entrancelogs | [CLOSED] I'm you, but fucked-upper.

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Entry tags:

[CLOSED] I'm you, but fucked-upper.

Who: Cullen (

morework), Anders (

circlejerked), and Mirrors thereof (

squandered &

tranquiled)
Where: A tea room, on both sides of the mirrors.
When: Night of 06/02 to 06/03
Rating: PG-13 to R
Summary: Anders has been speaking to a Mirror, who claims to be his own. He thinks he knows a way to confirm the Mirror's identity, which involves consulting the last person in Wonderland he wants to ask for a favour. Turns out his timing couldn't be better, and he won't need that favour after all. Turns out that maybe the answers he wanted weren't such a great thing, anyway...
The Story:

The Knight-Commander watches his boring counterpart's face twist. Always promising when it does that. He thinks the man reads a message he'd rather not read, and mutters something about a- tea room, a meeting. A meeting that doesn't quite agree with him, and that is all the reason the Mirror needs to keep watching curiously. Only that's it, that all he can tell. Not who contacted the other Cullen, or why. Better seek out the source then, while the poor commander still dawdles with this gripe or other.

The Knight-Commander makes it to the tea room quickly, and wonders who will expect the other him there. He wonders if their Mirror will expect him as well, if only by coincidence. He stops wondering the second he walks through the door, and sees the sunburst scar. Cullen lets out an incredulous laugh.

"You! What, by the Maker's balls, does your mage want from him?"

Cullen's Mirror looks through the subtly shimmering glass, sees the real Anders waiting. He knows that the living piece of furniture on his own side is barely worth the time, but he knows what a show it makes when the two of them meet on the real side of the mirrors. Cullen licks his lips. He hopes he'll get to see it, soon.

"Finally wants to take back the infirmary, does he? They're still too soft on each other." He glances at Anders' Mirror. Fond memories of his world when he looks at the brand, but urgh, Maker, he can't stand the dull eyes. "Fireball to the face? Is that too much to ask?"

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It had started with the odd message on Real Anders' bedroom mirror. Requests to meet his Mirror counterpart that, once they'd sat unanswered for a time, were erased. The Mirror had only first noticed the messages once the requests had begun to increase in frequency, appearing on mirrors in more public locations, scribbled in Anders' hand. His Real wanted to make contact. With him. With the one who mirrored him in almost every way, save the severed connection to magic.

And he hadn't been the only one to notice--so had the Knight-Commander.

The Mirror hadn't questioned the Knight-Commander's interest in the exchange, or in his Real's for instigating them. It's only natural, he thinks, for Reals to act on their curiosity about their other selves from time to time. It did not seem strange to him to be singled out in this way.

So far the exchanges had been little more than shared introductions and standard questions--

(So you can see and hear everything through the mirrors?

Yes.)

But the newest message had a different tone to it. (How do I know you're really this not-me who's supposed to look like me?) Now his Real sought confirmation. Confirmation that the hand behind the pen indeed belonged to his shadow self and not one of the more mischievous Mirrors. This was also, the Mirror thought, a natural concern. The Knight-Commander proved that every time he intercepted communication not personally addressed to him.

Busy with a task from the Queen, the Mirror hadn't had a chance to view the most recent message until late into the evening; however, when he went to reply, his Real was still lingering by the mirror, waiting, jumping out of his chair once the ghostly letters started appearing before his eyes. (How would I prove such a thing?)

And now, while he waits patiently, he can see his Real formulating some sort of plan even at this late hour. Determination, that's what that is. He vaguely remembers it, the way passion had once fuelled it, but it's now more concept than reality. Half-forgotten, a faded dream from a time when he still could dream.

"I don't know," he says to the Knight-Commander, largely unsurprised to see him walk in unannounced. But then, he's not surprised by much at all. He doesn't reply to the rest--the Knight-Commander has a weakness for rhetorical questions and meandering metaphors which serve no function.

"You don't know." Words thrown back the way they came, like an unwanted gift. Nearly impossible to believe that their nature is supposed to be blank, rather than offensively tedious, designed specifically to annoy him, and him personally. Docile. Obedient. Bah. The Knight-Commander never understood the appeal.

