[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

[judgemewhole]

On about day four or five, when the desperation had really started to kick in, there was the sound of voices outside the door, and then the bolts being pulled back. It opened, to show Norrington, green eyes narrowed and jaw tight, as he strode into the cell. He lifted his chin, giving Benedict a cold, appraising look, before he stated flatly.

"Well. It appears that Tevinters are as bad at following directions from Templars as they say. Tell me, young pup, how much has this benefited you, outside of the ripe smell and the panicked look in your eyes? I am curious."

[ragweed]

It's one of the stranger suggestions he's received since joining the Inquisition, poking his nose into the solitary confinement of a Tevinter prisoner, but Kit supposes he can piece together the logic behind it. He's had decades to acquire the experience necessary to deal with fellows who believe their own shit doesn't stink, as well as to gentle the tempers of people at their worst. He's good at handling both kinds of trouble, and it sounds to him an awful like both kinds of trouble are a guarantee with Benedict Artemaeus.

He ambles down the stairs to the dungeon once the guard lets him through, not especially put off by the gloom and relative darkness, but has to wonder how, exactly, an atmosphere like this is meant to do anything but break the spirit? Maybe that's the point.

He comes to stand just outside Benedict's cell and loiters with his thumbs tucked into his belt loops. He considers Benedict with a critical, yet not altogether unfriendly look on his tattooed face. Then he smiles crookedly. "You really a Venatori agent?" he asks, sounding dubious.

[altusimperius]

It's not a lot of light pouring into the cell, since the hallway doesn't feed into any outside doors or windows, but the torchlight is enough to illuminate Norrington. Benedict hunches like a defensive spider, the Templar's observation not too far off: panic is rising, if not fully developed. That greeting sure doesn't help.

"I'm not Venatori," he says abruptly, before anyone can say anything else. It's the one thing he keeps repeating to anyone who will listen, but unfortunately, thus far, no one has.

[altusimperius]

Few have come to visit when they're not bringing food, and the barred window isn't big enough to even see a full person through, and the voice isn't familiar, so at first Benedict doesn't even turn toward it. He's curled against the wall and facing the corner, the picture of unobscured misery and defeat.
"No," comes his sullen answer. No one's believed him yet, so he might as well not waste breath on it.

[paladingus]

Simon hasn't been back to the dark solitary cells for days, not since he was tasked with hauling Benedict down to them in the first place. But the duty roster revolves again, and it's his turn to bring the unwanted rations tonight.

"You really ought to eat your vegetables," he says wryly, as he sticks the tray through the slot. "There's kids starving in the alienage, and all."

He shouldn't needle the prisoner, he knows; he's never really been a man to kick people when they're down, but he's also never been able to muster up a lot of empathy for anyone born into the kind of privilege Benedict's heretofore taken for granted. The idea of the magebane has eaten at him just a little, though--he wonders what that must be like. Is it like anti-lyrium? Does it feel like a poison when it spreads through the veins?

[ragweed]

Kit grimaces in undisguised dismay over the conditions the kid has been left in. He turns and juts his chin out at the guard, who looks at him without bothering to hide his incredulity, then unlocks the door. The guard precedes him into the cell and deposits a rickety old stool on the floor, then heads back out. That's when Kit steps in.

"You can close it, it's all right," he assures the guard, "I'll rattle the bars when I want out."

Then they're left alone. Kit eyes the boy again pityingly, then tugs the stool over to sit down on it. "I believe you."

[altusimperius]

Benedict has never felt anything like it. It siphons his energy, makes him feel half-blind, all his senses deadened, like being unable to walk properly in a dream while the world moves quickly around you.
His back is turned to the door when he hears a familiar voice, but he shudders angrily at the sound of it, curling in tighter. "Fuck off," he hisses, hoping that will be enough to keep the Templar at bay.

[altusimperius]

"Who are you," comes the defensive reply, and Benedict looks over his shoulder with an expression of open, undirected hatred. He can't see Kit's face very well, and doesn't care to. "Go away," he snarls, figuring there's no point to this aside from further torment.

