[open]

[altusimperius]

WHO: Bene and you
WHAT: He's free! ...ish.
WHEN: Haring
WHERE: A room in the former Templar tower, always guarded.
NOTES: anyone who wants to see him will need clearance, and there will always be a Templar present!

Though technically Benedict is able to leave his newly-assigned room in the Gallows, he doesn't. Won't, rather, which is a strange decision considering that his formal incarceration has ended, and there's no reason he should have to stay hidden away in one small space indefinitely.

But he does. For reasons that are his own, Bene seems reluctant to go anywhere or be seen by anyone, preferring instead to sit by his window for hours, book on his lap, and watch the courtyard below.
Receiving all meals at his chambers, the opportunity to bathe is the only way to get him out the door. It's one he takes often, as often as he can, perhaps in an effort to make up for lost time. He even gets to shave, once a week, with supervision.

Benedict may not be in the dungeon anymore, but he cannot and will not forget that he is still a prisoner. A prisoner whose life has been threatened more than once, from both without and within the Inquisition. It's a step up, but a step up from a cesspit is still mud.

Comments

[laurenande]

Late was the hour when Galadriel decided to risk traveling to the baths. Those in the mage tower were unheated and, while that was not usually enough to deter her, the night was exceptionally cold and she was far more susceptible to it than she would prefer. Travel to the Templar tower was a risk, but one she undertook as she stole down the halls, hooded and cloaked in the deep night. When she came upon the door to the baths a familiar sight greeted her. A templar stood guard before the door; he looked all the world like a man who wished to be anywhere else, who wanted to allow his mind to wander, and so Galadriel obliged him.

Her whispers were soft enough that she barely injected voice into them and when she drew close to the door and the Templar turned to address her, she lifted an arm and his eyes went glassy. His stare was distant as he stumbled briefly backward, but he did not go far as his back bumped against the wall and sured up his balance.

The effort of keeping that man dazed was quite a bit more taxing than Galadriel would have preferred, but she could not tolerate another unheated bath. She edged the door open and, with little hesitation, stole into the room. When she turned, she expected to see another templar awaiting, but all she found was a man reclining in the bath. She knew not his name, but if he were under guard he could be only one of two things: a nobleman or a prisoner.

In any case, he posed little threat. Galadriel shed her cloak and draped it on one of the benches that lined the wall. As she did, the light that poured from her spilled out across the floor and glittered on the large pool of the communal bath. The steam was lit in white and it was the most alluring thing she had seen in some time.

"I hope you do not mind if I join you.

[altusimperius]

In fact, he is both nobleman and prisoner, though only one title matters at the moment.
Benedict is enjoying the comfortable heat, his head resting back on the edge of the pool, eyes closed. They open again when he hears footsteps, and they widen slightly at the sight of Galadriel. Modesty isn't a huge issue for him, especially not anymore; he's too used to being an animal on display, and has learned to take solitude where he can get it, at any cost; but something about the woman's gaze is more penetrating than most, and he sits up somewhat, drawing his legs toward himself uncertainly.

"Who are you," he asks, demanding in a nervous sort of way.

[laurenande]

Galadriel did not wait for his invitation to remove her dressing gown and wade into the water, but the moment she drew the Elessar away from her the light she gave off dimmed dramatically and, once again, torchlight was the primary glow in the chamber. She would have been disappointed in the orange glow, but the heat of the bath was singular and she relaxed utterly as it began soaking into her bones. Only once she had waded to the hip did she bother to acknowledge the man in the pool already.

"I am called many things but here I am known as Galadriel," she replied, her tone a bit slow as she savored the warmth of the water.

When she moved to the ledge that ran along the edge of the pool, she had no clear destination in mind. She didn't sit next to him, but neither did she make an exceptional effort to move away; he was not a concern in her decisions, not really.

"Were there a pair of templars or merely the one?" She asked, after a long moment's pause.

[altusimperius]

Normally Benedict would have nothing to fear from a woman, or an elf, or anyone really. But an attempt was made on his life recently, and he's a bit skittish around strangers, regardless of their identity. This one is being awfully familiar, and there's something about her that puts him on edge, though he can't place why.

"...just the one," he replies, watching her guardedly. Another assassin? She has one of those strange marks on which Atticus is so fixated.

[laurenande]

"Excellent," Galadriel proclaims in a calm voice and settles into the water. Her long hair fans out behind her like a cloak and, eventually, she sinks until her head is resting against the lip of the pool. It was terribly rude but she had completely disregarded him in preference for the water.

After a long moment spent just absorbing the heat of the water, she opens her eyes and glances sidelong at him.

