implication now.

This is a cage, however little it looks one. A sedative measure, a colourful print tossed over the bars to lull her to sleep. And she's chosen it.

It's easy to say he wouldn't do the same. Easy, because he's always had a way out, has always known that his potential for escape would outweigh any utility to the Venatori cause. There are fewer choices to make. But how many did Beleth have? She'd refused a way out, when it had been given.

Shifting back is easier, takes nothing but resignation to the skin he was born in. That doesn't mean it costs nothing. Feathers point, extend, and he braces a hand out to the bedpost, half falling into humanity. Something protrudes from beneath his arm, a bristle of new splinters poking at the flesh.

"Pliers, or tongs. And thread." A beat, as he works the words around gritted teeth. The wound won't hold magic well, and the rooms seem well-appointed. There must be something. "Please."

[arlathvhen]

There's no small amount of alarm on her face as she sees Alan transform back, clearly even worse off than he was before. For a moment, she reaches her hand out, like--like she wants to do something, offer some comfort to him. But he speaks, and she pulls her hand back, nodding. There are more important things to do.

She rustles around the apartment, and soon pulls out a pair of kitchen tongs, and a sewing kit with needle and thread. Both are presented to Alan, then she steps away.

"Give me just a minute, let me see if I can get...anything else." What that might is left hanging in the air as she hurries out of the apartment. But Alan doesn't have to wait long before she's back, quickly shutting the door. There's an assortment of items in her arms, and they're spilled onto the bed next to Alan with little fanfare. A lyrium potion, an elfroot potion, ointments to prevent infection, and bandages. It's not the greatest supply of first aid, but it's certainly better than just tongs and thread.

"I can't do anything for the pain," Her voice is apologetic, as she sinks onto the bed as well. "I'd suggest alcohol, but that'll make you bleed more. I can make you elfroot tea, but--I mean. That's for headaches, it's not really for...this." She gestures at...all of Alan, really. "But let me know if there's anything else, and I'll see what I can do."

[alankazam]

It's a tense few minutes as she darts out the door, his fingers clenched white as he strains to listen for the sound of approaching feet. Anyone might grow curious in her absence, might stop her in the halls.

"Tea sounds," Lovely? No. But it sounds like it might give Beleth something to do, and he doesn't need her hovering for this next part. "Like a plan."

He uncurls his hand, and hesitates a moment, before gripping hers. It's not gentle, but it's not hostile, either. There's no bridging the years and distance between them, but she's trying, and she's trying hard. He's willing to match that much. Poor little songbird.

"If you could just," I don't know, donate a few pints of blood? That'd speed this up. "Keep talking. Tell me something. A story, or your day, or. It doesn't matter what."

He releases her, reaches out for the tongs. This is the part he hates.

"That'd do a lot."

[arlathvhen]

Silence settles in the room for a few seconds, as Beleth stares at Alan's hand, gripping hers. She doesn't care how tight it is, because what it means is far more important. How long as it been since she's touched another person this much? Even with Cade, there's a limit to what he can accept, as far as touching goes. Little pats on the arm, or face. But she has to be careful with him. There are lines that can't be crossed.

It's a relief, when Alan agrees to the tea, and Beleth is quick to stand up, moving over to the other room to begin gathering the materials. As she rustles around for the elfroot, she wonders what kind of story she could possibly tell him.

There's one story she could tell--wants to tell, wants someone to understand.

"They took me first," Her voice is soft, but manages to carry in the small apartment. "One of those massive Venatori, just dragging me along like a doll." She stops setting up the tea to turn, looking at Alan. "Could you imagine what I thought? What I was terrified was going to happen to me?" But it appears to be a rhetorical question, because she turns around and keeps talking. "Cade...he saw, and he tried to fight to me. Tried to rescue me. Idiot. There was no way that he would've made it." Despite the harsh critique, her voice is gentle, fond. "I thought I was going to watch him die. But they took him, too."

