[In the last week, Tristan's relationship with both his precious little brothers has changed. Adding a sexual element may have altered things more for one than the other, but it's still something new, and there's a certain buzz of excitement and tension around all of them.
But Jupiter and Ariel still haven't talked, since Jupiter's insistence on avoiding people, and Ariel's had about enough of that. Without Jupiter, he's lonely and feels caught in his own head. So he goes looking for him, hunting him down in a garden and latching onto his arm immediately.]
[ Jupiter was pretty lost in thought, which isn't strange for someone in the beginning stages of puppy love. It was only a day or two ago he and Tris got "together", after all, and any avoidance since then was primarily fate and previous commitments. At the very least, he's no longer pulling away-- his avoidance teen phase seems to have passed? ]
[He hangs on, resting his chin on Jupiter's shoulder and pressing close. That's nothing out of the ordinary -- he's always clingy and touchy, but maybe he's holding on a little tighter than usual, afraid he's going to be left alone again.]
[ Well. Thanks to certain events, Jupiter is less wound up, less likely to brush Ariel off. His heart still hammers in his chest a little (a scary thing,) but getting the edge taken off your hormones at least a little does wonders. ]
[Tristan and Ariel have bee fighting ever since Ariel & Jupiter's little date. Tristan put his foot down and Ariel argued, and for the first time ever (in this life) they had a real, shouting argument. So, for the past week or so, Tristan's had to sleep in his own room. Any attempt to get back into Ariel's has been met with frustrated tears and angry door slamming on Ariel's part, and Tristan's been completely ignored and shut off from his baby brother's affection.
Ariel's felt like he could pop. He doesn't understand why he's any less capable of handling the world than Jupiter or any of their other siblings. He doesn't understand why Tristan doesn't believe in him, or how he's supposed to trust someone who clearly sees him as less than he really is. He's not stupid. He's not fragile (or maybe he is, but only because Tristan refuses to let him know enough to arm himself). It's not fair, and he's never been so angry or felt so out of sorts.
But at the same time he knows there's one good reason to keep him locked away. His dreams have ramped up terribly along with his negative emotions, and he's more and more sure that they're not just dreams. They're memories, and at some point, in some other parallel world or a past life, he was a monster. So maybe he shouldn't be trusted alone or outside. Maybe the potential to be that person is still inside him somewhere--
--but he doesn't really believe that until the night someone tries to kill him. The fighting was too public. It's far too tempting to take advantage of the rare separation between the two, and he's getting ready for bed when the servant tending to his room gets a cord around his neck.
Ariel's well known as a soft, decorative thing with no useful magic. He knows himself that way. But suddenly he feels as if he's two people at once, and he knows, and the servant's blood vessels are popping explosively, messily, and fatally all over the both of them and his nice carpet.
He takes a moment to free himself from the cord, then stares, holding it in his hands, while the thoughts from his dreams flood into his mind in a painful, chaotic rush. It takes him a bit to register what happened -- that he's covered in blood, that he almost died, that he's killed someone and the "person he could be" is running wild in his head -- but when he does, everyone within a few rooms will be alerted by terrified screaming (as if the burst of murderous magic wasn't enough for some).]
[Tristan's been so frustrated. Not only cut off from Ariel and the affection he's been dependent on there, but the defiance irks and scares him. Being out of the loop terrifies him but he's busy. So busy these days, and he can hardly afford to spend all his time arguing with Ariel about why it's a bad idea, when Ariel should just trust him and let him protect him. He hasn't slept well since Ariel exiled him from the room they've shared since Tristan was ten (in this universe) and he's still awake fighting a headache and looking over documents when the magic, the alarming familiar magic, has him knocking over papers and ink as he rushes out the door for his brother's room.]
[He's ripping the door open and running in just as Ariel starts screaming. And it's a glance at the mess, a single assessing look--attempted murder weapon, dead servant, Ariel in distress.]
[He closes the door (locks it physically and magically because he doesn't know if the threat is gone, from any source) and walks over to his brother, wary, because Ariel shouldn't know magic like this, Ariel shouldn't even conceive of magic like this so how, exactly, did he do it, if he's the Ariel he should be?]