"Is he your guardian or your jailer?"

[altusimperius]

The other thing about most women is they don't normally remove all their clothes so easily, and Benedict supposes he might have cared or found it scandalous on some level if he weren't so nervous. And if... women were more interesting to him, though that's the least of his concerns.
He's almost lost in thought when Galadriel speaks again, and it takes him off-guard. "My jailer," he answers abruptly, and with a little more fervor than he intends. Automatically, his eyes dart to the doorway.

[laurenande]

"Do not panic; he is of no immediate concern," Galadriel assures the man in the bath. It occurs to her then, as she looks at him, that she has no learned his name yet. It is a trivial thing but, she supposes, it would be a terrible slight to avoid asking it.

"What is your name and, if it does not distress you, I do wonder why you are accompanied by one of them?"

[misdirection_hex]

Vandelin is accustomed, in debates with people less sympathetic to the mage freedom cause than he, to arguing that mages can and must police their own. And still, to this day, he doesn't have a satisfactory rebuttal to the invariable look how that works for Tevinter response.

Anders had offered him the opportunity to demonstrate this much-vaunted self-policing on a real live Vint, accompanying Benedict to the library, and he'd turned it down on personal grounds, recalling that flung slur as vividly as if Bene had done it yesterday--but Vandelin is capable of having second thoughts, even if he never tells anyone about them, and it's this reconsideration that leads him to knock on the prisoner's door. Why he's cloistered himself, Vandelin has no idea, but maybe he just needs encouragement to branch out.

[altusimperius]

The Templar at the door stares Vandelin down, but ultimately steps aside to let him visit, nonetheless continuing to stand in the doorway afterward rather than close it behind him.
Benedict is sitting by the window and looks up when his guest enters, his brow wrinkling at the sight of Vandelin. He remembers meeting him before, and remembers that it ended badly, though the Why of it has eluded him.

[misdirection_hex]

Vandelin gazes back, with those too-wide eyes, until the man yields. He has no intention of ever losing a staring contest.

His eyes turn to Benedict's face, scanning it impassively for any of that old contempt or malice. Finding none, even when he searches, he turns his attention to the book. There's no reason to leap immediately into the brusque business of proposals he'd need official clearance for anyway. He's just here to establish a rapport.

"I heard you'd been given permission to roam around," he says. "I thought perhaps we'd see more of you in the library."

[altusimperius]

There's no contempt or malice, but really, all that was there before was derision anyway. Benedict has no reason to hate Vandelin, other than that he made life a little more unpleasant. He made Atticus hurt him.
Something like that.
"No," he answers bluntly, watching Van with careful consideration, "I won't go anywhere that He'll be." Between his actual falling-out with Atticus and the dream he had in the infirmary, Benedict is in no way eager to see him again.

[misdirection_hex]

That, he remembers too, still with indelible satisfaction, but it won't do to dwell on it (and certainly not to bring it up) if the aim here is to try and get along with the kid.

"'He' being...the magister?" Makes sense enough, given that Vedici had been doing Benedict some kind of injury or other in half of Vandelin's limited observation. It's a valid concern. "I don't blame you. It seems a shame, though, to confine yourself to one room as soon as you're freed from another. He's not at so much liberty that he doesn't have a schedule--he can be avoided."

[altusimperius]

"Yes, the magister," Benedict replies with a roll of his eyes. Who do you think, dummy?
"...and if I go out, people will stare. I don't want them to look at me." There's an imperious tone to this, barely masking anxiety. "My options are to stay here or to work for the benefit of my captors. I'm not doing that." He folds his arms stubbornly.

[paladingus]

Kirkwall does not have templars enough to keep Simon permanently off Benedict's guard roster, particularly not when two of the others go and get themselves injured simultaneously and there's nothing to do but fill their duties with backup.

There are tasks Simon detests more than having to stand around fully-armored in a humid bath house and watch prisoners get naked. There just aren't many of them. And at least Vedici had made for decent conversation, or had tried to.

Oh, well. The prisoner's entitled to a bath, and Simon still isn't nearly so inclined to begrudge him creature comforts as before. The horror of that neck wound has left Bene with a lot of unbidden sympathy in Simon's mind, and he hasn't yet done anything to use it up. Simon stands outside the chamber door and calls in.

"I'll take you down for your bath any time you're ready."

[altusimperius]

For a variety of reasons, Benedict is still very much afraid of Simon. If only he'd borne witness to the Templar's rescue of him, he might feel differently, but as it stands the last time he saw him was right before the near-fatal injury was dealt.
So when he hears Simon's voice, Bene's first instinct is just to freeze. Though he was writing, he goes completely still, even restricting his breath so as not to be too loud. It's a classical animal response: if he doesn't know I'm here, he can't hunt me. There's no logic in moments like these.