"Make an elaborate guess," he prompts, and ignores the Tranquil in favour of his counterpart. Watches through the glass, and doesn't find much other than a waiting face. About as chipper waiting as the commander was to be summoned. Hm. He looks around for something to write with.

"And ask him why he's called for m--" --me, but then Anders might say that it wasn't technically him, and then the Knight-Commander will have to kick his teeth in, won't he? "--Cullen."

He taps his chin.

"Don't word it like that. Ask him why he needs a templar."

"We share the same appearance, not the same thoughts. I cannot know what someone who does not have the same peace as mind as I may be thinking, even if the someone is me. I would expect he has an idea on how to answer my question."

It's as an elaborate guess as he can stretch himself into making. That is to say, not elaborate at all.

Content to stand patiently while his double on the Real side paces in wait, the Mirror only takes dulled eyes off the mirror to fix on the Knight-Commander once he's given a direct request.

"Does he requires a templar?" he echoes in question. "I was not aware he intended to summon the Real Cullen Rutherford until this moment."

The Knight-Commander understands the appeal even less when their obedience does not belong to him, exclusively. He was delighted at the sight of the brand, when they first met here. His delight vanished as soon as it came, when he discovered that Anders - this Anders - was not the trophy he'd made for himself, after Kirkwall. Only some bastard from another worlds, who walked into tranquility all the same, while Cullen didn't have a single hand in it.

And now he serves the Queen of Hearts before he serves a templar, and Cullen finds it irksome. Cullen finds it boring, and stops listening to words that lead to nothing, save for waste upon waste of his time. Until one word, just one particular word, catches his attention, and suddenly Cullen finds it infuriating.

"Don't," he snaps savagely, loud enough that it seems like it ought to carry even to the other side, all impossibilities aside. "Do not call him that, ever again. He is... weak, dull, pathetic, he is not--"

Many years ago the Knight-Commander was taught to control himself, as all good templars should. Many years ago, already, he decided the lesson to be tedious, and of little value. But sometimes he cheats, and draws on it still. A sharp breath, on that he draws as well, before his voice adopts a tense calm.

"He does not. Deserve to be called real. For an existence he squandered."

Edited 2016-06-21 20:56 (UTC)

"As you wish, Knight-Commander. I will cease to refer to him by that term."

Not a single flinch or grimace at the bellowing outburst, only a pause to see if more barking is forthcoming or if he's free to respond. Should the Knight-Commander's capricious mood compel him to bring harm down on his person, there's little he can do beyond conceding to the Knight-Commander's request. He is still an authority to be obeyed, if not the highest in the land.

He doesn't question how the Knight-Commander has come to know of the Real Anders' intentions for the same reason. It's not his job to be curious; it's his job to serve.

It is not enough, not enough that Anders repeats a command, as he would repeat any command. He is supposed to understand, he is supposed to see-- But then the door opens, on the other side, and the other- the weak, the pathetic, the dull Cullen enters the room.

The Knight-Commander's rage simmers down, a tool kept for later, sharp and hard like the crystals underneath his skin. He turns his attention to the mirror, and watches.

Cullen enters warily, without knocking. He's expected, apparently, though he can't fathom why. Anders enjoys making a nuisance of himself, he knows that much with certainty, but it would be a first if the mage started scheduling appointments for it.

He could have asked before coming, but he still half believes the message to be a trick of Wonderland's network. Whatever the result, he will need to hear it in person.

"You wanted to see me," Cullen says, with all the incredulity that phrase entails.

Set Anders and his Mirror side-by-side, and the differences between them would become glaringly obvious. It's not merely the sunburst brand that marks them as opposites; they even handle the pains of waiting differently. While Anders' Mirror stands eternally patient, the real Anders has always found inaction unbearable, and he paces for lack of anything better to do while he waits for Cullen to show.

This is a terrible plan, he thinks for the umpteenth time. But at least it's a plan.

Action, any action, is better than inaction.

He comes to a stop at the sound of another's approach. "Took you long enough," he greets, also for lack of anything better to do. 'Hey, nice to see you' just doesn't quite work when it's Cullen Rutherford lumbering through the doorway. "And no, before you ask it wasn't a misdialed call."