[His head hurts. He can hardly think. He thought he "remembered" a lot in dreams, but it's nothing compared to having a whole nother lifetime shoved into his mind all at once. His screaming trails off into small, agonized noises, and he hardly seems to notice Tristan at all. He's too busy clutching at his head, swaying and backing up into the wall as he shrinks in on himself defensively. It hurts. It hurts ithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtswhoishewhereisthiswhatshappeningithurts--]
Tris...tan... w-what... no, ah--! I-- Wh-What did you do to me...?
[He feels a little dread. Surely Ariel is still the brother he raised. But the dreams he was having--and how, how did he know the magic he used on that assassin? Why is he accusing Tristan of... No he's imagining things he's reading too much into it.]
[He approaches Ariel carefully (a defensive spell ready just in case) and reaches out to place his hands on his brother's shoulders.]
[ So Tris. Whenever you do leave Ariel's bedroom, Jupiter is waiting in the hallway, leaning against the wall. How long has he been there? Who can say. The servants have always liked him better than you. And until now, that was a mostly harmless thing... until now. Because who knows how much he's overheard, too? ]
[ It's not as if things weren't hard enough, the past week basically being a cold war between all the brothers. Jupiter himself angry at Tris's controlling nature, treating Ariel like a doll (as he said once, in one of their arguments.) He's been able to put his emotions aside for work, but perhaps that cold close-yet-far distance made it all the more bittersweet. Ariel has been growing more distant from Jupiter too, despite Jupiter being his confidant, which has only made things more tense. Understandably so. ]
[ And when Tris sees Jupiter out in the hall, one thing is clear: He's never looked more like the 'original', who was all sharp and intense except for rare moments of softness. If he skin wasn't as round and soft, if he dyed his hair red, it would be a perfect resemblance. ]
[He teleported, took them both to his room but it's not hard to follow the servants there when Tristan calls for them, and when he spots Jupiter he frowns, makes a "later" gesture and orders a bath, spare clothes, various essentials before going back in to argue with Ariel a while longer. Eventually he leaves Ariel in the bath and opens the door to Jupiter, wordlessly holding it to allow Jupiter to come in.]
[SO IN THIS AU ARIEL WON COURT. And in the end it was a bitter internal duel over who, exactly, that meant. Who was in control when "winning" happened, when power was granted, when it was decided what, exactly, that power was? It was close. It was dreadfully close, but in the end the original Ariel's desperation to regain "himself" gave him a vicious boost, and he grabbed that power for all it was worth. He wanted it all. The holes in his heart filled back up. Power -- but more than he'd had before. He wanted power like Tristan had -- the power that obviously should have been his to begin with. He wanted it taken from Tris and given to him, Tristan made powerless again like he should be, not "sealed" but completely burnt out, his powers ripped out of him and leaving him totally empty. His other self banished, erased from his head, letting him have his body to hiself. He wanted his world -- but that he could take on his own. All he had to do was go back and take it.
And he did. With Tris in tow, of course, he made a spectacular and bloody coup, taking their relatively stable home situation from the tense but mostly functional rule of a benevolent tyrant to the iron grip of a godly dictator almost overnight. The "oversheltered" prince of the tower became a completely different person, baffling everyone who knew him and stunning the empire. Of course it'd be in uproar for awhile, but as Tristan well knew, Ariel knows how to run the place. It'll settle. He'll charm the rebellious elements he can and obliterate the ones he can't win over. With his new powers, there's no longer even a need to be delicate. He can just make them have never existed in the first place, which he happily tells Tris one day when contemplating how great everything is now that he's "fixed" it.
"Fixed" as in made it exactly how he wants it. And that includes having brought a certain souvenir from Court. While Ariel has yet to refill the harem wing of the palace in general, two rooms are most certainly full, and kept locked and guarded. Tristan's -- and Sion's.
He was just so lovely. And he dared to really, truly hurt Ariel. For that, he can't be forgiven. But Ariel doesn't let things he wants go, even if he is very angry with them. So instead he's just left him in the opulent room, chained to the bed, because he's sure Sion will find a way to get up to no good even if Ariel were to strip the place bare. And now, about a week later, he's coming in one evening around dinnertime, with wine and a plate of food that he sets on the bedside table before sitting beside Sion and smiling at him with predatory fondness.]
[Sion had not exactly been expecting to be collected. For one, he might have hurt Ariel, but he'd hurt many people. To be dragged to an unfamiliar world for it was as surprising as it was unwanted. He wasn't even involved in this world in the magic and the politics that happened far from where he was immediately imprisoned.]
