[open]

[doneisdone]

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.

Comments

[altusimperius]

"Or they'll get tired of me," he murmurs, "or--" He sighs out through his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. Focus. He has a task now, and he can't blow his own good fortune by fretting.
Still despondent, but at least a little more open now, he gives his foot a little twitch of acknowledgment against Colin's hand.
"I dreamt that I was made Tranquil," he sighs, knowing Colin knows, but saying it aloud nonetheless. "...I can't... I'll never forget how that felt."

[keenly]

Colin offers a wan, but encouraging, smile. "No one wields the brand here. If they did, they would have a riot on their hands no matter who it was used on. Not to mention Athessa and I won't allow this incident to compromise the progress you've made. We fucked up, not you. We won't let you take the fall for it."

[altusimperius]

Benedict nods again, but something Colin said triggers a little shudder, and his face goes faintly red. It wasn't the same kind of brand, but...
"Did you, um." There's a sheepish little tug at the corner of his mouth, like he's near about to smile in a placating way, but also knows he shouldn't. "...did you hear about what happened when... those Templars were taking me back to Tevinter?"

[keenly]

Colin shakes his head.

[altusimperius]

Welp, time for all faith in him to be lost.
"We got captured," he says to the floor, "Coupe, Ashlock, Norrington, Hanzo and I. The former three were taken and branded." He points to the back of his hand, indicating that's where they got it. Then, in the same motion, he pushes his hair back out of his face, uncomfortable.
"...it wasn't until later I saw what the sigil was. My mother had set the whole thing up. She thought I'd..." He chews his cheek, the shrugs wearily. "I don't know what she thought I'd do. But suddenly I had three Templars who were my legal property on Tevinter soil. Ashlock and Norrington got taken in when we were there as the Inquisition. I had to go get them out." Which he definitely did of his own volition and didn't have to be practically dragged there, of course.

"...what a mess." He gives a faint, uneasy chuckle.

[keenly]

It takes a moment, but Colin smiles.

"That's pretty terrible," he says with a chuckle, in a tone that makes it clear that, while he's being sincere, he also isn't really judging Benedict. The past is the past, and Benedict has changed. "More so on your mother's part, obviously. What could you have really done, though?"

[altusimperius]

That moment doesn't escape Benedict's attention, and he seems relieved when it results in a smile.
"I mean," he says with a little shrug, "...I could've... maybe not... waited so long to tell anyone about it." He scratches behind his ear with a wince.
"--not that you're the first. Don't get me wrong. Anders helped me remove the brand off one of them." A magnanimous gesture, considering.

[keenly]

"Coupe, I'm guessing." Anders couldn't give a shit about Norrington and even less about Simon. "Why would your mother do that, though? Seems like it gave you the means to retrieve them."

[altusimperius]

"Norrington," Bene corrects with a knowing wince. "Would you think less of me if I still hate him?" Purely hypothetical.

"I think she wanted me to take matters into my own hands. Or." He frowns. "...maybe she wanted me to die and have it look accidental." He's still got a lot to unpack regarding their relationship.

[keenly]

Colin shakes his head at the question. He'd been sort of friends with Simon for a while before learning he was a Templar, and took a long time to warm up to him again after finding out. He can't judge anyone.

Well. He can judge Benedict's mother.

"You're out of that life now," he reassures him soothingly. He nods toward the papers Benedict has been writing. "Is any of that about her?"

[altusimperius]

He looks toward them, then shrugs one shoulder dismissively. "Some of it." Based on the evasiveness of his expression, he doesn't look too inclined to give more information than that. It's for Flint.

Giving a shudder, he draws the blanket more tightly around himself. He's no longer in the state he was earlier, but there's still a marked gloominess about him that he's unlikely to shake. "I wish..." he mumbles, and thinks better of it.

[keenly]

"You wish...?"

[altusimperius]

"...I wish I could talk to her." He purses his lips, hoping it won't be taken the wrong way, like he's about to turn back the other direction again.
"I just. I want to know what she was really thinking about. What her plan was, for me. Why it's never seemed to bother her, when I've been hurt." He twists his mouth in a frown.
"It's... I wonder if she even knows I'm missing."

