[sandbox] out of the abyss

[bringspeopletogether]

It starts as a shimmer out by the lake. Look at the water from the right angle, and the light glinting off it looks a bit...green. Sickly.

(Familiar, if you're from a certain time and place in Thedas.)

Look up some minutes later, and you can pinpoint the source: a thin, glowing ribbon uncoiling in the sky. It emerges slowly, but the more light it casts, the more momentum it gains, until it explodes outward with an enormous crack like lightning splintering the ground.

A much quieter thump follows as something hits the dirt.

Someone.

The glow vanishes; the person doesn't move for a long beat. (Get up, he's telling himself, get up -- ) He manages to drag his hands level with his shoulders, press down to bear himself upward an inch, look up at where he's landed.

Get. Up.

Another shove, and Alistair lurches to his feet, sword hauled from its scabbard and shield at the ready. His breath rattles, harsh against his throat, as he stares wild-eyed around the grounds.

Comments

[bringspeopletogether]

No, he wants to snap. Don't tell me what he would say, tell me why you aren't --

It wouldn't give him a straight answer anyway. There's no point to asking again.

He hovers near the entranceway -- aside from the window, it's the only point of egress -- and rests one hand on the pommel of his own sword. Guarded: "All right."

[howtoactfereldan]

Sword goes against the wall, in the corner.

Cullen steps as far away from it as he can, without moving closer to Alistair. There'd be time for Alistair to gut him, if he wanted, if he moved quickly, before Cullen could pick up his weapon again.

True to his word, he turns around.

(Alistair's got to be -- what, disconnected from reality? Still believing he's in the Fade? Which would make Cullen a demon. Right?

How do you prove to someone that you're not a demon?)

[bringspeopletogether]

Alistair leans against the wall, arms folded. (He's going for casual. It doesn't look it: it's obviously nothing but a means for him to stay upright.) Several long moments pass where all he does is study Cullen.

There has to be something -- some twitch, some gap in the illusion, something --

"Why him?" When he's not trying to push the volume of his voice -- to sound authoritative, to demand an explanation, to force his words to bear himself up on his last bit of strength -- it comes out as a hoarse croak. "There's dozens of other faces you could've picked. Your friends did. Have. When they put up the pretense at all. Why Cullen this time?"

[howtoactfereldan]

A momentary, crooked smile.

"It's really me, Alistair. I wouldn't lie to you. Never have. I don't -- if there's a way to prove to you that this isn't the Fade, that it's what it appears to be, tell me, and I'll do it."

He managed it once in Kirkwall, but it involved kneeing a recruit in the balls, and Cullen isn't quite that self-sacrificing to suggest it. At least not immediately.

[bringspeopletogether]

Alistair looks away.

He doesn't know that there is a way, is the thing. Demons can do whatever they damn well please once they get ahold of you. Anything it says, does, promises, shows him -- it could be another part of the illusion.

It's so committed to convincing him, though. Why? He's reformulating other possibilities: a helpful spirit, like Justinia; a fever dream cooked up by his own mind. Alistair can't bring himself to follow through to the last option: that it -- he -- is telling the truth.

Carefully, he pushes himself away from the wall. Hands at his sides, Alistair crosses the room in slow, measured steps, willing himself not to stumble. He halts two feet away from Cullen; there's another long moment of expressionless study.

Then he reaches out to give him a poke on the shoulder.

[howtoactfereldan]

Demons make promises. Present offers. Tempt. Cullen knows he can't do any of those things.

Alistair pokes him; he laughs, quietly, unable to stop himself. But that's all.

(Alistair didn't respond to the offer of cheese -- itself a temptation, he supposes -- but if he had to guess how Alistair Theirin might try to figure out whether someone in front of him was a demon... starting with a cautious poke is utterly Alistair.)

[bringspeopletogether]

One corner of Alistair's mouth twitches, a brief blink-and-you'll-miss-it motion.

He's trying to remember that other time he got stuck in the Fade, so many years back. Did he touch Goldanna? He remembers the smell of food, and seeing her smile, but...damn it, that's as much as he can grasp. It's no help at all.

"Well," still hoarse, "now I can say I poked a demon and lived. Unless you're planning to gut me now."

Or unless he's not a demon at all.

[howtoactfereldan]

"Not at all." Cullen is smiling, small. "You lived. That's the important part."

[bringspeopletogether]

You lived. The words echo in his head like a bell struck.

Alistair draws back a step, looking behind himself to gauge the distance to the bed. Only a couple more steps. Good.

Because that, of all things, is what makes his legs feel like they're finally going to give out for good, and so long as he can get to the bed in time -- which he does, dropping onto the mattress hard enough that his armor rattles -- this won't be a complete disaster.

He drags both hands down his face. Lets his arms fall across his knees. "Maker."

I'm still alive.

[howtoactfereldan]

Carefully, still telegraphing his movements, Cullen crouches down in front of Alistair.

