faderift | after all these years, you don't want to see me poppin' outta da cake?!

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after all these years, you don't want to see me poppin' outta da cake?!

WHO: Twisted Fate & OPEN
WHAT: Everything is super serious and elves are in baby jail, so it's a good time to have your birthday party and have it be as loud as possible.
WHEN: 4th of Cloudreach
WHERE: Herald's Rest
NOTES: There might be nudity. Heinous!

♠ EARLY AFTERNOON.

So bees aside.

Yes, there was a bit of a bee problem a few days ago in the room that Twisted Fate had acquired while Sera was gone. As he said, all was fair among fellow thieves, and he really doesn't need the room, but it's such a good location he thought he'd... borrow it awhile, at least until it stopped being funny. He isn't even sure he managed to get all of the bees out, but he does need to eventually plan a little strike back to her.

Post-birthday, anyway.

For now, there are drinks, there is cake -- red velvet, thank you -- and little paper hats for you!

Socialize, be merry. Twisted Fate is around somewhere, no doubt.

♠ EARLY EVENING.

At this point, there are games to be had, as one might expect.

Wicked Grace and Diamondback are the popular choices, though Twisted Fate might encourage a few drinking games as well. Alternatively, perhaps you come up with your own game.

After all, he's never opposed to try something new.

♠ LATE, LATE, LATE.

Plenty of people, perhaps even yourself, has probably taken in so much drink by this point that nothing is quite even and thinking is hard. But it's all in good fun.

How are you feeling? Or is the party over?

♠ WILDCARD.

Choose your own adventure!

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He's never been exactly good at tussling. Setting someone on fire, sure. Zapping them, freezing them, anything with magic, of course. But if he uses magic directly on a Templar, he's dead. It means nearly everything he's learned in the past is useless.

Thank the Maker he'd had lessons from Merrick and has them from Nate. Anders struggles, arm around her waist, leg hooking around her ankle, wanting nothing more than to shove her down as he struggles for footing in the muck.

"Have. Often. Your kind is nothing more than abusers in pretty armor. And now you've no quiet victims left. You hate that, don't you."

At least his body isn't his only weapon here. And at least he has some self control, because otherwise the scene would be lit blue and she'd be dead.

There's a part of her, too, that knows that she can't take this as far as her raging blood is begging her to. There's a reason she hasn't reached for any blades. There's a reason she hasn't even tried to land a punch again - the two of them just struggling with fierce grips, until his foot pulls her ankle out and she falls - hard - but doesn't let go of him, fingers gripped tight into his robes as she tries to pull him down with her.

"You have-- no idea-- who I am--" She hissed through gritted teeth, the anger so sharp and so hot that she felt like the words were fire on her tongue.

He lands on top as they splash down, and it's so satisfying to see the splatter. Even more once she speaks again and her voice finally rings a bell. Nerva. Nerva, who would deny him personhood even more than every other Templar he's dealt with his entire life.

"An abuser who hits people who have been abused to feel better about herself."

They'd taken his name. He'll not acknowledge hers. He lets go of her and swings at her face, at her nose, hoping to connect and for the first time in his life actually hit a Templar back when not in battle. It also means he lands in more mud but it won't matter if she gets a taste of what her kind has done unanswered for centuries.

She turned her head - taking the fist to her cheekbone instead of her nose, the fist hitting with a sickening crack. The rage nearly blinds her, blood red across her vision, and she pulls her knee up with an incredible force and then shoves him off her so that she can stagger back upright, wiping at her mouth, the sneer on her lips making her teeth look like jagged fangs.

She needed to breathe, or she'd try to kill him.

"Keep painting yourself the victim, Anders. It isn't me you'll have to answer to, in the end."

He got back to his own feet, dripping mud, and it takes just about everything he has to smirk rather than give her the reaction she wants. He doesn't have to paint himself anything; he'd been abused for years and years, and it brings anger rushing to his ears when she dismisses it. But no. He will not lose this, not when he knows a sore spot.

"Already answered, Templar. Already dealt with. And your order had no power there. How that frustrates all of you, doesn't it?"

He stepped to the side, starting to circle, preparing for her next attack, because Templars never stop.

