faderift | [open] nothing can break

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[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

It can never be said of Benedict that he knows when to quit-- in fact, historically he absolutely doesn't-- but he at least knows when he's been out-argued. There's no way he can walk right now, though he suspects he would be about as happy just dying on the floor as he is now, arse-over-head and held like a ragdoll by a near stranger.

"No," he mumbles petulantly, "you'll pay for this." There's no real enthusiasm behind the threat, he just wants it to be true.

"I think I already have if you'll notice where you just threw up. Good deeds are never unpunished."

Another cheerfully pleasant comment as she mock salutes the bar goodbye with a flick of her fingers. The polite cheer there is for their departure as she heads out the door and finally frees him from the room and his embarrassment. Shutting the door firmly behind her with a snap and the warmth of the close quarters behind them.

"So, what is it that leads such a fine up and coming son of Tevinter drinking to the point of foolishness?"

Being out of the pub is a relief, if only because there now won't be a crowd of people witnessing this. There are still those on the street, but it's dark enough that perhaps they won't see his face. That's Benedict's only consolation at the moment, though he does try to struggle again, fighting the nausea that threatens a repeat of a moment ago.

"It's none of your business," he insists, giving a little kick, "and you don't really care, nobody does."

"Nor was it anyone in that bar, yet they go an earful of your misery whether they wanted it or not," Simple equation, really. "Perhaps it is not my business, no, but I cared enough for your pride to spare you further embarrassment."

She keeps up the sprightly pace, moving through the streets with a little nod for the looks they might get. But there is another more comforting pat on his back when the wiggling gets a little too much. There now, hush. Easy now.

She has a point, but admitting that would be admitting defeat. Bene can't do that, he's too DISTRAUGHT. When she pats him on the back, he tries to knee her for her insolence.
"Further embarrassment," he grumbles, "how kind of you."

"I thought so." Is the cheerful response to his grouching. One that she lets sit, though, alright, alright he could have his peace for the time being. Besides, as they walk, he does get heavy. Not enough to be tiring, or for him to even hope to escape, but she is carrying a drunk, squirming, sack of potatoes over her shoulder.

And they wind up the streets, it's at least quick. Not going to bother to take him up to the Gallows, putting him on a ferry would be a ridiculous option. But there is the quarters where she weaves, and that would have to do for now. There was something she could fix him some food there. A bed for him to lay in until morning. She had best send word to Herian soon, as well. Figures once he got his head down, got to sleep, he would not move for many hours.

At least until he had to be sick again.

When they reach it, there is a bit of fumbling, fooling about in her pocket for the key. But once found, the door is kicked open, kicked shut and she heads for the stairs up to the small rooms where she worked. It isn't grand, or very large. The empty space is more about sparsity then true depth. But the cot is made up, the floor is swept, everything is neatly put into its place, with the light from the moon outside the only thing to produce light for the time being. In the corner glimmer what appear to be gold and silver threads against brightly coloured fabrics, half made up bolts that were still in the process of being made.

In its own way, it's a comfortable place, a working place, certainly - but comfortable.

It's been a lot of wiggling, and all the blood is in his head, and once they're inside again Benedict feels some of the fight go out of him. He sighs angrily, resting his chin on Lakshmi's back, vowing to avenge his dignity. ...just... once he feels a little better.
"Where are we," he grumbles, glancing around at all he can see from this angle. "I'm being kidnapped." It's less an actual accusation and more trying out the idea, seeing if he could spin this a certain way to be the sympathetic party. He's always envied his mother's ability to do that, but it works far less often for him.

"Where I do my weaving."

Is the response, brief before he gets unceremoniously as he was picked up, dumped onto the bed that was on the side of the room. Far less grand than anything he had ever known, no doubt. It was more a series of pillows and loose furs to make up a blanket ( all clean, meticulously so ) in a pile.

"And if this were a kidnapping I would have gagged you already. Before you threw up on me, say." Is the mirthful response as she drops down to one knee in front of him. Rest an arm on her propped up leg, and pushing back the frame of material away from her face. Letting him get a good look at her, finally. "Remember me now? You told me of your homeland, not so long ago."

With an ungraceful "oof," Bene tumbles to the bed, and takes a moment before he rolls onto his side, because the world is spinning unbearably.

"Mmn," he grunts, throwing an arm over his face as if that will stop his vision from rocking, "oh." A brief glimpse of her tells him all he needs to know. "You're that rifter."

She huffs with laughter. Drunks. "Yes, you little fool. I am that rifter." But with him seated, not about to run off, she rises up. "Now sit still until I can get you something to eat and drink and you tell me properly, what this is about."

It wasn't her business so far as he was drunk, in a public place, spewing out his own importance. And then, spewing. Quite literally. Speaking of - as she steps up and away, she goes to begin unlacing and unbuckling the soft leather vest she wore. Shrugging it off one shoulder than the other. Tugging the shirt underneath it loose slightly. It would need a wash down but - later.

She called him a fool, and Bene pouts, but the room is still whirling far too violently for him to throw a proper tantrum over it.
Instead, he sits and stares into the rocking void, his emotions both dulled and bursting unpredictably with every passing moment.

"Nobody likes me," he announces after a time, with all the earnest, tragic honesty his drunken heart can muster.

Once it's finished hanging up, she makes sure to set a bucket down next to him for him to empty his stomach up into, when the time came. The heavy set of it down next to his bed, beside his feet. She spares him a look before she goes again. This time to fish out - cups, plates.

"And why," definitely like a little boy, all pretending he's grown, and yet - "do you think that is?"

Also like a little boy, he clearly believes it. Sitting there deflated and unhelpful, Bene watches Lakshmi set things out as though it's only natural for someone else to be serving him in this time of need.