[It didn't matter how nice the cage, he was leashed securely. The lock was magical, something he couldn't even pick with the tools at hand, and the rest of the room useless to him unless he wanted to hang himself. He might have considered it if not for the hope of one day escaping and reuniting with his friends, of going back and winning court himself or the stubborn, mulish, dogged will to survive he'd developed with a lot of help and encouragement.]
[So he was stuck, in this room, while political upheaval he didn't give a rat's ass about rocked a nation he'd never even heard of.]
[And in all of it he was dressed in what he had available as a harem member. Because it was that or go naked. Fine silk drapery that exposed clavicle and shoulders, left his back bare and slid enticingly over what it did cover, only to shift and reveal tantalizing bits of skin beneath. Black, a stark contrast to his skin, made him seem just that much paler and more ethereal. He'd rejected the jewelry, but even unadorned the opulent and provocative attire made him quite obviously an object of pleasure. His hair, much longer these days, long by the time Ariel had won, was braided out of his face, falling to his mid-back even while done up, longer when let free.]
[Ariel's entrance only made him glare. He'd searched his small range of movement for weapons, but the closest were silks he could, perhaps, try to strangle Ariel with. Nothing fast enough to do him any good.]
[Not that he probably wouldn't try anyway.]
Don't you have a country to be taking over? Or whatever you're doing. I'd think you had better things to do with your time than annoy me. Go away.
[Because being asked to be let go or sent back was clearly pointless, he could at least act as imperious and inconvenienced as possible, to hide any apprehension or fear from Ariel's decision to visit.]
[At the moment that appears to be calmly taking a glass and pouring some wine.]
You should be honored I brought your food myself. And you will eat. You'll drink, too.
[He doesn't even sound particularly threatening when he says it. It's just as if he's sure. He knows, absolutely, that Sion will do what he wants. It's just a matter of how much it'll have to be forced.]
[He could make it easy on himself and agree to that much. He could make it easy on himself and agree to anything Ariel wants, he could have made it easy on himself the first time they met and begged, too. Sion is just apparently very bad at making things easy when his pride is at stake. And he has an unfortunate amount of pride.]
[Losing his power a second time, not just having it sealed, truly feeling it wrenched out of him, left Tristan docile and near catatonic. Certainly unresponsive for the coup Ariel performed, which he could follow in the background of guards and servants whispering tensely to each other, the occasional loyal follower trying to reach him, magically or physically.]
[It didn't matter, he was well guarded and locked away in a room he didn't think he'd ever see again. He slept, through most of it, too deep in mourning and despair to interact with the servants who brought him food, some of whom were familiar, kind or concerned, many of whom were terrified.]
[In the back of his mind he knew he was angry, furious, hurting, but the shock and the reminder of a lifetime of being at Ariel's mercy left him in a numb haze, too listless to do much more than sleep and stare at his walls for the days it took Ariel to settle into his newfound power--Tristan's rightful power.]
[He's come to see Tristan a couple of times, but he's been busy, wound up. He's only stayed long enough to update him on how delightful it is to be winning, to make sure Tris is alive, then wanders off again to concentrate on work. But once he's settled, he takes the time for a real visit, actually closing and latching the door behind him and sitting down on the bed, reaching over to pet Tristan's hair fondly.]
[He doesn't respond to the touch or words. Hasn't responded to words at all. It seems he still is locked tightly away in whatever corner of his mind he's retreated to, rather than face the reality of this room and Ariel.]
[So, a good year of rotting in jail followed by several months of Callisto's experiments have not sat well with Ariel. Honestly, having his magic sealed and his control taken away didn't to begin with, but the longer it drew on and with the added very real trauma of near-death at the hands of someone over-eager to explore his biological makeup, he's come more and more visibly undone, until he was no longer able to play halfway sane at his jailers. Not that he had gotten anything by doing so to begin with. His sentence may have been lighter from the start if he was willing to try the pathetic angle, and he was always such a good actor... and yet, in the end pride (and, perhaps, that other emotion he never wants to admit to) kept him from it, and instead he'd done his best to stay cool, in control, sure of himself. But he's not in control, and he's not been sane since the day he was born. It's just a matter of degree, and by the time the two year anniversary of his very famous capture has passed he's crumbled to a point where not even his worst detractors can deny he's out of his mind and likely always has been.
