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WHO: Teren, Barrow, and Benedict, and YOU
WHAT: catch-all
WHEN: Haring
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: shirtless dilf enclosed

Teren

She crashed a dragon into a tower. And though she lived, Teren was flung from the beast and came to land somewhere in the rubble below, where an aptly remembered healing potion was enough to keep her from expiring on the spot, but moving her body in any meaningful way has been a struggle since then.
Incredibly fortunate to have had no significant internal damage (at least that the potion didn't handle), and with any broken bones splinted and healing, Teren is simply far too sore to move from her bed. After all her big talk about the Wardens not getting into any situations that couldn't be solved without Anders or Inessa...
...here she is.
A captive audience, if perhaps not a happy one.

Barrow

The air is brisk, the day is fine, and Barrow is swinging a hammer around in the sparring range. He's been learning to use it since first arriving in Kirkwall, rather liking the idea more than the usual boring old sword and shield, but having never had the opportunity to play with one until now.
He cuts quite a figure in doing so, and should be approached with caution unless alerted first. He's also only wearing a shirt about half the time, since even in the Haring chill, physical exertion takes its toll.

Benedict

I. (open) There's a certain anxious industriousness to Benedict these days, and if the growing pile of writing-filled parchment he keeps carefully resting on the bench is any indication, he's got a project.
He's also made some pretty decent headway with in weaving a screen for the window with straw from the cell floor, which both prevents the cold wind from coming in and bathes the little room in a pleasant sepia light. It's clearly the work of an amateur, but one can almost mark how much his skill has improved from the start to where his progress currently lies.

He can often be found working on either project, or perhaps painting or reading, swathed in both of his blankets for warmth and powered by nervous energy.

II. (one thread please, first come first serve) On the night of the strange dreams that grip the denizens of Riftwatch, there comes a cry of abject panic from Benedict's cell, followed by the sounds of someone in terrible emotional distress.

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She nods, probably too much for so little of an exchange. She just doesn't know how to broach the topic, is the thing. When it was fresher, she was furious, and she knew exactly the what-for she'd give him, but now? Now it's silly to be angry, silly to try and hold him responsible for something that happened in a dream, no matter how real it seemed.

"That's good," she says, "Probably means you're one step closer to ya know...not being in the dungeon forever."

"Mm," Benedict hums, thinking about it, "maybe." He stares at his work for a moment more, tapping his pen anxiously, too preoccupied to possibly continue writing.
Then, after several long, extremely awkward moments, he clears his throat.
"You know," he says, trying to keep it conversational, "you know I'd-- I'd never, um." His face has gone red again. "Well."

"Go back in time and arrange for me and my entire clan to be sold into slavery and then arrange for your parents to buy me as a slave and then continue to own me as your personal slave for thirty odd years until you get old and chubby and miserable and alone in your old age?" She sums it up too quickly to have not been thinking about it nigh constantly since it happened. And not that she has much of a filter when she's in tip-top shape, but even she would find a way to say it that's a little less of a slap in the face under normal circumstances.

She rolls her eyes and leans against the bars. "No, I don't expect you would. And I wouldn't take orders from you, anyway, so."

Well when you put it that way.

He's quiet for a moment after she comes out with it, staring at the wall above his writing, thinking. At least she knows, at least there's no part of her that thinks he'd have done this on purpose. But there's one sticking point.

"I'll never be chubby," he vows under his breath. And his hair will always look nice. Some things are the way they are for a reason.

She laughs at that. Somewhat disbelieving, but mostly amused.

"Right, because that's the top priority there."

Though he's still sulking, he smiles a little when she laughs, perhaps seeming to realize that he's being ridiculous. He tucks a strand of hair back behind his ear and turns to face her, wrapping his arms around his knees as he draws them to his chest.

"So you were really there, too," he observes, thinking back to his conversation with Colin, and can't help but wince. "...I'm..." Sorry? He didn't really do anything to her, did he? And yet it feels like he did, and he doesn't like being confronted by the notion of a slave being someone he knows, a normal person he talks to often, a person who's given him things out of kindness.

"...did you hate it?" He immediately dreads her response, but can't decide on which reason why. Because she did, and it's his fault for ever having slaves? Because it's a stupid question, perhaps?

