because it doesn't make sense for me to cry out in my own defense

[keenly]

WHO: Colin, Alexandrie, Anders, Loki, Kostos, Myrobalan
WHAT: Colin gives up.
WHEN: The evening after the news of the new Divine reaches Kirkwall.
WHERE: Alexandrie de la Fontaine's apartments.
NOTES: CW: Suicide attempt. Physical violence will ensue. Mentions of past sexual violence.

Hearing her name doesn't change anything. He doesn't think he even feels anything at that point--wouldn't know for sure, though, because he doesn't bother to ask himself. He just floats. Quietly closes the apothecary early for the day and posts a sign. Stares down the hallway. Stands still for so long that someone bumps into him on their way. The walls are narrow and cold, still with remnants of the old history in their stains and accents. You can see the marks where there were slave reliefs taken down. And in the old days, at the end of the hall, there would be a door locked and barred.

He drifts down the hallway, stopping to look closely at all the evidence of those who died here, slaves and mages alike. Flattens a palm against the stone as if, across the mirror of the Veil, someone from long ago is touching that same stone. It used to be too much to think about, but it doesn't hurt him now. Not as long as he makes it down the hallway before they lock the door.

The ferry skims over the water streaked pale gold by the late afternoon light. Smoke from the foundry district blows over it as Colin passes through like a ghost, looking back at the Gallows and wondering how many people are there whom he should speak to. He didn't pass any of them on the way to the ferry, so it must not be meant to be. If they can't catch him as he flits away like a moth, he isn't capable of turning around to give them another chance, or seek them out. This hallway is too narrow for him to travel in any direction but one.

The apartment is familiar and lovely, spotless and comfortable. It still feels like the last place he belongs, but he has never belonged anywhere except the place he was taken from too long ago to belong there again. He goes to the little trinket box on a side table and opens it, taking out the cool, smooth contents.

The flask is altogether unremarkable, but his spirit balks at the sight of it because of the color of saffron, the taste of smoke, the dappled pattern of the sun through trees, the gleam of laughter in a friend's eyes. He doesn't have to do this. He can toss it out a window. But his spirit balks at the thought of that, because he remembers climbing into a wall, and being flung against one. He remembers the shreds of an apprentice's robe hanging on the body of an abomination. He remembers frightened Templars shutting and barring the great doors. He remembers the taste of Ser Lutair's spit and seed both, and how to make sure to cover his knees from the cold stone as he got down on them. He remembers ghosting through hallways just like he did today, and for four years, no one stopping him to talk to him. No one asking if something was wrong, or looking closely enough to see it for themselves. No one coming to help, no rescue, only a threat that if he didn't shape up, he would end up Tranquil. Which didn't turn out to be such a bad suggestion. So since there was no escaping his torturer, and showing any signs of being tortured would have earned punishment, he turned himself Tranquil. He spent years as a corpse walking down that empty hallway, unseen and unloved.

He won't go back to it, and he won't shiver through a year or two of war knowing what's coming will be even worse for him. He has always been his only source of mercy, and this is his call. This will be the last time he dies.

Comments

[coquettish_trees]

"Not yet, I—" The Tevene sounds softer in her mouth, her accent different. Whomever Alexandrie learned it from, they were from a different region than whence Loki came. “Blankets at least. A bed, I… his is so close.”

Even as the furnace of her terrified fury had been stoked by needle after needle from the man she’d called: the dismissal of Loki’s efforts and skill with the poisons of his profession—his study of death as intensive as Anders’ study of life, the assumption of her incompetence, the assumption of the shape of her life—what she must have seen or done or known or been from some passing categorization of her as… well, as the very image she cultivated to make people underestimate her. Even with that, the fight is immediately snuffed in her by the sheer volume of liquid issuing from Colin, the horrid sickness of it so different than any she has ever smelled. She touches the man who had become her first real friend since her childhood like something precious and breakable as she rinses his mouth again, like something that might break at any moment. Then in Trade again, only a murmur, her fingers straying to carefully smooth the sweat-clinging hair back from his brow.

“Is… is it safe to move him to bed, with more towels? Should I bring the blankets here?”

[justice_is_blond]

His fingers drop down to the pulse point on Colin's neck and Anders' gaze goes distant, feeling it and the young man's respiration before nodding at her alone. Let the abusive Vint talk away.

