This Evening I Will Not Forget
“I jumped into the fray with the intention of helping you and next thing I know I’m standing there uselessly watching the first person I’ve dared to love in two fucking centuries take a warhammer to the stomach!”
He turned to face you as he emphasized his last few words, now standing all but frozen in the middle of the tent with his hands held out, gesturing toward your injury. You’re about to pipe up and insist that it wasn’t his fault, but the words dissipate before you can speak them as another part of his sentence echoes in your mind. You repeat them back to him in a disbelieving whisper.
“The first person you’ve dared to love?”
His tense, frustrated expression instantly falls flat.
“I didn’t say that.”
An injury and an argument lead to you revealing far more of yourself and your unspoken past to Astarion than you planned to.
Pairing: Astarion x Reader
Word Count: 3,292
Content Warnings: [injured Reader] (not graphically described, just mentions of bruising and pain) [mean/avoidant Astarion] [argument] [mentions of Reader's scars & non-specific allusion to their Tragic Backstory™] [vulnerability] [possibly (probably) OOC Astarion]
Author's Note: This is an excerpt from my fic An Evening I Will Not Forget, but can be read as a standalone one-shot. The only context I think you'll need is that this fic is written in the style of reliving memories, hence certain lines will mention Reader "looking back" on them.
“What's important is this evenin' I will not forget
Purple, blue, orange, red
These colors of feelin'
Give me love, I'll put my heart in it”
You’re lying on your back as cold, pale fingers press against your sensitive skin, pulling a small pained sound of protest from you.
“Sorry, sorry…”
Astarion retracts his hand, fingers curling into his palm. You reach out to catch hold of him before he can completely pull away, your voice tense with pain as you reassure him.
“No- no... don’t be. I know you’re just trying to help.”
You bring his hand back toward your exposed stomach, his fingers still coated in the healing salve he was attempting to apply. His hand hovers hesitantly over your bruised and broken skin.
“Yes, but- I’m not very good at it.”
Your thumb brushes across his wrist as you hold onto him, suspecting that if you let go he’d just retract his hand again.
“What do you mean? Of course you are.”
He shakes his head insistently.
“No. It seems like every time I try to help you, I just end up hurting you even more…”
Confusion is clear both in your voice and on your features.
“That’s not… that’s not true, Star.”
You tug lightly on his wrist to get his attention, your voice soft as you ask him a question.
“Is this about what happened today?”
He pulls his hand out of your loose hold and you let him, watching as he stands and begins pacing circles inside the tent.
“No, I’m in a bad mood because the weather isn’t quite to my liking- of course it’s about what happened today!”
The initial sarcasm in his voice gave way to frustration near the end. Not with you, but with himself.
Now that you’re observing this memory from his perspective as well, you can see the moment you sustained the injury playing over and over again in his mind, working him up further and further.
“I jumped into the fray with the intention of helping you and next thing I know I’m standing there uselessly watching the first person I’ve dared to love in two fucking centuries take a warhammer to the stomach!”
He turned to face you as he emphasized his last few words, now standing all but frozen in the middle of the tent with his hands held out, gesturing toward your injury. You’re about to pipe up and insist that it wasn’t his fault, but the words dissipate before you can speak them as another part of his sentence echoes in your mind. You repeat them back to him in a disbelieving whisper.
“The first person you’ve dared to love?”
His tense, frustrated expression instantly falls flat.
“I didn’t say that.”
Your eyes widen, nodding slowly.
“Yes you did.”
Nervous laughter escapes him as he takes a step back, distancing himself from you.
“No, no, you… you must have heard me wrong. I didn’t- I was talking about helping you, I didn’t say anything about love, what’s love got to do with this?”
You hate to push him, fearing he may bolt like a frightened deer if you double down, but you know what you heard. It wasn’t like the first time you heard him say it, slapping it on the end of a string of pick-up lines, the word obviously carrying no weight, no truth. No, this second time was different.
“I think it has more to do with it than you’re willing to admit, Astarion.”
He falters, one of very few times you’ve seen him truly caught off guard, truly speechless.
“Those are…” He searches for something to say that’ll cover up the truth that’d just spilled out of him. “...bold words for someone currently bedridden.”