[paladingus]

Simon, in his Simon way, is genuinely oblivious to the extent of Benedict's terror of him. As far as he's aware, he's never given the kid a reason for it--though even he couldn't have avoided noticing the way Bene had reacted in the infirmary. Still, there had been a whole host of other reasons for distress just then, and Simon had written it off mostly as a combination of those.

He assumes this to be more along the lines of the open disdain Bene had expressed when Simon had first come to visit him after the Horror incident, and his sympathy begins to tick away by increments. He turns to ask the other templar to go fetch the prisoner out--but the man is gone already, unwilling to stay on duty a second longer than obligation demands. Simon sighs, and opens the door himself.

"Or you could just not have one. It's no skin off my back; I'd just as soon stay here."

[altusimperius]

Remaining still even when the door opens, Benedict watches Simon nervously, like a cat preparing to bolt if a dog lunges for it. He shakes his head, his fear manifesting as ornery. He bathes enough now that he can sacrifice one opportunity if it means he can spend as little time with Ashlock as possible.

[paladingus]

Not even Simon, stubbornly unwilling to give the benefit of the doubt as he is, can read anything but fear into that expression. Were he still able to convince himself it was smugness or insolence, he would, but even if he tries, he can't tell himself nothing is amiss. He's genuinely taken aback.

"What's the matter?"

[altusimperius]

At least Benedict never stops being himself. Simon's question yields an incredulous look as he goes from Frightening Power Holder to Frightening Idiot in mere moments.
"I'm not going anywhere with you," Bene says, on the defensive. He's still on magebane until he can prove he deserves a little more freedom outside the dungeon, so he's not about to do any dangerous magic, but he has that look in his eye like he would if provoked.

[ragweed]

Kit has no idea whether Vints enjoy the taste of cooked dormouse to the same extent as their Hasmali neighbours, but he has it on good authority that there's a decent-ish place in Kirkwall that prepares it. Meaning he's not empty-handed when he rolls up to Benedict's door sometime after his release from the infirmary, gives a familiar knock and a greeting of, "Hey--it's Kit, can I come in?" to announce himself, and waits for Benedict's response before trying the latch.

The fragrant scent of the minor delicacy precedes him into the room--frankly, it's better furnished than the hole he's dug for himself down in Darktown, but that's to be expected.

He walks over to what passes for a dinner table in the room and drops the bag down onto it. "You hungry?"

[altusimperius]

There are, at present, only about three people for whom Benedict will willingly open his door. Kit is one of them, and the boy actually smiles to see him, as relieved as he ever was when the dwarf would come to his cell. Kit's visits mean a moment of respite, getting to be a person, doing something with his brain.

"Yes," he calls to the query, and even stands to receive Kit, nodding eagerly at the man's second question. He's been eating food that isn't gruel lately, which is a massive step in the right direction, but there's still been a lack of anything that's, well... fun.

[ragweed]

"Great," Kit answers him, rummaging through the contents of the bag, and withdraws six skewers of plump, cooked, heavily spiced meat. The portions are small, understandably--hence the number of skewers. Kit folds the bag up into a makeshift platter and sets the skewers down on them; better this than getting sauce and grease everywhere.

Next he fetches out a bottle of wine--nothing fancy, but, "I'm told this is the stuff to drink with dormice," he says. "Real Hasmali street food, or something."

[altusimperius]

A lifetime ago, Bene would have been repulsed by the idea of eating mice. Now, having faced down the decision of whether or not to eat a live one when the Templar bringing his gruel was late, he's just happy they're cooked and seasoned.
"Hasmali?" he asks with a raised eyebrow, pulling a second chair over to the room's small table so they can sit together, "is that fashionable in Kirkwall?"

[ragweed]

"I don't know about that, salroka, but knowing what I know about Kirkwall, probably not." Kit picks up one of the skewers, chuckling, and chews off one of the bits of savoury meat stuck onto the wooden stick; it's flavourful, and hot, and a bit spicy--perfect for a cold day like this one.

"You eat stuff like this in Minrathous?" he asks, already in the process of fetching out two clean mugs out of his satchel. That done, he uncorks the wine and pours some for both of them.

[altusimperius]

"No," Bene says bluntly, still trying to be fairly polite about how he eats despite months of degradation. Perhaps because of them. He doesn't seem to have any trouble with this particular dish, never mind his image-related reservations.
"This is probably something slaves would eat," he continues, without much thought, but at least without any judgment either.