[open] I feel calamity whisper

[altusimperius]

WHO: Benedict & you
WHAT: livin' that wartime life back on the home front
WHEN: Solace, over the course of the modplot
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: feel free to request specific prompts if what's here doesn't suit you!

I. Diplomacy office

Receiving, sorting, answering correspondence; following up on important dates, of which there are seemingly countless these days; making and delivering coffee; taking dictation, recording meetings, making lists; cross-referencing names and locations as requested, labeling markers on a map; there's hardly time to breathe.
It's been some days now since Benedict has had a proper sleep or sit-down, spending his days and nights scrambling after Byerly, seeing to the many minuscule needs of a Diplomacy office when its Forces and Scouting counterparts have fallen off the face of the world.
He doesn't begrudge Byerly-- in fact, for the first time since starting to work for him, Benedict is as quick to snap to his needs as a seasoned valet.
When not hunched over his desk in the office itself, he can frequently be found scurrying to and fro with this or that missive, list, or directive, if not just the latest pot of coffee.

He'll stop for a few moments to chat, but only if it's important.

Ia. for Byerly

With the Diplomacy office's activity having thinned out for the day, the room looks like a hurricane hit it-- this likely includes its denizens, although one of them has stepped out to retrieve more coffee, despite the darkened sky and the guttering candles.
It's an automatic motion, setting the cup on Byerly's desk, but Benedict actually looks at him for the first time in a while, and furrows his brow.

"...how long have you been here, today?"



II. The Off Hours

Going to bed just isn't cutting it anymore. Benedict can lie facedown on his mattress for the hours he's able to take to himself, but amidst the racing thoughts and the day's anxieties, sleep just isn't happening.

It's at these times that he drags himself out of bed and ascends the tower to the room where his hookah lives, long abandoned by either Athessa or Colin, but he can't let himself think about that. He smokes, and lies there staring at the ceiling, and sometimes he sleeps.

After a while, he can be found there nearly every night, either unconscious or trying to be amidst the haze of elfroot smoke.


III. Wildcard

Comments

[satinet]

"You're right that in some Circles, that was true. But we were also educated. Fed and clothed. Granted opportunity that many of us never would have had had we not been accepted into a tower. Are most professions not rather like a prison? Few peasants farm because they enjoy it, Benedict."

There are worse things than to live comfortably in one place. He can think of a great long list of less preferable alternatives.

"Besides, that was years ago. Prior to the rebellion, the Chantry was on the very verge of reforming how Circles were operated. Who had oversight. How mages might defend themselves for abuses. If we are to play our cards right and avoid the paranoia that we might be interested in picking the war up right where it was left off, we might still bargain for a more permissive arrangement."

[altusimperius]

Skeptically furrowing his brow, Benedict watches Cassius' face. It's not that the man isn't making good points, but to come at it from having already lost, already accepting that subjugation is the natural way of life--

"Magic is our birthright," he says incredulously, "we shouldn't need permission to use it, let alone to exist in the world."

[satinet]

From where he as settled in that corner of the carriage, Cassius laughs. It's a cheerful, pattering sound made purposefully charming and best suited for the confines of sitting rooms and little private conversations held over tea or drinks or shared tobacco smoke.

"The whole world requires permission to exist. There is not a single man, woman or child in either the South or North who doesn't rely on someone to tell them how to behave. Even the lowliest field hand—whose birthright is to knock fruit from a tree—does what he does according to what the weather and planting calendar permits."

[altusimperius]

It's too true for comfort, and yet there's something deeply unpleasant about the notion of letting Cassius have the upper hand.

"...still doesn't mean he should live in a cage if we don't like how he's knocking the fruit," he grumbles, sensing that he's fighting a losing battle, "he can choose to leave and do something else. It'll be hard, but he has that freedom."

[satinet]

Cassius' smile flexes briefly wider as if Benedict has said something funny and then patiently schools itself into a more reasonable shape.

"Illiteracy, poverty, disease. Those don't seem like a cage to you?"

[altusimperius]

Benedict rolls his eyes, doing everything he can not to groan.

"What kind of fucking pedantry is that," he replies, flinging a hand up impatiently, "yes, Seneschal, and wild bears are also caged by their ignorance, but they still manage to wander around wherever they please and eat whatever they like. ...within reason." Good save? Sure. Probably not.

"I'm not arguing that we aren't all yoked to the burden of our pathetic existence, but I'd rather do it outside a stone prison. Maker's breath."