Not that he didn't know what he was doing, when he did it. Not that he couldn't control himself. But the fundamental missing pieces just become more and more clear, and with outside pressure related to that gross incident of police oversight and abuse, the undenyable miscarriage of justice that was everything Callisto did, the government can't quite justify keeping a defanged mental patient in the same prison in which they keep sane prisoners, and in which he was mistreated to begin with. But they can't begin to think he wouldn't be violent in a hospital either, and what to do?
Convenience is Tristan having regained his own abilities in the whole crazy science division fiasco. Convenience is that he's been able to keep his magic on account of his heroics and a certain fellow hero's progress into moderating the post-revolution policy pendulum swing. And convenience is that Tristan has a quiet house, personal interest, and more than enough power to contain one magicless nutter, and what a good PR stunt it will be to put the former victim in control and get the crazy serial killer somewhere locked up but away from the system that malfunctioned so badly on him.
So he's sent home with big brother, though he's sedated to his eyeballs on the trip and has no idea what's even happening. He sleeps the heavy sleep of the frequently and recently drugged for two days, before waking groggily in a room he doesn't know, in a house he doesn't know, that's too nice to be the prison he's used to now and that makes no damned sense. He won't acknowledge his own reaction as anything but startlement (he's not afraid of anything, never, even now), and rolls out of the bed all at once, swaying to his feet -- and immediately stumbling sideways into the wall, still way too out of it to be up, knocking the end table over in the process and making quite the ruckus. He refuses to let his legs go out from under him entirely, but that just means he's going to be slumped against the wall hyperventilating for... awhile.]
[It had been Tristan's suggestion. He'd look after Ariel. He'd meant it, because despite everything he did love his brother. He shouldn't, he knew Ariel was incapable of returning it, but he did all the same. And though two years has helped him start to function a little more confidently--and the return of his magic has boosted that considerably--when they brought his brother in he realized he might have been mistaken in his ability to handle this.]
[Visiting in the safety of a prison with guards and watchers and space between them was a lot different than realizing he'll be living with Ariel again. Really living with him.]
[He reminds himself that he has the power now and Ariel can't do anything, he's broken and insane and powerless--but Tristan, better than anyone, knows that even now his brother is intelligent and stubborn. Assuming he's harmless would be wrong. Less able to wreak havoc, maybe, but Ariel is never harmless.]
[He wishes Ariel could just... Be normal. Feel the things normal people feel. And he frets in the kitchen with hot cocoa for the hours before Ariel's crashing signals the drugs have worn off. A few deep breaths and he heads upstairs to open the door and make sure his brother hasn't managed to injure himself.]
[It appears he hasn't, possible light bruising aside. He's just leaning there, trying to breathe, trying to make the room stop spinning. Internally he curses the inability to purge his system of this nonsense -- it feels like his whole body's a little smothered, clamped down on, all the time. Did Tristan really feel this all those years? Like having a limb cut off, like not being able to take a full breath -- it's been two, for Ariel, and he still can't stop chafing at it.
He does notice Tristan come in though, and his head snaps up, his eyes wide with dark circles under them and pupils too dilated, not quite focusing, his hair once immaculately kept now sloppy and disheveled around his face. He looks like he expects a threat, but he's so fogged the decision to fight or flee is stalled for a few seconds, until Tris's face registers and his expression's overtaken by a black and bitter rage.]
[He didn't really expect Ariel to be happy to see him, he never has. The bitter rage isn't even new, not since Ariel was imprisoned and Tris made the decision to keep visiting. So he just meets the stare with his own blank face. Reminding himself Ariel can't hurt him, it's fine, he's fine, this will be fine.]
Hello, Ariel.
[He's proud that his voice is calm. Far calmer than he really feels. He hasn't had his power back long enough to feel secure, he wakes up some days still thinking regaining it was a dream he had. He passes his brother, to go right the end table.]
[So back in that Ariel-wins-Court-and-is-an-asshole AU. It's been a couple of months now and things have not gotten any better for Sion. Although he's not actually chained up anymore, the door is just as solidly magically locked. And, as threatened, Ariel has continued to have his food consistently drugged. Perhaps not such an insanely high dose as the first time, but it's there all the same, keeping things out-of-sorts and warm, unless Sion wants to try to starve himself.