[ragweed]

"Go away."

Nah.

"I'm Kit. You thirsty?" Kit proceeds as though Benedict hasn't said anything to him at all, and pulls out an insulated flask from a bag slung over his shoulder. He holds it up for Benedict to see, then pours a capful of it for himself and drinks it, so the boy can rest assured that he isn't about to be poisoned. "It's some kind of herbal shit. Good for headaches, sore throats--anyway."

He draws a beaten up tin cup out of the bag and fills it with the tea, then reaches out to set it down on the ground in front of Benedict. "There you go."

[altusimperius]

Benedict's expression hardens when Kit ignores him-- as one might imagine, his patience has worn a little thin, in particular with people who don't give him what he wants. Which... lately, is everyone.
"I don't want it," he hisses, folding his arms and angling his head away, pressing his cheek against the stone wall. "Unless you're here to let me out, I don't care."

[paladingus]

Simon is not easily deterred by the average 'fuck off,' particularly when he really hadn't expected anything less. There are other guards; he doesn't have to be here, but...well. There's some part of him that still feels somehow compelled to at least see what isolation's done to the kid.

"Don't be like that. You're not exactly awash in options when it comes to conversation. And starving yourself is not going to improve anything about your situation, I can tell you that much."

[altusimperius]

Really he's only like this when someone's talking to him; through the majority of the day, Benedict is quiet and morose. Not knowing anyone here, not having any idea who he can trust or talk to, is taking its toll, particularly when most of the people who do talk to him are Templars.

"Yes, well, neither is eating," he points out with a curl of his lip, casting a disdainful glance over his shoulder. "I wouldn't feed that shit to a gutter slave." Ah, endearing.

[ragweed]

He leaves the tea put, where Benedict can grab it should he change his mind. Though Kit has to acknowledge that he doesn't really have much incentive to do so, or to cooperate, all things considered. He scratches absently at his beard.

"You know you're not going anywhere until folks with way more clout than me decide to let you out." He delivers the news to Benedict straight, but not unkindly; judging by the state he's in, he wonders just how far a little kindness might go in getting the Inquisition what it wants from him.

"I told you I believe you," he points out thoughtfully, spreading his hands some. "You want me to help you, you've got to help me a little bit, too. C'mon," he adds, nudging the tea forward a bit with his boot. "This'll be a nice break from the shitty well water they're giving you."

just lmk if anything needs changing blah blah the usual

[limier]

She knocks twice: a rapid patter upon the door.

Giving him time to prepare is no danger here; she’s little desire to catch him newly-awakened, or otherwise indisposed. That doesn’t mean there’s a great deal of warning.

It swings opens, and she’s there, and someone else is hauling him up. It closes again behind them both, as Benedict's jerked into the low-lit hall and out towards late-summer sunlight. The guards accompany him at tight pace — quick to literally rein in any resistance — and Wren offers no explanation or response, not until they’ve surfaced in a shaded alcove; the day here not quite so blindingly bright.

A curt nod dismisses their companions, and she paces back to regard him, yet restrained. Someone's dragged a battered little table out here, two chairs; a chessboard. (The Gallows have never been known for their recreation spaces, but here and there, the Inquisition finds a way.)

Softly, "I imagine this has been some adjustment."

To say the fucking least.

[altusimperius]

Huffing out an angry breath, Benedict draws one in, and has a little more trouble keeping the next exhale from shaking. He ducks his head and pinches his nose, using every ounce of his restraint not to break, but he's never even tried to conceal his thoughts before, let alone the negative ones.
Perhaps it's the unexpected kindness that breaks him, or that he has no idea what will follow it; the next breath comes out as a sob, which he stifles into his hands as he quickly loses his composure. This has been waiting just below the surface for days, and though periodically it comes out, never when anyone else is here. Looks like this is the exception.