Everything all set up, Beleth just has to heat the water on the little stove. She busies herself with that, for a while. "I should have killed him myself. Just strangled him quickly, let him be done with it. Let them punish me for it. That would've been the right thing to do. But I couldn't. I looked at him, and I realized I couldn't kill him. So I had to protect him." The water brewing, she went to fetch two cups. "I told the Venatori I'd help, as long as they didn't kill him." The laugh that follows is dry and humorless. "And now he's this...thing. I should've been more specific, huh?" And the cups are set down, Beleth peeking into the room afterwards.

"I know what I've done. I won't dance around it. But everything I did was for a reason."

[alankazam]

He’s quick and quiet as he can manage. An unpleasant business, one that pauses every time she turns. So it goes on in stop motion: the glint of metal, the brush of cloth. A little pile of quills collects on his abandoned shirt, threaded with glimmering ruby.

She spills it like a confession, and he has to wonder how many times she's rehearsed this in her head, slimming events into the optimal retelling, fussing over an explanation that must always feel too much too little. He has to wonder how often she says this aloud, to an open window and a hollowed man. Alan lets himself listen as he does the Chant, contemplates each snatched verse for its place within the song. It forces awareness. Gives him a different hurt to mull over than his own. In short: It helps.

By the time she sets the cups down he’s tying off the thread. A long sliver of something like bone lays beside the others, both potion bottles emptied. Faint green light collects around his hands as he presses them over his ribs. He already knows it won't do much, but it'd be stupid not to try.

Could you imagine what I thought? Of course. She wouldn't be the only Inquisition elf to die under ritual. She would probably be the only one doing it to save a broken manchild of a templar — well, unless Sabine strikes north for vengeance. So they'd been given each other's bargain. Cooperate, and your companion gets to live. A slow sort of suicide pact.

"No. You shouldn't have killed him." He's surprised to hear himself say it. It's the sort of thing that he used to say, before killing became only another way to solve a problem. Before the life of every captured agent became a liability. "That should always have been his choice."

The hard part of Alan suspects the lyrium chose for Cade as much as Beleth did. He's never struck him as a man of tremendous willpower, save perhaps in his drive towards self-isolation. But it’s a relief to not have to be that Alan, if only for a moment. It would be a relief to not have to be him at all.

Was it the trader's choice, yesterday? But that's different. Of course it is.

"He chose something else. So you tried to protect him. How far gone was he when they came?"

They. Merrill. And the pale elf, the one with the child. Alan avoids that one. Children aren't something he lets himself be around.

His eyes close. He’s just going to breathe a moment. Then he can worry about the bandages, about Beleth's aching guilt, about whether he really means what he's said of Cade or whether it'd be better to wait with a sharp knife for his return. For now, he'll just. Breathe.

[arlathvhen]

His choice. Had that ever come up? In three years, had what Cade might want or not want ever affected what actually happened? Had she ever asked him? If she had, she doubted it'd mattered. He always seemed content to follow her, a guard dog at her heels. Maybe she should try asking some time.

The grimace she gives when she sees what Alan has done to himself is...not as bad as one might expect. She's seen things, now. Experiments, tests that other people had run. Prisoners in their cells. She still looks worried, though. "Do you need any help?"

Then he asks about the Incident, and Beleth pales. Her capture has been picked through a million times, every word, every detail. Not just to be able to explain, to be able to tell people, It wasn't my fault, but to see--was it her fault. What else could she have done? But that incident. She's tried to ignore it since it happened, pushed it to the edges of her memory.

She resents Alan, just slightly, for bringing it up. But he has the right.

"He was...he was better, then." The words are more clumsy, unpracticed. Suppressed memories begrudgingly surfacing. "He smiled back then. Sometimes it reached his eyes." But she doubts Alan only worries about how Cade was. The rest is drawn out hesitantly, and she doesn't move. She clasps her hands together, staring down at the ground.

"Their plan was idiotic. I told them so, told them that it'd never work. I knew, I've been here when people tried to escape. We would have died, or worse, gotten caught. Do you know what Tevinter does to traitors? I do. And what would have happened if we made it? Go back to--back to Orzammar?" She looks up, a flash in her eyes. Maybe it's good that she has...some kind of passion left. Maybe it's unfortunate.