You bark a laugh and it turns into a low groan at the pain it causes to flare in your lower ribs.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
If he’s being honest, even he’s hardly sure what he meant. He’s truly floundering here, for the first time in… forever.
“It means… it means that I can walk away from this conversation right now and there isn’t anything you can do about it.”
Stooping so low as to resort to childish threats, you can feel the embarrassment radiating off of him.
“Would you truly be so cruel as to do that to me right now? Walking away, leaving me vulnerable and confused just because you can’t handle the truth?”
You’re pushing your luck too far and you know it. Surprisingly, though, he takes one step toward you, moving away from the exit.
“Cruel?! If you think that me simply walking away from you counts as cruelty then you truly haven’t suffered enough.”
His words are suddenly laced with venom and they hit you harder than the barbarian’s warhammer did today, leaving a chill colder than ice in their wake.
He seems to actually hear what he said a moment later, the careless words ricocheting off of you and coming back to slam into his chest, nearly knocking him over and crushing him beneath the weight of his sudden regret.
A furious wave of heat and adrenaline courses through you as you bolt upright in the makeshift bed, ignoring the sharp pain that flares inside you in response to the sudden movement. Reaching down and grabbing at the tail of your shirt where it’s bunched up around your ribs, you hastily yank it up over your shoulders and head, tugging your arms out of the long sleeves and furiously tossing the garment directly at him.
“Suffered enough? You think I haven’t fucking suffered enough, Astarion? You don’t know the goddamned HALF of it! You’re not the only one in this tent that’s been abused, you know?! Oh wait- that’s right- you DON’T!”
Your voice cracks under the pressure of volume and emotion as fat, hot, angry tears roll down your cheeks against your will. Astarion stands there like a deer in the headlamps, your balled-up shirt having hit him softly in the chest and fallen anticlimactically to the ground. As his eyes rake over your heavily scarred arms, the angry purple markings showing no signs of lessening as they curl over your shoulders and disappear behind your back, it suddenly starts to make a lot more sense why you were so damned insistent that no one remove your clothes while treating your wounds earlier.
Shadowheart rips open the flap covering the tent’s exit, a very concerned looking Halsin ducking down behind her. Part of you is grateful that at least not everyone was currently at camp to witness your sudden breakdown, but even the sight of the two of them is enough to have you panicking. Pulling at the blanket gathered around your waist and shouting in an admittedly very childish, vulnerable voice, you demand they leave as you choke on your tears, hastily covering yourself up.
“GET OUT!”
Unsure of what to do, Shadowheart surveys the scene before her with a critical eye before sighing, seeming to understand that the best thing they can do right now is give you back your privacy. She knows that if you needed her, you would call. Turning to shoo away the concerned man behind her, she lowers the flap back down with a quiet murmur of “They’re… fine. Let’s give them some space.”
Astarion finally breaks free from where he’s been stood like a statue, slowly moving toward the exit as well with an unsure glance in your direction.
You bury your face into the fabric clutched in your hands, shouting into it in exasperation.
“NOT YOU!”
He freezes, no longer knowing what to do but wishing that the ground would simply open up and swallow him whole. Back under six feet of soil feels like where he deserves to be after what he just said to you.
He racks his brain for the right thing to say, coming up empty handed and eventually deciding that honesty might just be the best policy in this situation.
“I… I’m going to level with you. I have no idea what to do right now.”
In spite of it all, you laugh, a broken sound that cuts through your tears, causing you to cough, then the strain from coughing causes more tears to fall. Though he can’t admit it, Astarion knows right then and there that he never wants to hear or see you in such pain ever again.
“I… I’ll level with you, too.”
You pull the blanket away from your face, looking at him with watery, bloodshot eyes.
“...Neither do I.”
You glance down at the floor, attempting a deep breath and failing spectacularly as another broken sob escapes you. Dropping the fabric still held up against your chest, you press your hands down into the bedroll beneath you in an attempt to support your upper body and ease the pain radiating through your core.
Astarion takes one cautious step toward you, his unsteady voice the only thing filling the silence aside from your soft crying.
“I need… to apologize. For everything.”
