[open] Te Vene or Not Te Vene

[altusimperius]

WHO: Benedict and you
WHAT: Learn how not to get immediately killed in Tevinter
WHEN: Justinian
WHERE: the Gallows library
NOTES: will update as needed

In the summer evenings, Benedict can be found holding court in the library, sitting at a table stacked with books and usually bearing a glass of wine or tea. Unless occupied by his pupils, he's often doodling listlessly on a sheet of parchment, quite a lot of them having amassed around him over the idle hours.

As advertised in his crystal announcement, he's here to teach the language and customs of the Tevinter Imperium, at least enough to make a successful tourist or, Maker forbid, prisoner.

Comments

[shri]

She shouldn't, rightly, interrogate the man - it's not like she doesn't know how she can be. The push forward as she listens, the way her eyes do not drop from his as she listens and learns. Piecing together a picture of it.

"And your middling classes?"

[altusimperius]

"Laetans," Benedict clarifies, "mages born to non-magical families, or families not connected to the Altus. They've got three seats in the magisterium." He holds up three fingers while he talks. "The soporati are the Imperium's non-magical citizens. The bulk of the population."

[shri]

"Mages are so rare then to only make up so small an amount of your people?"

- She'd be blind to not notice that particular tension that was rippling through the air here and there. This war about Mages.

[altusimperius]

"I suppose you could say that, yes." He realizes he never paid much attention to the statistics in Minrathous-- why bother, when you're among the elite and the fewer of you, the better?

[shri]

A House of Lords and no House of Commons to balance it. A Minister with no sense to draw his net wider than his select few. She takes another little sip, dropping her eyes for a moment with thought. Best to carry on with her own interests.

Her cup lowers again, settling. "And how do I address them in the correct form should I meet one?"

[altusimperius]

Benedict sips his tea, raising his eyebrows in a pleased smirk. "Magister," he replies, "for those within the Magisterium, which, as I said, not all mages will be. Otherwise, the usual 'ser' will suffice, perhaps 'Enchanter' if that's a title they prefer."

[shri]

"Magister," is parroted back. Looking for affirmation that she has not mangled it particular, even if it is said a little too stiff for the effort of learning.

Then she carries on, "I hear that title given often - Enchanter. Does it carry weight all across Thedas?"

[altusimperius]

"It's an earned station," Bene replies, examining his fingernails, "a full member of a Circle, above an Apprentice. The titles beyond that are First Enchanter for the head of a Circle, and Grand Enchanter for the head of all of them. I believe that's how it goes, at least."

[shri]

"I see, thank you. You are putting up with plenty of questions from me."

Ahem. Another mouthful and the tea is empty, and she sets it onto the nearest surface to hold it. Gives her the leave to lean back, smoothing her palm over the bright linen, the bangles jangling with the movement, her intricately stained fingers beginning only days old were deepening brown, and with it, a lotus bloomed on her the back of her hand. "Is there anything you might wish to ask in return? I feel poor company, to offer little of myself in return as you let me dissect your homeland."

[altusimperius]

He offers a patient smile and waves away Lakshmi's concern; clearly, despite being from a different place, Benedict feels enough in common with her-- or is just magnanimous enough on account of being in the seat of power-- to treat her with uncharacteristic kindness.

"What is magic like, where you come from?" he asks, taking a final sip from his own cup and then beginning to pour more, offering the pot first to his guest.

[shri]

She nods, encouraging him. A debate to tell him - she has known more magic than most, sitting in the silver phial that hangs on, below her neckline, that had changed her, all of the blood. Suppose that meant, her.

But he definitely did not need to know that.

"The closest to what you speak is ... I think the Lycans and Vampires."

[altusimperius]

"Both words are unfamiliar to me," Bene replies, filling Lakshmi's cup again, then the last of the pot in his, and stirs in more honey.

[shri]

"We call them... purebloods and halfbreeds. A pureblood is one who is born such a way, a half-breed is one who bitten and turned into them. They are weaker, in so much as they both become monsters, twice the size of a man, twice as strong and fast."

