Anabasis: Prologue
Title: Anabasis
Author: coldthermistor
Artist: ellegen
Rating: R just in case, mostly for violence. There is no porn.
Word count: 80,617 words
Warnings: A little violence (possibly graphic), implied torture, and swearing.
Pairings: Cobb/Mal, Arthur/Cobb
Summary: Dominic Cobb is a man on the run. He's on the run from a marriage slowly falling apart, from being framed for a crime he didn't commit...and on the run from the memories of a betrayal that haunts him still. He remembers little of the night except for one thing, burned into his mind: Arthur betrayed him. Arthur cannot be trusted. Now, a business man, Saito has come forward: with what seems to be Cobb's best hope of learning the truth about that night so many years ago...and with Cobb's best hope of clearing his name. In return, he only wants an impossible job performed. Inception. There is no room for failure. The stakes are too high. But there is an enemy haunting Cobb's footsteps...an enemy wearing the face of a man that Cobb knows only too well: Cobb's former point man, Arthur...
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Anabasis
From Ancient Greek ἀνάβασις (“a going up, an ascent”), from ἀναβαίνειν (“to go up”), from βάσις (“walk, going”).
referred to an expedition from a coastline into the interior of a country.
Before one can deepen as a person, one must visit the depths within. We cannot ascend without first descending. (Hollis, Mythologems, p. 74)
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This is a story about ideas.
It’s a story about plenty of other things, of course, but at the end of it, it all comes back to a single thing: an idea. A single idea destroyed an empire, and an entirely different idea led to the dawn of a new era. That’s the funny thing about ideas: so many things have entirely innocuous beginnings. Things like a simple request, a simple job.
But an idea leads to so many other things. This is a story about choices, and the different, perhaps darker paths down which they lead.
But more importantly, this is a story about loss, about love, about brotherhood and betrayal, courage and cowardice. It is a story about the blurred line between our best and our worst.
This is about redemption, and about coming home.
And a funny thing about stories: most of them have happened, at some time or other. Everything is fixed, and nothing can be done to change what has already happened. And yet at the same time, this is all happening. Right now.
This is the ending. This is the beginning.
Right now.
Part I: Extraction
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