You shake your head in disagreement and clear your throat.
“No, you don’t. You’ve been through a worse hell than I could ever even imagine. It’s… stupid of me to try and compete with you in that regard.”
He takes another step forward, insistent.
“That isn’t true. You have… clearly been through your own hell, and it was… stupid of me to assume you hadn’t. Even worse of me to try and downplay my avoidance by… holding my past over you like some sort of… like some sort of excuse.”
You shift your weight to the side in order to lift one hand, reaching out to grab at one of the small cloths stacked beside your bed. Astarion sees you struggling to reach them and rushes forward, closing what remained of the space he’d put between you as he lifted a cloth and handed it to you without a word.
You bring it to your face, pressing it to your eyes in a useless attempt to dry the tears that were still falling. Then, moving it down to blow your running nose into the cloth before you could make an even bigger mess of yourself than you already were. Finally able to breathe a bit better, you counter his point.
“Yeah, but- the thing is, I feel like you kinda have the right to do that, given all that you’ve survived. Of course you’d see the pain of walking away from a conversation as trivial when you compare it to… literally anything you’ve experienced.”
Now that he’s returned to your side, Astarion’s head angles to drag his gaze across your exposed back, finally seeing the full extent of your scarring as you lean forward a bit to toss the dirty cloth to the floor of the tent next to your shirt. Nausea swirls deep in the pit of his stomach as the upsetting sight of your marred skin burns itself into his memory.
“I believe… that’s called a double standard.”
You throw him a sad, confused look, and he explains.
“You’re trying to give me some sort of… free pass based on what I’ve been through, but I’ve never once seen you give yourself that same sort of leniency.”
“That’s… not the same thing.”
“I’m not saying we’ve been through the exact same thing, but…” He gestures vaguely to the entirety of you. “...clearly you’ve gone through something. If I get to lord my baggage over you then surely you’re permitted to do the same.”
Your tears begin to slow as you consider his words.
“I don’t… want to do that, though. Obviously. That’s why I haven’t told you. I don’t want you giving me special treatment because ‘poor pitiful me’ has gone through some shit. I don’t think that excuses any of my current behavior.”
The silence hangs in the air for a moment before he gently drives his point home.
“Yet you think it excuses mine?”
Hm.
“...okay. I guess you’ve got me there.”
You sigh, body beginning to feel heavier than lead as the sudden rush of emotion and adrenaline fades from you. You ease yourself back down, hissing at the pain as your bruised ribs and torn muscles protest the stretch and movement. Astarion wants to assist but truth be told he’s afraid to touch you. So, he watches on helplessly, still berating himself in the back of his mind for the role he feels he played in you sustaining today’s injuries to begin with.
Once you’re laid down and relaxing into the bedroll as much as you can, you make no effort to cover yourself up, not caring how long his eyes wander across your exposed skin. Silently, he tries to read the countless jagged lines and dots carved into you like they may eventually come together to paint him a picture of all that’s happened to you.
No picture anyone could paint would ever do the pain justice.
He settles himself down next to you as your tired eyes stare a hole in the ceiling of the tent.
“You do not have to accept my apology, but I will not rescind it. I do have the wherewithal to know that what I said was wrong. It was cruel. I…”
He exhales, the heavy sound full of the weight carried by a man that hasn’t been this honest with anyone in centuries.
“I… tossed aside any consideration for how you may have felt, letting myself get lost in my own… stupid fears. It wasn’t right. It certainly wasn’t fair to you.”
Your head lolls to the side, appraising him with lidded eyes.
“You know… you’re surprisingly self-aware when you aren’t being a pompous ass.”
Your words draw a surprised laugh out of him and after a moment of consideration, he nods slowly in reluctant agreement.
“I’ve… had a lot of time to sit with myself and think. Eventually you get to know yourself pretty well.”
He looks down, idly picking at the loose threads on the edge of your well-worn bedroll.
“All of that self-awareness apparently doesn’t make me any kinder though, does it?”
It’s a rhetorical question but you answer it all the same.
“I still stand by my statement that you have good reason to be so… abrasive. Just being aware of those reasons doesn’t mean that they suddenly don’t affect you any more.”
