Fic: A Yellow wood
A Yellow Wood
Words: 3,000
Thanks to: letangerine for looking it over.
Written for: the i_reversebang, inspired by nessismore's beautiful art.
A Yellow Wood
"What are you building?"
Ariadne squints up at the skyscraper before her, facade shimmering uncertainly in the perpetual mid-afternoon sunlight. "Not sure yet. Any suggestions?"
"Well, you've already made a hotel and an office." The Arthur-shaped projection glances down the street, at the long row of crumbling buildings that extend as far as they eye can see. "Maybe something residential?"
"Let's try some of those Japanese micro-units," she says, closing her eyes to concentrate, subdividing every floor of the building into efficient rectangles. When she opens her eyes again, there's a tower of steel and plate glass windows, a sign in Kanji at the front door advertising spaces for rent.
"You're building faster," Arthur says approvingly. "Well done."
"Thanks," she replies. She feels a swell of warm pride at his praise despite the fact that he's only a figment of her subconscious. Ridiculous and she knows it, but there it is.
"You've recreated Cobb's Limbo," Arthur says, looking at all the dilapidated buildings around them1. "Interesting choice."
"It's the most complete record of everything Dom and Mal designed in dreams that I have. Actually, it's the only record of anything designed in a dream that I have," Ariadne replies, walking down the street, towards the next building. "There's so much that's possible in dreams that isn't in real life, and I wanted the chance to study everything. Interact with these buildings. Learn."
"You don't find it a little spooky?" Arthur asks as he strolls alongside her.
"I find it super spooky," Ariadne throws a faint smile over her shoulder at him. "Thanks for reminding me of that, subconscious."
She stops in front of a smaller, squatter building. The cornice is heavily damaged and the siding is peeling, but the building's structural integrity still remains relatively intact.
Arthur shakes his head reprovingly. "Can you be so certain that I'm a projection? Do you remember how you got here?"
"I remember locking the door to my room and hooking up to the PASIV alone, yeah," she replies. "I highly doubt the real Arthur would break into my dreams just to ask me about how I'm doing."
"What about a forger? Someone putting on a face you trust?"
Ariadne gives him a sharp grin. "Eames, is that you?"
"Afraid not, darling," a new to the conversation, but familiar, British-accented voice says.
"I'm guessing you're a projection, too," Ariadne says as she turns to see Eames walking towards her, hands in his pockets.
Eames smiles, as charmingly crooked as ever. "Unless I'm here to steal your secrets."
"I assure you I have no secrets worth stealing," Ariadne says. She watches the cornice repair itself on the building in front of her, replaces the siding with a gingerbread clapboard and fresh coat of paint. "Unless you're interested in the existential angst of someone in the throes of their quarter-life crisis."
"Sounds serious," Eames says, lighting up a cigarette.
"Oh, deadly," Ariadne replies.
"I thought you quit," Arthur says, eying the cigarette with distaste.
"Apparently I didn't," Eames replies, exhaling a puff of smoke in Arthur's direction, much to his displeasure.
"That's like paying money for someone to give you cancer."
"Cancer?" Eames widens his eyes comically. "My god, I had no idea! And all this time I spent thinking it would make me an immortal demi-god."
Arthur's face pinches into a sour expression. "And, it smells terrible."
"This is a dream." Eames waves a hand in the air lazily. "Simply turn your sense of smell off if you don't like it."
"Are you guys done yet?" Ariadne asks, looking back and forth at them with some amusement. "Or are you going to bicker like this for the whole dream?"
"Depends on why you've summoned us here, I reckon," Eames says, and Arthur nods.
"I didn't summon you here at all," she replies, walking down the block to the next building. "You just showed up."
"Your subconscious brought us here for a reason," Arthur says, easily keeping pace. "There's some discussion you clearly want to have."
"With you two?" Ariadne says, skeptical. "Arthur, we talked just last week. And Eames, I haven't seen you since LA."
