faderift | EVENT: TRUTH BOMB

Entry tags:

EVENT: TRUTH BOMB

WHO: Anyone
WHAT: TRUTH BOMB
WHEN: Bloomingtide 15-17
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: OOC information. Use appropriate content warnings in your subject lines, please.

It’s an ordinary day—so not a very pleasant one. The weather is dreary and muggy, and the day’s lunch is a soup that’s a little too watery and bland. The griffons are being their usual level of noisy and swoopy. The work is its usual level of urgent and difficult.

But in the storage rooms, something wiggles. Then it hums. Then it pops.

Outside of the storage room, there’s no actual sound, no shift in the wind, and no visible sign of a change. But the pop might be felt—like the moment something finally clicks, or two ideas suddenly fit together, except the opposite. In the heads of everyone in the fortress, something is suddenly not connected quite right.

The first sign of what’s gone wrong is that someone immediately stands up and tells the cook how bad the soup is.

A lot of people’s days are about to get exponentially worse.

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"Yes... well. I wouldn't use that word to describe anyone's artistic pursuits, thanks—but so were mine. Mage studies took up the bulk of my time."

Until I was moved to the Grand Necropolis, he's about to say, opens his mouth to begin and everything, but that's no place to take a stranger. This conversation could use a hard turn if it's going to continue in good humour.

"What did you study? Not magic, I'm assuming, since barriers are among the first things taught to children."

...or he could say that. Without looking at Benedict, even—until, at a delay, he turns his head to flash a tight, puckish smile, while tugging wet fabric back up over his shoulder. (It clings sheer to his skin in places, but his scars aren't bold enough to show through; it's enough, so long as he keeps it from slipping.)

"Or do they do things differently in the North?"

The smile dwindles from Benedict's face, and though at first he manages to remain neutral, Leander's little glance back at him clinches it the rest of the way into a scowl. He knows a dig when he hears-- and sees-- one, and hesitates to answer at first, his pride wounded and his first instinct being to dismiss the man as low-class and therefore not worth an answer.

...but something makes him do it anyway. "I was nearly killed at the Battle of Ghislain," he answers sullenly, "my barrier went down at the moment someone pushed a sword through. ...now it's all I can think about when I try to conjure one."

Likewise, Leander's smile thins—this may be a familiar expression—and shortly turns away from Benedict as he bows his head to scrub his neck, his shoulders, switching to the other hand at the limit of lazy flexibility.

"Nearly killed. And yet here you are." Again the sponge plunges into water; a knee comes up; his arm seems busy below the surface. "If you want my opinion," which is coming regardless of his preference, "that's a pathetic excuse. The sword should be your focus. It's always easier to cast a barrier when you're trying to block something. Honestly..."

Low-born he may be, but Leander prides himself in not speaking like it. (Not anymore; not after many years of observation and mimicry.)

With a glance back, "Were you wounded, then? Stabbed?"

The scowl deepens, and Benedict looks quite irritated at this point, watching Leander speak with an affronted little curl of his lip.
"Stabbed," he grumbles, "it went all the way through me." Pensively, he looks down at where the scar on his abdomen is visible through the shimmering water, "and when I was in the healing tent, there was a fire. So it kept reopening every time I had to move. ...I was certain I would die."

His voice shakes a little as he describes it, in spite of the lordly airs he continues trying to put on. "Magic failed me."

So Benedict learned his lesson practically, at the point of a blade. That's something, at least. The tremulous way he describes it, though, as if defeating death isn't something to be proud of—

Then he says that, and Leander rolls his eyes, and they remain at the apex of said roll while he sighs as though a great burden has just been deposited at his feet. Andraste take the wheel.

"Will you please stop sulking—I simply can't stand it. There's almost nothing worse than a mage who blames magic for his own cock-ups. Do you praise the Fade when you cast a spell and it works? Of course you don't. It's only your doing when the result is positive, isn't it. Ugh, I can't stand it. Take some responsibility for once in your life."

It seemed impossible for Bene to be more offended, but Leander easily crosses the threshold and leaves him sitting there in a stunned silence. People have spoken to him so frankly before-- in fact, he's almost gotten used to it, being here-- but never with such derision.

"Don't presume to know my life," Benedict snaps, agitated, "how--" He's trying his best to find some kind of witty retort, but it only comes out as a haughty, "--how dare you."

"I dare because I can, darling."

Because he can say anything, at any time, to anyone he pleases. And what's more, today he finds himself inspired to do so without reservation. The words are just flowing as they will. How liberating! Perhaps he's lost his mind at long last.

"And for the love of the Maker, don't take this as a cue to begin unravelling the sad chronicle of your life," with a breath of laughter, as though he can't quite believe he's saying any of this, either, but is enjoying it nonetheless. "I don't care at all where you came from, where you grew up, whose teat fed you or what-all-else. It doesn't excuse anything else you've told me so far."

With that, Leander rises in the basin to begin wringing the water from his blouse, matter-of-factly gathering the material while he stands unabashedly bare and slick from the belly down. Water spills down in handfuls with each twist.

And it just keeps getting worse.

No longer even pretending to bathe, Benedict just stares at him in a mixture of outrage and disgust, an entitled prince being spoken down to by the help.
"I wasn't going to," he says primly, tossing his head, "it's none of your business." Eyes flicking over Leander's form, he adds before he can stop himself, "and you look like a crazy person."

"Better crazy than a coward," volleys back without a stitch of hesitation.

Second sleeve done, he releases it with a little flourish, and chooses that moment to find Benedict's eyes again with his own. And still you can't help looking, says the lift of his chin, the pink line of his mouth pressed crooked. He then exits the tub and snatches his towel up from its resting place.

Casually, "It's almost too bad, you know—we might've had some fun together."

Stung, Benedict watches him leave the basin, his eyes fixed firmly on Leander's face and no other part of him.

"What sort of fun would you expect me to have," he says bitterly, "with someone who appears just to insult me and leave again?"
After a moment's hesitation, he presses his hands behind him on the lip of the basin and pulls himself out, snatching a towel from nearby and wrapping it around his waist-- there's a quick glimpse of the rest of him before he covers up, and he stands, running his fingers through his damp hair as he goes to a looking glass.

"I don't know who you think you are, that I'd be so lucky," he says primly, inspecting his own face, "as if I need your charity."

Leander whirls around, suddenly alive with delight, and holds there, clutching his towel in both hands. Thusly does he stare at Benedict for at least three entire seconds. This may be the most animated he's looked since he sailed out from Antiva City.

"Did you just openly admit to only being worthy of a pity fuck? I can't believe it. Tell me you didn't."

"What??"
Benedict turns back to meet his eyes incredulously. "I was being sarcastic," he snaps, "so I suppose you're as stupid as you are crazy."
Tossing his hair, he looks back at the mirror to continue primping.

It's too late; those common insults scatter like pebbles at his feet. He'll be snickering about this well after he leaves the baths, and grinning at least until then. Fortunately, the time of pants-wearing is not so far off, although he does seem to be taking his time.

"That you'd be so lucky, indeed." A pause, while he gives his hair a vigorous rubbing. "Oh, dear," still beneath the towel, "You've made my day, darling. You really have."

His aggravation growing, some part of Benedict is aware he's allowing himself to be riled up. He's been teased before, and derided for being Tevene, but never outright mocked in this way, and he quite simply doesn't know how to handle it: when his parents were always around to ensure the best possible treatment and utmost respect, he never had a reason to grow a thick skin.

Not to mention the strange compulsion to say what's on his mind making it a recipe for disaster.

"You can't talk to me that way," he says sulkily, the words escaping him before he can think about it.

"Can't I? Don't answer that."

Maker help him, if Benedict responds to that question literally, he might burst. As it occurs to him, the very real possibility of laughing aloud in public is at once distinctly unattractive—it's already feeling suspiciously like a case of the giggles, which is as ridiculous as it is difficult to escape once it starts—so he picks it up a bit. Soon he's hoisting his trousers, fastening the tie at his waist.

Pulling his attention from Leander long enough to shrug into a robe, Benedict casts the stinkeye over his shoulder again before going into his small basket of personal items and finding a pot of lotion, which he begins to massage painstakingly into his face.
"I won't," he sniffs, exuding such haughtiness that at least half of it has to be an intentional screen for how increasingly embarrassed he's becoming.
Pushing his hair back out of his face, he examines himself from several angles, as if to make sure the strain of being irritated hasn't caused any new wrinkles.

Perhaps he'll see Leander's back by way of reflection, with a heavier shirt thrown over his bathing cover, and the relative haste with which he gathers his things, snatching up his towel and squeezing the sponge once more over the basin. Reacting facially to the primping ritual taking place across the room. Either way, observed or otherwise, Lea will have made his exit by the time Benedict turns around.

And he'll be wearing a half-suppressed smile all the way up to his room.

He does notice, and despite all the airs he's putting on, the sight of Leander's departing smirk is like a lance through Benedict's confidence. He looks back at himself in the mirror, deflating slightly now that there's no audience, and sigh through his nose.

Well, at least beauty is permanent.

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EVENT: TRUTH BOMB

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