"I escaped seven times, and I'm free of you for good. How does that feel? Not able to kill me time and time and time again? Thwarted by a mage? Oh, it must rankle to know that some of us will never bow."

She could, she knows, snap back about his ignorance. About how she left the Templars, about how she carefully cut every emblem from her leather, etched every emblem from her steel.

But she doesn't.

Because that failure is hers, and that wound is hers, and even to prove him wrong she won't give him access to it. He has no right to it. She won't give him any satisfaction with the knowledge that she agrees, in a large part, to his argument, because that isn't the point.

She stands her ground, not attacking again, just turning on the spot, shoulders hunched as if her heckles were raised with the snarling sneer of an angry, rabid dog. She tells herself not to hit him again. The first hit was a weakness. The second one would be worse - it would be a loss. It would be giving into his goading.

"You have not answered for your crimes, Anders." She ignores the rest, like barbs beneath her skin, tearing at an open wound. "Only your death will allow you that atonement, if there's any to be found."

"And Templars have? No, they haven't. Annulment, physical abuse, disappearances, Tranquility so that mages can be raped, endless harassment, the list goes on and on. No one who has ever worn that armor or carried that sigil answers for what they do."

They've thought he should die for well over a decade. They've chased him and hurt him simply for wanting to be freedom. Any Templar beliefs are invalid.

"Your opinion is worth less than the mud coating your armor."

Someone who he's hurt thinking he can't atone enough would matter. Her? The smirk feels even better. She thinks he paints himself as victim, which means she knows nothing about him. He's always called himself lucky because he's not been violated, but there's no denying the pain and vulnerability that does come from a decade of abuse.

"I owe you nothing. No answering, no atonement. You owe mages so much more than you will ever attempt to pay, so you lash out. You strike like all of your fellows."

It would be all too easy to go at her again, but it's Justice pushing for it. He can't let the spirit win here just like he can't let her win.

"Beat them down, keep them down, so you feel better about yourself."

"Destroyed villages, homes, murders, abominations, genocides-" She snapped back at him, her voice raising, her crisp Orlesian accent sliding into something broader, more foreign, despite herself. The rage and the wine and the almost violent flashback that slams into the back of her brain so hard and so fast that it nearly winds her.

It isn't Anders that she sees, anymore, her eyes almost glazed over in their rage. Anders is just the vessel.

The Magisters lie beyond.

"The blood and the fire--" And she does launch herself at him again, one armoured shoulder bent toward him, like a thundering rhino. She doesn't bother to try to keep her balance, she just wants them both back in the mud, wants to feel blood and bone smear and snap below her fingers.

He's about to laugh bitterly when she moves with a speed that's almost inhuman. Luckily for him, for only the second time ever, he is inhuman. Anders snaps a barrier up faster than thought, or maybe Justice does, he doesn't know. What matters is that when he's slammed down, he's not broken, merely bruised as the impact sprays mud and disperses the barrier.

Wordlessly, wondering not for the first time if he's gone too far with his words and invited his own death, Anders tries to bring a knee up, tries to get out from under her, away, something, but the armor is heavy and he's not going to win this one. It's no longer rage ringing in his ears, it's Justice, and he can see the blue reflection of his eyes in the non-muddy parts of her armor. It's over. It's over, and he's going to die because of one bloody idiot Templar no matter how hard he's fought to be free of them.

There are far and few times in which Twisted Fate becomes enraged. The display of being laid back and comfortable, moving with each situation -- that is something he considers to be his strength. He plots, he chooses his words and actions deliberately. Showing anything beyond a smug, confident look is actually not typical with him.

This? This, he should have seen coming. He doesn't blame Korrin and Nerva for how they feel, but he hoped that everyone would be wise enough to avoid each other.

Apparently not.

"That is enough!"

The party is over, probably. That's fine, but this isn't the way he wanted to end this.

She hears the voice, somewhere, dimly, as if through a fog - but she isn't all there and he can't understand because her parents are dead. Her parents are dead, and they didn't do anything--

"--didn't do anything!" She was screaming at him, clawing at him, and her knee hits a rock and the pain sends her tumbling off him, but she's still hissing and spitting. "They never hurt anyone! They were completely innocent and he killed them, he burned them alive--"

Burned them alive. He hears the screaming as he snaps back into control, and fear floods his mind. What had he done? What had Justice done? It had just been a fight, that's all, and he scrambles to his knees, away, anywhere, to see... no fire. No flames. Nerva is alive.