"That's a stupid question," she says, fixing him with a look that says as much. "But yeah. That's how these dream-nightmare things are designed, seems like. Look how much worse you could have it, as if we aren't allowed to suffer knowing that it's not as bad as it could be."

Clearly, she has opinions and feelings on the matter of these dreams. If she ever finds out who's causing them, she'll wring their neck.

"Wouldn't you hate being someone else's property? Being completely under someone else's control and unable to do anything about it?"

"Sorry." He drops his gaze to the ground, self-conscious.

Even so, he has to think about it. He's had some shallow awareness of what slaves go through, but the limited empathy of one so ignorant can really only take him so far.

"I suppose." He quirks his mouth to one side. "...I always thought... we were giving them a life off the streets. A place to live." When he thought about it at all, anyway.
"Maybe not."

She can't help but scoff.

"Slavery isn't charity, ya nugget. It's a transaction."

"Right." He bites his lower lip. "...right."

Even he is smart enough not to compare his current situation to what they're discussing, though the thought does cross his mind; but he's here because of his own decisions, not because he and his family were born to be chattel.

Instead, after a pause, he just shrugs uncomfortably and looks up at her again, fraught with unease. She already said she doesn't blame him, but he doesn't know what else to say.

It's true that she doesn't blame him for the dream, but something about the way he views slavery in waking hours--or at least the questions he asks her about it--sticks in her teeth like bitter toffee.

Athessa opens her mouth to speak, perhaps to say I didn't come down here to argue with you about slavery, but closes it. What did she come down here to talk about, then? She sighs.

"I dunno why I came down here," she mutters, and rests her head against the bars. "I'm so fucking tired."

Looking away as well, Benedict chews his lower lip and allows a silence to lapse between them. There is another topic, of course, but broaching it feels odd after that discussion.

"...um," he says after a moment, hunching his shoulders, "...why did you steal the box from Leander?"

"The--? Oh. That," For a moment she doesn't know what he means, but then like something embarrassing said years past, it comes back to her. Snatching the cigarette case and throwing it with impressive skill into the Waking Sea, fleeing in a panic, all of it. She sighs and pivots on her heel, then sinks down to sit with her back against the bars.

"Because he shouldn't have it. It'd be one thing if he just thought it was a nice box but he was keeping it like some kind of fucking trophy."

"But now nobody has it," he says, agitation rising slightly out of his uncertainty. "It's-- I didn't even ask for--"
He knows where he stands, knows they were trying to do him a favor, that he has no right to ask for anything-- or to be upset if it isn't delivered. And yet.
"...I just wanted it back eventually," he says in a quiet voice, pressing the heels of his hands against his hairline.

Athessa chews on her lip, struggling against her lack of guile and her better judgment. She wants to tell him it's fine, that he'll get his box back when he's out of his cage, but to tell him risks more than just a spoiled surprise. It takes from him any scrap of plausible deniability he has, which is one of the few things saving his neck.

"It was a stupid thing to do, and not part of the plan at all, but it is what it is," she sighs again, glad that he can't see her face. It would probably betray the fact that she's not telling him the whole truth. "Sorry."

Part of him is enraged at his own impotence on the matter-- if he had been able to just confront Leander himself and offer whatever he wanted to get the box back, they wouldn't be having this conversation. But because of where he is, what he's done, that option isn't his anymore, and he finds himself sinking into a place of defeat that he hasn't reached since before the books, before the visits.

"Why didn't one of you tell me," he says faintly. His eyes have taken on a far-off, desolate look.

She scoffs.

"Come on, think about it," Time to find out just how much of an idiot he is. "Someone tries to pinch an item that's worth nothing but sentimental value to one person, who are they gonna blame?"

Athessa turns so he's in her periphery, not enough to fully gauge his reaction or watch the gears turning in his head, if they move at all, but enough that she can see where he is in the cell.

"He already knows," Benedict snaps, looking at her with hurt in his eyes. "He figured it out. He's told Yseult."
Tugging his blanket more tightly around himself, he looks increasingly miserable; he'd had a shred of hope that the box had been recovered after Athessa had thrown it, but now it seems that it's not only gone but the subject of some actual scrutiny.