[altusimperius]

This greeting is by far the most frightening, and the guards prying Benedict off the ground and out of the cell have their work cut out for them, because as far as he knows he's about to be killed.
"I'm not Venatori!" he yells several times, hoping to make a difference, his composure dwindling a little each time, until he's deposited roughly in one of the chairs and stunned enough by that and by the sunlight that he's momentarily at a loss for words.

He stares at Wren, squinting in the comparative brightness, leaning slightly away from her and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

[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.

[paladingus]

"There's that famous Tevinter charm." Simon's lip curls. "We're all terribly sorry that we don't have a buffet of quail eggs and tiny Orlesian cakes for slaves to hand-feed you, of course. Budget cuts. The austerity must be killing you."

He pauses, and looks away. He hadn't intended to stick around just to harass the prisoner. It's needlessly cruel.

"Look, they're not going to keep you in here forever. I'd ask why you wouldn't want to behave yourself and help your own case, but I suppose I wouldn't be much of a model prisoner either if your lot had me locked in a dungeon." He doubts very much that any Tevinter jailer would be as humane as the Inquisition has been.

[judgemewhole]

"Yes, I believe you. A Venatori would have used blood magic, instead of using a spell they didn't have control over." Was Norrington's flat tone, as he arched an eyebrow at the young man. "So tell me now - who was that spell intended for? The Templars, or your ... former master?"

[ragweed]

Kit waits in uncomfortable silence as the last shreds of Benedict's admittedly limited composure dissolve around him. He finds it difficult to watch, and so instead affords the boy a modicum of privacy by looking away from him, to pick at bits of stubborn dirt that remain ever lodged under his fingernails.

When it sounds to him as though Benedict is beginning to regain control of his shuddering breaths, he looks up again. He doesn't ask any questions, doesn't make any more offers. Just nudges the cup of tea towards him. Now it looks like he might really need it.

[altusimperius]

Naturally, Benedict sulks in response, seemingly uninterested in keeping up too much of a banter. After several days of this, he's wise to the power dynamic, much as he may loathe it.
"How observant," he remarks flatly, turning away again.

[altusimperius]

"He's not my master," is Benedict's immediate, bristling response, "former or otherwise. He's a power-hungry ingrate coasting on my family's favor to do... whatever he's doing here." He waves his hand dismissively.
Despite his snark, the boy is still clearly intimidated, and hasn't risen from the floor. Why do so, when he can just be knocked back down?

"It was for him," Benedict continues, biting off the words, "he's a bastard and you're all idiots for keeping me here instead of him."

[altusimperius]

Becoming rapidly more dismayed by the fact that he now has no way to blow his nose unless he uses his own shirt, which is already filthy, Benedict caves. He picks up the cup with a furtive glance to the dwarf, sniffs it as best he can despite having just been crying, and takes a sip. Finding that it at least isn't obviously poisoned, he glances back at Kit again and gives an almost imperceptible nod. Gratitude? Don't read too much into it, plebe.

[judgemewhole]

"I see. So your family let you wander off with a sycophant? How very ... idiotic of them. Especially since this now puts them in direct connection with the Venatori." James drawled, going to stand in front of the young man, hands folded behind him.

"Are we?" Soft, almost gentle, if not for the cold edge underneath, "I don't see a hapless victim. I see a dangerous mage who cannot control his magic. Who may, or may not, give into the temptations of demons if he is desperate enough." He kneels, all the better to give Benedict his Full Undivided Attention.

"Or have you forgotten what city this is? How far south you are? Or perhaps, you do not know what a Templar's truly capable of. Lieutenant Coupe and Templar Ashlock did take it quite easy on you." He lifted his chin slightly, "No more than five years ago - your transgression would have earned you a brightly patterned sun." He pointed, without getting near the young man's mouth. "Right. Between. The. Eyes."

He let that sink in, before he rose to his feet. "Luckily for you, the Inquisition's not that barbaric. That doesn't mean we're going to accept your attitude. You're no Venatori -- but you're still dangerous. Ignorance is a great a weapon as a sword after all."