"Then not with the actual Arthur or Eames," Eames muses. "Perhaps we're merely manifestations of subconscious desires or emotions."
"I think I'd know if I had a crush on either of you."
"Much as my old university professor would be loath to admit it, dreams aren't always about sex, my dear," Eames says with amused quirk of his lips.
"Then what?" Arthur asks. "'Not sex' still leaves a pretty big field."
"I don't know, Arthur," Eames says. "Perhaps you actually could contribute an idea or two and we'll start from there, hm?"
"I really don't have anything going on right now that would require subconsciously-aided soul searching," Ariadne says as she begins to turn the next beaten-down building into something resembling the Tokyo Tower. "All I want to do is build."
"But to what end?" Arthur asks. "Have you gotten back to me-that is, the real Arthur-about the job he told you about?"
"You're still doing jobs in dreamshare?" Eames asks, sounding genuinely surprised. "But what about your studies?"
"I can work remotely on most jobs, I don't need to go into the field, and with the time dilation my workload is manageable," Ariadne rattles off, almost instinctively by now.
"It seems you've thought this through," Eames says.
"Ariadne's taking the opportunity to gain experience with all types of structures and layouts, plus making some money on the side," Arthur says. "Why shouldn't she?"
"Well, for one thing, dreamshare is full of unsavory characters."
Ariadne raises an eyebrow. "Of which you are one."
Eames inclines his head to one side in agreement. "Indeed. I certainly wouldn't trust myself if I were a wide-eyed young schoolgirl."
"She's an adult, not an innocent babe in the woods," Arthur says. "After inception, I think she's proven she can handle herself."
"In a dream, maybe. But what happens when the criminals decide to pay a visit in real life?"
"I told you I work remotely," she says. "I don't even meet most of the teams in person."
"Do you think your extraction victims or angry clients are going to be so understanding of work-life boundaries?" Eames asks. "Or will they simply be eager to hunt down any target they can locate?"
"Now you're being dramatic," Arthur says dismissively. "Just because Eames is constantly throwing his life in danger doesn’t mean that's the only road one can take in the dreamshare community."
"And you're being naïve if you think the illegality and attendant criminality of this glorious profession is something anyone can side-step completely," Eames counters. "It's a global era. Do you really think a plane-ride will deter anyone of reasonable means and sufficient desire for vengeance?"
"Ariadne's being careful not to use her own name or any identifying information," Arthur says. "Nothing traceable."
"Everything's traceable. People talk. Especially about anyone with any particular talent." Eames turns to Ariadne. "Which you, my dear, have in spades."
"So because there's a little risk, she should just give it up," Arthur says. "Give up dreaming."
"Well, nobody said she had to give up dreaming entirely." Eames gestures all around them. "We're here now, in a dream. Ariadne has her own PASIV and can make all the buildings she wants."
"That no one will ever see or use," Arthur says. "Thus defeating one of the primary purposes of architecture."
"Buildings aren't like art on a wall," Ariadne agrees, staring at the narrow house in front of her. At one point, it had probably once been elegant. "They aren't complete until a person walks through it, interacts with it, lives in it or uses it. Without people, they're just hollow shells. Pretty ones, sometimes."
"And on a job, they get used. Appreciated," Arthur says. "In reality, it takes years to build something. And years to climb high enough on the ladder of an architectural firm for that even to be a possibility."
"Sounds as though you've already decided what you want to do," Eames says to Ariadne. "In which case-why am I here, if not to be a compelling counterpoint?"
"I don't know." She watches the side of a house before her collapse into a heap of rubble. "I don’t know why you're even-I haven't talked to you since LA."
"Since inception, you mean," Eames replies.
"Since LA," she repeats.
"But you have spoken to Arthur," Eames says. "What about?"
Before she can answer, Arthur does. "About a new job on the horizon. Another inception."
"Were you interested?"
"Yes. No." Ariadne shakes her head and begins to walk, leaving the depressing sight of the ramshackle house behind her. "I don't know. There was the possibility of designing a castle and a military base and-I just. I don’t know."