He looks worried; he doesn't say anything, though. Because if Alistair still thinks he's a demon -- it'd be a bad time to offer anything.

[bringspeopletogether]

He's not entirely certain Cullen's a demon anymore. He's still not entirely sure Cullen is Cullen, either, but: baby steps.

Without looking up, Alistair asks, "Hawke? The Inquisitor?"

If it's a demon, he's not sure which response will hurt more -- the ugly lie that they were slaughtered before making it through the rift, or the pleasant fiction that they're alive and well. If it's a spirit genuinely trying to help him, it'll tell him the truth.

And if it's really Cullen, he'll have witnessed everything firsthand. He'll know the answer, too.

[howtoactfereldan]

"Alive. Hawke's on her way to Weisshaupt to give them a report. The Inquisitor is in the field, headed for the Sunstop Mountains to break up Venatori operations. The surviving Wardens of Orlais -- she's got them tracking darkspawn through the Gamordan Peaks, working with one of our lieutenants. I don't think you met her -- Suzanne Cloche-Sec. From Val Firmin, so she's familiar with the territory."

He's watching Alistair carefully as he talks.

"They're well, Alistair. They all made it out, every one. And the moment the Inquisitor stepped out of the Fade and closed that rift -- every demon just... hit the ground, and vanished. There will be no demon army for Corypheus."

[bringspeopletogether]

He shuts his eyes, cradling his forehead against one palm.

That's right. He can barely remember anymore, but that long string of demons -- it started with Nightmare, didn't it, because that was the one bound to Corypheus's army. That was the other reason someone had to stay behind to kill it.

Alistair nods, hand still pressed to his forehead. Eventually, he looks up.

"How long has it been?"

He's dreading the answer. It shows.

[howtoactfereldan]

"Two months," Cullen says quietly.

He told Alistair he wouldn't lie.

[bringspeopletogether]

The corners of his eyes tighten. He turns his gaze back down to his hands.

Soft, toneless: "That's not as bad as I thought."

[howtoactfereldan]

"Bad enough," says Cullen, no louder, and runs the risk of touching Alistair's hand.

Cullen's own hands are roughened, with nicks and scars silvery and pink both, and with a crooked finger or two from breaks -- what you'd expect to see on someone who's spent his life inflicting force trauma on others with both blunt and sharp objects.

Cullen knows: demons don't often get quite that clever, especially when Alistair hasn't spent that much time on the details in question.

[bringspeopletogether]

The creatures of the Fade can only shape what they see in the minds of dreamers. Maybe it's pulling the details from what it's seen in Cullen's dreams, or from someone else who knows Cullen much better than Alistair, but...it's unlikely. Not when it already has Alistair here, alone, at its mercy.

Alistair makes a choked noise -- a wild laugh cut off in its infancy, a sob throttled back to a whimper -- and clutches at Cullen's hand.

"I'm alive."

[howtoactfereldan]

"Extremely alive," Cullen agrees, clasping Alistair's hand in both of his. "Decidedly alive."

Does he get to be happy now? Will Alistair flip out if he shows anything -- ?

[bringspeopletogether]

It doesn't seem like he will. The last crumbling bits of his vigilance have completely given way.

Another sound, badly stifled, escapes him, and Alistair presses the side of his free hand to his eyes. "Maker -- "

He doesn't know what to say. Or do. He doesn't realize he's whispering the words like a litany: I'm out. I'm out. I'm alive.

[howtoactfereldan]

Careful (and maybe a little creaky), Cullen shifts himself up just enough to sit beside Alistair on the bed.

"You did it."

His near arm goes around Alistair's shoulders, tight in a fierce hug. He squeezes Alistair's hand. "You got out. You got them out. You're safe, Alistair."

[bringspeopletogether]

Between Cullen's ferocity, and the numerous aches making themselves more known by the second, the embrace hurts a little. Alistair doesn't care. It's another bit of proof: I'm alive.

"I -- "

The noises he's making seem to have decided they'll be laughter for now -- albeit soft, more than a little hysterical, the mania that forms when battle exhaustion finally meets victory. He scrubs at his eyes again before letting his palm fall atop his and Cullen's clasped hands.

[howtoactfereldan]

"You see now why I suggested resting?" There's laughter in Cullen's voice. "A bath? Cheese?"

[bringspeopletogether]

Alistair nods; his shoulders keep trembling with that desperate laughter.

"I should know better by now," he says. "Always ought to listen to you."

It's kind of a sorry I tried to stab you, right?

[howtoactfereldan]

"Always." Another squeeze -- less tight, though. "And you did, remember? Your hair doesn't look like you ran face-first into a wall any more."

[bringspeopletogether]

"Considering -- "

Shit. The laughter's veering dangerously close to sobs again. One or two make a successful transition before Alistair gulps back the rest. He readjusts his hold on Cullen's hand, as if steadying himself there could steady himself elsewhere.

"Considering what I have run face-first into lately," he says, "that's a damned miracle, isn't it?"