"An arm under his shoulders, if you will." No heat this time. She's giving a care about Colin, rather than implying Anders should know anything more than her name, face, and main occupation - being a noble. Anders puts his own arm under as well so Colin has someone on each side, and his free hand goes to support Colin's neck.

"Slow and steady." As dead weight Colin's heavier than usual, but Anders has carried patients before. Alexandrie's help should be enough. "And then if you've extra bedding, it would be good to have on hand. It'll undoubtedly need to be changed."

And if she bristles again, she bristles. It's the same instructions and tone he'd use with anyone assisting in the infirmary or Clinic. There are things that need doing, he'll speak them rather than assume anyone knows.

[hwaaaitsme]

They lift Colin and she argues, however weakly, and Loki's patience wears so thin it actually begins to fray around the edges. They move him from the floor, Alexandrie exerting herself to help lift the dead weight of Colin, and Loki seethes in silence as they move him to the bed. If the healer cannot see the delicacy in her, if he refuses to set her help aside and ask the more capable to work, then Loki has no time for him.

"No. Now."

The very moment Colin is settled on the bed, before she can rush off and fetch blankets, or swipe at his brow, or fret and fawn any longer, Loki takes her by the arm and draws her back. He doesn't give her time to resist him and, instead, lifts her bodily over his shoulder. Her skirts are cumbersome, as they are ever, but she weighs hardly anything. Carrying her is a simple task.

"Make due with servants," he calls back to Anders as he moves toward the door. His steps are swift and strides long and it is only a second or so before he reaches the threshold. "Or don't. I'm sure you know enough that they are hardly necessary."

The venom in his tone is truly impressive but he barely lingers long enough to deliver the passing comment. He is well into the hallway before he is done speaking which rather ruins the effect.

[justice_is_blond]

Take away the person who is willing to assist and say servants are hardly necessary? The effect is just as ruined by how stupid the attempt at a comeback is. Clearly he'd struck a nerve and he... can't give a care. There's no satisfaction to it. He doesn't even have the energy to challenge the man's harsh treatment of Alexandrie, not with what healing he's put into Colin and what healing still needs to be. She hadn't fought, hadn't yelled - this might be a normal for her and while it's wrong, it's not urgent or immediate.

But now the room is quiet and it's just him and Colin. It's too quiet. He doesn't break that quiet as he starts to cover Colin, bundling him up against the cold. Nor does he disturb it as he retrieves the vial he'd had Alexandrie make and casts to finish it. The stillness is almost a shield, a buffer, but then it runs out because Colin's still there, weak and unconscious and Anders has no distractions.

Anders slowly sinks into the chair next to the bed. Colin's alive, but he'd failed. He hadn't been someone Colin could turn to when he needed it, he hadn't been supportive enough, he hadn't pushed when he'd known something was wrong. All summed up, he'd let Colin down. What good is he if he lets down the few people who matter to him?

He holds the vial to Colin's lips mechanically now that the vomiting has come to a stop. "Just rest and drink. That's all you need to do right now." And also find a reason to live, and the strength to live, and a better mentor. Restorative potion finished, there's healing and waiting left to do. At least the healing is easy. So, for that matter, is feeling guilty. Eventually he finds Colin's hand under the blankets and holds it. For now, for as long as he's needed, he'll stay here.

[faithlikeaseed]

The servants might also suffice for making tea-- But for want of anywhere to put all his anxious energy, Myr had gone off and done exactly that not long after arriving. Better being underfoot in the kitchen, where no one would suffer for it, than in the room with the emergency.

(He could have gone back to the Gallows, of course. But he's become involved with this, in hiwever sideways a way, and he'll see it through.)

Now that it's gotten quiet--now that the shouting in the hall has died--he finally puts on an appearance, silent as a spirit as he slips into the room with a hastily made mug. It's his aim to set it near Anders' elbow and fade away as softly as he'd come, sensing questions--or his usual chatter--are not wanted right now.

[justice_is_blond]

The quiet clink of a mug startles Anders out of his self-recrimination and he blinks up at Myr. That's the opposite of the usual.

"Um. Hi. Sorry. Again." Apparently he's going to alternate between one-word sentences and flurries of directions with Myr tonight. He's also going to be oblivious for chunks of time, it seems. "You made me tea. Thank you."