"Sounds like a fantastic opportunity," Eames says, following as persistently as ever. "Why not?"
"Because pulling a secret out of someone's head is one thing but planting an idea is-" She looks down at her hands. "It's something else."
"You didn't seem to have any qualms about the first inception."
"Yeah, well, I didn't really fucking know what the hell I was getting into at that point, did I?" Ariadne says, voice sharpening. "I was-dazzled by the possibility of dreamshare. The chance to get to use a PASIV. I would have done pretty much anything for it."
"The job was secondary," Arthur says, quietly. When she looks over at him, he has his hands in his pockets. He's staring up at the sky, out into the distance.
"The job was an insane ride with Cobb and his crazy projections." Ariadne picks up the pace, makes a left turn down the next street, away from all the buildings she's already modified. "Half of me was still boggling about the fact that we were in someone else's head during the job."
"But now it's over," Arthur says, firmly.
"Yeah." She swallows and nods, once. "It's all done with."
They walk down the street until it dead-ends, perplexingly enough, in a large reflecting pool. The water is pristine, but she can't see the bottom.
"What else did you talk about with Arthur?" Eames asks.
"The weather. The new job. No juicy details worth stealing, if that's what you're wondering," Ariadne watches her image blur and move in the water. Neither Eames nor Arthur have reflections. "If you're here to extract any information about the new inception job from me, I'm sorry to have to disappoint you. I doubt I know anything you don't already."
"I'm the one that keeps track of everything," Arthur says quietly. He kneels by the edge of the pool and sweeps his fingers across the surface. Still no reflection.
"Indeed," Eames says, standing behind him. "What else do you keep track of?"
"Will you let it go?" Arthur asks, curling his fingers into a fist as he stands. "I know tons of shit. So what? What does it matter?"
"I don’t know," Eames says, looking over his shoulder at Ariadne. "Why does it matter?"
She turns away from his gaze, walks across the patchy grass to a pile of marble that might have once been a fountain. "What should I make now? I'm bored with all these office buildings and residential towers."
"How about a Shinto shrine?" Arthur suggests. "Asakusa."
"Recreating memories is dangerous," Eames says disapprovingly.
"Nothing to recreate since I've never been," Ariadne rebuts as she closes her eyes and rearranges the marble into foundation. "Just what I've seen in blueprints."
"Funny. There's a great deal of Tokyo in this city," Eames says. "Spoken with Saito recently?"
"I don't think he even knows I'm alive," she says. "Being an international captain of industry doesn't leave much time for checking in with your criminal Christmas list."
"I'm sure he keeps tabs," Arthur says. "He's not the kind of guy who likes loose ends."
"I won't cause any trouble," Ariadne says. "He's got bigger fish to fry than me."
"I heard business has been good," Eames says, squinting at the walls beginning to form. "Ever since Fischer broke up his company."
"Has it?" she replies. A sloped roof emerges.
"Proclus' main competition has been eliminated," Arthur says. "Everything should be good Saito for here on out."
"Lucky him," Eames says.
"I think money and ruthlessness had more to do with it than luck," Arthur says dryly.
"The past is done with," Ariadne says as the completed shrine shudders into existence before her. "There's no point in-debating."
"Debating what?" Eames asks.
"Anything." Ariadne starts walking again and ends up on a path alongside the reflecting pool, which somehow seems longer than it did before.
"Ariadne," Eames says, and something in his voice chills her. "You can't simply-"
"It's like party in my head here," she says, speeding up even as she has no hope of losing either of them. "I came to build. To get some me time."
"The only person here is you," Eames points out. "All we are is manifestations-"
"I'm getting pretty tired of this Jungian subconscious bullshit, okay?" She reaches the end of the pool and stands at the top of a small hill. Below her, a partially remade city sits in the valley, quiet and empty. "Can we take a raincheck on this psychological unraveling or whatever?"