Your hand raises from where it laid lifelessly beside you, reaching over for Astarion’s and pulling his anxious fingers away from attacking the weak points of your bedroll. You don’t release his hand once you direct him away from the loose threads, holding onto him as you continue to muse aloud.
“I think that a lot of us are just doing our best to not allow our past to affect our present, to varying degrees of success. Sometimes we fail. But- I believe all that truly matters at the end of the day is that we’re trying, though. … And, Astarion?”
“...yes?”
“I can tell that you’re trying.” You squeeze his hand. “And I accept your apology.”
You take a slow, deep breath, and listen as his voice comes out softer than you’ve ever heard it.
“Thank you.”
You nod your head in a silent “of course,” laying in thoughtful silence for a few moments before speaking.
“I… feel like I should apologize as well.”
Now it’s Astarion’s turn to be confused.
“What ever for?”
You weakly raise your other hand to gesture all around the room.
“Just… this. The scene I just made. Heaping all of this emotion onto you when you were obviously already struggling with how you felt about me in the first place.”
He doesn’t take long to respond.
“No, I don’t think you need to apologize for that. This… seems like it really needed to come out. I could never be upset with you for sharing it with me, regardless of the… unideal circumstances.”
He then seems to realize something.
“I hope you don’t regret it, though. Sharing this with me.”
You shake your head decisively and the motion causes your impending headache to flare.
“No. I don’t. I- uh- you were going to find out eventually with how… close we’ve been getting. I just couldn’t find the right time to tell you- or- well, show you, I guess.”
Your hand releases its hold on his, reaching up to carefully brush your fingertips across the mottled skin of your stomach. You raise your head up, angling it down to look down at the injury with a thoughtful gaze. Glancing over toward Astarion, you ask him another question.
“Can you hand me that salve from earlier? It never really… got fully applied.”
He immediately reaches behind him for the container, but holds it in his grasp as he stumbles over his words.
“I- I, uhm… wouldn’t mind trying again, if you want me to. If you don’t I’ll understand, though. Just… want you to know that the offer is still there.”
Your eyebrows raise in surprise, but you’re completely willing to let him do it.
“Oh… sure? You’re welcome to, I just… assumed you wouldn’t want to.”
He holds his other hand up and only then do you realize he never wiped the salve from his skin.
“These fingers are numb already anyways, might as well spare yours the same fate.”
You vaguely remember Shadowheart’s words as she passed Astarion the container earlier, cautioning him to not leave it for long on any skin he didn’t want to temporarily lose feeling in.
“But hey, at least we know that it works now, right?”
You give him a tired smile, appreciative of his efforts to lighten the mood.
“Mmm, I suppose so.”
You pull your hand away, exposing your injury to him once again.
“Have at me, then.”
With your permission, he sweeps a scoop of the healing and numbing mixture across your sensitive skin and you notice how feather-light he keeps his touch this time. Looking down to observe his work, you note how the messy mixture of the massive bruise’s dark colors stand in stark contrast to his pale white fingers that brush across it.
A thought slips out of your exhausted mind.
“Pretty…”
His eyes flick up to meet yours, unsure if he heard you correctly.
“Hmm?”
“The colors. They’re pretty. Purple, blue, even kinda orange…”
You look away from the bruise and up into his ruby eyes.
“...red.”
He’s silent for a moment, his hand pausing its gentle motion. Then he scoffs, looking away and internally dismissing your words as the ramblings of a tired mind.
“You’re talking nonsense, dear.”
Your filter has all but completely vanished, feeling almost drunk on your current mixture of exhaustion and relief after such a hell of a day. Sleep beckons you and your eyes fall closed as the pain in your ribs fades, on its way to being numbed out by the potent salve. A hazy thought surfaces, reminding you to give your thanks to Shadowheart when you next awake. For now though, you relax, no thought given to the words that slip from your lips.
“But you love my nonsense, don’t you…”
His heart feels like it jumps in his chest as he hears you so casually speak the word that he’s still reluctant to even think to himself, let alone say aloud. As he finishes massaging the salve into your skin and pulls his hand back, his eyes pass over the expansive unspoken history of pain evidently etched into your skin, up across your chest, over your shoulders and down your arms. He figures the least he can do is answer you honestly before sleep pulls you under.
