faderift | [open] nothing can break

WHO: Benedict and yoooou
WHAT: The princess is dealing with a lot right now. Help him (or make it worse)
WHEN: Kingsway
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: will add warnings as needed

I. Around and About

Things are strange these days, but at least Benedict has a job. Being the chamberlain means it's his responsibility to see that guests are comfortable, which means suddenly a goodly portion of the rooms in the Gallows towers are under his care.
As few expected, he takes the job seriously. With his board and his quill he moves from room to room on a daily basis, glancing over those unoccupied and ringing for service in those that have borne guests, making sure their sheets are turned down and their curtains arranged at the most pleasing angle for their return.

He can be found pacing the halls at these times, his step brisk and his brow furrowed in concentration.

II. The Library

And then there are the times he sets aside each day to do research alone; what he's studying isn't obvious, and he's not especially forthcoming about it, but it's a fair number of medical and magical texts that he seems to pull from the stacks.
When not actively reading, sometimes he's just sitting by one of the big windows, cup of tea in hand and gaze distant.

III. Sloppy Bitch O'Clock

Perhaps the reason Bene is keeping so busy, or at least one of them, is that there have been a lot of recent events giving him feelings and problems he doesn't know how to handle. Being aloof means there isn't a lot of opportunity to work things out with friends he doesn't have, and one night something just crumbles.

He's in the Hanged Man (if you're going to do it, why not do it right), already several drinks in and draped over a chair by the fireplace, waxing poetic about how important he is in Tevinter, how he'll be a Magister someday, maybe once all this madness is worked out.
It's frankly a miracle he hasn't been shivved yet.

For Kitty

It's time to pick out new curtains for some of the guest rooms, and Benedict is in Hightown Market wearing his fancy important person clothes while inspecting the goods at a textile stand. He looks up for a moment and, catching sight of Kitty, gives a smirk and a roll of his eyes. Oh hey.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Benedict takes the letter, if only because it's Inquisition business, and that is ostensibly why he's here. For this, not to screw around and fight with girls who don't care about him either way.
Expressionlessly, he reads the letter, his reaction limited to a vaguely disturbed wrinkling of the nose as he hands it back. "The hosts and... also the lyrium," he says, trying not to sound like he cares too much, although the idea is worming its way into his brain. "...like it's. I suppose like a fungus."

She takes it back, looking again at the lines with a sigh through her nose. Both then. Alexandrie had been hoping very much that that particular reading had been incorrect, but it makes sense. After all, it purportedly grew out of the Templars who took it. Why wouldn't it grow out of other living hosts? Even so:

"That is... not ideal." Understatement of the Age. "I... he does not say who they mean to... grow it in, but I cannot imagine it is anyone who is also a resource for the armies. Which means..."

She looks down at the page, not quite able to say it. She imagines that Benedict will know anyway. Civilians. It means civilians and prisoners of war. And they have an entire new city of the former.

The thought is a sobering one, and after all that's already happened, Benedict didn't want to be brought down like this. He read the damn thing, and now this viper is trying to talk to him about it, perhaps expecting some sort of courtly consolation of her delicate feelings.
"Is that all," he asks blandly, turning back toward the window.

"...It is. Grand merci."

Alexandrie dips a curtsy, and turns. But it wasn't, not really. She ought to apologize for using him so expediently, but she rather thinks he wouldn't accept it. Would perhaps use the opportunity afforded by her regret to... to what? Benedict was sharp. Cruel, even, often for the simple fun of it, but it had none of the directed undercurrent that signaled grander play.

And on the dance floor? She had been overwrought and distracted, backed into an unexpected corner, and had run directly over the signs that even there, even on what ought to have been by all rights his playing field, this was not at all his sphere.

And so, although she does not turn back around, she exhales a slow breath out of her nose, and quietly says "I have done ill by you, and it was cruel of me to have done so. I expect no forgiveness for it."

More acknowledgement than apology, but she has little else to offer at the moment. And honest apologies are not her forte; she could count those she had given on both hands with fingers to spare. Even this, even without looking, is uncomfortable, and so she makes to continue her departure.

He couldn't be more surprised if Alexandrie had slapped him again.
Benedict turns, eyes wide and, however briefly, guileless; did a person of status-- arguably, currently higher status, though he'd never admit it-- just apologize? To him??
It sure sounded like it.

Though one of his instincts is always to rub salt in the wound, Bene is too disarmed by the gesture to do much but stare at her. As always, he's been continuing his life under the impression that she and Loki would no longer be part of it. That's just... how things are done.

"...oh," is all he says, at a loss.

That response rather confirms her thought.

Honestly, everything had been so much easier for the decade in which she had not given a single fuck about what she did, or whom she did it to. Empty as a sparkling cut-crystal vase, but so much easier.

She's paused there for a moment, then is gone, back to her table to gather her things and depart.

[open] nothing can break

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