"What else did Arthur tell you during that phone call?"
"Why do you keep-"
"We can't leave until you say," Eames says.
Ariadne turns to look at Arthur, who doesn't meet her eyes. Stung, she says, "Why don't you tell him? You're here for a reason, aren't you?"
Arthur is silent for a moment before he speaks, "I've been keeping an eye on Fischer."
"See?" she says, voice trembling slightly. "Nothing new. Just Arthur being Arthur. Doing his research."
"And what did he turn up?" Eames asks, unrelenting.
"A DUI. Sightings at some exclusive parties. Evidence of drug use," Arthur says.
"Pretty normal for a young, rich guy," Ariadne says. "Parties, booze, babes."
"Except that the psych profile I created of Robert Fischer indicated a distaste for heavy drinking, a total lack of interest in partying, and no drug use," Eames says.
"Maybe he changed his mind," Ariadne says. "First time for everything, right?"
"Robert saw his favorite aunt overdose on cocaine when he was a teenager," Eames says quietly. "Since then, he barely drinks and won't even use prescription painkillers."
"So he's grieving," Ariadne replies, setting off down the hill. "Grief makes people act irrationally, erratically. His father's been dead barely a year."
"Is it grief that drives a man to split apart his father's legacy?"
"Maybe you were wrong," she says, the hillside getting steeper and steeper. "Maybe you didn't see all there was to see about him. Missed something."
"Do you think I was wrong?" Eames asks, and she flinches.
"Eames is never wrong," Arthur says. "Not about something like this."
Ariadne reaches the bottom of the hill, where the edge of a thickly wooded forest begins. "This wasn't in Limbo."
"What do you think it means?" Eames asks, unhelpfully.
"That even in my dreams you're an asshole?" Ariadne suggests and Arthur snorts out a laugh.
"Sticks and stones, Ariadne," Eames says.
Arthur walks ahead of them to the edge of the forest, where a narrow dirt path begins. "Shall we?"
"I don't think I want to," Ariadne says. She looks up at the sun, bright and cheery in the blue sky. Here, gazing at it directly doesn't hurt.
"We've already come so far," Arthur says.
"Where does this lead?" She tries to peer through the tree trunks but the path seems to twist and wind, no comforting straight lines to be found.
"You met Mal." Eames drops his cigarette to the ground, crushes it behind his toe. "You know exactly where this road leads."
"All I want to do is build," Ariadne says.
"Do you think anyone will be content with secrets after they realize can remake a person?" Eames asks. "That they can destroy an enemy from the inside out?"
"I'm not going to have any part of that," she says. "I won't-"
"But you already have," Eames interrupts. "What's been done to Fischer can't be undone."
"Fischer is-fine." Ariadne swallows. "He's grieving. In a few years, he'll be-"
"Beyond this wood," Arthur says, "is a beautiful stream, some hills, and all the space you could ever need to build a village, a city. Nothing there except raw potential. Just think: you could build your own Paris, your own Shanghai, your own New York. All you have to do is follow this path and that's where you'll end up."
"Is it worth it?" Eames asks. "Is this-"
"Imagine the possibilities," Arthur continues. "The opportunities. No more building based on Cobb's designs, or Arthur's advice, or whatever else has come before. You could be free to do whatever you want and be paid for it."
"There are consequences," Eames says. "There are always consequences that can't be outrun. Cobb-"
"I'm not like Cobb," Ariadne says as she takes one step forward, then another. "He was careless. He was arrogant. I won't make the same mistakes."
Arthur smiles. "You can be so much better than him. You already are."
"Fischer's going to be fine," she repeats as she steps into the thicket. Already, the air is changing around her; through the spaces in between the trees a golden light is shining, seeming almost to lead the way. "I'm going to be fine."
Eames' expression is somber, something old and weary in his eyes as he watches her go.
Arthur smiles at her, as handsome and youthful as ever, and holds out his hand.
