[open] the way it feels to be just anyone

[altusimperius]

WHO: Benedict and you
WHAT: catch-all
WHEN: Bloomingtide
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: will give warnings as needed. hit me up if you want a starter!

I. The Library

Performing his chamberlain duties in the daytime and studying magic in the evenings doesn't leave Benedict a lot of time for leisure, and in fact the hours he would have spent drinking or playing cards are now occupied in the little office he sets up every night at one of the library tables. It's here that he writes letters, several scrolls weighted down in front of him which list Tevinter's major families and their relations, spread all across the country and ripe for persuasion.

Sometimes he can be found writing fervently, a cup of tea sitting untouched and forgotten beside his scribbling quill; more than once he's fallen asleep there, his face smudged with ink as it rests atop the desk.

II. The Gallows Courtyard

On the rare occasion that he's out of real work to do, Benedict can sometimes be found sitting on the steps of the tower with his parchment board and a quill or stick of charcoal, idly drawing the surrounding architecture. The sketches are loose, but hone in with great detail on things like the flourish in a column or a specific pattern of tilework; he shows little interest in the denizens going about their day, and in fact makes a little face of irritation if ever someone steps in the way.

III. Wildcard

do ur worst



for Solas

With the warming weather, Benedict has felt more comfortable taking his magical studies outside to practice in the open. Well, semi-open-- still afraid of being heckled at the proper training grounds, he opts instead for the herb garden in the evenings, where he can take his time and maintain a relatively low level of anxiety.

The barrier is something he mastered ages ago, but Benedict's skill in it has weakened with his resolve; he can't seem to keep it going under duress, which has led him to try a visibly stronger method: the Rift barrier, as he saw Solas conjure when Kirkwall was besieged by ghosts.
Benedict is able to draw a brief form: a slab, part of a wall, which remains for several seconds and then disintegrates, much to his aggravation.

If he can't make a simple barrier work, no matter its material, he can't protect himself.


for Kitty

It's been more than a few days, but the Inquisition is like that: people get busy and stay busy, with less time than they hoped for side projects. So it's more like several weeks later when Benedict next visits Kitty in the library, walking in with his posture straight and his eyes bright, hopeful.

"Any luck?"


for Marcoulf

There's been no reason to talk to the little ferret-face, save perhaps for a gnawing conscience that rears its head every time Benedict remembers that awful night and the subsequent conversations. Perhaps he was too unkind to him-- perhaps he's afraid of Marcoulf still, even after everything. But he can't have this nonsense hanging over his head, not when anxieties are at an all-time high and the whole world seems unbalanced.

So he approaches Marcoulf one night, sauntering up next to him and leaning against a nearby pillar, where he lights a cigarette and just... stands there. One of them will speak first. Maybe.

Comments

II.

[keenly]

Someone sits down beside Benedict, clearly curious as he peers at the sketch. The last couple of weeks have been absolutely wretched for the visitor, and a glimpse of art in this place is welcome.

"I didn't know you draw," Colin says quietly. "It's very good."

Re: II.

[altusimperius]

With a little start, Benedict almost blots his quill on the parchment, but moves it away just in time to turn and see who's addressing him. It's Colin, whom he realizes he hasn't seen in some time... though it's not so unusual, considering their schedules don't coincide often.

"Erm. Thank you," he fumbles, looking down at the drawing and shifting almost as though to hide it, "I'm not... it's. It's not what I'm supposed to be doing." Is that a blush?

[keenly]

"Maybe it is." Good grief, the man is adorable when flustered. But they all need the ability to get away now and then and make something lovely in the midst of a war. Something to help them clear their heads and sort themselves out.

"Can I see it?"

[altusimperius]

A sheepish smirk results from that, and Benedict seems genuinely uncomfortable, but he passes it over. The drawing is of a set of windows on a tower: serviceable, unschooled but observant, nothing one might find hanging in a fancy gallery but perhaps impressive for someone who has never been caught doodling by anyone who wanted him to.

"...it used to make my tutors so angry," he murmurs with a tiny smirk, "they'd lecture and shout at me, then my mother would get rid of them, then I'd do it again for the next one." Unexpectedly, he seems the tiniest bit ashamed of this revelation. "...but I suppose there's no tutor to lecture me here."

[esquive]

He has minded his own business. Which amounts more or less to guard duty, patrol duty, fetching and carrying duty, sewing buttons on shirts every third day duty, grooming and shodding horses duty, riding out into the Free Marches and fumbling his way through foot hiil skirmishes like a it's the first time he's held a sword duty. He has not spoken of that evening. He has not fished around for extra work, though the scratching urge of it prickles under his skin. He has not sought out anyone for anything, which is both a relief and a terrible, tired thing.

He thinks--

Well, he tries to avoid that too. And mostly it's fine until this evening as he takes a moment in the heavy shadow of the gallows and he finds that the person who has come to rest near to hand is the exactly last one he would care to see. In the dark, Marcoulf sharpens by some perceptible degree. He goes very still, all elbows and sharp shoulders.

And says nothing, though his head is tipped toward Benedict like a wary and listening dog's might.

[altusimperius]

Benedict sees him, even if he's pretending not to. He smokes in silence for several moments, the vapor trailing from his mouth and his nose as he slowly exhales and gathers his courage.

The weasel isn't going to speak first, he should've known as much.

"Why did you speak up for me," he asks, bluntly, angling his head toward Marcoulf and pinning him with his gaze. There's no escaping, no scuttling off into the shadows this time.

[esquive]

It's not a look he meets. Which is one way to avoid the point even while standing perfectly still.

"Because it wasn't anyone else's business."

A clink of metal, the line of his sword shifting at his hip as his idle hand comes away from being draped over its pommel. He holds his hand out expectantly. Share that cigarette, you snot nosed brat.

[altusimperius]

Benedict looks down at Marcoulf's hand, then raises his eyes to meet his gaze, a smirk playing onto his lips as the game shifts. Oh, so we're making demands now? What a strange little man.
He holds the cigarette to his mouth and inhales, blowing the smoke out prettily as he watches Marcoulf with a very specific look in his eye: come and get it then.

II.

[exequy]

Kostos has fallen asleep in enough libraries himself that he should have some sympathy, probably, or maybe be sort of touched by Benedict's transformation into someone who might be so hard at work to have fallen asleep in the middle of it, with a cute smudgy face and everything, but, you know.

Nah.

Dropping his short stack of books onto the table close enough to Benedict's head to make the leather-on-wood slap as startling as possible sounds better.

[altusimperius]

Sitting bolt upright with a loud gasp, Benedict's gaze darts frantically around until it lands on the perpetrator: then, like someone pulled a lever, he goes from panicky to suspicious and cross.

"What," he says, haughtily enough, though there's still a touch of alarm in his voice.

[exequy]

"You fell asleep."

In case he didn't know.

And Kostos is sitting down at his table, now that he's here anyway, because that's better than making it even clearer that he went out of his way to do that rather than just sitting somewhere else and leaving Benedict alone. While he shuffles his books (Ander poetry, unfortunately) to find the one he needs first, he adds, "And you have ink on your face."

[altusimperius]

This merits a grunt and a side-eye as Benedict wipes at his face with his fingertips to find that, yes, there's ink everywhere. Shit.

"Did you need something," he grumbles, tugging a handkerchief from inside his robe and trying to rub his face with it, succeeding only in smearing the ink around and getting it all over the cloth.

[rathercommon]

She's a bit embarrassed that it's taken her a while. She'd thought she'd be speedier, but, well - certain lines of communication she thought would be open weren't, and people had thrown unexpected obstacles in her way. So, sourly, bitterly, she responds -

"I think we're going to have to go there."

And she runs a hand through her hair, massively displeased.

[altusimperius]

To be sure, this isn't the reception Benedict had anticipated: it's... pleasant in comparison, and he actually stops dead when Kitty addresses him with such. What would we call that, humility? Apology? It's a side of her he's never seen before.

"Oh," he says after a moment's pause, blinking a few times, "well that's all right. Is she in Minrathous?"

[rathercommon]

Why's he looking at her like she's grown a second head? She wrinkles his nose, quite displeased by his stupid staring. What a weird and annoying kid he is.

"No," she replies. "A different estate, one further in the south." She blows out a breath and says, "If you go into Tevinter as yourself, are they going to, like, kill you on sight? Or is your name enough that they wouldn't mess with you?"

[altusimperius]

Pursing his lips, Benedict folds his arms and promptly leans against the nearest bookshelf, thinking.

"I don't think so," he muses, "...in fact, I think I'll have to be there as myself, to be recognized as someone who can legally buy her in the first place."

II

[coquettish_trees]

Alexandrie had been silently watching him attend to such a detail for a good ten minutes before the wind decided to blow up and audibly ruffle the layers of her skirts, and pushing a bit of the topmost gauzy layer to brush the back of his arm. The game is up it appears, and it is for her to either continue on her way down the stairs, pretending that she had only just come from the doors behind him, or to remain and say something.

They had not spoken since the hauntings, and then only adjacently. There was an uneasy truce of sorts between them, and she had not wished to force her company on him. She had apologized, after a sort, and he had not sought her out again, so she had assumed their brief acquaintance finished. But with Hanzo gone now, his country very possibly staring down the arrow shaft of an Exalted March, and the general feelings on Tevenes unchanged…

Merde, she had stood and thought too long, and her decision had been made for her.

"You have a fine eye for detail," she says.

[altusimperius]

He was too deep in thought about.... something or other, and now that he's been snapped out of it, Benedict doesn't actually remember. But he's made significant progress on the drawing, which he has time to observe before craning his neck around to see Lexie standing there.

He's not sure how to react to her. So, rather than come up with anything wittier, he looks back at his drawing and says, a bit flatly, "thanks."

[coquettish_trees]

That could well be the end of the exchange and normally, in any other circumstances than the one she'd been considering, would have been. Instead, as solicitously as she might attempt to unravel a knot in a particularly delicate thread, Alexandrie makes further attempt at conversation.

"Did you study architecture, or rather come by an appreciation for it as a natural result of the fine worksmanship of your surroundings?"

An honest assessment. Minrathous had been truly impressive.

iii, piggyback on the herb garden idea;

[sarcophage]

"What's that you're doing there?"

From the lesser-used entrance in the garden wall comes a voice, smooth and clear, with a Fereldan accent. Its source has been there for minutes: a young man, pale and curly-haired, dressed in black and grey. He's leaning in the stone archway with one arm bent across his chest, wrist cupping elbow, hand loose at shoulder level, the cigarillo dark against his fingers; he's breathing smoke from mouth and nose, lazy, dragon-like, and staring through the cloud.

He knows very well what the Vint is doing. Remembers him from when the Veil was thin. How afraid he was.

[altusimperius]

With a hitch in his breath, Benedict turns his head to meet eyes with the person who spoke: and there he is, that weirdo from the dining hall.

He lowers his hands, looking at them with a sigh, and turns fully to answer with a weary "practicing."

[sarcophage]

The weirdo's expression doesn't change, in greeting or otherwise. One might say he wears barely any expression at all. No sense of disdain, melancholy, nor even boredom; there's simply nothing there.

Acknowledgement comes as a short, low hum. He's not so far away that the appraising down-up flick of his eyes is hard to see. "Do that last one again." The cigarillo pauses just before his mouth— "If you wouldn't mind." —and then connects for a slow draw.

for meee SORRY HOW LATE I AM

[dirth]

Solas can tell when someone is struggling - he is not completely blind - and he can tell that Benedict is trying to push himself. He watches from a distance for a long moment, head tilted and eyes flicking over him, taking in the way he moves, the way holds and treats himself, before he breathes out gently and shakes his head. Something needs to be done, surely.

Stepping forward, he reaches out a hand to rest on Benedict's elbow.

"You need to relax."

DUNGEON no not rly welcome back

[altusimperius]

Giving a little jolt when he feels a hand on his arm, Benedict turns to see Solas there, and lowers his hands. He looks tired, cranky, more frustrated than anything, and can't help even rolling his eyes at the advice.

"I haven't been able to do it properly for months," he grumbles, leaving out the factor that first disrupted the ability: which was, of course, the Battle of Ghislain and his near death there.

love u

[dirth]

"Then you are relying too heavily on your emotions. It will do nothing more than cause you harm." Solas steps around him, looking him up and down - eyeing his posture, his stance, the way he is summoning and using magic. A typical Tevinter boy, he thinks; it reminds him a little of Dorian, using elven technique without understanding the history.

"How do you feel when you are able to cast a barrier? What state are you in at those times?"