[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

[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.

[misdirection_hex]

Vandelin evinces no visible reaction to this tone, filing it mentally away instead behind an expression that remains as pleasantly neutral as ever. There are far too many people here who want to hurt you for the answer to be as obvious as you think, he could say, if it would be anything but counterproductive.

The provided reasons are both ones that strike louder chords of sympathy than Vandelin expected them to. He has not heretofore had any desire to try and put himself into Benedict's shoes, not really--but the notion of feeling stripped to the bone and paralyzingly vulnerable when one has no control over the way people stare and think is not foreign to him, nor the idea of being forced to operate within a system that takes your unwilling labor to prop itself up. Perhaps he does have a more sincere reason to be here than he'd intended to.

"Nor should you," he says. "I don't know how much you know about what we southern mages have fought for, but part of it is the right to freedom from doing just that. Have they really given you that ultimatum?"

[altusimperius]

As with Anders, Bene is surprised to find himself latching onto any modicum of empathy he can find in his visitors. He never would've thought it of Vandelin, but the elf actually seems to... understand. To a degree, at least.
Benedict nods, sighing in lieu of saying anything. That is, at least, what he understood of his conversation with Blondie Whatshername. "Do you think I'd still be here, if I could leave," he asks, vulnerability creeping into his resentment.

[misdirection_hex]

"No," he says, after a moment's quiet contemplation. "Of course not. I might have thought, though, that some discontinued and tangential association with the Venatori could merit a little more clemency than actually being one."

He's aware of the argument that Benedict's caused enough trouble to make him ill worth the hassle of his keeping if he doesn't provide some kind compensation. It's the same sort of argument Knight-Commander Brycen used to make when threatening to transfer him to Ferelden, and unlike Vandelin, Benedict has no reason whatsoever to want to stay.

"You have a good advocate in Kit Gandir, at least."

[altusimperius]

Vandelin's assessment merits a snort, more miserable than derisive. "You'd be amazed," he says quietly, one hand absently moving to his neck to feel over the scar, a wound handily healed but horribly acquired.
The mention of Kit results in an irritated sigh, an expression of discomfort over having a problem that simply can't be solved readily. "Not anymore," he mutters, "he's angry with me." And Bene has a small idea why, he's not an idiot, but the thought of being so angry over such a short conversation strikes him as asinine.

[misdirection_hex]

Vandelin has heard the story of how that scar was acquired, lest his mind run rampant with speculation about prisoner abuse. It has inclined him to be even more sympathetic--

--and that, though perhaps it could make him still more so, undoes it. Vandelin knows what it takes to make Kit angry at anyone, and knows, too, how capable Benedict is of that offense. His expression cools, level though it remains.

"He's a forgiving man," he says, "if one apologizes."

[altusimperius]

There's a touch of rebellion in Benedict's eyes when Van's demeanor changes, but he's hardly as outspoken as he was before becoming a prisoner; one might even say he's learned a thing or two from his experiences here, loathe though he might be to admit it. The look he gives Vandelin is disgruntled, but he doesn't argue, instead just shrugging one shoulder.

"...is there a reason you'd want me in the library?" he mutters, going back to the original topic. He doesn't want to hear about Kit right now.

[misdirection_hex]

"Call it an aversion to seeing any fellow mage penned up under house arrest," he says, following tidily along with the subject change. "But more to the point, my cousin Myrobalan has a proposition for you, and I thought it seemed like a good enough idea to join in, if you're amenable."

He does not expect Benedict to remember Myr by name. He pauses, with just the faintest touch of irony. "He's the one who saved your life, for the record."

[altusimperius]

Bene tilts his head, his eyebrows raising in hesitant curiosity. Like Anders, Vandelin seems to have something of an ulterior motive, but he finds he doesn't mind. He has one too, after all.
"I remember," he says, almost too quickly, "the one with-..." Instead of saying it aloud, he points to his eyes with two fingers. Y'know. The one without.

[misdirection_hex]

Five months should, in Vandelin's ruthless estimation, be more than enough time for him to evince no reaction when anyone references Myr's blindness or maiming. It is absolutely not, but it has, at least, been enough time for him to keep the squirming guilt and revulsion to himself and maintain an impassive expression at the mention of it. Baby steps.

"That one, yes. He is distinctive. He also worries about the state of your education. It seems unfair to him--and, frankly, to me--that it should have been cut short. But I have pedagogical experience in a number of magical disciplines, and what I can't teach, he can. If you're interested, our talents are available."

[altusimperius]

It's another of these conversations, in which Bene can't quite decide whether or not to look the gift horse in the mouth. He'll overlook both Vandelin and Myr being elves for the moment, because despite his airs he is actually not as stupid as he seems.
"What sort of disciplines?" he asks, tilting his head with mild interest.

[misdirection_hex]

Smart man indeed, Bene. Vandelin files the civility away, adding a point to the mental scoreboard that every conversation with him somehow ends up being.

"I hear you'd been set on the spirit track. If you'd want to show me at some point how much of it you've mastered, I'll see what more of it I know. It isn't my specialty, but I've taught it before. My line of work is entropy, and everything it entails. And Myr, in turn, has a knack for creation and healing. Either of us can help with the basics of the elemental disciplines. Whatever suits your fancy."

[altusimperius]

"Entropy," Bene repeats, with a raise of his eyebrows. He's always found it interesting, and very much in his mother's line of work, though he'd gone more with his father's route.
"All right." He leans back slightly, his expression opening to become just a touch more friendly. "Maker knows Atticus isn't going to do any further good."