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.

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[ Ugh. ]

Ugh.

[ She recognizes that dumb smirk and that smug idiot hair. The last thing she wants to do is engage with him or his haughty idiocy, unless engaging means actually hitting him in the face. But also, the last thing she wants is to seem like she's afraid of his idiot self. So she compromises: she doesn't speak to him directly, but addresses a comment to the air, saying: ]

Utterly hideous.

[When last he saw her, it was during the rescue from the catacombs, a time which he only vaguely remembers. They got along all right then, in the sense that they didn't interact at all.]

It's not that bad, [he coos, directing his gaze to the fabric he's holding,] what do you know about damask anyway?

[ Well, he's addressed her, which now gives her the right to address him. So, tartly, she responds: ]

I know that it looks like it belongs in an old lady's parlour. Are you trying to hang up curtains in an old lady's parlour?

If an old lady should happen to visit on Inquisition business, [he muses,] then I suppose it'll be her parlor.

[He transfers the fabric from one arm to the other, holding onto it as he continues to peruse what's there. Either way, it seems this is a solid choice.]

I wouldn't expect you to recognize quality fabric either way, but the old ladies you know must be women of taste.

Really this is Kitty's fault.

If she'd not come suggesting working together on the books and papers she'd brought out of Tevinter, then Alexandrie wouldn't ever have set foot in the Gallows library, and she wouldn't be staring at the same page of the same letter for near an hour trying to translate it and being entirely unable to decide whether or not the person who'd written it meant that the red lyrium crystal itself was a living thing and could be cultivated in host bodies or that it was the host bodies that were to have the lyrium cultivated within them that were meant to be living at the time or was somehow referring to both. It had been long enough that she was barely even horrified by the entire concept any longer.

Of course, there was a native speaker across the way by the window whose opinion she could inquire after.

One whom she'd barely known before ending up using rather cruelly.

And then walked almost the entire length of the country near under awful circumstances.

She closes her eyes, delicately rubs the bridge of her nose with her forefinger, and then ruefully decides that if it is living hosts of living crystal that really that's slightly more important than her comfort-- a strange feeling, if she's being honest. So, with a swish of skirts, a sigh, and an eventual delicate throat-clear once she's reached him, Alexandrie goes to see Benedict.

When Alexandrie clears her throat, Benedict turns with a look that verges on blank, and it takes a moment for his thoughts to clear and for him to recognize what's happening. His expression transitions into one of guarded annoyance, and he sips his tea, at least too humbled by their shared experience of that horrible journey to set right into sniping.

"What do you want," he says quietly.

That's honestly better than she'd expected.

"Another thought on what exactly this means," she replies, her affect one of rather solemn entreaty with the slightest hint of contrition as she lifts the page she'd been working on by way of illustration, "if you have the time and inclination." She offers it. "A letter from a known Venatori regarding the state of their supply of Red Lyrium and how best to increase it after the Inquisition successfully shut down their mining operation in the Sunless Lands. I... cannot seem to figure out what he means in regards to what is living."

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.

[ She rolls her eyes broadly in response to that. ]

No. They're insufferable. Don't you want to - you know - have the taste of a real person?

Edited 2018-09-22 22:23 (UTC)

Insufferable in that you won't suffer them, or that try as you might, you can't make them suffer?

[He smiles at her, a magnanimous and impossibly smug expression.]

Who's the real person, the one who belongs here or the one who fell out of the sky?

The one who people don't secretly laugh at behind his back. That's the real one.

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.

[There's a twitch, a small shimmer of insecurity in the smile. He feels the pang of it deep in his chest, but years of putting on certain faces in the name of genteel society weren't for nothing.]

Is there something you wanted, princess?

[ She puts her hands on her hips. ]

You can't call me princess and act as though my taste doesn't matter. It's got to be one or the other. Pick.

[Her hands are on her hips, it's getting good now.]

Why not?

[He pays the vendor, handing over some coins, and tucks the roll of fabric under his arm as he steps away from the stand.]

Your taste might matter if you weren't such a little shrew about it.

[ Primly: ]

I'm a full-sized shrew, thanks. Not some scrawny little fop like you.

A scrawny little fop you can't seem to leave alone.

[He turns to stop walking and obstruct her path, that same smug expression tinged with mock pity.]

Your interest is touching, my dear, but I'm afraid you're not my type.

[ A loud scoff, and a horrified: ]

Ew.

"Alright," is the voice that puts a firm hand on his shoulder as he looks like he's about to start another drink, another ramble about how powerful he is. She hadn't intended to do much more than pass through but - charity started in small ways and her interrupting him gets her more than one appreciative look. Dressed in her Inquisition leathers, rather than anything refined, and more relief for that - her chances of getting thrown up on just increased apparently.

But the hand is solid, doesn't brook an argument. "That's enough, come on. Time for you to go home."

It's all right, you can admit it.

[He tosses his head in just such a way that his hair will shine in the sunlight.]

No one will hold it against you.

"No!" he gasps, trying to shake her off, but with a drunken dismissiveness that doesn't serve as real resistance. "No, leave me, it doesn't matter." His head lolls dramatically to one side.

"...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.

She might as well have been hit by a particularly frustrated kitten, mewling for attention. Was that it?

Snorts, looks up, and catches the look of the man behind the bar - a miserable, exasperated look that gestures helplessly at Bene. Not that she needed much more incentive to seeing to this mess. With the issues to do with Tevinter, and the Inquisition, the last thing any of them need is a drunken lord falling over himself. Guess that was that. "Enough of this. We are getting you food and drink and into a bed, come on."

Easy to take his hand, lead it over her shoulder with the sort of easy strength that doesn't brook an argument. Dropping down, getting her body into his chest and heaving up. Hefting him like a sack of flour over her shoulder.

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.

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[open] nothing can break

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read a book read a book

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III, bene stop this

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HE SHAN'T

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rip his dignity, may it rest in peace with dignity

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