There are no bodies, and he doesn't know if the shaking is from relief or panic or adrenaline or all of the above. No one died this time. They could have, though, they could have, the formerly full tavern is right there and he could have set the entire thing ablaze.

The fact that she's still yelling and trying to reach for him is distant. He looks up wordlessly at Fate before looking away. He should have... Maker. He should have stopped after returning the punch. He'd gotten his hit in, he could have walked away and shut up and not ruined the elf's party. Maybe he should have even just walked away from the start for once in his life.

Anders one-handedly fishes for his staff in the muck, mutely staring at nothing in particular as he finally finds it and shakily gets to his feet. He could have killed people today, and he feels beyond sick.

Frankly, he's annoyed with both of them, but he's stepped in the middle of a mess of personal issues coming to the surface for both of them. An ex-Templar and an ex-Circle mage with both having issues with the other -- really, what's to expect.

Twisted Fate moves in smoothly, gritting his teeth as his boots step into the mud. Not something he's happy about, but he's going to make sure this does not continue.

"Nerva!" Fate calls for her. "Nerva, it's over."

He glances over his shoulder at Anders, frowning under the brim of his hat. It's tempting to make a cutting remark, maybe at both, maybe at just one, but right now he's more interested in ensuring that this is done.

Twisted Fate is greatly disapproving of both of them.

Fate's voice cuts through hers and it finally seems to register, the words dying on her tongue. She is filthy, sitting in the mud, her breathing hard and ragged, staring down Anders as if her glare alone could slay him.

It's over, and for a second she's confused - because how could it be over, it would never be over, the fire would never stop burning, and she could feel it - feel the skin bubble and melt on her shoulder--

But then she's in the mud, two and a half decades later, outside a tavern, in the heart of the Inquisition and Twisted Fate is there, and the look on his face makes her want to squirm out of her armour and scrub it clean, and she can taste the copper on her tongue--

She pulls herself upright, staggering back a step, trying to centre herself as the awareness washes over her.

And with it comes the shame, and the sharp tang of bile in her throat.

He takes a step back, at a loss for words, and that's when the pain pierces the numbness and he nearly trips. Only the staff is keeping him upright. Her landing on top of him had been hard and he's going be covered in bruises come morning; a barrier put up that hastily couldn't block enough, apparently.

Twisted Fate gets another look, heavy and sorry, but Anders can't get the words out and it's not just because his jaw hurts. He's supposed to have some sort of control. He's supposed to not be a huge risk to everyone. The reality is so much different and he's been fooling himself. Putting everyone here in danger because he so desperately wanted to make everything worth it by helping more.

A glance at the gathered crowd shows too many faces for him to take them all in, but one stands out. Nate. Great. It's like the Maker wanted him to disappoint everyone all at once... but he doesn't see judgement there. Maybe Nate's waiting until they're back at the Warden camp. It doesn't really matter, what matters is Anders knows he can get a hand back from the man and that thought's an even heavier one as he slowly starts making his way over and away from Nerva and Twisted Fate.

For a moment, Twisted Fate is silent, watching Anders leave with Nathaniel. His eyes are narrowed as he watches the Grey Warden go. It's for the best; at this point, he doesn't expect that Nerva and Anders can really be in the same area within each other. He hasn't stepped in between them in the past, preferring to let the conflict sort itself out. It's how he is.

Obviously, that can't really continue. The longer he spends in the Inquisition, the less Twisted Fate can find he can avoid this sort of thing.

He turns to Nerva, glancing her over, not entirely without sympathy. A sigh escapes him.

"Let's talk later. For now, perhaps get yourself sorted out," Fate suggests quietly.

She doesn't meet his eyes. The shame burns hot once the rage dissipates, and she doesn't need to see it in his face to know his disappoint. She'd promised herself. She'd promised--

She doesn't speak, just nods. Once. Hard and sharp, and not looking at him. She turns, every part of her sore and stiff, and walks away.

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