“I… suppose I do.”
End Notes: If you'd like to read my commentary on this scene, you can find that in the end notes of Ch. 5 on AO3 - right here!
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The thing about Kai Winn's storyline ultimately being a tragedy is, it's not only a tragedy because her fate (in the eyes of the non-linear Prophets) was already known and nothing she did or said was ever going to make them acknowledge her- not only because she wanted so badly to have a big role to play in the grand, historic story of the newly independent Bajor and just couldn't handle the fact that she was never meant to- not only because the Prophets spoke to Sisko and Bareil and Kira and literally even Quark but not her- not only because she was deceived and raped and killed in the end- but most of all because, it was partly her love of Bajor that killed her.
Think about it- her whole regression during that final arc with Dukat is so tragic precisely because she was THIS close to redemption! Throughout the show, we see that her brain processes information in very rigid, binary ways: if you are not my ally, then you are my enemy. If you disagree with even one of my opinions, you are my enemy. If you refuse to endorse and support me in this mission, you are my enemy. That's part of why she's so easily swayed by fascist rhetoric, I think- she's just unable to cope with nuance. (This is foreshadowed in 'Shakaar', where she puts the whole of Bajor under martial law just because Shakaar disagreed with her over how she was handling soil reclamators.) Her personal narrative is I am the one who will save Bajor -> anyone who gets in my way is my enemy and therefore an enemy of Bajor -> I must stop them using any force necessary for the good of Bajor because I am after all the one who will save Bajor.
But when Sisko discovers the city of B'hala in 'Rapture', she is for the first time forced to accept the truth that he really hasn't been faking this whole "talks to the Prophets" thing- he's the real deal. We learn later on (when she tells "Anjohl" about how she honestly felt nothing the first time she saw the wormhole open) that a small, small part of her actually always doubted the existence of the Prophets. Now, she is faced with definitive proof that they are not only very real, but they also really do have a bond with Sisko. And for a while, she even comes to terms with this! In fact, at the end of the episode, she and Kira have possibly their first completely honest exchange:
KIRA: Maybe we're the ones who need to trust the Prophets. For all we know, this is part of their plan. Maybe they've told Captain Sisko everything they want him to know.
WINN: Perhaps. I suppose you heard that Bajor will not join the Federation today. The Council of Ministers has voted to delay acceptance of Federation membership.
KIRA: You must be very pleased.
WINN: I wish I were. But things are not that simple. Not anymore. Before Captain Sisko found B'hala, my path was clear. I knew who my enemies were. But now? Now nothing is certain.
KIRA: Makes life interesting, doesn't it?
Like, YASS babygirl- you too can learn to handle nuance!! I believe in you!!💪💪
And later on, at the onset of the Dominion War, she comes to Sisko for advice herself. She doesn't want to see her planet colonised again, and she's even willing to put aside her desire to be the main character to ensure it doesn't happen. Driven by pride and the need for power as she is, she is also driven by the desire save Bajor (and preferably be the one saving Bajor, which is the subsection of this desire that ultimately ends up being her downfall) - and she does briefly decide that cooperating with the Emissary is the best way to do this! I think about this scene from 'In The Cards' so much:
WINN: ... I have asked the Prophets to guide me, but they have not answered my prayers. I even consulted the Orb of Wisdom before coming here and it has told me nothing. So I come to you, Emissary. You have heard the voice of the Prophets. You were sent here to guide us through troubled times. Tell me what to do and I will do it. How can I save Bajor?
SISKO: You want my advice? Then this is it. Stall. Tell Weyoun you have to consult with the Council of Ministers, or that you have to meditate on your response. Anything you want, but you have to stall for time.
WINN: Time for what?
SISKO: I don't know. But I do know the moment of crisis isn't here yet, and until that moment arrives we have to keep Bajor's options open. I'm aware that this is difficult for you, given our past, but this time you have to trust me.
(Winn holds Sisko's left ear.)
WINN: Very well, Emissary. We put ourselves in your hands. May we all walk with the Prophets.