"Everyone..." he says with the same level of melancholy, "...yells at me. Or makes fun of me." Or intentionally humiliates me in front of strangers LAKSHMI

"Because you make it easy. Squalling with your titles like you ever deserved them simply for existing."

The cup is filled up with milk, only it is rich and yellow, and has a strong smell of something warm and spiced. Ginger, particularly, and turmeric as well, and some honey. The plate is filled up with flatbread. Nothing grand, not fancy. A simple, hearty meal to help mop up the alcohol in his stomach. But she doesn't look as she works and speaks, and nor is her voice cruel. Just measured simple to each item and matter of fact to it.

Edited 2018-10-16 07:54 (UTC)

Squalling?

"Don't speak to me like that," he whines, incredulous, making an uncertain face at the plate as he watches her prepare it.

"What? Like your equal?" As she turns back, her eyebrow lifts, her head tilting with the moment. A smile that plays lightly there that, go on, tell her she's wrong with that whine in your voice.

"If you will let me be so bold," the way it is said, that there is nothing he can do to stop it. "I do wonder as to what they teach you magisters other than your entitlement to those around you."

Deciding to sulk preemptively instead of falling into that trap, Benedict just shakes his head with a dark glare and investigates the bread, taking a small bite of it to find that it is not in fact poison. Still, he can't look too appreciative.

"I won't," he grumbles-- as in, he won't let her be so bold-- but follows up with nothing. He just doesn't want her to keep going, because he's clearly already been through enough and the woman is tormenting him for no good reason.

"Of course, it is your misery."

She sits across from him, in a chair she swivels around to sit on. Her ankle propping up on her opposite angle, leaning back, her hands resting on the top of her thighs. Relaxed, calm and mostly unphased to the worst of his bad mood. "For instance, I wonder if they teach you: that respect, and friendship with it comes with the weight of your own actions. That sitting around, getting drunk, telling everyone near to you that you are so important, will not only get you mocked behind your back but undermine you politically in the position you will one day have no escape from."

"Oh don't start," Benedict sneers, with more venom than frustration, "Don't try to lecture me on-- on all that, I've heard it before and it always ends the same." As he talks, something begins to break through, no doubt due to the drunkenness: it's weak and pathetic and desperate, and his voice breaks once or twice even as he rants.

"It doesn't fucking matter, because the only one who-- people who really give a shit, who don't just want to feel better about how smart and good they are, they just--" All of a sudden his eyes are damp. "-- they go and die. Or they were lying."
Angrily, he wipes his eyes with his sleeve.
"So just save it," he concludes, far more weakly, with a touch of genuine distress.

As much as she reaches for weapons, she reaches for him now. That flat handed deft way, that she pulls him into her shoulder when the tears start. The soft push back of his hair away from his face so it wouldn't stick. Little boy, little boy lost because no one bothered to show him anything else.

"I know. They go, and you wonder how you poured so much into them when they were going to take so much from you."

The embrace is unexpected, the tenderness of it more than enough to push Bene over the edge. He goes from warily snipping at Lakshmi to clutching her tightly, his face in her shoulder, shoulders quivering as the floodgates burst open.

Sometimes all it takes is a hug.

It takes her a little off guard, almost, to hug him is one thing, not opposed to it. But when was the last time she watched anyone break down so completely - ( had anyone? Since those days? No, she thinks not, Devi had grown up too hard, no longer needed a mother to push her hair back from her face, and Galahad, only in his fever sleep did he weep over whatever horrors gripped him ).

But they had, once. Enough that instinct is easy to it, how to set her shoulders around him, given him the comfortable space on her chest to lean on. She rocks him, quiet, practised, and without comment. Her hand lifting to pet his head, tucking a stray piece of hair behind his ear. The little-murmured words in his ear that aren't this language, her own, but are nothing less than affectionate.

Only one other person in Benedict's life has ever comforted him thus: she's miles away, in Minrathous, and also a slave. Up until now, the only person who treated him with the tenderness typically shown toward children has also been, legally, his property-- and in no sane universe would Micaela ever speak against him or stand her ground.
But he loves her, and more now than ever, he misses her. Lakshmi's comforting embrace isn't quite the same, but still does wonders to calm him, reassure him, keep the darkness at bay.

It's after several minutes have passed that Benedict finally lifts his head, slowly and abashedly, coming somewhat to his senses despite his drunkenness. He's already made a fool of himself, that much he knows. With all that's happened lately, it's hard not to worry that this will be used against him.

If he's embarrassed, she makes no note of it. She keeps it up, once he's finished with his tears, that same matter of fact order to how she reached for him to begin with when he had begun to crack. She cups his face in both hands to kiss his brow firmly. Little foolish drunk.

Then she reaches for her scarf, moping away the tears with firm thumb strokes from each side of his face. Brushing his hair back so it wouldn't stick to his face and bother him. Next, she reaches for the drink, the strong smell of spice coming from it. No thought to his dignity as she holds it to his lips and gives the one order - "Drink. Little bits at a time or you'll make yourself sick."

Because it does one thing for the ginger in it, it will settle his stomach and stop it him from being too nauseous after throwing up and crying so much.

The kiss to his brow, that little gesture, is all it takes for Benedict to now trust Lakshmi completely. It's been years since he got so out of sorts back in Minrathous that Micaela had to comfort him, and here in Kirkwall, for all the seemingly worst traumas of his life, there's been no one.

So the previously whining spitfire thus becomes docile as a lamb, accepting the drink and following Lakshmi's instructions. After several sips of it, he pauses to give a small, almost sheepish laugh: "..it's nice."

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