thearena | Don't try to wake me in the morning, 'cause I will be gone

Entry tags:

Don't try to wake me in the morning, 'cause I will be gone

WHO| Dorian and Maxwell
WHAT| Awkward bird shenanigans and pollen related death funtimes
WHERE| Various locations in the arena
WHEN| Backdated to weeks 4 and 5
Warnings/Notes| Death, possible language, angsty-angst... will add any more as they become necessary.

Week 4 - Jabberjay Trap:

If Maxwell had stopped, even for a moment to really think about what he was hearing, he would have known it was a lie at best, if not the outright trap it truly was. He would have recognized how it didn't add up, and how suspicious it was.

But he didn't stop. Didn't think.

He had been on his way back to camp, tired and cold, when he heard it. A voice he would have known anywhere, calling out to him. A whisper at first, something he might even have imagined, but then louder. Then twisted.

A single word, broken by desperation. By pain.

Amatus!

Maxwell twisted on the spot, snow and ice kicking from under his boots, eyes wide and wild as they jumped over the trees around him.

"Dorian!"

It came again, a shrieking, screaming call and he ran, near blind, after it.

Week 5 - Pollen:

Bayard wasn't really one of his. He wasn't from Thedas, wasn't a face he'd known from before - wasn't even a name he'd know, but Maxwell felt responsible for the boy. He'd brought him to their camp, had promised they would help him.

That they would keep him safe.

That Bayard had run away of his own choice meant little. Maxwell blamed himself for not warning him, for not taking the time to properly introduce him to everyone. The Iron Bull could be dis-quietening even to those who knew what he was, and Bayard was from an entirely different world; of course he would find Bull frightening.

It was another mistake on Maxwell's part; one he was determined to set right.

Throughout the night he searched for any sign of the boy, and come morning, he was still absent from the Thedosian camp, doubling back on a trail he'd thought was Bayard's, certain he'd missed something.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

The night had been far from voiceless for Dorian. It was his mother's voice, mostly, begging him for forgiveness as she writhed in pain. But Dorian was all too accustomed to the lure of demons. It made his blood run cold, but he did not follow - shivering to himself as he staggered around, clutching his chest but trying, at least, to be useful. He had been on the edge of the camp, dragging back some branches for the fire when he saw Maxwell. The man obviously didn't see him, even though he cried out his name.

"Maxwell?" Dorian asked, confused, but it was too late - the Inquisitor was running full tilt in the opposite direction. Dorian swore and took off after him, his chest screaming as wound threatened to tear open again.

"Maxwell!" He called after him, louder this time, as he tried to catch up. "Inquisitor, stop!"

Dorian was ahead of him, somewhere out of sight - out of reach, but then, suddenly, the man was behind him. The familiar voice coming from both directions at once, the cries blending together.

Inquisitor, one called. Maxwell, cried the other.

Confused, he skidded in the snow, glancing back and pausing at the sight of Dorian charging after him. Was it possible? Was it--?

"Dorian--"

He was breathing hard, and clutching his chest, fire in his eyes. "What in the Maker's name do you think you're doing?" He snapped as he caught up, the worry coming out in a harsh lash of anger.

He'd never dealt with worry very well.

He didn't go after Maxwell right away, but when the Inquisitor didn't return to camp in the morning he groaned and picked himself up to go and follow. He'd be fine, he assured the others. They hadn't heard a canon, so he wasn't dead, at least. He probably got caught up helping someone, as all Inquisitors seemed prone to do, but that didn't mean that he should be alone.

He'd never been a tracker - growing up in a large city and with magic kind of negated the use for such a skill - but by chance he came by what vaguely looked like someone had passed through this way recently. He didn't want to call out, at least not very loudly, but --

"Maxwell!" He hissed quietly into the trees.

He staggered forward to meet him, taking the man by the shoulders.

"Dorian, is it--" He heard the anger, more than the words themselves, and it gave him pause.

No, no it wasn't. His Dorian was--

Behind him, again, the cry came. Wordless, but still recognizable to him, and he twisted toward it.