It's the middle of the night when Ariel arrives today -- his schedule is inconsistent most of the time. He could be gone for days or appear more than once in a single day. It's hard to tell, but Sion might be able to pick up whispers from the hall that give him a better idea of what to expect.
Not this time though. It's sudden, and he enters with a slight tension and a sharp smile, the sort of body language that says he has been, recently, quite irritated. He needs to let off some steam.]
[Sion has tried starving himself, if only to get a clear head, but it's hard to fight hunger when that wars with survival and so his attempts have been mostly a careful stratgey of skipped meals.
He sleeps at regular hours, himself, his schedule normal even if Ariel's isn't. No use trying to predict what he can't, so he spends his energy on trying to escape and keep his mind and body in some semblance of shape.
So at Ariel's sudden appearance in the middle of the night, he's asleep. Or at least, was asleep, sitting upright quickly, alarmed and wary tense immediately, all danger senses snapping him awake.]
Don't you sleep?
[He hisses, no more polite or pliant or resigned for his captivity.]
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But Jupiter and Ariel still haven't talked, since Jupiter's insistence on avoiding people, and Ariel's had about enough of that. Without Jupiter, he's lonely and feels caught in his own head. So he goes looking for him, hunting him down in a garden and latching onto his arm immediately.]
Hey.
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[ Jupiter was pretty lost in thought, which isn't strange for someone in the beginning stages of puppy love. It was only a day or two ago he and Tris got "together", after all, and any avoidance since then was primarily fate and previous commitments. At the very least, he's no longer pulling away-- his avoidance teen phase seems to have passed? ]
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[He hangs on, resting his chin on Jupiter's shoulder and pressing close. That's nothing out of the ordinary -- he's always clingy and touchy, but maybe he's holding on a little tighter than usual, afraid he's going to be left alone again.]
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Not today.
[ For once. ]
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Ariel's felt like he could pop. He doesn't understand why he's any less capable of handling the world than Jupiter or any of their other siblings. He doesn't understand why Tristan doesn't believe in him, or how he's supposed to trust someone who clearly sees him as less than he really is. He's not stupid. He's not fragile (or maybe he is, but only because Tristan refuses to let him know enough to arm himself). It's not fair, and he's never been so angry or felt so out of sorts.
But at the same time he knows there's one good reason to keep him locked away. His dreams have ramped up terribly along with his negative emotions, and he's more and more sure that they're not just dreams. They're memories, and at some point, in some other parallel world or a past life, he was a monster. So maybe he shouldn't be trusted alone or outside. Maybe the potential to be that person is still inside him somewhere--
--but he doesn't really believe that until the night someone tries to kill him. The fighting was too public. It's far too tempting to take advantage of the rare separation between the two, and he's getting ready for bed when the servant tending to his room gets a cord around his neck.
Ariel's well known as a soft, decorative thing with no useful magic. He knows himself that way. But suddenly he feels as if he's two people at once, and he knows, and the servant's blood vessels are popping explosively, messily, and fatally all over the both of them and his nice carpet.
He takes a moment to free himself from the cord, then stares, holding it in his hands, while the thoughts from his dreams flood into his mind in a painful, chaotic rush. It takes him a bit to register what happened -- that he's covered in blood, that he almost died, that he's killed someone and the "person he could be" is running wild in his head -- but when he does, everyone within a few rooms will be alerted by terrified screaming (as if the burst of murderous magic wasn't enough for some).]
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[He's ripping the door open and running in just as Ariel starts screaming. And it's a glance at the mess, a single assessing look--attempted murder weapon, dead servant, Ariel in distress.]
[He closes the door (locks it physically and magically because he doesn't know if the threat is gone, from any source) and walks over to his brother, wary, because Ariel shouldn't know magic like this, Ariel shouldn't even conceive of magic like this so how, exactly, did he do it, if he's the Ariel he should be?]
Ariel?
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[His head hurts. He can hardly think. He thought he "remembered" a lot in dreams, but it's nothing compared to having a whole nother lifetime shoved into his mind all at once. His screaming trails off into small, agonized noises, and he hardly seems to notice Tristan at all. He's too busy clutching at his head, swaying and backing up into the wall as he shrinks in on himself defensively. It hurts. It hurts ithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtswhoishewhereisthiswhatshappeningithurts--]
Tris...tan... w-what... no, ah--! I-- Wh-What did you do to me...?
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[He approaches Ariel carefully (a defensive spell ready just in case) and reaches out to place his hands on his brother's shoulders.]