[keenly]

She's his mother. That doesn't go away just because he's realized how bad she is. To the contrary, Colin rather thinks it would drive someone battier once they do realize.

"You wonder if you were imagining the bits of love you saw in her?" he supposes gently. He looks away. "Wondering if something changed to make her stop loving you, or if she never loved you to begin with. Or just...didn't love you enough to change."

[altusimperius]

Benedict nods. That sums it up pretty well.
"I'm not sure what that would even look like," he admits, "I mean-- love. From her, or. I don't know." His nanny loved him, he's fairly certain, but she was also his property; could it even have been real, knowing that, or was it just advanced Stockholm syndrome?
"Did your..." he begins to ask, but realizes he's making assumptions. "Did you know your mother?" Or Do you, but he doesn't get the feeling Colin still has much family around.

[keenly]

"Yes." And it hurts, in light of everything he's seen in the Fade. Spirits enacting could-have-beens with a terrible eye for accuracy. He knows what Benedict is going to ask next.

"She loved me. At least, she loved me until I manifested. I..." His gaze goes distant. "I think she considered me dead. Or maybe erased. But she loved me at first. So have some others, just...not enough to withstand the first bump in the road."

[altusimperius]

On that, at least, they have common ground: love lost over bumpy roads, even if the reasons differed.

Benedict looks down, perhaps sorry he asked, or at least sorry in the capacity that Colin had to speak about something unpleasant. It feels wrong now, to continue the conversation.
"...well," he says faintly, "at least you don't do that."

[keenly]

It would be extremely easy to damage this fragile new person with his next words. He has thought the conversation about one very particular and relevant case of abandonment should at least wait until Benedict got out of that cell. It really still should. But the temptation to murmur but you do is significant. But it makes sense. Benedict has never been loved. No parent showed him what that looks like, not even temporarily. How is he supposed to know how to form lasting connections if connections are to him, by nature, transient? It's a real question, one Colin would like an answer to for his own sake.

"I didn't mean to make you feel bad," he says quietly.

[altusimperius]

"You didn't," Bene assures him, his mouth twitching nearly into a smile of the placating sort, "I mean, I-- I already felt bad." He didn't need Colin's help.
With a little sigh and yet another shiver, he shifts again where he sits. "...I think Athessa probably hates me now, though."

[keenly]

Colin shakes his head. "You have to know she didn't just get angry with Leander on the spot. She was angry for you. The results weren't ideal, but she certainly wasn't angry on her own behalf."

[altusimperius]

The truth of it makes him squirm a little. He doesn't want to believe it, doesn't like the implications of someone being willing to do something for him when he can't see them doing it, didn't ask them to, might...
...not... do it for them.

But how can one even know, when he can't leave the room?

"...maybe," he grunts evasively. It's easier to imagine that she's cut him off forever, like his parents, like Kitty, like probably most other people.

[keenly]

"Did something happen?"

Of course something happened. Benedict was a mess when Colin came in. If Athessa got to him before Colin, she wasn't exactly going to defuse the situation.

[altusimperius]

In context with how Colin reacted when Benedict confronted him about seeking out the box, Benedict can see now that perhaps, just maybe, he was overreacting or didn't have the entire story. That would have been nice to have figured out before he and Athessa had a shouting match, but that ship has long sailed.

He opens his mouth, closes it again, and shrugs uselessly. It's an odd time to go into a sulk, but when one considers the damning information he's withholding, it makes a little more sense.

[keenly]

Colin's head bobs. It's disappointing, no doubt, but not altogether surprising.

"In that case," he says quietly, "make sure you don't let her go at the first bump in the road."

[altusimperius]

Benedict looks up at him, surprised. It had, of course, never occurred to him that the same flaw might apply to himself-- in fact, he's never had any reason to think about it that way before.
He's almost too shocked to respond, but his mind is clearly going, trying to think of something to say that won't incriminate himself as exactly what Colin is implying.