#@ziracona this is all your fault

[rabbit-exe]

I wrote a short thing about my dbd bastards (that like, three human beings know about) specifically set in the most recent chapter of @ziracona‘s fic. sorry in advance, I don’t really like this one. also tw for canon-typical violence and stuff

Ivory Memento

Jason Dunn is running, because of course he is. That’s just the way of things. Jason, he runs and fights and throws himself in and out of danger, because someone has to so it might as well be him.

But this time is special.

Jason Dunn is not running away. Jason Dunn is running towards.

There’s a hole in the fake-world he’s been stranded in for so long, and God help anybody who gets in his way. He’s getting everyone out of here. He’s gonna save fucking everyone who deserves saving, and maybe then some, because  - because. 

(Because you couldn’t save her, says something bitter and nasty in his brain. Because you let her die and you let her do it.)

“Piss off,” says Jason to the thing in his brain, and catches sight of movement in his periphery - David? - injured and running towards him. David’s a rugby player, and he fuckin’ moves like one - like he’s unstoppable, like a battering ram.

Now his steps are athletic, but not like before - he doesn’t dig his heels in and force himself to barrel through the place. He’s agile, still striding with force but his footsteps don’t make any sound and he sprints like he’s about to pounce instead of ram -

Shit.

He watches his sister running at him, wearing the face of his friend, and as he takes the big fuck-off spear from where it’s slung over his back he figures it’s about fucking time.

He bolts.

As far as he knows, there aren’t any palettes here - but that doesn’t matter, because there’s shrapnel and broken car parts and he’s fucking resourceful, ok, he’s got this.

The satisfaction he feels when he slams a warped car-door into Morag’s shoulder (catching her jacket in the process - nice) is immediately overshadowed by awe when he instinctively doubles back and kicks the hunk of scrap metal, hard, hard enough Morag is sent staggering back with a muffled grunt of pain.

She’ll have some trouble finding him - he’s never been great at hiding in plain sight, but he’s a creative little bastard and finding somewhere to fuck off to that the killer won’t find is a talent of his. He darts off while Morag re-orients herself (taking longer than she should - he glimpses a pulse of blood through the cracks in her mask as she grabs at her face, and fuck, she’s actually hurt?) and runs to a little alcove of crushed car parts where there would usually be a locker, except.

The thing is, right, he’s not so great at the whole planning thing. He knows, logically, that right now is different. That there aren’t palettes, that this isn’t a trial ground, that there won’t be lockers either.

But he, like an idiot, forgot that.

And then she’s rounding the corner after a brief hunt for him, looking - well - pissed. Her grip around her mirror is white-knuckled, which leads him to realise that the glass is not bloody. But that doesn’t make sense, she has to hurt someone to mimic them.

But David takes hits for fuckin’ everyone, all the time. So… so maybe, right now, she doesn’t. Maybe she just needs them to have bled at all.

Fuck - he glances down at his scraped knee, barely bleeding anymore but still sticky with blood.

Morag makes a sound - like a sigh, some sort of weird exhale-growl, and Jason feels briefly nauseous as her form… it… cracks, like glass shattering, black nothing skittering along her skin and rearranging the shards into something… familiar.

It’s a little girl, limbs stretched grotesquely with too much material to fit properly into the shape. Dirt coating her, smearing her face, short curls of ginger hair matted down in thick clumps. Blood coming out of her nose, her mouth, her ears, the hole in her head -

“Millie?” He whispers, suddenly sheet-white and sweating. “But you’re,”

Jason looks at her and wants to throw up.

“How - you,” his brain is lagging and so is his body - it feels like he’s dreaming, like being drunk.

And then it hits him.

Her blood.

Jason’s stomach gives out and he vomits, coughing and spluttering and fucking crying because of course she could do this, she could the whole fucking time, Millie’s blood was the first she ever got on her fucking murderer hands and she’s his sister and he loves her and he doesn’t want to fucking kill her but fuck this is, this isn’t -

“No. No, fuck you. Fuck this!” He shouts, unable to care about how terrible an idea that is right now. “You were saving her, weren’t you? To show me when you finally - when you finally put me in the fucking ground for good. Well fuck you, Morag. Fuck you for killing our sister. Fuck you for killing our parents. Fuck you for not killing me! ‘Cause you’re never gettin’ the chance again!”

A lazy trickle of blood from the mirror and it’s Morag again, shoulders squared, still staring from behind that stupid mask that he gave her, the mask that got him dragged back here.

Something inside him breaks.

He punches her square in the jaw.

She’s not expecting it - yeah, she’s taller than him by a good fucking margin, but he’s pissed and she thinks she can’t be hurt.

Newsflash, arsehole, he thinks, watching as she slowly turns back to face him, a fresh pulse of red beading at the cracks in her mask.

“Jason,” she says, voice quiet and cracked like she hasn’t spoken in years. Because she fucking hasn’t, he realises, and that must have driven her even more off the deep end than she already was. “Ja-son.” She’s testing the sound, feeling out the shape of it in her mouth. Her fingers twitch.

And then she’s on him - in a flash, like a cat pouncing on a mouse.

Her mirror catches against the bridge of his nose and fuck it hurts but he takes it and kicks up at her, wrestling her hands away from his face and trying to knock her off-balance. He manages to get her off him, grabbing one of the shards embedded in her neck and ripping it out - not quite, it stays lodged in her flesh but it gives and tears and she makes a choked sound - and she reels back, grabbing her mirror tightly as she crouches above him about to bring it down into his face -

The spear is lying next to him, and he grabs it, shoving it with all his strength right into her shoulder, and her cracked, ruined voice gives out halfway through her pained growl. And he’s got her now, he can tell, she doesn’t know what to do, she can’t remove the spear without risking him escaping or getting hurt worse.