"Stuck in a giant hole in the ground, no sun, no sky, no plants, darkspawn coming up from below, everything else coming down from above." She's pacing now, frustration that had built for years bubbling over. "This may be a cage, but damn it all, at least it's a cage with trees. At least it's a cage I can live in, not just survive, hunkered down, wondering when it's my turn to be killed."

She finally stops, realizing her outburst. Just like that, the emotion is folded, tucked neatly away. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and when she speaks again, her voice is calmer. "They didn't appreciate my explanation, and Cyril tried to murder me. Cade stopped him. Then Merrill..." Her voice drifts off, but her fingers brush against her bare face.

Briefly, it occurs to her that maybe Alan didn't want to know the entire story to that. Maybe, despite how it had felt like pulling teeth, she had desperately wanted someone to hear her side of that, too.

[alankazam]

"If you could wrap it," A faint gesture, Alan finally looks up. So she didn't only stay for him, stay to protect him. No.

Comfort. She stayed because she wanted comfort. Because she was frightened. It's a disappointment, for all that he knows he should have expected it. For a moment he thought better of her.

There's hope to be found, in survival. He can't think what she's found here but soporific melancholy. Hardship glazed over milky-white, warmth faded behind so much frosted glass. Watching everyone — everything — good recede.

Green used to bloom all across her skin. It might have taken root, even underground. We would have died, as though they hadn't risked that twice over to try and save her.

"Are you living?" There's an edge to it, but the question's an honest one. He wants to know. This bitter little place she occupies, it tastes more like survival than all the years he's spent on the wing. "Is this a life?"

[arlathvhen]

She offers a compliant nod, and moves to the bed--taking the shirt of grisly castoffs and setting it...somewhere else. Off to the side, for now. Briefly, she thinks of her own clothes. It's a good thing Alan is The Littlest Avvar, because he's not that far off from Beleth's size, and Tevinter clothes are loose. She'll see what she can do later.

In the meantime, the pile's place on the bed is replaced by Beleth, who promptly begins wrapping up the wound. For a while, there's only silence as she works, thinking over Alan's question. Not because she doesn't know the answer--she knows as soon as he asks. But because it's the wrong answer.

She should say, No, I hate it here, I'm miserable and repressed. And sometimes she does hate it here. Sometimes she looks at Cade and she thinks, What have I done? Sometimes, she sees her unmarked face in the mirror and thinks Who have I become? Sometimes, she walks past the rows of prisoners in their cells, and thinks Is this what I'm helping create?

But the ugly truth is Yes, I'm living, and it's not that bad. She wishes there was a way to explain to Alan how much she loves her job, how rewarding it is, how satisfying it is when she unlocks another mystery of her people long lost. How fascinating her fellow researchers are, the engaged discussions and debates of people who are arguing for the sake of expanding their knowledge, rather than because lives hang on it. How Kirkwall isn't that bad of a city, really.

Slowly, she begins laughing, a hiccuping thing that could be sob. Good luck guessing which one it is, she's not sure either. "What I want," How many times has she said that to people, over the years? "Has never mattered in my life. It just--It just figures that even extends to the end of this Maker-damned world. I'm supposed to say no, aren't I? How could anyone be living like this?" She shouldn't laugh, it's not funny, but it is. How many times had she heard 'Do what makes you happy, Beleth'. And now it's 'Oh. Not like that'.

"Am I happy? I think the only way I'll ever be happy is if I stop living and surviving." She gives a cough that could be another laugh. "But who would take care of Cade?"

[alankazam]

Something burns in his chest. It’s not the lyrium. He’s — he’s pissed.

They're dying out there by inches, and she’s sitting here swallowed by self-pity. Thinking about what she wants. Like these are still times for wanting. The old story of the Magister whose touch turned everything to gold, until he glittered alone.

"He wouldn’t be the only one." His voice stays low. If there’s anything that Ortan Thaig actually doesn’t lack for, it’s people slowly losing their shit. "There are people who know how to handle it. Even some templars still alive."