"Why did Colin even tell you," he mutters bitterly, "I told him to leave it alone."

Yep. He really is a fucking moron.

"Not Leander, you fucking moron, you," She turns around now, sitting up on her knees and curling her fingers around the bars. "You're the only person who would want the stupid cigarette case, so if someone stole it, the first place they'd turn is to you, thinking you'd hired someone to steal it for you. And you're a worse liar than me, so if we'd told you we were gonna get the damn thing, and shit went sideways like it did and someone came to question you about it, you wouldn't be able to hide that you knew about it and that makes it look like you planned the theft! And if you're down here twirling your mustache and getting people to do shit for you like some kind of storybook villain, then maybe this whole contrition thing is an act and you're actually going to betray Riftwatch as soon as you get out, meaning the only smart thing to do would be to execute you."

Over the course of her incredulity- and anger-fueled explanation of what seems an obvious thing to her, she levers herself up so that by the end, she's standing once more and gripping the bars. Where did this anger come from? Perhaps she expected him to be quicker on the draw, or she didn't expect to have to lay it out so plainly. He was being such a good little prisoner, how could he not know how tenuous his situation is?

"And I'm saying that's already happened!" Benedict barks back, rising to his feet as well, but keeping his distance; he's a sorry sight, barefoot and shivering and holding a blanket around himself like a vagrant, though at this point not all of his trembling is from the cold.

"I'm not a fucking moron, he came down here and thought I'd sent you to do it, and he'd already told Yseult about it! And all I ever said was for Colin to leave it alone, because we knew Leander knew it was mine, and that I wanted it back!"

He's never raised his voice like this before, that he can recall. But everyone has a breaking point.

"So this is already going to be blamed on me and I didn't even fucking know it wasgone!"
His voice breaks on the last word, his midsection seeming to crumple as he takes a step back and sinks onto the bench. His face drops into his hands, heavy with despair.

Edited 2019-12-20 07:46 (UTC)

"You are a moron. It isn't going to be blamed on you because when you were questioned, you didn't know anything had happened. You truly, honestly knew nothing about it and that's all you could confess to. If Colin had told you--" Because it wouldn't have been Athessa, "--knowing about it would have been a sign of guilt. Whether or not it actually was."

She rolls her eyes and forces herself to let go of the bars, flexing her fingers and starting to pace back and forth.

"I already know he told Yseult, because she already questioned me about it," She didn't know that it was Leander who told Yseult, and in the moment she didn't realize she was being questioned, but at least now she knows that everyone is mutually under the impression that the box is lost to the sea. "And Colin would've told you about it if I hadn't told him it was a bad idea, because I don't want us trying to be nice to you to get you fucking killed!"

"Stop it," he weakly interjects, each insult landing far more deeply than she no doubt intends. He lets her rail at him a while longer, face still in his hands, shoulders hunched as though to make his tall frame smaller. He's confused, having heard only what various people are choosing to tell him, his nerves frayed to their limit from worry and the physical misery of his situation.

When he lifts his head again his cheeks are damp, and though he keeps his face angled away from Athessa, the quaver in his voice when he speaks is enough to betray his state. "All it takes is one person misconstruing this," he says, "all you had to do was nothing."

His hands and shoulders shake with the effort it takes to keep from breaking down right here and now. "I've been trying so hard, Athessa," he near-whispers, a tear spilling freely, and he ducks his head to wipe it away with the blanket.

"Yeah? Well maybe that's your problem," she snaps, not really knowing what point she's trying to make anymore, just lashing out because she feels too raw to do anything else. She's tired, and doesn't understand the empathy she has for him, why she cares or what names to put to the individual feelings, so she falls back on what she knows. "Maybe you've been trying too much and doing too little. I for one am not just gonna stand around and do nothing."

She shouldn't have bothered to come down here. She doesn't let any dead air hang after her last word, doesn't wait for him to respond or retaliate, she just marches herself back down the corridor away from the cell, toward the stairs.

Her words only ramp him up further, but Benedict at least waits for Athessa to storm off before he crumbles completely.

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