She takes it.
fin
Poll Fic: A Yellow Wood
Words: 3,000
Thanks to: letangerine for looking it over.
Written for: the i_reversebang, inspired by nessismore's beautiful art.
A Yellow Wood
"What are you building?"
Ariadne squints up at the skyscraper before her, facade shimmering uncertainly in the perpetual mid-afternoon sunlight. "Not sure yet. Any suggestions?"
"Well, you've already made a hotel and an office." The Arthur-shaped projection glances down the street, at the long row of crumbling buildings that extend as far as they eye can see. "Maybe something residential?"
"Let's try some of those Japanese micro-units," she says, closing her eyes to concentrate, subdividing every floor of the building into efficient rectangles. When she opens her eyes again, there's a tower of steel and plate glass windows, a sign in Kanji at the front door advertising spaces for rent.
"You're building faster," Arthur says approvingly. "Well done."
"Thanks," she replies. She feels a swell of warm pride at his praise despite the fact that he's only a figment of her subconscious. Ridiculous and she knows it, but there it is.
"You've recreated Cobb's Limbo," Arthur says, looking at all the dilapidated buildings around them1. "Interesting choice."
"It's the most complete record of everything Dom and Mal designed in dreams that I have. Actually, it's the only record of anything designed in a dream that I have," Ariadne replies, walking down the street, towards the next building. "There's so much that's possible in dreams that isn't in real life, and I wanted the chance to study everything. Interact with these buildings. Learn."
"You don't find it a little spooky?" Arthur asks as he strolls alongside her.
"I find it super spooky," Ariadne throws a faint smile over her shoulder at him. "Thanks for reminding me of that, subconscious."
She stops in front of a smaller, squatter building. The cornice is heavily damaged and the siding is peeling, but the building's structural integrity still remains relatively intact.
Arthur shakes his head reprovingly. "Can you be so certain that I'm a projection? Do you remember how you got here?"
"I remember locking the door to my room and hooking up to the PASIV alone, yeah," she replies. "I highly doubt the real Arthur would break into my dreams just to ask me about how I'm doing."
"What about a forger? Someone putting on a face you trust?"
Ariadne gives him a sharp grin. "Eames, is that you?"
"Afraid not, darling," a new to the conversation, but familiar, British-accented voice says.
"I'm guessing you're a projection, too," Ariadne says as she turns to see Eames walking towards her, hands in his pockets.
Eames smiles, as charmingly crooked as ever. "Unless I'm here to steal your secrets."
"I assure you I have no secrets worth stealing," Ariadne says. She watches the cornice repair itself on the building in front of her, replaces the siding with a gingerbread clapboard and fresh coat of paint. "Unless you're interested in the existential angst of someone in the throes of their quarter-life crisis."
"Sounds serious," Eames says, lighting up a cigarette.
"Oh, deadly," Ariadne replies.
"I thought you quit," Arthur says, eying the cigarette with distaste.
"Apparently I didn't," Eames replies, exhaling a puff of smoke in Arthur's direction, much to his displeasure.
"That's like paying money for someone to give you cancer."
"Cancer?" Eames widens his eyes comically. "My god, I had no idea! And all this time I spent thinking it would make me an immortal demi-god."
Arthur's face pinches into a sour expression. "And, it smells terrible."
"This is a dream." Eames waves a hand in the air lazily. "Simply turn your sense of smell off if you don't like it."
"Are you guys done yet?" Ariadne asks, looking back and forth at them with some amusement. "Or are you going to bicker like this for the whole dream?"
"Depends on why you've summoned us here, I reckon," Eames says, and Arthur nods.
"I didn't summon you here at all," she replies, walking down the block to the next building. "You just showed up."
"Your subconscious brought us here for a reason," Arthur says, easily keeping pace. "There's some discussion you clearly want to have."
"With you two?" Ariadne says, skeptical. "Arthur, we talked just last week. And Eames, I haven't seen you since LA."
