[closed] it comes as no surprise at all, you see

[altusimperius]

WHO: Benedict Artemaeus, Atticus Vedici, Luwenna Coupe, Simon Ashlock
WHAT: an ill-used apprentice snaps and does something he'll regret
WHEN: after several weeks in captivity
WHERE: the dungeon
NOTES: Violence probably! If you want your character to be involved, send me a PM.

It's been a few weeks since Benedict's attempt to bolt, and he hasn't tried anything since then. In truth, he also isn't trying it now, since the Templars aren't his target: it's Atticus, who has done more to poison this experience than any southern Circle stooge ever could.

Their magic-blocking shackles are being transferred from their wrists to their ankles when Benedict, in a fit of terror-driven impulsiveness, casts Horror across the aisle into Atticus' cell. Why he chose this spell, even he isn't certain; why not a fireball or something suitably painful, he doesn't know. He doesn't have time to think about it, because it hardly takes a second for Benedict to be slammed against the wall by his assigned Templar, knocking the wind out of him. The shackle is replaced and his window of action is gone, and somehow he doesn't feel any better for it.

Unintentionally, the spell also infected Atticus' Templar, who is caught up by a brief but paralyzing fear.

Comments

[altusimperius]

Benedict keeps his hands up and doesn't try to stand, sufficiently cowed by the Templars. Nobody tell his mother.
He heaves a sigh of relief when Atticus finally leaves the cell, and feels just safe enough to be incredulous about the woman's assertion. "It wasn't meant to affect you," he insists, his sourness tinged by remaining fear. He glances furtively in the direction of the person it was meant to affect, but Atticus is blessedly out of his sightline.

[limier]

"Lack of control," Very little of the sort. Evidently the boy’s at least skilled — though as much might be surmised from his parentage, his placement. "My. Much better."

It’s still a touch too dull to be properly dry.

Why such animosity towards Vedici? What does he believe his position here is? Questions that will need to be asked. Atticus’ reaction isn’t so difficult to follow, infuriating as it’s been, troubling as reflection will find it. When someone’s trying to kill you, you do what you can.

(Had she been trying to kill him?)

Wren braces her hands against the bars, though whether it’s some unconscious effort to reassure Simon, or just convenient support is difficult to say. This time, when she takes the keys, she doesn’t bother to sort. The wrong one goes in the lock — then another — third try’s the charm. The jerk of her chin towards Benedict:

"Shackles, please." To Simon. Further discussion of consequence may wait until the boy can’t spook himself into a spell. "I trust you know a fitting place."

What a shit thing to say. (Had she even meant to say it?) She steps into place at the corner of the bars; backup, a familiar position, if not one she's assumed for some years.

When it comes to fine motor skills right now, Simon's evidently the leader. What a promotion. Congrats.

[minrathousian]

Thrust into a separate cage for the duration, Atticus stifles his annoyance over being manhandled and instead stands near the bars to witness what he can of what transpires next. He looks from Simon to Wren and fixes his attention on the latter, assessing her condition; her struggling brings the tiniest of satisfied smiles to the corners of his lips. Good.

[paladingus]

Well. At least Wren sounds like herself again, or close enough to be faintly reassuring. For the first time since this whole fiasco began, the tension coiling his spine like a spring begins to bleed away.

Well, I was just going to hang them from his earlobes like pretty jewelry, but now that you mention it, I suppose wrists would work...

He wouldn't have said it aloud in front of the prisoners even on a routine day, but neither would he have felt vaguely guilty for thinking it like he does now. He lets himself into Benedict's cell and indicates, with curt, silent movements, that he should present his wrists. The balance of power has almost-but-not-quite restored itself, for which he is deeply relieved.

[altusimperius]

"Not quite," Benedict grumbles, to Wren's observation, and scowls as Simon so brusquely directs him. Now that Atticus is out of view, it seems some of the boy's petulance has returned to him, which might be a relief to his parents but no doubt a reminder to everyone else why he's been smacked around in the first place.
He thrusts his hands forward, angry with himself for allowing it. But if they can silence Atticus, they can do it to him too.

[limier]

Finally. Maker. This has been a shitshow of a morning —

"Isolation," A gesture to Benedict, once chained. "I will put in the request for magebane."

What a fun letter that’s going to be to write. Particularly when the new apothecary is, rumour has it, another damn Rifter mage.

"The Magister may receive a medic here. One of the Tranquil, perhaps. Madame Marin has a fine hand at stitching."

With both secured, and knife retrieved, she folds her hands behind her back once more. A long look to Simon: It’s not that it isn’t measured, it’s just, she probably isn't using the appropriate units. Like setting a yardstick to weight.

"Find my office after."

[minrathousian]

Atticus would find the practice barbaric under any other circumstances. Right now, he derives a vindictive amount of satisfaction from knowing that Benedict will be punished for his actions.

"The Magister may receive a medic here. One of the Tranquil, perhaps."

At that he visibly starts, before biting down on the instinct to protest. No; he does have bargaining power, but not in this. Pursing his lips, he nods and says nothing else.

[paladingus]

Simon, too, finds the second command a bit more disturbing than the first. He's not a fan of any course of action that requires him to interact with one of those unfortunate monotone bastards, trying all the while to keep from staring at the scars on their foreheads. But he'll do as he's told without complaint, and if it delays him having to discuss any of the rest of it, perhaps it's not so bad after all.

"Yes, ser." A little more deference than usual, mostly for the prisoners' benefit, trying to restore the status quo like flinging a single silencing spell into the swirling Breach. Perhaps it's a hopeful enough metaphor; the Breach is, after all, gone now.

He crosses an arm over his chest in a punctuating salute, and marches Benedict off toward the further cells.

[altusimperius]

"What?" Benedict exclaims, suddenly fully back on-guard, "but it-- it wasn't for you!"
Between the magic-dampening shackles and the size difference between the Templar and himself, Benedict has no hope of preventing what's to come.
"I'm not even venatori!" he protests, "you can't do this!"
Naturally, being someone who's used to getting his way, he had hoped that Atticus might be removed, not himself. Isolation? It's common knowledge that the southerners are barbaric about mages, but Benedict never thought he'd become so intimately acquainted with one of their dungeons, least of all Kirkwall's. What is he, some pathetic Circle sheep being herded into a box?
...perhaps so. He doesn't make it easy for Simon, resisting as much as he can, his movements growing more insistent as they near his new cell. Isolation. He's never been completely alone in his life.