In the earlier seasons, Winn would often casually make claims that the Prophets had "told her" something, or that she was just "doing what the Prophets asked"- and her political position as Kai always allowed her to just lie about being in contact with them all the time. Now, you can see the sheer humility- the embarrassment, even- on her face as she (for the first time) openly admits to Sisko that she has never actually heard them speak before; and that they clearly "prefer" him. Yes, there's some (understandable imo) bitterness here- but not at him, at THEM. And when she tries to read his pagh at the end- something she probably does to dozens of people every day, most of whom would unquestioningly believe anything she declares afterwards- she doesn't even try to pretend she felt anything there. It's one of her most genuine moments in the whole show, you can just SEE the redemption arc in reach and it's so heartbreaking!!
I think 'The Reckoning' is a huge episode for her too, for many reasons- but let's talk about how it sets up this fascinating parallel between her and Kira (who Odo describes in this episode as having "both faith and humility"). The Prophets choose Kira as their "vessel" because she was "willing"- meanwhile, Winn was right there just begging to be a part of this! Here she is, with a Prophet right in front of her face- and she prays and postures and begs and prays some more, all just to get ignored. Kira's brand of faith is very, "I am ultimately insignificant and I surrender my power and my body and pagh to the Prophets"- Winn's is more, "if I do all the right things, then I will be able to prove to the Prophets that I am worthy of their attention, worthier than everyone else, and maybe then they'll appoint me the saviour of Bajor! It's My Destiny, You See!! (Why Isn't This Happening For Me??)" And the events of this episode are kind of a big slap in the face to her honestly, because they sort of prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Prophets have no interest in her. Maybe stopping the battle was also an attempt at regaining some kind of agency with them- I DID THIS, I pulled a switch and it had a direct effect on the Prophets, so there!! (Whatever that effect entails). She does care about Bajor. Of course she does. But her ideal configuration of Bajor involves her being a major player in its salvation, which she was just never meant to be. And this is why she's so tragically susceptible to Dukat's manipulation- he was the first person ever to tell her everything she always wanted to hear.
And the intriguing thing about Dukat's deception is, it doesn't all fall apart at one go. It falls apart in layers. And this makes for some excellent, excellent Winn characterisation imo.
First, she thinks the pah wraiths are the Prophets- and they tell her, hey, The Sisko has faltered, Bajor needs you, and only you can fix this. Good lord, imagine finally getting to hear those words after a lifetime of silence! And it's very telling that her first reaction isn't to gloat like she would've in the earlier seasons, but instead to humbly- even anxiously- pray. Bajor needs her, the "Prophets" have asked her to do something, this is her moment! Then, this random lovely Bajoran farmer comes in and tells her even more things she has always wanted to hear- that her activism during the Occupation (ignored by Kira and Sisko alike) saved lives, that he always wondered why the Prophets would choose an alien as their Emissary, that surely Sisko and his followers were mistaken- and finally, "our world will be reborn- with YOU as its leader". Sounds good, right? But THEN she finds out she's been speaking to the pah wraiths and the lovely farmer is a devil worshipper actually. And she tries the "wash away my sins" approach- she wants some kind of quick fix ritual that will "purify" her, so she can continue to be Kai the right way. She even admits to Kira that she's always been power hungry and she wants to change- and I believe her! Unfortunately, Kira then tells her something she doesn't want to hear- that she has to step down as Kai. And surely that can't be, right? She's the saviour of Bajor! She's so complex... it's not simply her love of power that this scene reveals imo, but more significantly, her inability to see herself as not a vital part of Bajor's history; of this whole larger narrative. Like-
WINN: I'm a patient woman. But I have run out of patience. I will no longer serve gods who give me nothing in return. "GIVE ME"!! ADAMI MY BESTIE MY GIRL MY BUDDY THEREIN LIES THE PROBLEM!!!