"Then not with the actual Arthur or Eames," Eames muses. "Perhaps we're merely manifestations of subconscious desires or emotions."
"I think I'd know if I had a crush on either of you."
"Much as my old university professor would be loath to admit it, dreams aren't always about sex, my dear," Eames says with amused quirk of his lips.
"Then what?" Arthur asks. "'Not sex' still leaves a pretty big field."
"I don't know, Arthur," Eames says. "Perhaps you actually could contribute an idea or two and we'll start from there, hm?"
"I really don't have anything going on right now that would require subconsciously-aided soul searching," Ariadne says as she begins to turn the next beaten-down building into something resembling the Tokyo Tower. "All I want to do is build."
"But to what end?" Arthur asks. "Have you gotten back to me-that is, the real Arthur-about the job he told you about?"
"You're still doing jobs in dreamshare?" Eames asks, sounding genuinely surprised. "But what about your studies?"
"I can work remotely on most jobs, I don't need to go into the field, and with the time dilation my workload is manageable," Ariadne rattles off, almost instinctively by now.
"It seems you've thought this through," Eames says.
"Ariadne's taking the opportunity to gain experience with all types of structures and layouts, plus making some money on the side," Arthur says. "Why shouldn't she?"
"Well, for one thing, dreamshare is full of unsavory characters."
Ariadne raises an eyebrow. "Of which you are one."
Eames inclines his head to one side in agreement. "Indeed. I certainly wouldn't trust myself if I were a wide-eyed young schoolgirl."
"She's an adult, not an innocent babe in the woods," Arthur says. "After inception, I think she's proven she can handle herself."
"In a dream, maybe. But what happens when the criminals decide to pay a visit in real life?"
"I told you I work remotely," she says. "I don't even meet most of the teams in person."
"Do you think your extraction victims or angry clients are going to be so understanding of work-life boundaries?" Eames asks. "Or will they simply be eager to hunt down any target they can locate?"
"Now you're being dramatic," Arthur says dismissively. "Just because Eames is constantly throwing his life in danger doesn’t mean that's the only road one can take in the dreamshare community."
"And you're being naïve if you think the illegality and attendant criminality of this glorious profession is something anyone can side-step completely," Eames counters. "It's a global era. Do you really think a plane-ride will deter anyone of reasonable means and sufficient desire for vengeance?"
"Ariadne's being careful not to use her own name or any identifying information," Arthur says. "Nothing traceable."
"Everything's traceable. People talk. Especially about anyone with any particular talent." Eames turns to Ariadne. "Which you, my dear, have in spades."
"So because there's a little risk, she should just give it up," Arthur says. "Give up dreaming."
"Well, nobody said she had to give up dreaming entirely." Eames gestures all around them. "We're here now, in a dream. Ariadne has her own PASIV and can make all the buildings she wants."
"That no one will ever see or use," Arthur says. "Thus defeating one of the primary purposes of architecture."
"Buildings aren't like art on a wall," Ariadne agrees, staring at the narrow house in front of her. At one point, it had probably once been elegant. "They aren't complete until a person walks through it, interacts with it, lives in it or uses it. Without people, they're just hollow shells. Pretty ones, sometimes."
"And on a job, they get used. Appreciated," Arthur says. "In reality, it takes years to build something. And years to climb high enough on the ladder of an architectural firm for that even to be a possibility."
"Sounds as though you've already decided what you want to do," Eames says to Ariadne. "In which case-why am I here, if not to be a compelling counterpoint?"
"I don't know." She watches the side of a house before her collapse into a heap of rubble. "I don’t know why you're even-I haven't talked to you since LA."
"Since inception, you mean," Eames replies.
"Since LA," she repeats.
"But you have spoken to Arthur," Eames says. "What about?"
Before she can answer, Arthur does. "About a new job on the horizon. Another inception."
"Were you interested?"
"Yes. No." Ariadne shakes her head and begins to walk, leaving the depressing sight of the ramshackle house behind her. "I don't know. There was the possibility of designing a castle and a military base and-I just. I don’t know."
