[closed] save me

[altusimperius]

WHO: Benedict, people with clearance to see him
WHAT: Benedict is in baby jail resulting from some poor decision-making.
WHEN: the days following this
WHERE: BABY JAIL (the Gallows dungeon, solitary confinement)
NOTES: It might get dark? There will likely be talk of abuse. Also, only certain people will be allowed to see him, so please PM me if you want to get in on it!

The attitude is more difficult to maintain when no one's around, and it didn't take Benedict very long to cave. Between the magebane, the darkness, and the quiet, he's been an emotional wreck; he has outright refused to eat the rations slid to him through the slot in the door and would shout at the guard who put them there, a barrage of desperate pleas and empty threats.

As despair has settled in, Benedict has gone quieter, ending his hunger strike by picking at the tray even if he never finishes it, weeping often and becoming increasingly convinced that he's going mad.
Someone like him was never prepared for the likes of this.

Comments

[limier]

Her hand grazes one of the toppled pieces; this one a tower, now a chevalier. For all the low ease of her words, she’s made no effort to dull the press of her shoulders, to shape her posture towards something kind.

Intimidation will serve this conversation well enough. Their context precludes much else.

"You are not," She begins, lifts a mage to inspect, "Venatori."

As you've made abundantly clear. It takes a good liar to look shit at it; she increasingly doubts Artemaeus has the skill. There’s a point at which one must concur with the simplest answer.

"It is deeply unfair that you have been caught in their wake." Not as unfair as say, slavery. But you know. "However, this cannot be undone."

The figure’s miniature staff is chipped, his beard carved long and trailing. She can’t recall anyone in the Spire letting themselves grow so unkempt — not in the residential levels, at least. But then Benedict would know the difficulty of grooming in less than ideal conditions.

"If I told you that you were safer here than in the North, would you believe me? To say a thing is not to be believed." Wren shakes her head, sets the piece down. Her eyes linger on his. "What do you believe, Benedict?"

She'll avoid using his family name aloud in his presence. The better that he not be reminded of any distant allies, of anything he might owe.

[altusimperius]

Benedict can go to any party and schmooze his way through it with empty chatter and charm masquerading as diplomacy. Put in an actual situation where he has to talk his way out of something, or at least that's how he perceives it, he has no idea what to do.
He watches the token Wren holds, still leaning back and shutting up for once, at least until she prompts him to speak. Even then, he's hesitant. Magebane is horrible stuff, and the threat of more of it turns his stomach.

"No," he says abruptly; any idiot can tell he isn't safe here. Then he clams up and lets her speak again, with the air of a cat flinching back, waiting to bolt. Not that he can, not this time.
"About what," he asks, guarded, confused by the question.

[limier]

"Of yourself," Calmly. She puts the piece aside to pull herself a chair, sits. "Of your place in this world. You do not believe in Corypheus — I will not insult us both by asking you believe in the Inquisition."

Wren taps the board; the pawns rattle.

"The other day was foolishness. It is one matter to die for a cause, it is another to die for spite."

She leans in, the swampy shine of bruise is easier to catch now.

"He wants you dead," A guess — likely an exaggeration — but after speaking with Petrana, with Ashlock, she can’t think that Vedici would mourn. The truth of it matters little, at any rate: Enough time in the dark, and facts may blur. "Will you give him the satisfaction?"

[altusimperius]

At the name 'Corypheus', Benedict curls his lip in recollection; he's heard it bandied about various parties, but has never bothered to really learn who this Corypheus is or why anyone cares about him. Surely if Benedict has been left out of the loop, it can't be that important.

He leans away when Wren leans forward, still wary. "He wouldn't dare," he says under his breath, though the words lack certainty.

[limier]

"Why not?" She holds her place. "You are a liability to him. You have struck against him. Why not dare act?"

What recourse does the boy have, or believe he has?

[altusimperius]

Benedict bristles with outrage mingled with fear. He can sense that this is a trap, but doesn't know how not to blunder right into it. "My family is extremely influential in Minrathous," he replies, with that familiar note of imperiousness, "far more than his has ever been or will be. They would ruin him."
Which is why that letter needs to hurry up, because the sooner they know what's going on, the sooner he'll be out of here.

[limier]

Flatly,

"He will not return to the Imperium alive," Not a guess, that, but a position she's entrenched herself in. It's not her decision to make — but if she's any influence at all, she'll not use it to see Venatori returned with Inquisition secrets in hand. "How could they bring him lower?"

His family, obviously, but if there's anyone the man would prioritize it's better to hear it (even secondhand) than to speculate.

[altusimperius]

Benedict blinks, and can't help but detect a threat to himself in that threat to Atticus, but he has a question to answer.
"Drag his name through the mud," he says, as though it's obvious, "ensure that he has no legacy, that his name is tarnished and his son never finds a place among the Magisterium." Benedict's speech is quick and uneasy, but he can't help but take a little pleasure in imagining all of the above. "They've done as much and more for lesser slights."

[limier]

"Are you familiar with the boy?"

The phrasing itself is half a question: boy or man. Vedici is aged enough to have produced a mature heir. It seems ever the fashion of bluebloods to either fling themselves into the business, or put it off as long as it might be avoided.

[altusimperius]

"Octavius?" Bene clarifies, and gives a shrug. "Not terribly. From what I can tell he only leaves his nursery to hide behind his father at social gatherings." He really doesn't have much of an opinion on the lesser Vedici, but any chance to take a dig at Atticus is a good one.