So, okay, fine, now she's swayed over to the side that maybe the Prophets aren't that great, and maybe the pah wraiths are the true gods of Bajor (because they were willing to talk to her), and maybe she's okay working with the devil worshipper. But then it turns out he's DUKAT- and at this point, she's literally murdered someone, she's ready to stop this, to go back to Sisko and set things right- but then the book of the Kosst Amojan lights up because of the blood she spilled. She did that. It happened as a direct result of her actions. She's just so desperate to be acknowledged... to have a role to play in all this, no matter who offers it to her. So the pah wraiths actually giving her a reaction isn't something she can resist. And here's where things get even more tragic.
WINN: But the prophecies! They warn that the release of the Pah wraiths will mean the end of Bajor.
DUKAT: The old Bajor, perhaps. But from its ashes a new Bajor will arise and the Restoration will begin.
WINN: Who will be left to see it?
DUKAT: Those the gods find worthy. It will be the dawn of paradise. And you, Adami, are destined to rule it.
WINN: You're sure of that?
DUKAT: It is meant to be.
Again with the ease at which she's swayed by fascist rhetoric! Let's be clear, she was (and is) absolutely against the Cardassian Occupation. But her worldview is built on the pursuit of being "worthier" than everyone else, of being "closer to god" than everyone else- her expectation of faith is that it's some sort of determiner of who's doing it The Most Effectively, rather than it being a practice- and she just completely misses that any sort of plan that executes masses and spares whoever is deemed "worthy" is... literally exactly what people like Dukat did to her planet. Something something faith as competition, faith as determiner of inherent superiority, faith as a way to gain power via proximity to god… never faith as submission. And the worst part is she’s self-aware. It’s heartbreaking.
And it's about to get even more heartbreaking, because she truly believes she has arrived at her girlboss moment in the finale (I think the tragedy of her being a rape victim and knowing this and having to hide the body of the one (1) person who was looking out for her while being stuck with her rapist speaks for itself.) After kicking Dukat out on the street (lol), she studies the eeevil texts and realises that to set the pah wraiths free, you need to make a sacrifice. So now she gets to deceive him in return. And she does! The look of shock on his face when he discovers she poisoned him is priceless imo, and her triumph as she taunts his dead body, the sheer joy on her face as she casts off her Kai robes, when she recites those incantations and something actually happens- and that too such a large pyrotechnic spectacle- is so sad knowing what's coming. Because ultimately, the pah wraiths want to destroy Bajor, right? And Winn just doesn't. Of course they don't choose her. Of course they choose Dukat over her! She really thought that by tricking and murdering him, she'd made him the unimportant piece of the puzzle, that she was stealing back his thunder- but tragically, it turns out even the pah wraiths see her as disposable. Of course they resurrect Dukat (a man who's proved time and time again that he wants to see Bajor & Bajorans destroyed) and turn her into the sacrifice. The way she screams "NO!" here breaks my heart- she's betrayed her planet, and it was all for nothing. (Dukat's "are you still here?" is particularly devastating.) I think it's very significant that her final words are "Emissary, the book!"- it shows that in her last moments, she's owning her mistakes- she's stepping away from power and putting Bajor first, and leaving her own fate in the hands of the Prophets. Who, of course, once again ignore her, and choose to save Sisko instead. God.
The utter tragedy that even in the pah wraiths' plan, she was just a pawn. That she died at the hands of the gods she thought chose her, but used her, all while the gods she'd coveted her whole life stood by and did nothing. The Prophets chose Sisko because they believed he would put Bajor's interests over even his own- and now they ensure he will be back one day to see the new Bajor. She never will.
Yes, it was her pride that got her here. Her mean streak. Her inability to cope with nuance. Her inability to see herself as ultimately insignificant. Her inability to surrender to a higher power in any way that didn't involve becoming more powerful herself; more relevant, more "close to god". But it was also her love of Bajor. Because if she'd cared about Bajor less, then maybe the pah wraiths might have chosen her- or at least spared her, or taken her to their realm after she burned, the way they did with Dukat. Now, she ends up being the one thing she never wanted to be: insignificant.
Honestly if I had to summarise the tragedy of her arc in one sentence, it would probably be Kai Winn: Too Evil For The Prophets, Not Evil Enough For The Pah Wraiths. She and Dukat are not the same! She is a perfectly pathetic, sad and wet blorbo and I am holding her gently in my hands while apologising for her crimes <3
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