Ariel... Ariel it's okay now, you're okay.
[Is he okay though? Tristan isn't sure.]
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[ It's not as if things weren't hard enough, the past week basically being a cold war between all the brothers. Jupiter himself angry at Tris's controlling nature, treating Ariel like a doll (as he said once, in one of their arguments.) He's been able to put his emotions aside for work, but perhaps that cold close-yet-far distance made it all the more bittersweet. Ariel has been growing more distant from Jupiter too, despite Jupiter being his confidant, which has only made things more tense. Understandably so. ]
[ And when Tris sees Jupiter out in the hall, one thing is clear: He's never looked more like the 'original', who was all sharp and intense except for rare moments of softness. If he skin wasn't as round and soft, if he dyed his hair red, it would be a perfect resemblance. ]
Tristan.
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And he did. With Tris in tow, of course, he made a spectacular and bloody coup, taking their relatively stable home situation from the tense but mostly functional rule of a benevolent tyrant to the iron grip of a godly dictator almost overnight. The "oversheltered" prince of the tower became a completely different person, baffling everyone who knew him and stunning the empire. Of course it'd be in uproar for awhile, but as Tristan well knew, Ariel knows how to run the place. It'll settle. He'll charm the rebellious elements he can and obliterate the ones he can't win over. With his new powers, there's no longer even a need to be delicate. He can just make them have never existed in the first place, which he happily tells Tris one day when contemplating how great everything is now that he's "fixed" it.
"Fixed" as in made it exactly how he wants it. And that includes having brought a certain souvenir from Court. While Ariel has yet to refill the harem wing of the palace in general, two rooms are most certainly full, and kept locked and guarded. Tristan's -- and Sion's.
He was just so lovely. And he dared to really, truly hurt Ariel. For that, he can't be forgiven. But Ariel doesn't let things he wants go, even if he is very angry with them. So instead he's just left him in the opulent room, chained to the bed, because he's sure Sion will find a way to get up to no good even if Ariel were to strip the place bare. And now, about a week later, he's coming in one evening around dinnertime, with wine and a plate of food that he sets on the bedside table before sitting beside Sion and smiling at him with predatory fondness.]
I'll assume you're feeling uncooperative?
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[It didn't matter how nice the cage, he was leashed securely. The lock was magical, something he couldn't even pick with the tools at hand, and the rest of the room useless to him unless he wanted to hang himself. He might have considered it if not for the hope of one day escaping and reuniting with his friends, of going back and winning court himself or the stubborn, mulish, dogged will to survive he'd developed with a lot of help and encouragement.]
[So he was stuck, in this room, while political upheaval he didn't give a rat's ass about rocked a nation he'd never even heard of.]
[And in all of it he was dressed in what he had available as a harem member. Because it was that or go naked. Fine silk drapery that exposed clavicle and shoulders, left his back bare and slid enticingly over what it did cover, only to shift and reveal tantalizing bits of skin beneath. Black, a stark contrast to his skin, made him seem just that much paler and more ethereal. He'd rejected the jewelry, but even unadorned the opulent and provocative attire made him quite obviously an object of pleasure. His hair, much longer these days, long by the time Ariel had won, was braided out of his face, falling to his mid-back even while done up, longer when let free.]
[Ariel's entrance only made him glare. He'd searched his small range of movement for weapons, but the closest were silks he could, perhaps, try to strangle Ariel with. Nothing fast enough to do him any good.]
[Not that he probably wouldn't try anyway.]
Don't you have a country to be taking over? Or whatever you're doing. I'd think you had better things to do with your time than annoy me. Go away.
[Because being asked to be let go or sent back was clearly pointless, he could at least act as imperious and inconvenienced as possible, to hide any apprehension or fear from Ariel's decision to visit.]
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[At the moment that appears to be calmly taking a glass and pouring some wine.]
You should be honored I brought your food myself. And you will eat. You'll drink, too.
[He doesn't even sound particularly threatening when he says it. It's just as if he's sure. He knows, absolutely, that Sion will do what he wants. It's just a matter of how much it'll have to be forced.]
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I'm not hungry.
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[It didn't matter, he was well guarded and locked away in a room he didn't think he'd ever see again. He slept, through most of it, too deep in mourning and despair to interact with the servants who brought him food, some of whom were familiar, kind or concerned, many of whom were terrified.]