He heard the cry but couldn't place it (having never really heard his own voice, after all) - and he had to lunge to grab Maxwell's arms, wincing in pain as he did so.

"Stop! Stop. Maker's breath -- I- They are demons, Maxwell," He said, his voice cracking as his grip tightened. "Whatever - whoever - you are hearing, they are demons, or close enough to make no difference." His expression twisted from one of anger to one of open, devastating worry. "Don't-- don't follow them. Don't go." Even as he could almost hear the echoes of his mother screaming in agony and despair. As he could hear Gavin's tortured whisper...

He heard it - a low whispering call that brought up images of drab little birds with too bright eyes. ...But they hadn't been accompanied by rustling footsteps before.

A branch snapped tellingly a few yards away and he sighed.

"Here," he called back wearily. "Safe and sound, Dorian."

He followed the voice, ignoring the strange relief at seeing Maxwell unharmed.

"Go after the boy?" He asked, even though he was fairly certain of the answer. It was hard not to hear of everything that happened in a small camp like theirs. "I take it you haven't found him?"

He struggled against the hold, heart thundering in his chest, pain twisting in time to every scream as if it were his own. It couldn't be a demon, he was so certain. He knew that voice so well, so intimately, and he couldn't bear it--

Don't go.

He turned back, muscles tense and straining beneath Dorian's hands, his expression desperate.

"And if it's not?" His eyes speared into Dorian's. "I can't leave him out there. I can't--"

Him. He noted it, but the context wasn't enough to fulfill it - after all, what he had heard was a voice he did not recognize, that spoke no words save pain.

His grip tightened. "Think," he said, a desperate worried plea to his voice. "Think. I hear them too, Maxwell. I do not know who you hear, but how likely is it that suddenly we hear voices, crying for us, even though we have not seen them? When we came we were alone. If you didn't know he was here, how would he know you are?"

He didn't need to know who 'he' was, to appeal to reason.

Maxwell stared at him, face twisting as he spoke and the screaming continued. They were both a different sort of torment, tearing at fears that were old and very new.

"Does it matter?" He was near to shouting then, nearly unable to bear it. "Just let me go, Dorian."

He shifted to watch Dorian approach, the man slipping gracefully, if not particularly quietly through the trees. He was torn between frustration that he was still not to be trusted after the birds, while feeling oddly touched that the man cared enough to follow.

Even if it was just because of what he was.

"I'm partially to blame. I should have told him--" He sighed again and turned to look around them. "He must have been terrified to get so far, so fast."

"No, I refuse," Dorian said, almost petulantly, his grip tightening. "If you're so set on your own demise, at least have the decency to do it somewhere where I--" But he cut himself off with a sharp click of his own tongue.

"I'm not going to let you go, Maxwell."

"You couldn't have known," Dorian pointed out, gently, as he stumbled up closer.

"Don't blame yourself, Maxwell. He's from a completely different world - how would you have been able to foresee how he would react?"

"Why?" He wasn't struggling physically any longer, but it was there on his face. The need to go, warring with he pause Dorian's words gave him. "I'm not--"

Not the Inquisitor, not even an Inquisitor anyone remembered. And while he liked to believe that someday they might all count each other as friends again, he knew too well they weren't there yet. That he was barely more than an acquaintance. A useful ally.

"You don't need me, Dorian."

"Oh, is that so?" he snapped somewhat peevishly, but his grip didn't slacken. "How glad I am, that you're here to decide exactly what I 'need'. What a wonderful reason to go off and get yourself killed. I do need you. We all need you. And even if we didn't, that doesn't mean I would want you to die!"

Whatever Maxwell thought, Dorian did see him as a friend. A new friend, sure, and one that knew him better than he really should have done, but a friend none the less. A friend, and a somewhat painful vessel for all that Dorian had left of the man he loved.

"What could possibly be important enough to risk demons and death?"

"Qunari are frightening to people even from Thedas. To a child who's never seen one?"

He shook his head, wiped a hand tiredly over his face.

"I should have seen it coming."

But he hadn't, and know he was determined to make it right before Bayard stumbled on one of the less welcoming tributes, or one of the Capitol's many pets.

