[ OPEN ] I Still Feel Alive

[sulahnan]

WHO: Character(s)
WHAT: Catch-all
WHEN: Drakonis (but other times welcome)
WHERE: Around
NOTES: Should be pretty tame, mention of trauma will ofc be labeled with CW. Starters in the comments.

Well then.

The month of Guardian came and went like a beating: brutal and cruel and over faster than the lasting pain it inflicted. Now, it's Drakonis, and the goal is a return to something resembling normalcy.

Athessa can be found studying and taking lessons with Ser Marcus in the library or in Enchanter Julius' office, snooping around Kirkwall, and trying her best to stay out of trouble around the Gallows. Her late night hypothetical musing via crystal has all but ceased, and gone are the days of icing the floor to skate on socks.

Maybe she could do with some cheering up, or a good tussle.

Comments

[hemitheoi]

He knows this place.

This cold and cruel place. Where there is no safety, where there is no forgiveness. There is not even good and bad, light and dark, dawn and dusk.

There is only fear. There is only the fear that is coming. That rises up like a wave against the black, it swallows you, makes your skin heavy and your bones brittle. Where you cannot know who and what you are anymore except that fear. A horrified slugged feeling of mire and muck.

He leans forward, his forehead to hers. He cannot tell her safe. He does not know safe. What he does know - is the one thing he is.

"You have better than safe. You have me."

[sulahnan]

That's better than safe.

Athessa closes her eyes and lets her forehead rest against his for a moment as that sinks in: she has him. Then, she throws her arms around his neck and holds herself to him, no longer fighting his grip or uncomfortable in it. She's uncomfortable in her own skin, but not against him.

She tries to say something, maybe a thank you, but mostly it just comes out as a whimper.

[hemitheoi]

He stiffens. But it is not because she is a threat to him, as he usually is with so many touching him. No, that... she is... glad for him. His violence. Not the way that Chrysis had raised him up, glorying in his violence as proof of her teachings under the Qun. But that in being so, he offered her some relief he did not... quite understand.

"Bed. Then you will tell me what caused this."

[sulahnan]

She can't force the words out, no yes, Deimos, not even an okay. She just nods and trusts as much as she is able.

Which bed he deposits her in doesn't really matter, be it hers or his. Athessa doesn't want to let go of him--or let him go?--when he stoops to set her down, but she relents without any further complaint than a lingering touch. She curls in on herself, hugging her knees to her chest and taking up even less room on the bed than ever. No lounging, no sexy posing, not even the casual cross-legged seat that she takes when talking to him casually. She's holding herself together, tightly and still just barely.

"We saved a girl from--" Grits her teeth. How is she supposed to talk about this? With Deimos? It's not the same as Colin knowing by witnessing it in her nightmare, or whatever she said to Byerly. She can't even remember how she told the latter, she was in such a state at the time. "--this fucking bastard, Devigny. Tonight. He was gonna--she was drugged, locked away at his place..."

Athessa covers her face with her hands, fingers curled against her skin as if she'd like to tear it off if she could.

[hemitheoi]

He sets her down, laying her against the pillows and blankets, that no - are not soft, are not delicate and light, like any good Qunari, there is nothing but simple utility. But it is sturdy, and there is enough to settle her.

"Devigny. What is he?"

cw: rape mention

[sulahnan]

What is he?

"He's a monster. A man. A cruel bas with enough money that he thinks he can own people," A fresh well of tears pools in her vision, blurring everything. Her breath hitches, voice cracks, lip quivers. But it isn't sorrow. Safe with Deimos it isn't even fear, not at the surface. It's rage.

"He's... He raped me. I was fifteen and he had his servant steal me off the street and drugged me, poured wine down my throat, and then he--"

She catches the awful sob wrenched from her throat with a shaking hand over her mouth, and it takes a moment before she can speak again through clenched teeth.

"I couldn't let him do it to anyone else. I couldn't let that girl go through that."