( closed ) but if you never try you'll never know

[heroica]

Who: Robyn, Brennan, and Dorian
Where: Third floor, room 028
When: July 29th
Rating: PG
Summary: She'd been dragging her feet in telling the truth to two of her closest friends in Wonderland. Finally, she brings herself to their door with the intention of speaking it.
The Story: [ Her heart hammers in her throat as she stands outside of the room that belongs to Brennan and Dorian. The Warden stands, rising and falling from the tips of her does, fist hovering just in front of the wood without knocking. She'd said weeks ago to Alistair that she would tell the others the truth, that the people she considered close friends deserved to know. It still feels wrong, as if she's about to burden them greatly, but... the other Warden had been right. If it were one of them and there was the chance she may never see them again, she would want to know.

Robyn pushes herself to knock, swallowing, lowering back down to wait, anticipatory, on the ground. ]

Comments

[outofthebreach]

[ It's Brennan that opens the door, looking mildly distracted as he goes over something he'd been working on in his head. Although the sight of her has his attention honing, focusing, a smile spreading across his lips at the sight of her. ]

Robyn! Come in! What can we do for you today?

[magisterium]

[Dorian isn't far behind, though he'd remained seated while Brennan answered the door itself. He rises to his feet when he catches a glimpse of Robyn-- it's only polite, after all-- snapping the book he'd been focusing on closed with one hand.]

Always a welcome surprise. Drink?

[Look, he doesn't waste time.]

[heroica]

[ She's too distracted to reply to the offer of drink, stepping once inside and then hovering again, worrying at her lip. ]

I-- Can we talk? [ Robyn finally says, finding her voice. The absence of the dog may be telling that something is out of the ordinary, but her general demeanor is telling enough. ]

guess who never got this notif -_-

[outofthebreach]

[ Brennan glances over his shoulder to where Dorian has stood, a hint of a worried expression on his face before he looks back to Robyn. Taking a step to the side, he motions her in, searching her face as he closes the door behind her, giving them privacy. ]

Of course, Robyn. Come in. Sit down.

[magisterium]

[Dorian frowns even as he and Brennan exchange glances, nodding as he lets his own offer pass by. Whatever is on her mind, it must be important.]

Is something troubling you?

[He really doesn't need to ask, the answer is written plainly across her face, in her eyes-- but he'll give her the opportunity to tell them what's wrong on her own terms.]

[heroica]

I-- [ She doesn't sit, though, passing them and still hovering rather restlessly. ] ... I'm sorry. I should have told you sooner, but I thought it would be a burden, and-- an unnecessary one, really, considering--

[ Nope, she's babbling again. The Warden swallows roughly, a flustered red spotting her cheeks. ]

When Leliana first arrived-- Well, you know that she remembered me. She knew me, that is. [ As the Warden, the Hero of Ferelden. Robyn Cousland. ] She was from your time, within the Inquisition, and... she told me that, in her memory, I had died ten years ago fighting the archdemon.

[ And she, too hopeful to accept it, had brushed off the news fairly easily. ]

When I last returned to Ferelden, we finished our campaign. We had gathered our forces, fought the battle within Denerim, and... felled the archdemon, ending the blight.

[ More specifically, she, as a Grey Warden, had taken its life in exchange for her own. Robyn sets her jaw, tight and uncomfortable. ]

And it did kill me. [ She says very quietly. ] That's when I came back here. After this... I don't know. This is all I have now.

[ If Alistair hadn't found out about her death from her Mirror, she wouldn't have told anyone any of this. ]

[outofthebreach]

[ Brennan had followed her into the room, moving to sit next to Dorian on the couch once more, but then her words rush out, deliberate and horrible and that stops him short in surprise. In his world, the Hero of Ferelden, Warden Commander Cousland was very much alive, he'd even exchanged letters with her. That this is not the case for Robyn, that she'd experienced something so far the opposite...

It was horrifying. And heartbreaking. His expression falls as he turns towards her again, taking one uncertain step towards her, hand outstretched in an offer of comfort, if she wanted it. Unsure what else he could offer, because there's little he can do to fix this himself. ]

Oh, Sweetling. I'm so sorry.

[magisterium]

Robyn...