Turning back to Dorian, he said, "You can tell the others I'm alright. I'm just going to keep looking."

"I'll come with you," Dorian decided, leaning on his staff as he drew nearer. "We'll find him. Better two pairs of eyes than one, hmm?"

He offered a slight smile with that. "The others won't be worried until the cannons start, I'm sure. We'll be fine."

He almost said it. The word springing to his lips as ready as arrow to his bow. His fingers tightened with it, griping hard at Dorian's shoulders.

You.

But it caught on the edge of his tongue as they eyes met and held, and his fingers slowly slackened.

Not him; even as he was.

"Is there nothing you wouldn't risk, for those you loved?"

Maxwell looked sidelong at him.

"I haven't heard anything since," he said, guessing part of the offer lie in worry. "I'm not going to do anything foolish, Dorian. I promise."

He didn't want the mage to trouble himself over that.

He'd learned his lesson.

"Having had someone do that for me was enough to teach me that it can be much, much worse, to risk yourself, in the vain hope of protecting them." He pulled Maxwell closer, still gripping tight on his arm.

"They aren't there," He said, his voice cracking. "As surely as the demon's promises of wealth and riches and peace aren't." His grip tightened, his brows furrowing with worry as he kept his eyes locked on Maxwell's. "I know that the temptation of demons isn't something as... As familiar to you, as it is to me, but I promise you, Maxwell, going out there to your death... there's no one there to help. Please, trust me."

"What, a man can't simply be in want of a little company?" Dorian asked, pretending to be mildly offended. But then something occurred to him and his amusement faltered. Perhaps it was less the company, but who the company was...

"I'll leave you be, if that is truly your desire, but in all honesty, none of us should wander alone. There is plenty of sensible reason for us to scout in pairs, as no doubt Ser Cullen would be all to happy to remind you."

The fight went out of him, slowly, but surely. The wall of grief and panic cracking enough to allow the reason behind Dorian's words to sink in. The pain and worry in them twisting uncomfortably in Maxwell's chest.

He'd caused it, even as he'd sought to ease it.

"...I do," he said finally, low and rough, his voice gone thick with emotions he dared not to think closely on. His touched lingered a moment longer, a palm finding the side of Dorian's throat, then his shoulders slumped and his hands fell away. "You win."

He raised an eyebrow, knowing full well if Dorian had merely wanted company there were plenty of choices of it be had at camp... but he didn't argue further. It wouldn't do him any favors; it was already difficult -- but he was too tired to care.

Too weak.

"Maker save us, a lecture from the Commander," he joked. "No, I don't want to risk that."

Giving his shoulders a roll to loosen them, he nodded in a direction kitty-corner to where they stood.

"I was thinking I might check the meadow. It was near there that I found him to begin with, maybe he wanted to be comforted by something familiar."

He didn't relax his grip, searching Maxwell's face to find the truth behind the words. It took him a good moment to decide that he had truly acquiesced before his grip finally slipped down Maxwell's arm, though it never fully let go.

"... I'm sorry," He said, and he meant it. "Whoever you--" But he seemed to think better of that train of thought, and said instead, "I know it's hard."

His expression had hollowed, gaze slipping away. Without purpose, there was just the pain. A uselessness - a helplessness - as the screams cried on, clawing futilely at his heart.

A loneliness. A guilt.

"The Inquisitor endures," he murmured lowly. He went to take a step away, but was stopped by the hand lingering on his arm. He glanced at it, then back up at Dorian. "I won't go. You have my word."

He did finally let go then, though only reluctantly.

"Would have had to take drastic measures if you'd decided otherwise," He said, a poor excuse for an attempt at humour, the worry all too obvious. "Come back to camp? If both you and I have been hearing them, I can only imagine..." He trailed off, letting the meaning hang in silence.

He didn't smile. He just didn't have it in him, not then. The very air around him felt heavy, pressing down upon his shoulders and back. He felt weaker than he ever had. Lower than he had since--

Maxwell swallowed, thick and hard, and nodded. Back the way he'd come he trudged through the snow, brushing past Dorian, head ducking as the cries carried after him.

