faderift | [open] the way it feels to be just anyone

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[open] the way it feels to be just anyone

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.

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Without rising from his current position, and still holding onto his face, Benedict timidly raises his left hand to snap his fingers and create another flame. He does so with an air both hesitant and fascinated; he didn't know Marcoulf was capable of behaving this way.
It's bizarre, but he's not sure he hates it.

The glove is shoved unceremoniously into a pocket. Marcoulf steps near, practically over him, and shoves his right hand into the tiny pool of light cast by the shifting flame. There's a bandage bound about the hand; he dispenses of that too, a silent but quietly frantic quality to how it's unwound. With an intent so single minded he might as well be blind to Benedict, Marcoulf inspects the shape of his hand by the wan illumination.

It's easy to see the source of his concern. There's a horrible dark scar bisecting where thumb meets palm as if someone had tried very hard to cut the finger off and had simply hacked into the hand rather than back through the digit like they'd meant to. Running at an angle lays another, cleaner and far fresher wound: the skin all raised and knit closed with thread. Nothing seems to be bleeding - no popped stitch - but his first two fingers are trembling as if independent from the rest of the hand.

He stares. He clutches his wrist so tight with his good hand that maybe the other fingers will go numb too. And then he takes a fumbling step sideways away from Benedict, clips the column with his shoulder, and just stops as if bound there with his hand held close to his middle and a rising sense of nausea.

Benedict jerks backward at the sight of the wound, nausea rising in him as well; he watches Marcoulf walk away, and slowly gets to his feet, snapping the light back out again.

"Maker, what did you do?" he asks in morbid fascination, since... might as well.

He doesn't answer. Instead, he fumbles with the unwound length of bandage - pinches it ungainly between the two small fingers of his right hand and begins to try rebinding it. It's fine. It's only suffering from the strain. Maybe it will swell or bruise, but the stitching is secure and it will be just as fine tomorrow as it was this morning. It's fine.

And then, as if the question is only now reaching him: "Nothing," he croaks, scattered and sharp all at once. This fucking bandage, the end continuing to slide out from between the brace of his weak fingers-- "It's old."

"No it's not," Benedict replies, "or if it is, it never healed properly. ...that's obvious." He folds his arms. "And just, you know, an amateur's opinion, but maybe you shouldn't be punching people with it looking like that."

He tosses his hair, then winces, pressing his fingers to his face again with a wince.

Fuck off, shrieks the pulse of pain beating through his hand and up the length of his arm. Marcoulf making a creaking noise, a bark of feverish laughter that somehow sounds like a question. You think he doesn't know that?, or maybe, Is it impossible for you to mind your own business, or maybe Marcoulf can't believe how stupid he is either. He's become very quiet all at once, trembling and trying not to and all rigid and jagged edges as a result as he winds the bandage back with jerking, mechanical movements.

Watching this with something like derision, something like pity, Benedict has a strange feeling surge into him-- it has him rolling his eyes with a quiet groan, but really, he couldn't just watch a rabbi flounder in a snare either.
Or at least, now he realizes he couldn't.

"Maker, at least replace the bandage," he sighs, "come on." He's no healer, magical or otherwise, but hanging out with Anders enough has taught him how to properly wrap a wound and apply painkillers.

Stepping past Marcoulf, he beckons curtly for him to follow.

Maybe if it were a different day, he'd snarl something sharp and go moving off in literally any other direction except for the one Benedict means to go on.

But tonight, run through with panic and adrenaline and some animal like fears, he moves to follow automatically as if compelled by some long-standing instinct. He cradles his hand and the mess of bundled bandages close against his center and neglects to ask the question that should be the most obvious when being told to do anything by some Tevinter blood mage: 'Why on earth should I listen to anything you say?'

Blessedly, Benedict doesn't insist on conversation as they make their way to the space set aside for healing within the Gallows towers. Snapping his fingers a third time, he lights a candle in the doorway and carries it in, hunting around until he finds what he needs: a jar of salve and a roll of clean bandages, which he removes from the shelf and sets on a table with an assortment of medical tools.

There's no one else here-- it's too late for the usual open hours, and Anders is probably at his clinic or at home. It's just the two of them, and in waiting for Marcoulf to approach the table, Benedict finds a mirror that he can sneer into at the sight of his jaw.
"You'll pay for that," he grumbles, in a sort of whiny, absent way, tilting his face back and forth. "Stupid."

He's certain he will. In just the time it's taken to wind their way into the Gallows' well appointed clinical space, the knuckles of his first fingers have begun to grow strangely dense and unfeeling. More so that has become normal for the gnarled, much worked over hand anyway. It inspires some erratic, untethered feeling that carries him all the way down into the dark chamber, to the table, to taking a seat there on some convenient narrow stool.

It's only when his hand is splayed there on the table between them - somehow uglier either in the candlelight or thanks to the intervening minute - that he rouses. "Wait." He's chalk white. "Do you have any idea what you're doing?"

"Is it so alarming that I do?" Benedict snips, setting down the mirror and approaching Marcoulf, brandishing a rag as he does so. He sits on the other side of the table, dipping the corner of the cloth into the salve and moving to dab at the wound, assuming he's allowed to do so.

"Sorry I'm not slashing my own wrists, if that's what you were expecting."

A moment's bafflement is followed by a visible shock of uneasiness. Right, he thinks, going so stock stick and quiet in the wake of all those alarm bells which have finally begun to ring that he makes no protest and doesn't draw his hand away.

(What if some bit of his blood transfers to the cloth and Benedict pockets it for some future work? Let's see who's blackmailing who then--)

He doesn't flinch. The contact on the swollen skin doesn't actually feel like much at all.

"Yes," he finally says, remembering suddenly that there had been a question in there. "It is."

Swabbing enough of the salve onto the wound that it's thinly covered, Benedict then sets down the rag and picks up a bandage, beginning to wrap it with the careful competence of someone who has done this before, but not too often.

"There," he grunts, tying it off, "unless you want me to kiss it better."

He draws the hand back promptly, examining the wrap of the bandage and its tie. He must find it-- satisfactory. After a moment, he fetches the glove from his pocket and carefully works his hand back into it.

"It's fine."

There. Good deed of the day done. Benedict nods and rises from the table, glancing back at the mirror one last time and then picking up the candle to bring it back to the doorway, assuming of course that Marcoulf comes with him. He stops there, waiting for the Orlesian to walk out first so he can blow out the light.

It takes him a few moments to work the glove back on. From there--

"Why are you here? With the Inquisition."

He hasn't risen, sitting there at the table still in the darkness of the clinic with the candle having been drawn away. He's looking at Benedict from that shadow, the exact lines of his expression difficult to judge there. But there's no heat in the timbre of his voice. It's just a series of questions.

"Did your mother tell you to do this too?"

Benedict stops and turns, looking at him with an air of confusion that doesn't quite verge into shiftiness. He continues to hold the candle by the door.

"No, actually." He hesitates: the story isn't a pleasant one, less so to remember than to tell.

"I was apprenticed to a Magister who took me south with a small entourage of researchers, studying the rifts. We were just west of Minanter when we were captured by an Inquisition force, and sent here for questioning."

He sighs through his teeth, some of the spark seeming to go out of his eyes. "...I found out when we got here, of course. That they were Venatori."

"And your master," he asks from the dark. "What did they do to him?"

A small, irritable shake of the head.

"He snaked his way out of captivity. Agreed to help the Inquisition and went to Skyhold, leaving me here to rot." Benedict's posture has tensed considerably, and it's clear that there remains some unresolved tension on the matter, whether between him and his mentor or simply within himself.

"...d'you fancy a proper smoke," he says wearily, angling his head toward the darkness. Why not, after all? Neither one of them has any social engagements, tonight or ever. In this light, it's not hard to see what they have in common.

The offer lingers there in the candlelight, tangling in something sharp and uneven in his chest. There's a certain sting in all kinds of being abandoned, he thinks, and it seems strangely recognizable to him in every shape.

(Say no. Go back to those shared quarters and go to sleep. You have work to be done come morning, and will the day after it, and the day after, and again and again until he dies or the Inquisition finishes its work. And isn't that good?)

Marcoulf scrubs his face with his off hand.

"All right," he says, rising from the table. He slinks to meet Benedict at the door.

Not even bothering to smile, Benedict lets him out, snuffs the candle, and closes the door behind him before leading the way to his quarters. It's up in the old mage tower, ironically enough, and though the room is the same size as anyone else's in that particular hall, the decor suggests an eye for luxury and color.

Drapings hang over the walls, all the furniture and textiles clearly imported from the north, a little taste of home in the unhospitable Free Marches: but most importantly, up on one table sits a hookah accompanied by a little hand-carved wooden box of appropriately-sized coals.

Leaving the door open for Marcoulf, Benedict kicks around a few throw pillows on the floor, arranging them such that he can set the pipe down between them. Before he even begins to prepare it, however, he goes to the window and cracks it open with a little smirk-- no need to suffocate themselves.

The winding trek up through the tower allows plenty of time for some sense of self preservation to have found him if it had any intention of doing so. But instead, here he is standing just inside the narrow room with the door shut behind him as the Vint goes about his strange business. He's still standing there, eyeing the upright - what? It looks like a great water pitcher someone became confused while making - , when Benedict turns back from the window.

"What is it?"

Coming back from the window, Benedict smiles in that confident, vaguely snobby way that comes so easily to him. "It's a sort of pipe," he explains, picking up a pitcher of water so he can begin to prepare it, crouched on the ground where he talks.
"It's smoother than smoking something rolled up, and more of a..." He thinks a moment, standing, then goes to a chest of his belongings to remove a second hose. "...a group activity. You know, I've never had a reason to attach this."

He bends again to do so, then places a coal, lighting it with his finger as he's done before and blowing lightly on it, directing the heat. Once satisfied with its behavior, he sits back on a pillow and takes one of the hoses, beginning to puff a bit oddly on it as he watches the pipe.
After an interminable period of this, he finally inhales deeply, blows the smoke out through his nose, and beckons Marcoulf to sit on the other pillow.

"Now it's ready."

There's perfectly good furniture in the room worth sitting on, he doesn't say. Instead, he unclips the sword from his belt and carefully folds himself down onto the second pillow. The rapier, all silver and fine, gets set near to hand. His narrow legs get arranged into a semblance of comfort and then--

Then there should be questions. What are we smoking?, at the very least. Instead, Marcoulf simply unwinds the coil of cloth hose, uses his sleeve to wipe some dust from the mouthpiece, and takes his own draw from the pipe. It's all done easily enough.

On exhale, he makes a low noise - hm - and nods in what must be approval.

Furniture is for southern degenerates-- not that there isn't any in the room, obviously, but one can't lounge properly on a boring stiff wooden chair.

The smoke is fragrant and tastes lightly of cinnamon, hanging in the air around them as the pipe bubbles and the conversation stalls. Before too long, their muscles begin to relax somewhat, their thoughts drifting: they're still lucid when they need to be, but there's no hurry.

"I spent half a year in the Gallows dungeon," Benedict says after a while, smoke billowing from his mouth and nose, his head resting languidly on an upturned hand, "isolated and threatened with Tranquility. Then I agreed to be helpful, and they let me go."
A smirk twitches onto his face, and though it's not entirely happy, there's definitely an amusement bubbling up through the smoking of the herb. "If I could do blood magic I sure as shit wouldn't be here."

Edited 2019-05-07 06:59 (UTC)

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