"Sounds like a fantastic opportunity," Eames says, following as persistently as ever. "Why not?"
"Because pulling a secret out of someone's head is one thing but planting an idea is-" She looks down at her hands. "It's something else."
"You didn't seem to have any qualms about the first inception."
"Yeah, well, I didn't really fucking know what the hell I was getting into at that point, did I?" Ariadne says, voice sharpening. "I was-dazzled by the possibility of dreamshare. The chance to get to use a PASIV. I would have done pretty much anything for it."
"The job was secondary," Arthur says, quietly. When she looks over at him, he has his hands in his pockets. He's staring up at the sky, out into the distance.
"The job was an insane ride with Cobb and his crazy projections." Ariadne picks up the pace, makes a left turn down the next street, away from all the buildings she's already modified. "Half of me was still boggling about the fact that we were in someone else's head during the job."
"But now it's over," Arthur says, firmly.
"Yeah." She swallows and nods, once. "It's all done with."
They walk down the street until it dead-ends, perplexingly enough, in a large reflecting pool. The water is pristine, but she can't see the bottom.
"What else did you talk about with Arthur?" Eames asks.
"The weather. The new job. No juicy details worth stealing, if that's what you're wondering," Ariadne watches her image blur and move in the water. Neither Eames nor Arthur have reflections. "If you're here to extract any information about the new inception job from me, I'm sorry to have to disappoint you. I doubt I know anything you don't already."
"I'm the one that keeps track of everything," Arthur says quietly. He kneels by the edge of the pool and sweeps his fingers across the surface. Still no reflection.
"Indeed," Eames says, standing behind him. "What else do you keep track of?"
"Will you let it go?" Arthur asks, curling his fingers into a fist as he stands. "I know tons of shit. So what? What does it matter?"
"I don’t know," Eames says, looking over his shoulder at Ariadne. "Why does it matter?"
She turns away from his gaze, walks across the patchy grass to a pile of marble that might have once been a fountain. "What should I make now? I'm bored with all these office buildings and residential towers."
"How about a Shinto shrine?" Arthur suggests. "Asakusa."
"Recreating memories is dangerous," Eames says disapprovingly.
"Nothing to recreate since I've never been," Ariadne rebuts as she closes her eyes and rearranges the marble into foundation. "Just what I've seen in blueprints."
"Funny. There's a great deal of Tokyo in this city," Eames says. "Spoken with Saito recently?"
"I don't think he even knows I'm alive," she says. "Being an international captain of industry doesn't leave much time for checking in with your criminal Christmas list."
"I'm sure he keeps tabs," Arthur says. "He's not the kind of guy who likes loose ends."
"I won't cause any trouble," Ariadne says. "He's got bigger fish to fry than me."
"I heard business has been good," Eames says, squinting at the walls beginning to form. "Ever since Fischer broke up his company."
"Has it?" she replies. A sloped roof emerges.
"Proclus' main competition has been eliminated," Arthur says. "Everything should be good Saito for here on out."
"Lucky him," Eames says.
"I think money and ruthlessness had more to do with it than luck," Arthur says dryly.
"The past is done with," Ariadne says as the completed shrine shudders into existence before her. "There's no point in-debating."
"Debating what?" Eames asks.
"Anything." Ariadne starts walking again and ends up on a path alongside the reflecting pool, which somehow seems longer than it did before.
"Ariadne," Eames says, and something in his voice chills her. "You can't simply-"
"It's like party in my head here," she says, speeding up even as she has no hope of losing either of them. "I came to build. To get some me time."
"The only person here is you," Eames points out. "All we are is manifestations-"
"I'm getting pretty tired of this Jungian subconscious bullshit, okay?" She reaches the end of the pool and stands at the top of a small hill. Below her, a partially remade city sits in the valley, quiet and empty. "Can we take a raincheck on this psychological unraveling or whatever?"
"What else did Arthur tell you during that phone call?"
"Why do you keep-"
"We can't leave until you say," Eames says.
Ariadne turns to look at Arthur, who doesn't meet her eyes. Stung, she says, "Why don't you tell him? You're here for a reason, aren't you?"
Arthur is silent for a moment before he speaks, "I've been keeping an eye on Fischer."
"See?" she says, voice trembling slightly. "Nothing new. Just Arthur being Arthur. Doing his research."
"And what did he turn up?" Eames asks, unrelenting.
"A DUI. Sightings at some exclusive parties. Evidence of drug use," Arthur says.
"Pretty normal for a young, rich guy," Ariadne says. "Parties, booze, babes."
"Except that the psych profile I created of Robert Fischer indicated a distaste for heavy drinking, a total lack of interest in partying, and no drug use," Eames says.
"Maybe he changed his mind," Ariadne says. "First time for everything, right?"
"Robert saw his favorite aunt overdose on cocaine when he was a teenager," Eames says quietly. "Since then, he barely drinks and won't even use prescription painkillers."
"So he's grieving," Ariadne replies, setting off down the hill. "Grief makes people act irrationally, erratically. His father's been dead barely a year."
"Is it grief that drives a man to split apart his father's legacy?"
"Maybe you were wrong," she says, the hillside getting steeper and steeper. "Maybe you didn't see all there was to see about him. Missed something."
"Do you think I was wrong?" Eames asks, and she flinches.
"Eames is never wrong," Arthur says. "Not about something like this."
Ariadne reaches the bottom of the hill, where the edge of a thickly wooded forest begins. "This wasn't in Limbo."
"What do you think it means?" Eames asks, unhelpfully.
"That even in my dreams you're an asshole?" Ariadne suggests and Arthur snorts out a laugh.
"Sticks and stones, Ariadne," Eames says.
Arthur walks ahead of them to the edge of the forest, where a narrow dirt path begins. "Shall we?"
"I don't think I want to," Ariadne says. She looks up at the sun, bright and cheery in the blue sky. Here, gazing at it directly doesn't hurt.
"We've already come so far," Arthur says.
"Where does this lead?" She tries to peer through the tree trunks but the path seems to twist and wind, no comforting straight lines to be found.
"You met Mal." Eames drops his cigarette to the ground, crushes it behind his toe. "You know exactly where this road leads."
"All I want to do is build," Ariadne says.
"Do you think anyone will be content with secrets after they realize can remake a person?" Eames asks. "That they can destroy an enemy from the inside out?"
"I'm not going to have any part of that," she says. "I won't-"
"But you already have," Eames interrupts. "What's been done to Fischer can't be undone."
"Fischer is-fine." Ariadne swallows. "He's grieving. In a few years, he'll be-"
"Beyond this wood," Arthur says, "is a beautiful stream, some hills, and all the space you could ever need to build a village, a city. Nothing there except raw potential. Just think: you could build your own Paris, your own Shanghai, your own New York. All you have to do is follow this path and that's where you'll end up."
"Is it worth it?" Eames asks. "Is this-"
"Imagine the possibilities," Arthur continues. "The opportunities. No more building based on Cobb's designs, or Arthur's advice, or whatever else has come before. You could be free to do whatever you want and be paid for it."
"There are consequences," Eames says. "There are always consequences that can't be outrun. Cobb-"
"I'm not like Cobb," Ariadne says as she takes one step forward, then another. "He was careless. He was arrogant. I won't make the same mistakes."
Arthur smiles. "You can be so much better than him. You already are."
"Fischer's going to be fine," she repeats as she steps into the thicket. Already, the air is changing around her; through the spaces in between the trees a golden light is shining, seeming almost to lead the way. "I'm going to be fine."
Eames' expression is somber, something old and weary in his eyes as he watches her go.
Arthur smiles at her, as handsome and youthful as ever, and holds out his hand.
She takes it.
fin
Poll Fic: A Yellow Wood