[It's not often that Dorian finds his words failing him, but in this, he feels at a loss, unable to find any that seem appropriate. He had been so wracked with worry over knowing what Brennan would return to should they be whisked back to Thedas, but Brennan had lived. Escaped death, even if it was by a narrow margin. Their own Warden Cousland was alive and well, if scarce, and he had never considered that a different fate might be in store for this Warden, the one that they had both come to hold so dear.

He exhales slowly, shaking his head.]

You deserve better.

[heroica]

[ Despite wanting to, she doesn't take Brennan's proffered hand. They are alive and well and will go on living and... maybe part of her wants to keep them, however she can, from the touch of death. ]

I chose this. [ She corrects Dorian quietly, offering a smile, albeit a faltering one. ] A Grey Warden had to be the one to fell the dragon. I couldn't let Alistair do it.

[ Not at the cost of his life. She would have given her own a dozen times over to save him, to save all the people she'd grown to love along the way. ]

I'm tired of hiding things from the people that I care about. [ Robyn sighs, gaze dropping again. ] ... That's why I wanted you to know.

[outofthebreach]

[ He lets his hand fall away, letting her decide what she was comfortable with, but it doesn't wipe the sorrow from his face. Or the hint of confusion.

He doesn't know the whole story from their world - how could he, with their Warden in the Deep Roads and Alistair on the throne. But he'd learned things from Stroud, when dealing with what they believed was an Archdemon at Adamant. When dealing with Corypheus' seeming immortality. Things Morrigan told him, things Flemeth had hinted at. He might not know the whole story, but he knew how to read between the lines when his companions tended to be vague. Which was a lot, actually. He'd put broken, jagged pieces together to form a semblance of an idea of what had happened. As unbelievable as it had been. But how was this any more unbelievable than the rest of what they'd gone through. One more impossible being when Brennan was finding he was surrounded by more than he'd ever thought possible. He shakes his head now, unsure how to bring it up, or how much to say.

Perhaps he shouldn't say anything at all? If the choice is already made...

He looks to Dorian, and ultimately holds his tongue. It would do no good to let on that there had been another option if it is already too late. And Kieran is not his secret to reveal. Even if he feels a deep sense of guilt at keeping this from her when she was being honest with them. ]

No, it's not in you to let someone else take the risk in your place. I can't say that even surprises me. [ He gives her a fond look, though still saddened. ] Or that I could disagree with it, though I want to, if only to spare you this.

[magisterium]

[Dorian, too, struggles with just how much they should reveal-- or not, as the case may be, as wrong as it seems in the face of such honesty. The choice Robyn had made, however difficult it may have been, was hers all the same, and one that he had to respect, even if he felt stricken by the truth of it.

There were different paths she could have taken, paths their own world's Warden had chosen, and yet it felt just as wrong to tell her she could have chosen differently as it did to keep secrets at all.

The only right choice was respect, support.]

Even if you chose...

[He shakes his head a second time, not wanting to accept this as Robyn's reality.]

No. My apologies. What you did, your sacrifice-- I'm not certain there's anything more brave or selfless.

[heroica]

[ She hadn't been able to turn over the man that she loved into the arms of a woman who... she had trusted, but that night, had seemed suddenly to be another person. She couldn't, in good faith, convince Alistair that she believed producing a child with Morrigan to save themselves was the right thing to do. That night, Morrigan had seemed the very image of the now "dead" Flemeth, and the Warden had passed on her message, her plan, to Alistair without any real conviction of its merits.

Maybe it had been naive. Selfish, even. It's too late for those kinds of what-ifs. ]

I was hardly the only one to die that day, and not the only Warden, either. [ Riordan had been killed by that dragon, too. ] I only did my duty.

[ Really, she might have died in a much more painful way; Robyn barely remembers any discomfort at all, once the pillar of light engulfed her and the archdemon both. ]

I didn't tell you to be lauded as a hero. [ She continues, as if there had ever been doubts about her thoughts on the title 'Hero of Ferelden.' ] I told you because you're my friends, and... I don't want to lie about it anymore. Not to you.

[outofthebreach]

[ Brennan doesn't hesitate this time, doesn't let her keep her carefully-maintained distance. He reaches out and drags her into his arms, wrapping her up in a warm hug as he tucks her against his chest, meeting Dorian's gaze over her head, sorrow in his eyes. ]

We're not lauding you as a hero, sweetling. You're Robyn, you're our friend, before everything else. We can mourn our friend at the same time as admiring her for making one of the most difficult choices of her life. And saving the world, whether she wants to be modest about it or not.