She holds still as she talks so he can pour the rest of the tea into her cup. Leaning forward with it, until she can settle back again. Drinks it black, as it stands, with little in the way of sweets. "They both feast and kill humans. A vampire is... a blood drinker. Prone to turning into long, leather-skinned, many fanged creatures." She sips, polite as anything as she describes what had been the horror and war of her life. "Lycanthropes become... wolf-like. Grow fur, their jaws distend to be something quite hound seeming. That sort of thing. They tend to just lose control, kill and eat anything near them. Whether it be human or animal. Some, when they have lost themselves entirely begin to see humans as prey regardless and don't even bother to become foul creatures before they start eating the flesh of people."

[altusimperius]

Benedict wasn't sure what he hoped to learn from this, but the connection between these awful things and Thedosian magic is one he doesn't easily make. He looks a little affronted.

"I can't say we've got a lot in common," he says after a long pause.

[shri]

"No, and I am glad for it." A sip, polite as anything. "It is what leads me to have so many questions, I'm afraid. All I know of magic, I suppose - outside of stories - is suffering." She turns out a leg, polite, pulling up the carefully wrapped material, exposes no more than up to halfway of her leg -

- the scratch marks went deep there, dragging all the way down to her ankle. Something clawed and unforgiving. She drops her skirt again, smoothing over it.

[altusimperius]

Though the etiquette he's learned from growing up a magister's son prevents Benedict from staring too long at any woman's legs, she is showing them off. And making a point.

"...I see," he replies, after a visible cringe, "well... you've little to fear on that front from any mage I know."

[shri]

At the very least, she is a strong woman. Lean and hard to suit those bite marks, the sort of life surviving such a thing makes you.

"I hope so. I look forward to not having to fear the silence as much as I have. I am glad to learn perhaps that there is something better in... other places."

As far as she is concerned, at least there weren't children being eaten alive. It made any other day better, really.

[altusimperius]

"Perhaps." Taking another pensive sip of his tea, Benedict thinks over what he's seen, what they've discussed.
"Do, however, beware abominations: mages who have given themselves over to demons. Any mage consorting with them at all is playing with fire and not to be trusted."

[shri]

That - makes her eyebrows rise. "Why ever would they do such a thing?" Thinks only - of the stories of Lord Rama and Lakshman. Refusing the demon-woman who tried to ensnare them with her beauty and they struck back as they refused.

[altusimperius]

"The temptation grows too strong," Bene replies, deadly serious for once, "a demon will offer power, riches, desires beyond the mage's wildest dreams, and they'll listen. With a few notable exceptions, they rarely get what they bargained for."

[shri]

"Surely they know better than to accept that gift."

Horrified - but then she had always been the type of woman that worked with her own hands to gain what she wanted. No more, no less. A stubborn push of hard labour all her years long. "and they become monsters from this?"

[altusimperius]

"Surely," Bene echoes, and shakes his head with a shrug. "There are fools in every group of people, regardless of birthright. Those who ignore the warnings, or, as we see down south with the harried and uneducated apostates, don't know what they are to begin with. From what I've seen, possession is far more likely to occur in a mage who feels cornered, and therefore far more likely to occur in areas of great persecution."

[shri]

"Naturally." She grimaces, disappointed, but not even slightly surprised. "And even with these risks, in your home... mages are rulers over all others? I take it you come down harder on your own to balance such problems?"

Or so, she hoped so. She most definitely hoped so.

[altusimperius]

Benedict shrugs one shoulder. "In Ferelden all the nobility fight with swords and dogs, and I imagine they have their own share of serious accidents." Never mind that a stabbing or a mad dog still pales in comparison to the power of an abomination, but he considers it a decent point.

"As I said, consorting with spirits and certainly with demons is frowned upon. And social status is everything."

[shri]

"I ought to hope so." She taps her fingers, a little in consideration because she has one obvious concern. One that is openly painted on her body, raised lines on the otherwise well-kept skin. At odds with the bright colours of her garments, the gold glittering in her hair.

"I have never waged war with a demon. Tell me, if you are not a mage, how does one kill such a thing?"