He wraps his fingers around the mug and the tiredness starts to hit. "I... I think I'm out of words. I'm sorry. A third time now, if we're counting." He thinks he's old, too. Maybe too old.

[faithlikeaseed]

The tumble of words keeps Myr from leaving; he turns back from the door and essays a brief smile at Anders. It's meant to be earnest and reassuring--and mostly managing that. "You needed tea. And rest, likely. Is he well enough someone else might spell you?"

As if to answer the question himself, he leans a little sideways to peer past Anders at Colin. "Maker's breath," softly, "who did this to him?"

Word had not, apparently, traveled about that.

[justice_is_blond]

He looks back at Colin at the questions. Easy one first.

"He's stable. I could go get some rest." While he'd like to be here in case Colin wakes, he knows that's a selfish wish and there's a solid chance Colin wouldn't want him present. "I'd want someone with a healing ability present in case. But I could go. And the answer to the other... is his story to tell."

Suicide is deeply personal. He doesn't have reason to think Myr would judge Colin for it, but he knows what can happen if rumor spreads of a mage being desperate to end it all. Tranquility might be off the table now, but there are any number of people who would still gladly end a mage for a moment of vulnerability. There is one single person in the whole world Anders might tell about this, and considering how he's not sure the crystals are secure he may not even then.

"Were you volunteering to keep an eye on him?"

[faithlikeaseed]

His story to tell. Anders needn't say the word "suicide"; it hangs in the air between them and something changes in Myr's expression. He closes his eyes, averts his face, gone silent as he digests that.

He should've been paying closer attention.

"I am, if you've need," he says at length. "Though you know I'm not much of a healer."

Anders had seen what happened to Benedict, after all.

[justice_is_blond]

It's clear, then. He'll need to find a better way to deflect future questions, but as much as Myr is a fan of the Circles Anders doesn't see him reaching with fear to Colin's situation. Gossip, though, and gossip to a particular partner, could be deadly. Surely Myr knows better than to tell a Templar... but there could be bias.

It's good Anders isn't going far.

"Just as a stopgap," he says. "I'll not go far, I'll have one of the... one of the servants find me a place to rest." And that's a bizarre sentence to him - having a servant do something. He'd not trouble them but he's unfamiliar with the place and doesn't want to deal with the drama of its owners right now.

"I'll send them back to tell you where in case I'm needed. But having people, mages, around him will help as well. He needs to not feel threatened." That should hopefully get the point across without being rude. Myr must trust Simon - a relationship is empty without trust - but Anders does not and especially considering his last conversation with Colin a Templar would be the worst possible thing to have around.

[faithlikeaseed]

The whole scope of Anders' consideration behind clarifying "people" with mages mercifully escapes Myr, but he catches enough of the shape of it to give the other man a thoughtful look. "People he trusts, surely; I imagine the Lady Alexandrie will want to join us at his bedside."

Inviting yet another person into this fraught little household is the furthest thing from his mind--he probably doesn't even rightly belong here, a resident of circumstance--but he's seen something of what lies between Colin and the noblewoman.

[justice_is_blond]

He waves a hand; he'd not meant to imply excluding her. "She's already here, she's a part of it. Whatever part her... partner... lets her play."

And there's a partner he distrusts even more than Simon. Who is also a mage. Thankfully he doesn't think the Vint will be inclined to bedside visits.

"Just those close to him, and word limited as much as possible. His recovery may be prolonged." He wants it protected.

[faithlikeaseed]

Myr breathes out a noise that's--not a laugh, but something near as he can come in a situation so bleak. "Owner of the house, I'd think," he mutters, half to himself. Whatever else is going on between Alexandrie and Loki--beyond what rumor runs rampant around the Gallows--isn't his to worry about right now; if there's a fight to pick on someone's behalf in all of this, it's one he'd rather pick with better information.

(She's been kind to him. She's given him lessons in something he'd despaired to learn. She's got fire enough she could give a Vint mage more than he'd ever bargained for. Yet: magic was meant to serve man...)

"Then all the better you rest when you can," he continues, more gently, "and we'll work out the details when we're all less in shock."

[justice_is_blond]

He nods. The rest can be attended to later. Colin's the one that matters tonight and as to that target Anders needs to get a little rest.

"I'll send the servant to you when I've a spot, then." With another nod, this one of farewell, Anders heads out to find a corner he can curl up in to close his eyes for what he intends to be just a few minutes.