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

[keenly]

Colin's gaze switches from Kostos to Myr, and he's temporarily confused as to whether Myr knows the knife isn't for the two of them. Are they afraid of him? After a moment, he lowers the hand he is keeping on Myr, focusing so he can keep the man elevated anyway, and presses the edge of the knife to his throat experimentally.

It occurs to him, quite suddenly, that he doesn't want to hurt Myr. Slitting his throat now would have Myr drop to the floor with as much force as sent him to the ceiling. He watches the man with a blank, drugged gaze. Then, slowly, he begins to lower the elf to the floor. Once his feet are flat on the carpet, Colin back up against the wall, wary but not yet cutting himself.

[exequy]

Kostos—

Kostos shouldn't be here, honestly. He should have left when he arrived and realized Myrobalan was not, in fact, leaving, and two sets of eyes weren't going to do anything one couldn't do alone and anyway he has work to do, but at the time announcing he was leaving instead seemed so callous that even he couldn't think it was a good idea. It hadn't occurred to him that any of this would happen and that he would wind up in a position to potentially make things so incredibly worse by saying the wrong thing. He is good at a lot of things (thanks), and saying the wrong thing is the thing he's absolutely best at.

But part of what makes him so good at it is that, despite being aware of himself and the effect he has, he can't always just shut the fuck up.

So, pinned (voluntarily, for now—he's been able to do a good Dispel since he was ten) and scowling, he says, "Colin, if you make me watch you kill yourself, I am going to vomit all over your kitchen."

He's not bluffing.

[faithlikeaseed]

Myr is braced for worse--worse, like being dropped ten feet onto an unyielding countertop and breaking his neck, and worse like watching Colin slit his own throat and then breaking his neck--so being let down is a decided relief. It takes him a moment to catch his breath properly and he watches Colin as intently as Colin's watching them.

Though he spares a glance in Kostos' direction at the threat, more sympathetic than incredulous.

"He would, too." Because not shutting the fuck up may not be Myr's besetting vice, but it's still up there. "Will you set the knife down? Please," he adds, gently. "You are safe. No one will come for you without having to go through us. You don't need to run from it this way."

[keenly]

Colin looks back to Kostos and his eyes widen further to hear him speak. Frightened as he is, desperate as he is, making someone watch him slit his own throat is fucked up. He looks back to Myrobalan, frozen like a deer, shaking as if balanced precariously on a razor-thin fence. And there is allure in what Myr says, because despite his determination tonight, Colin does not actually want to die.

(A voice in the back of his mind tells him these are loyalist hypocrites who would be glad to put him back in the Circle, but Myr seems to know his mind better than his mind does at the moment.)

The blade lowers. Colin flips it in his hand as he releases Kostos from his hold, holding it out handle-first to him.

"Put it away," he says, voice scratchy from the abrasiveness of the poison and its many times coming back up.

[exequy]

No need to ask twice. Barely a need to ask once. Kostos snatches the knife away almost before Colin is done saying anything—quick hands, the rest of him still and glaring—and returns it with a clatter to the same drawer he had been blocking from opening before.

Then he resumes blocking it. Just in case. Because what the fuck. His tone isn’t gentle, oh you poor dear you’ve had a trial, so much as it is fed up with chases and telekinesis for a few days at least, when he says, “Sit down.”

[faithlikeaseed]

Fortunately there's enough oh you poor dear in Myr's body for two mages. Maybe three on an especially emotional day.

Content Colin's no threat to himself now, he glances toward Kostos again, then shifts to find a cup and fill it with water. This he offers to Colin. "Here. Get it down you."

Broth would likely be better after all the vomiting but there's not any to hand and he mislikes the sound of Colin's throat.

[keenly]

Somehow Colin winds up in a chair with a cup of water in his hand, though he doesn't remember getting there. He sips the water gingerly, no longer sure what he's supposed to think or feel now that he's alive when he knows he shouldn't be. He decides to do neither thinking nor feeling, for now.

"What are you doing here?" he asks distantly.