All the more desperate, higher, sharper, as he tried to leave them behind.

"It's as good a place to start as any," Dorian agreed, offering a companionable smile, as he started loping in that direction.

"How they can even think of bringing children here... I would say it's beyond me, but unfortunately I'm well too versed in the extents that cruelty can go."

Maxwell fell in step beside him, eyes scanning the trees around them as they walked. There had been quite a few cannons recently, but he didn't doubt there were still more surprises to be had.

"They were all children once, I've been told." He touched a tree trunk for balance as he passed it by, fingertips dragging lichen from the bark. "From the districts we've been assigned too. A boy and a girl every year as punishment for something they did."

"Oh, of course, because obviously that makes the most sense for gladiatorial combat," Dorian said, incredibly dryly.

Dorian was, for want of a better word, not a woodsman. He was no good at stepping quietly, and he kept snagging himself on branches. He used his makeshift staff to keep most of it out of the way, but every once in a while he had to 'tsk!' at himself and unsnag his sleeve. Again.

He did, however, have the good sense to keep his voice fairly low, in case they weren't alone in the woods.

"At least this arena is more familiar," He murmured, half to himself, half to Maxwell. He frowned, something on the edge of his perception, a smell that he couldn't place, and it made his mustache twitch. Ah, well. It was too far to be of any interest or use.

Maxwell snorted, ducking under the broken, low-hanging limb of a tree and stepping into a patch of sunlight. Blinking up at it, he felt the wind shift. Cool, but fresh as it brushed across his face.

"Frostbite, murderous wildlife, untold enemies slinking about behind our backs..." He canted his head to one side, shooting Dorian an amused look, and reached out to pluck a bramble from his elbow. "I do enjoy all the new additions to my cursing repertoire."

His nose itched.

He flicked the prickly burr aside and rubbed his face again.

"Meanwhile, they've stolen mine," Dorian lamented with a sigh. He'd stopped bothering with the burrs - there were more than a few stuck to his jacket, but that's what parka's were for, right? Even if you wore them completely open. "Every time I attempt to curse, it comes out in Common. Absolutely devastating to my image."

He stepped out, the trees thinning as they opened into the glade. He sneezed - just a quick little sneeze - as he began to wade into the knee-high grass. He looked around, frowning, but there was no sign of anyone.

It wasn't warm, exactly, but the meadow was still a pretty sight. Dappled sunlight, shifting grass and wildflowers, wide and open - their sweet scent drifting on the breeze.

To think it had all been buried under snow as deep as his thighs not a week ago.

Following Dorian into the grass, pushing it lightly from side-to-side with his boot - expecting snakes - he touched one of the flowers, rubbing a silken petal between his fingers. The head was oddly heavy and he wondered absently what type they were.

He coughed. Sniffed.

"Where do you think I'm getting them all my new ones from?" he teased lightly. "Even without the mystery it's still hard to come back from 'lick the downy hairs upon--'"

He coughed again, harder, and go of the flower to cover his mouth - nobility and practicality coming together to try and stifle the sound.

Edited 2015-03-17 21:24 (UTC)

Dorian chuckled, pausing to watch as Maxwell coughed, before tilting his head.

"Are you alright? You--" But he was cut off as a fresh breeze blew quite visible pollen past them now - a gentle haze of yellow on Dorian's cuff. He sneezed, before glancing down at it. "-- Ah. Well, I think that may be our culprit. Spring has come early, it seems."

Maxwell frowned at it, eyes almost crossing as the puff of yellow passed in front of his nose. He pulled his head back, then took a step back, scrubbing the back of his hand under his nose.

"That's odd, it doesn't usually bother--" Itch returned in his throat, and he turned his head away to clear it again.

The sound was wet then, and it tasted like--

His tongue dabbed at it, a bright spot on his lip. His hand followed, fingers wiping at it so he could see it - a small red smear.

Dorian's smile instantly disappeared, and he stepped over to Maxwell with a stern look. "Let me see," He said, but it wasn't exactly a question or even a warning, because he was already reaching out to cup the side of Maxwell's face and hold it steady as he brushed his other thumb across the inside of his lip.