Then Morag grabs it firmly and rams the blunt end against his own shoulder, and there’s a weird popping noise and a sensation like when you squeeze bubble wrap tight enough to burst and the noise that comes out of him is fucking inhuman.

His vision whites out for just a moment, and comes back just in him for him to watch as she raises her mirror above his face, the spear gone, about to carve him up like he did hers so many years ago now and this is it, isn’t it. He was never going to win this fight.

She’s taking it slow, observing him like she wants to replay this moment over and over in her head, and she leans over just enough to shove her mirror into his face.

And also, coincidentally, just enough for him to do this.

She sees the kick coming a second too late and it doesn’t break her jaw like he’d intended (though a part of him is relieved because he’s seen that happen to someone before and it looks like it hurts in a unique, secret way you’re not supposed to be able to feel) but her mask comes flying off, and his boot takes off a strip of what remains of her face skin and she makes this noise he’s never heard her make.

It’s a punched, wrenching noise. Like something rusted and caught inside the workings of her chest and she can’t get it to move like it should, so instead it just jolts and hurts and… her face never healed.

His dislocated shoulder is still screaming at him, but that doesn’t seem to matter anymore, because his scary murder sister is dripping blood and ragged flesh down onto him and he doesn’t know what to do.

Before she even sees him looking at her, she covers her head, and makes another ragged sound as her dirty hands press against her ruined face.

He knew, logically, that whatever the Entity did to her won’t let her face heal. Her mask has been knocked off before, in trials, and it slowed her down but then she went right back to killing, so… wow, she’s really bleeding a lot, huh. It never really occurred to him how badly that must hurt. He’s never been close enough and calm enough to see her twisted body - there’s cracks in her flesh, spider-webbing up her arms, like broken porcelain. He can see her teeth through a gash in her cheek.

After a bit, he kind of stopped believing that she could be hurt, much less die - that she would just keep going. Like he did. But now his twin is moving slowly, pawing at the ground for her mask while keeping one hand pressed against her face, and he kind of hates that he feels bad for her.

He can’t kill her now. He just… can’t.

God fucking damnit, Morag, he thinks, staring down at what remains of his sister. Jason makes a decision.

“Your mask is somewhere around here. There’s a gate open. Go, or don’t.” He hesitates. “I won’t ever forgive you,” she doesn’t look up, but she’s listening, as she slowly gets to her feet. “But you’re my sister, and I love you, and even you don’t deserve to be stuck here forever. Go fuck yourself.”

He turns and runs.

She watches him go, head tilted in that curious way of hers, and he somehow doesn’t regret it.

[tathracyn]

@ziracona has been playing through Dragon Age and we’ve been talking about our different experiences. R just reached the Well of Sorrows quest and aftermath, and asked about my opinion on it, because Boy Do I Have An Opinion. 

R, this is for you. 

God, where do i even start. First off is the fact that you've found one of the last undisturbed remnants of pre-Dalish culture... and you're forced to desecrate and defile it. That's it. You find a holy site, and the story makes you ruin it completely. Because fuck elves and fuck their culture. You don't get to preserve your heritage; the living culture residing within this untouched temple will hate your guts and then you have to violate this sacred place.

There's also Morrigan's extended rant about how she's the "only one who can use it" and she "deserves its power " or whatever, which is fucking appropriation and she's doing it right in front of a Dalish Inquisitor! She claims, in front of two elves, that she knows their culture better than they do and that she deserves to take it for herself. And!! Even if it's true that she's researched elven history more than Ahsra!! Whose FUCKING fault is it that, human. Where did our history go, huh??

And then you drink from the well, and oops! It turns out??? It makes you a literal slave to your gods! Hey yall, at LEAST half a dozen of the elven gods were slavers! They were evil! Because of COURSE they were, every FUCKING faction in Thedas is slavers it feels like! Nobody gets to have culture they can be proud of, they're all evil and cruel and you should hate them!

And what do we even get from it??? Super special secret knowledge that essentially boils down to "If: Blight, Then: Kill Dragon". Really??? That's the ancient knowledge I committed atrocities against my own cultural heritage for?? You're telling me that between the Wardens' knowledge, ALL the mages of Ferelden, Solas's magical expertise, our knowledge of how Red Lyrium works, and EVERY OTHER FUCKING RESOURCE WE HAVE, not a single fucker could piece that together? Fuck that. I consider that bad, forced writing that ignored the obvious alternatives in order to force you into their agenda.

And then Flemeth/Mythal. Turns out, the goddess of motherhood and justice is an abusive parent And a literal slaver who abandoned her own people for thousands of years in pursuit of mindless vengeance and cruelty! Why? Who knows! She doesn't even TRY to give you an explanation! She completely dodges the question, because why would they bother telling players! They don't need to know why one of their gods is suddenly a horrific, terrible person!

Fucking. All of this is awful and I hate it, but its made even worse when set against the radically increased pro-chantry mindset the rest of the game has. The connotations I got from the whole shitshow were "Look at these foolish pagans, worshiping wicked idols and practicing vile slave magics. Look at the atrocities of their cultures and condemn them for being stupid enough to follow them still." You play a Dalish? Fuck you, your gods are evil slavers, your religion is a lie, your culture is written by stupid children, and you're nothing. Die mad about it.

It's so degrading to elven characters. It's such a kick in the teeth.