[open] I don't know how you made it in

[altusimperius]

WHO: Benedict and MAYBE YOU
WHAT: the gradually developing situation involving a certain Vint's return to Kirkwall
WHEN: mid-September onwards
WHERE: around the Gallows
NOTES: More prompts are likely to be added as things unfold! I'm going to take this step by step and address developments as they arise.

I. Return to the Gallows

His clothes don't fit, he's shaken and feels like he's about to vomit at just about any moment, but Benedict is here and, it would seem, this is more or less of his own volition. He can be spotted crossing the Gallows with some trepidation, taking his time, inspecting stalls and seeming to prolong the inevitable: which is to say, actually going and talking to anyone in whose hands his life is about to rest.

He's quick to avert his eyes should anyone meet them, but isn't about to take off running.

II. Upstairs (one thread only please)

Seated outside the Division Head office, Benedict is simply waiting for one of them to become available so he can... what, turn himself in? Have a conversation. Both Leander and Alexandrie made it abundantly clear that he's not doing any fleeing without dire consequences, so here he is, and here is the last place he has ever wanted to be.

Comments

[altusimperius]

"I don't--" stammers Benedict, thrown off by this line of questioning, "--there's nowhere else..!"

It's true, he probably would have come back even if he hadn't been sent. He's known safety here, there are people he trusts even if he doesn't necessarily like them, and ultimately-- now more than ever-- he believes in what they're doing.
But Flint's logic is unassailable and even Benedict can't deny it. He's visibly flustered, glancing between the other two as if hoping for rescue.

[rowancrowned]

After a pause in which Thranduil looks beyond Benedict, thinking, perhaps, of Kitty, of her harrowing return home, he addresses the room rather than any specific person.

“We are not a charity,” he says, and allows it to be as simple as that. Yseult has her destination in mind already.

[katabasis]

Yseult might, but he's in no mood to coax a magister's son into stumbling toward it. If Benedict's to get there, it will be because he's been driven to it.

"Tell me,"--and this Flint does address to the boy, snapping as an especially irritable dog might at shy heels--"Can you think of even a single reason why we shouldn't haul you down to the Gallows courtyard and execute you in front of the whole company this very moment? We can't trust you to be here in the Gallows. We can't trust you in the field. Even if you weren't here to play stupid while feeding everything you see and hear to someone waiting outside, what guarantee do we have that you won't simply roll over the next time someone gives you even the slightest reason to think you might be safer in their custody than in ours? You are at best a halfwit and at worst a lying coward. Either would be better pitched in pieces into the harbor than allowed to remain here."

[rowancrowned]

"Commander Flint," Thranduil says, mild as seawater. Because everything he's said is true, and they are on their second go-round of this, and the only difference is that they are Riftwatch, now, and not Inquisition.

He takes a sip of the wine. He should have some barrels put up for winter. It is like as not to be the next thing that will be in short supply, and he does not care for ale.

Thranduil has only ever been the carrot when Coupe was the stick. This dynamic is not new, simply now including Yseult. Still, fear always spoils the meat.

"Betrayal seems to come cheaply to you, monsieur Artemaeus."

[hassaran]

Yseult sighs. Not at Flint or Thranduil, but at Benedict, lifting her shoulders and letting them drop again.

"I'm afraid they make convincing points. I'd like to believe you, but you're not a good liar, Benedict. You really shouldn't bother. So tell us the truth--the complete truth, of every single thing you did and heard and saw when you were in Tevinter and when they brought you back here--and maybe we can weigh that against Commander Flint's arguments and find some alternative. Alright?"

helo I wrote u another novel

[altusimperius]

Shoulders taut, eyes wide in terror as Flint descends with his judgment, for a moment Benedict looks like he might faint. But his gaze is drawn to Thranduil, and then Yseult, and a shift occurs: a stillness passes over him, a wash of hopelessness, of resignation to the truth.
If only Kitty knew how right she was, yet even she missed the mark. What fear should he have of torture, if most of the options in front of him simply end in death?

He's quiet for an unusually long time, slouched in the chair with his fingers curled over his mouth, gaze turned inward. Most, including himself, would think him the type to carry on in a moment like this, to get on his knees and plead for mercy. But he's tired, and if there's one thing he learned from his time in Minrathous, it's that whining doesn't work anymore.
If it ever did.

"I was brought here," he mumbles, his voice dull and expression stiff, "it's. Actually extremely difficult to get in and out of Minrathous right now. ...impossible, even."
A long pause. "They think I'm going to spy for them." A point which Flint already touched on, but it's irrelevant now, isn't it? "But I'm not a good liar." At this he actually cracks the faintest smile, completely devoid of mirth, staring somewhere between Yseult's leg and her desk. "I'm not. Good at any of the things I'm supposed to be doing for the Magisterium. Or Tevinter. ...categorically."

His head droops, his gaze sinking lower. Despite the stillness of his expression, a tear spills, and he lets it.
"I fucking hated this place. For a long time. But then I-- I don't know, I was... doing things, being useful. And you gave me a chance. And I was happy, happier than I've ever been. I believed in it, I still do. I was wrong to think I could go back, even for one stupid errand--"
On this, his voice gains some inflection, a hiss of anger. "--and not get-- dragged back into the-- that."

He finally stops sinking, giving his hand a disgusted little wave as he readjusts his position, but still doesn't look up.

"I don't want to die," he mutters, rubbing his temple. "I don't-- imagine that matters. But for what it's worth. ...I'm sorry."

becomes cassandra

[katabasis]

From his post near the door, Flint makes a disgusted noise.

"And now we know he'll spill his guts with just a threat."

[altusimperius]

Though he flinches when Flint speaks, Benedict says nothing, and continues to stare downward.

[hassaran]

Yseult's brows lift as Benedict concludes and then fall, and she looks like she'd like to sigh again but refuses to be the sort of person who actually does that out loud twice in as many minutes. Instead she takes a long drink of wine and clicks her tongue once against the back of her teeth.

"It's late," she says finally, "He can spend a night in the cells and write down everything he recalls, and in the meantime we can discuss what we've heard so far. There's no need to rush things, after all. We can always execute him tomorrow."