faderift | MOD EVENT ↠ IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

And when he finally arrives at the parlor door, Athessa is there, ready to open it. She steps in first, then aside, bowing.

"Magister Artemaeus."

Oooooookay.

After being made to wait, albeit not agonizingly long, Colin is now pacing the parlor by the time Benedict and Athessa arrive. The door opens and he stops, looking toward it. At the announcement, he points himself in the correct direction and bows low.

"Magister."

Benedict nods an acknowledgment, then crosses the room to sink into his favorite chair, beckoning one of the other servants to bring over coffee.
"What can I do for you," he says, already bored, but it's difficult not to glance back at the visitor's face every once in a while. He knows he's seen him somewhere, and this is going to drive him crazy.

Colin's eyebrows rise so far they nearly come unattached from his head.

"Begging your pardon, Dominus, but you asked to see me. If I recall correctly, it was in regards to my contacts in the eastern spice trade."

"Did I?"
He scratches at his cheek as he settles in, taking the cup and giving it a little sniff before he sips from it. "Right, the spice trade. Right." He looks bored already.

Colin's brow furrows. He inspects this fat, lazy, dead-eyed magister and knows he knows him. He can't pin down from where, but he knows this man and remembers what he is like. And this? Dear Maker.

"You hate this," he says with a squint. "You're miserable here."

Athessa says nothing from her place near the door, but her gaze flickers first to Colin, then to Benedict. The guest's accusation is sure to garner a reaction.

It wakes him up, that's for certain. Coffee sloshes from the cup as Benedict sits up straighter, as affronted as he is utterly shocked by the visitor's gall.
"What?!"

The rules of conduct fray and unravel swiftly as Colin focuses on that strange feeling. Ohhhh. This is a dream. Whose dream, he is not sure. Benedict might be here or he might be a spirit. The same goes for Athessa. He frowns thoughtfully. All things considered, with how this month has gone, he thinks they are real people. Which means Benedict is having a much-needed reprieve from being in a cell. It would be nice for it to be a good dream instead of a nightmare, but it is what it is.

"What happened yesterday, Athessa?" he asks.

Shit, don't drag her into this.

"Beg pardon, ser?" She looks at a loss. "Yesterday...was like any other day."

"What are you talking about," Benedict persists, uneasy, "how do you know her name?" He looks accusingly at Athessa, but suddenly he's not confident in anything he knows about anyone.

Oh, this could be fun. Colin tries to keep his smile mostly suppressed.

"Lucky guess." A shrug. He ventures toward a table with a bowl of oranges on it and takes one. "If you're disinterested in the spice trade, I have papers for you to sign that place me in charge of your interests there. I could run the business end while you simply collect the profits. Or, we could do whatever isn't boring. What would you like to do?"

"I think perhaps it is time for you to leave, ser," Athessa says, spurred to action by Benedict's accusing look. The last thing she needs is for the Dominus to think she had something to do with this impetuous stranger breaching the bounds of propriety.

"I--" Benedict pauses, seeming again to be taking his bearings, and unable to land on anything that makes sense. "Let you run it for me?" He glances from Colin to Athessa.
"What would I do?"

"Yes." Colin offers a little smile, ignoring Athessa for now. "If you could make money doing anything, what would you do? Anything in the world, don't even think about how realistic it is."

The world flickers. Benedict narrows his eyes.
"I don't know," he says, suspicion beginning to trickle into helpless confusion, "I..."
Looking around at the room, he seems to be seeing his house for the first time, with its deep red and gold patterned drapings, its prowling ocelot statues. "...I wish money didn't matter at all. I just want to be happy."

"And what makes you happy?"

"Being..." He glances around again, and the room seems darker. "...being warm. Drinking, reading, painting--?" He shudders. "Why is it so cold in here?"
His gaze goes to Athessa again. "See him out," he says anxiously, "I don't like this."

"At once, Dominus," Athessa crosses to the door to the parlor and holds it open, the invitation for Colin to walk through it clear enough without her then turning and nodding to the man. "Ser."

It's not what she wants to say, but it's all she can say. Something in her wants to rebel, wants to shout, to fight against whatever unseen force is making her stand so rigid, speak so proper, but she knows her place.

Colin gives a polite nod. It was fun to completely ignore all social rules for a time without fear of consequence, but this particular dream is increasingly disturbing the more he watches Athessa.

What kind of spirit makes the girl a slave practically every night?

"Domine," he corrects her gently. "Why do you think to call me Ser?"

Benedict's agitation increases as they stall, a feeling of deep wrongness rising in his chest. Who is this person, to come in and disrupt him so? Why does such a large part of himself not want him to leave?
"Stop it," he whimpers, huddling in the corner of the sofa.

"I..." Athessa looks from Colin, to Benedict, then back. This feels wrong. She's made so many mistakes today that she hasn't made for, what...twenty years? More? And this man knows too much, knows the questions to ask to make things unravel. Why? She frowns, and looks at him as though he's a snake ready to strike. "What is this?"

Colin looks back at Benedict and his face softens. His playfulness from earlier is taking a toll on the other man he now regrets. This is the only escape from that cell that Benedict is capable of right now. The troubling thing is that Athessa doesn't deserve to suffer for it, but going much further with this could wake them both. And while she doesn't deserve this, it's hardly the worst dream she's had come of this.

He gives her a gentle smile. "I'll see you soon," he whispers. "Be strong."

And with that, he ducks out the door.

Shocked from his deeper slumber, Benedict is struggling and failing to resist consciousness. The room is cold, colder than is possible for such lush extravagance; he's thin, so thin, and filthy, and hungry, and these realities claw their way to the forefront of his awareness before he can even speak again to Athessa.
When she turns back to where he sat, she'll find him gone. She's alone.

And once Benedict is gone, everything else soon follows. It isn't her dream, after all. For a split second the parlor looks familiar in the worst way, completely different to how it was mere moments before, and it's too stark a comparison to go unnoticed.

She wakes up, sitting against the wall in the library. In retrospect, it's the worst place she could've gone, what with how serene and quiet it always is. With a groan, she gets to her feet and rubs her eyes.

"I'm so sick of this," she mutters to herself, and wanders off.

MOD EVENT ↠ IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

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