[In the back of his mind he knew he was angry, furious, hurting, but the shock and the reminder of a lifetime of being at Ariel's mercy left him in a numb haze, too listless to do much more than sleep and stare at his walls for the days it took Ariel to settle into his newfound power--Tristan's rightful power.]
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How long do you intend to stay away, Tristan?
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Not that he didn't know what he was doing, when he did it. Not that he couldn't control himself. But the fundamental missing pieces just become more and more clear, and with outside pressure related to that gross incident of police oversight and abuse, the undenyable miscarriage of justice that was everything Callisto did, the government can't quite justify keeping a defanged mental patient in the same prison in which they keep sane prisoners, and in which he was mistreated to begin with. But they can't begin to think he wouldn't be violent in a hospital either, and what to do?
Convenience is Tristan having regained his own abilities in the whole crazy science division fiasco. Convenience is that he's been able to keep his magic on account of his heroics and a certain fellow hero's progress into moderating the post-revolution policy pendulum swing. And convenience is that Tristan has a quiet house, personal interest, and more than enough power to contain one magicless nutter, and what a good PR stunt it will be to put the former victim in control and get the crazy serial killer somewhere locked up but away from the system that malfunctioned so badly on him.
So he's sent home with big brother, though he's sedated to his eyeballs on the trip and has no idea what's even happening. He sleeps the heavy sleep of the frequently and recently drugged for two days, before waking groggily in a room he doesn't know, in a house he doesn't know, that's too nice to be the prison he's used to now and that makes no damned sense. He won't acknowledge his own reaction as anything but startlement (he's not afraid of anything, never, even now), and rolls out of the bed all at once, swaying to his feet -- and immediately stumbling sideways into the wall, still way too out of it to be up, knocking the end table over in the process and making quite the ruckus. He refuses to let his legs go out from under him entirely, but that just means he's going to be slumped against the wall hyperventilating for... awhile.]
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[Visiting in the safety of a prison with guards and watchers and space between them was a lot different than realizing he'll be living with Ariel again. Really living with him.]
[He reminds himself that he has the power now and Ariel can't do anything, he's broken and insane and powerless--but Tristan, better than anyone, knows that even now his brother is intelligent and stubborn. Assuming he's harmless would be wrong. Less able to wreak havoc, maybe, but Ariel is never harmless.]
[He wishes Ariel could just... Be normal. Feel the things normal people feel. And he frets in the kitchen with hot cocoa for the hours before Ariel's crashing signals the drugs have worn off. A few deep breaths and he heads upstairs to open the door and make sure his brother hasn't managed to injure himself.]
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He does notice Tristan come in though, and his head snaps up, his eyes wide with dark circles under them and pupils too dilated, not quite focusing, his hair once immaculately kept now sloppy and disheveled around his face. He looks like he expects a threat, but he's so fogged the decision to fight or flee is stalled for a few seconds, until Tris's face registers and his expression's overtaken by a black and bitter rage.]
...You..
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Hello, Ariel.
[He's proud that his voice is calm. Far calmer than he really feels. He hasn't had his power back long enough to feel secure, he wakes up some days still thinking regaining it was a dream he had. He passes his brother, to go right the end table.]
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It's the middle of the night when Ariel arrives today -- his schedule is inconsistent most of the time. He could be gone for days or appear more than once in a single day. It's hard to tell, but Sion might be able to pick up whispers from the hall that give him a better idea of what to expect.
Not this time though. It's sudden, and he enters with a slight tension and a sharp smile, the sort of body language that says he has been, recently, quite irritated. He needs to let off some steam.]
Good morning!
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He sleeps at regular hours, himself, his schedule normal even if Ariel's isn't. No use trying to predict what he can't, so he spends his energy on trying to escape and keep his mind and body in some semblance of shape.
So at Ariel's sudden appearance in the middle of the night, he's asleep. Or at least, was asleep, sitting upright quickly, alarmed and wary tense immediately, all danger senses snapping him awake.]
Don't you sleep?
[He hisses, no more polite or pliant or resigned for his captivity.]
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[He sits cheerfully on the edge of Sion's bed, grabbing his chin and pulling him down to eye level.]
I'm a little impressed at how well you do.
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What pissed you off today?
[He's kind of horrified he can read Ariel's moods now without even touching him, trying to shove Ariel back.]
Can I thank them?
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