His frown deepened as he brought his hand closer to look at it, rubbing the blood between his finger tips. "... Maxwell," He said, his voice strangely quiet, "I think we ought to leave. Now."

He was confused, more than afraid, at first. Standing pliant under Dorian's touch, watching him as he studied the blood - wondering if a blood magic joke would be too off-color... Then he hit by the sudden, sharp clarity that he'd felt that first night in the forest after the screaming of their loved ones had driving them from their cave. That realization that had washed over him when the thunderous death-blasts had begun to crack over the trees.

"...I think I know what kind of flowers they are," Maxwell murmured, the words oddly strained as he fought to hold another cough inside his protesting chest.

Another trap.

He reached out quickly, catching the mage's fingers, pushing the blood away from Dorian's face instinctively. (What if it was in him now? What if he could pass it on, like a poisoned blade?)

He would have replied, but he began to cough instead, double over as his lungs tried to expel the pollen as well as they could.

"Go," he demanded breathlessly, shoving Maxwell toward the trees to get him moving. "Go! I'm right- right behind you."

And he was, for what good it would do. Stumbling along as he tried to regain his breath and the half-healed wounds screamed against the sudden flurry of activity.

He staggered a few stumbling steps in the direction of the push, but twisted back, unwilling to just turn and go. Not when he could hear Dorian struggling behind him.

Tucking his face into the crock of one arm - barking great, wet, heaving coughs into his coat - he reached out with the other, finger scrabbling over the slick back of the other man's jacket. Maxwell pulled Dorian with him, first to help the mage, then himself when his vision began to burn and blur.

Half-blind, he clipped a tree hard enough to knock him off-balance and to send pain radiating up his shoulder.

He might have cursed, but it was hard to tell, the word mangled and garbled, buried beneath blood and phlegm.

"Maxwell--!" Dorian cried, though it was less a cry than it was the precursor to a sneeze, and then a dry, heaving retch. He doubled over again, gripping at Maxwell's sleeve. "Careful," He begged, the painful worry etched across his face. "We need-- we need water, something--"

What they needed, he knew, was an antidote. But there was no point stating the obvious.

Or useless.

His grip tightened on Dorian's coat, face rubbing helplessly across the slick fabric of his own parka, trying to clear his eyes - leaving dark smears of blood from his nose and mouth behind. Hot, painful tears tracking down his face as he blinked at trees.

The forest seemed to melt around him, Dorian's face shifting into and out of the bark. If not for the hold they had on each other, he might have believed he was imaging him. That he was dying and his mind was taking leave.

(Tugging him closer, trying to hold him up, he was sure of one of them.)

"The river--" Something seized in his chest, a hard, fast stabbing pain and he staggered, catching himself on a trunk. "North."

He gagged, spitting blood and something stinking and bitter that might have been breakfast.

"I can't see..." he wheezed.

"I've got you," Dorian promised. He'd managed not to rub his eyes, yet, so though his lungs felt on fire he could still see fairly well, and he got Maxwell's arm up over his shoulder and began to try to drag them back in a directly he vaguely thought was north.

However, he didn't get very far. He was swept over with a sudden flush - his whole body suddenly feeling like a furnace - and the nausea swept over him, nearly making him gag. He stumbled, before his knees buckled and they both went tumbling to the forest floor.

Maxwell wasn't even sure they'd moved at all - nothing seemed to be changing. There was heat and pain and the very air felt so heavy, his chest rattled, breath wheezing in small desperate gasps -- but then there was dirt and mud and the slushy snow so, so cold on his burning face.

It was almost a relief, to choke on that instead.

"...You... dropped me," he gasped, the humor faint, but all he had left. His fingers worked, curling in the muck, in Dorian's jacket. Pulling, trying to get up - then pushing when he simply couldn't. Shoving the mage, spending the last of his energy to spur him on.

"North," he whispered again.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Don't try to wake me in the morning, 'cause I will be gone

Jabberjays

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject