Mari & Allen - What have I done?

[constantasastar]

Who: Mari & Allen
When: Jan 4th
Where: The market -> Allen's Inn
Ratings & Warnings: PG

His route home took him through the market. Allen was hesitantly beginning to accept the fact that whoever had seen him that first day he'd come back to himself, pale and wandering, had just as quickly forgotten him. His brown hair, his simple clothes, the way he ducked his head and squeezed through like everybody else - he was as unremarkable as any other boy in the Grounds. He'd even bought groceries from a woman he'd known for years without her so much as glancing at him; he'd left dazed, but satisfied. His haircolor and change of clothes had done nothing to hide him from the Cancellarius, but to people who'd known him only as a caricature he blended in easily.

He stopped twice; once to buy a small sprig of flowers from a little girl selling them - he would put them in a glass with a bit of water in it, he decided, and give them to Moirine the next time she visited him - and again to fish out a few coppers for a beggar calling out from the mouth of an alleyway. The man was clearly mad, but his face showed such relief when Allen pressed the coins into his hands that the boy felt his throat tighten and turned away again with a quick, muttered, "Cita bless."

Belief had not yet harmed him as it had before. Shaken, Allen hoped it would stay that way.

Her mood, so low before, had lifted at her make up with Moirine. Even if she was still too depressed to trust the bonds of friendship to hold for too much longer, Mari appreciated it. She'd been able to sleep after, her head felt clearer. It was just good to know that not everyone was against her.

Still, she was reluctant to deal with the crowds outside the Hour. Aside from the battle on new year's, she hadn't left it for weeks. It was just comforting to be somewhere familiar when it felt like she was falling apart; outside, the noise warped around her and made her feel sick, anxious. But she'd been sent out on an errand, and rather than delegating it to a younger neophyte or rushing out and back, Mari forced herself to linger in the marketplace for as long as possible before heading back to the Hour.

There was a small stall selling wooden toys. Lazily picking up a carved tiger, she turned it over and over in her hands before realising that she was going to buy it and there was no point in pretending she was just looking. Coins exchanged for it, she started off in a different direction, still turning the little thing over. Glancing up, her eyes fell on a boy nearby. She looked away, only to look back again, then again, her face growing more and more confused as she did so. He looked familiar. Worryingly so.

Finally getting up the courage, she slipped the tiger into her pocket, rubbing its head with her thumb as she sidled up to him. her face a mix of confusion and apprehension, "hello."

He turned at the voice, startled out of his own thoughts. There was a girl beside him, one he didn't recognize. "Hello," he returned cautiously. Did he know her? Was she trying to sell him something?

"Can I help you?" he added after a moment's awkward silence. People continue to move past them, around them, and Allen flinched and stepped a bit closer to her when a particularly impatient man shouldered him to get past. He still held the sprig of flowers in one hand, and was careful to keep it close to his chest.

The knock closer was what she needed to align the boy's face with that of the man in her memory. Mari's frown grew deeper and more troubled.

How did you even begin with something like this? Mari dropped her hand into her pocket, thoughtfully rubbing the wooden tiger. Was he an Other now? Is that how he came back? "I know your sister," she said, after a moment. "I know you, too."

That was a start. Really though, she should have just walked away.

"My--?" Allen started, then froze. His sister? If she knew Moirine was his sister, it wasn't a case of her simply knowing Cerys. They'd never referred to one another publicly as brother and sister since he'd returned. She knew him, as he had been.

He paled. "I- I'm sorry," he stammered. "I think you're mistaken. I don't know you." That much was true; there was nothing of this girl's face that jogged his memory. He glanced around, worried that someone might overhear them, and then started to back into the flow of people. "Sorry," he said again, flinching. He had to get away, to tell Moirine that someone knew them and had recognized him. Panic, unfamiliarly loud in his thoughts, made his heart pound.

"I'm a friend," she told him, then shrugged. Moirine hadn't wanted to speak about him; she probably should have just walked away when she spotted him. "I'm just glad you're alright."

No, that was a lie. She could already feel the familiar stirrings of jealousy and resentment in her chest. "If you see Cerys, tell her the person who gave her Richard spotted you."

That would do. She shrugged again, frowning, her movements jerky. "Run if you want to."

you're the one who gave his sister dick eh

The person who gave her-- What? His confusion showed on his face, and Allen hesitated. A friend, she said. And if she knew his sister as Cerys as well as Moirine...

He looked over his shoulder anxiously. He could still leave... but no, no, he told Moirine he looked forward to seeing her friends. However little he wanted to speak to someone who'd known him before and would judge him accordingly, his sister would be disappointed to hear that he'd treated one of her friends rudely. His eyes slid back to Mari, and he frowned and wet his lips before he said, hesitantly, "Sorry. I didn't mean to-- I'm not used to this yet." An understatement. He forced himself to add, "I- I'm staying at an Inn up the road. If you'd like to talk there." He couldn't handle a conversation like this in public, not again. The talk with Rempel had shaken him enough.

Mari had been ready to slope off back, but now she hesitated again. It would be better to walk away, but she didn't want to just yet. How much had Allen changed? Was this why Moirine had been talking about Others the way she had? Or was that just overcompensation?

Reaching beneath her cap, she rubbed a hand over her mop of hair, considering the offer. "Alright," she agreed after a moment. She didn't really have much to ask though. 'Are you an Other' and 'what happened to your hair' were the only questions she had. "Lead the way."

The Inn was not much farther up the hill; it was on the slope of it, its sign visible to everyone in the market. Allen glanced behind him as he walked to be sure that Moirine's strange friend was still there. He didn't know what they'd talk about - and was frankly apprehensive of what this girl might tell him - but he reminded himself of Moirine's timidity on the subject of her friends. It would make her happy, he thought, to know he'd befriended one of them as well.

He held the door of the inn open for her and kept his eyes downturned. He could invite her to his room - and risk appearing inappropriate - or lead her to a table. Mercifully, the decision was made for him; the tables in the common room were all filled. "If you don't mind," he mumbled, almost inaudibly, "My room... up here..." He led her up the stairwell and opened the door, full expecting - and perhaps hoping for - a refusal. If they saw Cerys regularly enter his room, and now this new girl, there would be talk. "Sorry, your name-- I don't know..."

His room? Mari's eyes narrowed slightly. If she remembered correctly, Allen was a zealot. If he knew what she was, there was a good chance he might try to lure her somewhere quiet in order to get rid of her - her ability wasn't exactly a secret, after all. Still, he didn't seem to know who she was. That was a point in her favour, she supposed. "Mari," she answered after a moment of wondering if it might be better to refer to herself as 'Abel' for this meeting. But that might result in Moirine's wrath (who wanted the awkwardness of your long lost love meeting your one moment mistake, after all?), and she didn't want to destroy their newly repaired friendship.

She followed him up the stairs, sidling in and leaning against the wall near the door, ready to run if she had to. "Like 'Marry', but one r and an i at the end. What's- what name are you using?"

She looked... scared of him. Cautious. Ashamed but unable to pinpoint the cause, Allen gently shut the door. "Martin," he replied. Mari? The name sounded vaguely familiar, even if her face wasn't. He crossed the room to pour water from a pitcher into a small glass, then place the flowers he'd bought into it. They were drooping already, he noted in dismay.

Nervous, he turned back to face the girl, though he couldn't quite meet her eyes. "You said you know me. And my sister. For how long?"

"About," she paused, trying to recall, "I've known Moirine a few months shy of a year. You, I knew, for a month, I think."

Mari kept her back pressed against the wall, still quiet. Martin was the surname one of the Norman lords of Cemais had held, after they had taken power there. Names were important; she liked to collect them, to tell people about them. "Why Martin?"

A month. No, there was no chance he would've remembered this girl. A month... his last month alive? He tried not to flinch, his hands curling together nervously against his chest. "I knew a missionary named Martin," he explained in a mumble, "Two, actually, two missionaries. One named Martin, the other Merrick. I chose their names because I couldn't think of any others that wouldn't draw attention." Most of the men he knew were still alive, and active within the Citadel. He could not have named himself William, or Tobias.

He curled his hands for a few minutes more, clenching and unclenching them, holding and wringing the tip of his thumb, before he drew up enough courage to say, "I'm sorry. I don't- I don't remember anything of what I did. The last I saw my sister before all of this, she was... she was a child, only twelve. I don't know entirely who I became and Moirine will not tell me. But if I treated you poorly, I am sorry."

"You never treated me poorly," she was almost surprised to hear the apology. "You're one of the few from there to treat me decently." Still, she continued to lean back against the wall, staying close to the door. Allen was nice, but she was unwilling to jeopardise herself by trusting him completely.

He looked younger, that was true enough. It wasn't just the haircut. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen." He pursed his lips. "Eighteen, now, after Sunday." He felt too awkward standing, and so took a seat in a chair near the window, beside a small writing desk. It was a relief to hear that he'd never mistreated this girl, if surprising. He supposed he didn't really know what to expect of his past behavior; Moirine had been vague on the subject. He'd been mad, his hands had trembled. That's all he knew for sure.

After a moment, he frowned. "I'm sorry- From 'there'?"

Allen was younger than she was. Mari's eyebrows joined her hairline briefly. "Happy birthday." Happy birthday, you've been brought back from the dead with no memory of why you'd been put there in the first place. Moirine probably hadn't told him they'd been making like bunnies. She imagined waking up as seventeen with several years of your life missing only to find out that you were the father of your sister's child would be...well, the entire thing was messed up. It wouldn't do much for his already fragile mental health.

"From the Citadel," she clarified.

"Oh." She disliked the Citadel? "You're not a Civitate?" After a pause he shook his head and ducked it, hands fiddling with each other once again in nervous habit. "No, nevermind. It doesn't matter." Of course she wasn't. Who else could Moirine befriend but those who hadn't known her, hadn't revered her? At 'happy birthday', his mouth twitched. "Thank you."

What did he say? A part of him, very quietly, suggested that he might ask Mari the questions that Moirine would not answer. What had he done? It was an unknown, a fearful thing, and he slept very little from dwelling on it. "So you're-- you're M- Cerys' friend," he said after a silence. "How did you meet?" Another pause, and, "How- How has she been? She has not-- She does not tell me the whole of things, has not, since I came back to myself. In your estimation, is she well? Has she been?"

Mari listened to the questions carefully, looking down at the floor, her left ear cocked towards Allen so as not to miss what he was saying, a frown of concentration on her face. She remained quiet for a time after hearing them, working out how to put it. "Wellington blackmailed me into doing work for him," she began slowly. "She found out about it when she saw me in the Citadel, and had me do work for her instead."

A much more pleasant summary than 'I joked about you fucking her and she punched me'. And Allen had been sympathetic before to her about Wellington, hadn't he? There was a chance he'd be so again.

"She's a survivor. She's keeping her head above water. She's doing alright." If she wasn't telling him things, did that mean she hadn't told Silence he was back? Good. Given the chance to come back, Allen should be allowed to live a life of his own, free from the gangs.

Allen frowned and lifted his head to squint at her. "Blackmailed?" There had to be some misunderstanding. Wellington was not the sort to blackmail. Devoted, unflinching, but not, Allen felt, manipulative. "That- That can't be right," he protested. "He's a Cancellarius. They do not blackmail, nor do others do work for them. They are my sist- they are the Occia's bodyguards only, her council." Perhaps she'd simply twisted the story to suit her own bias, or misunderstood something Wellington had said. "Nor would my sister have anyone work for her," he continued, his voice softening. "Particularly someone outside the Citadel."

Mari stared at him hard. "Things change," she told him, voice quiet. "Wellington frolicks with assassins and thought nothing of making me inform on my friends. Your sister had to offer me protection from him."

Folding her arms and refolding them, she leaned a little off the wall. She wouldn't tell him of the list of doctors she'd had to take to Moirine, nor the wig or the escape. She could tell him of those things, if he needed to know them. "You are, very young now. Things changed between your most recent memories and what happened this year."

"I know that," Allen snapped, a hard edge to his voice. He took a deep breath through his nose, then looked away and muttered an almost inaudible, "Sorry." Did she think he hadn't realized? His sister cast out, pregnant, the Citadel in shambles, the fact that he could visit his own headstone, these facts were inescapable. He couldn't ignore them, couldn't forget them, however much he wanted to.

"It's just," he started, lips pressed thin, eyes unfocused and cold on the far wall, "I can only see what things have become. Not how they've gotten there. And no one will tell me that. Moirine says it's Belief, these... these rumours, but that can't be all. There has to be some choice involved. And I don't know... I don't know anyone I used to. Not as I did then. And they know me as someone else, as someone I became that I don't know or understand, and I see that in your eyes and see it in hers. She won't tell me what I did but desperately wants me to remember. There was something I did right too," Allen said, his voice catching, "But I don't..." He pressed his lips together and swallowed, then darted a glance at Mari. "I'm sorry. I haven't met anyone yet that knew us both that I can talk to. I don't mean to tell you all this. Please don't- please don't mention it. To her."

"It's not just Belief," Mari answered after a while. "If the many could do the greatest evil, then the many could do the greatest good, too." Plato was slowly coming in handy, if only as a distraction. "It's a fine scapegoat, but," she rocked backwards and forwards on her heels briefly, thinking of how to put it. "You're right. Choice is involved. But I don't know what it was you chose to do." Other than the bunnies. But Moirine could explain the incest to him; Mari had no wish for that conversation. "I know there was something, and I know it was evil enough that she doesn't want anyone to speak of it again, but I was out of the city when you confessed it. And I've too much respect for you to go digging it up."

Mari looked up at his face and her eyes stayed there for a little while, before she looked down at the floor again. It was cruel, to keep him from everything. "Your sister asked me to find doctors who could cure hysteria. You diagnosed yourself as being hysterical. Refused to get help for it. It seemed as though you were punishing yourself for something. We left the city, tried to save you from Cita. She was desperate to. We were going to go to France. But then you decided to come back and face him."

She looked up at his face again. "That's how I knew you. I won't tell her."

Evil? Allen swallowed; his throat felt dry. What had he done? He'd searched his thoughts for hours, whenever he couldn't sleep, trying to think of a single temptation he might've given in to. They were all small things, mundane, the crimes he'd come up with. Breaking his vows, perhaps stealing something for his sister, hitting someone. He didn't enjoy admitting that he might have done any of those things, but neither could he understand himself doing something worse, something - as Mari bluntly put it - evil. What had it been? Betrayal? Greed? Murder? He wasn't capable of those things.

He rubbed his hand across his forehead, back and forth until it no longer soothed him, then dropped it. "Hysterical," he repeated flatly. He'd been to the madhouse in Tyrol once, just once. Allen thought of himself as compassionate, but the sight of the poor people he'd seen there had shaken him deeply. He'd asked never to be assigned there again, a request that still shamed him. Hysterical. He could conjure the image readily enough. If he'd refused treatment, he suspected Mari's assessment was right; he'd felt he deserved his condition. But why? "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I didn't intend to bring you here only to, to bring up something like this." He looked up and blinked quickly, drew a deep breath, to calm himself. It didn't prevent his voice from shaking when he said louder, forcing himself to meet her eyes, "Please, tell me about yourself."

The conversation grew stranger. Mari couldn't imagine why he'd want to know anything about her after having that dropped on him. He didn't look as though he'd taken the news well; perhaps he meant for her to distract him? She trawled through her mind for something and failed to come up with anything. Knowing his sister seemed about the only safe subject she had; he'd come out in favour of Wellington, she doubted he'd like anything she had to say about herself.

"Ask me what you want to know," she'd already told him everything that was relevant, hadn't she? "And I'll answer your questions."

He hesitated. There were a thousand things he wanted to ask, but only a few that Mari might know. The identity of the father of Moirine's child, the catalyst that had made him decide to die, the truth of his condition. He opened his mouth to ask, moved it silently for a moment, then shut it again and hung his head. "No. She'll be angry with me if I ask you these things. She has promised she'll tell me... eventually." It wasn't entirely the truth; Moirine hadn't promised to tell him all of it, only his crimes when he was ready to hear them. "It's best that way," he said firmly, eyes on the floor. "I have enough to consider now as it is. I have to be... to be stable, to be strong for her." He was only distantly aware that he was mainly speaking to himself. "I have to be..." The thought left him, trailed off into empty space, and Allen blinked. He stared at the floor, then lifted his head, as if startled to find Mari still in the room with him. Sleep, he told himself. He needed more sleep.

"The father," he said, eyes on hers. "He was- He was good to her. Tell me that, at least. That for that little while she was happy."

For the briefest of seconds, Mari's face froze in mild surprise. She'd expected a question about herself - after all, that was what he'd asked her to speak on - so being asked to improvise a lie about him caught her wrong footed. Still, she recovered quickly, her expression slipping back to neutral. "Yes. She was happy."

Happy enough. Just entirely creepy.

Her hand went back into her pocket to touch the head of the tiger. "Is that everything?"

"Am I- am I keeping you from- I'm sorry," he stammered, rising quickly. "I'm very sorry. For all of this. I'll- I won't be this way next time. I promise." What would Mari tell Moirine? 'Your brother frightened me?' 'Your brother wouldn't stop asking questions?' He balled his hands into fists, then forced them flat again.

"No, I- here. Let me walk you back- Where do you live?"

Mari's face softened into pure sadness at the offer to walk her home. Her hand balled up into a fist around the tiger as she shook her head, her chin nearly touching her chest. "Don't worry about it. I'll be alright."

She looked up again, one hand already moving to the door handle. "It was nice seeing you again anyway," a brief hesitation, then: "Martin."

He'd made her uncomfortable. He'd make her moreso if he insisted on seeing her home. Trying to hide his disappointment, Allen nodded and forced a weak, thin smile. "Yes. Thank you for... for speaking with me. It was nice to meet you. Again." He'd done something evil, she'd said. Evil. He couldn't get the word out of his head.

"Cita bless," he mumbled, half-heartedly.

"God bless you, too," she muttered beneath her breath as she opened the door and slipped out. Wow, that was uncomfortable. How long could she stay quiet before she finally gave in and yelled 'you fucked your sister' at him? Whatever happened, it was best to stay silent for now and hope for the best.

Sending up a quick, silent prayer to St. Jude, she moved down the staircase quickly, the tip of her thumb in her mouth and her eyes on the front door.