Before Cullen can get too far inside, Anders joins him at the back of the room where their voices won't be overheard.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I need you to put your figurative templar armor back on. I need something only a templar can do."

Let the shock and awe begin.

Cullen stares.

For a moment he very purposefully does absolutely nothing other than stare.

Yes, Anders did just grow three additional heads, at least. All of them a bright green colour. There are wings attached behind their ears. And they sing blasphemous tavern songs about their blessed Lady Andraste. In Qunlat.

(At least his stare would suggest as much.)

His thoughts, meanwhile, are racing ahead to any explanations he can conceive.

"If you're about to ask me to use my abilities against Wonderland's tricks, then I can skip right to the report. It doesn't work. I've tried the day I arrived, and every day since. It's never worked so far. If you have something in mind I'll try again, but I don't expect the results to change."

That has to be it, doesn't it? Anders thinking it somehow never once occurred Cullen to cleanse away the barriers that keep them here. Because if he didn't waste his time to come all this way for an insult or a bad joke-- Maker, he can't even begin to imagine.

The silent judgement is old hat and Anders rolls his eyes, sighing. "Can we hurry the disbelief along? Tick tock, time's a-wasting."

Does Cullen think Wonderland had recently clubbed him over the head and robbed him of his memories? That's the only way Anders could forget a templar's smiting abilities.

"I can dispel magic perfectly fine on my own, thank you very much. All I need is for your abilities to work on me. A version of me, that is. I hope your skills aren't too rusty for that." He glances sidelong at the mirror. "You see that mirror there? There's someone behind it calling himself my long lost twin. I can only think one of surefire way. Can you?"

It'd be a mercy if Cullen could read his mind without him needing to say the word: phylactery.

Other versions of themselves, Cullen remembers it now. He read a line about that somewhere and found it-- No, not impossible to believe, not anymore. But there was little to do with the information at the time. It surprises him that Anders experienced otherwise: If another version of himself exists behind the mirrors, then he has shown no desire to engage with Cullen's inquiries.

"I would ask questions no one other than myself could answer." At least that would be a start. It can't be what Anders meant. Cullen keeps his eyes on the mirror. "He can't show himself? Or does he refuse?"

"He won't risk disobeying the Queen of Hearts, or so he says," is Anders' honest response. His Mirror had been quite adamant on that point. Naturally, his opposite would be a rule-abiding goodie goodie.

As for the rest...

"Even if I trusted my Mirror with the answers, whatever causes these events is already rifling through our minds. I'm willing to bet our private business isn't as private as we'd like anymore." He'd be surprised if his secrets weren't flapping in the breeze for the Queen of Hearts to share along the gossip grapevine as she saw fit. "No, I need better proof. Foolproof proof. How else can you track someone if you don't have the benefit of them standing right in front of you?"

Cullen arches his brow. Was that a plain and straightforward answer just now? About a version of Anders who willingly submits to anyone's authority? All right, now he has to agree. And unfortunately he thinks he knows what it is Anders actually means for him to do.

"This may not turn out the way you hope. Phylacteries can distinguish between siblings, even twins. This is different, though it might present the same problem. I take it you still want to try?"

His brow lifts wryly. "Things rarely ever work out the way I hope. You still have all your hair, for one."

Some part of him--some reluctant part--knows he has to be more straightforward than this if he's going to trust Cullen Rutherford with not only using his abilities within a mile radius of him but letting him in on this pet project of his.

He'll get there. At least Cullen hasn't laughed him out of the room yet, and he's catching on quick which admittedly lets Anders breathe a little easier. He hadn't been all that convinced of this plan, either, when not that long ago he would've rather cut off a hand than let someone make a second phylactery for him.

"Yes," he says with more firm determination. "That's why I wanted you here. I can't in good conscience leave any stone unturned. They are supposed to be reflections of us. If the process that goes into identifying and tracking a mage can work not only for me, but the other me, that's something we can use. And if not, we'll know that, too."

He's put some thought into this, believe it or not.

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