People who could give him structure. People who wouldn’t get broken in half if something went wrong.

"There are still people who’d forgive you."

[arlathvhen]

He doesn't believe her, or he just doesn't care. It's...disappointing, oddly. She thought she got used to everyone hating her for just wanting to not be miserable, just for once, while waiting for this wretched world to fall apart. But somehow, it bothers her all over again that Alan is one of them. Maybe she's asking too much of him.

Cade is the only one who cares. He's the only one that understands.

When Alan broaches the subject of forgiveness, Beleth turns to him, with the same shocked disbelief that would be appropriate if he suggested she simply fly away, too. Forgiveness had never even occurred to her--she'd accepted that hatred, and tucked it away. "Alan, I appreciate the thought, but. My own clanmate tried to kill me. Someone I knew since I was born. Even Alistair hates me. I don't begrudge them their animosity, they deserve to be angry at me. But I doubt anything I could do would change that, even if I could miraculously escape off to Orzammar." If she even wanted to. Which, for the record, she doesn't.

She stares quietly at her hands for a bit. They're softer, now. The callouses from the bow have faded, replaced by little splatters of ink. "I'm sorry, Alan. Even if I tried to make amends, it's too late." Her gaze turns towards him. "You can hate me too, if you want. I wouldn't blame you." What's one more drop in the bucket of 'everyone she knows'? She should be used to it now.

It still bothers her.

[alankazam]

"Cade used to hate you." Don't mind him if he sounds a little more intent than usual, almost a little desperate. "Forget forgiveness, then. It doesn't matter."

Let it be between her and the Maker, or her strange, intercessory gods.

"Anger isn't the end of things. This isn't the end of things, doesn't have to be your damn pyre." Alan doesn't swear, never really has. His eyes are wide, expression slipping into unguarded distress. "You don't get to just decide that it's over. You don't get to be the one who decides you're alone."

He should know.

[arlathvhen]

"I--I don't want to be alone." And her voice cracks, because there's a limit of things she can take, and implying that she wants this isolation, this push from everyone she knows, is the final straw. It's not her fault that they made her choose between her life and them. It's not her fault that they expect her to gracefully accept torture and death and misery.

And he's so intent, and it's unnerving, and he's distressed, and that's unnerving too. It's overwhelming, she's overwhelmed with emotions and thoughts that she hasn't had challenged in years, and she was so sure of herself, and Alan--fucking Alan--

She moves before she really realizes she's doing it, arms around him (but careful of the bandages), pulling him into a tight hug, face pressed into his neck. Is it for her comfort, or his? Who knows. Who knows if it even is comforting. "I don't want everyone to hate me." She whispers, pulling her face just far enough back to speak. "I just don't blame them."

[alankazam]

"I can't hate you."

It'd be easier if he could. If he could be any one thing, in any moment, and not this muddled mess. She's here and she's close and it'd be a lie to say he'd never thought of it, arms wrapping about her in turn. He presses his lips to her forehead, gentle, solemn.

You have chosen, and spilled the blood of innocence for power.

But not here and not now. In this moment, neither of them has to let go. For a little while, there's still a point that meets in the middle.

For a little while they can pretend.

[arlathvhen]

A little sob escapes her throat, torn between stark relief and the pain of feeling what she's been forced to sacrifice.

Dalish are communal creatures by nature, they're hardwired to comfort with touch, to be given it in turn. Even with her vallaslin torn from her face, that compulsion, the need for touch, can't be simply erased. Even if it'd be easier. But she wants, Beleth has always wanted, been full of desires that she ignores. There's a reason that it was that demon that was drawn to her in the Fade. And right now, more than anything, she desperately wants that connection to another person. It's been...a long time, since she's even had this much contact with another person.

Cade isn't exactly a hugger these days.

When she draws back against him, she places a gentle kiss on his neck, then his jaw. Then stops, waiting for his response. She doesn't care if it stops there or goes further, as long as he keeps his arms around her.

[alankazam]

then they totally made out

and alan finally touched a boob