faderift | [closedish]

The tourney was a small success, and it has done nothing if not endear Benedict further to Jone. He continues to spend every morning on the training pitch, if not working with her directly, then at least visible to her: making the effort. But on the flipside, there's someone he's been avoiding, whose opinion matters just as much; once again he's kicked himself straight in the mouth, but his memories of the incident and what he said to Gabranth are a bit foggy from their being tempered by adrenaline and however little wine he'd had.

Benedict has gotten increasingly good about facing his problems, but some of them, the Gabranth-shaped ones, are still a little too intimidating.
So it is that he doesn't even see him again until a chance encounter in the hallway, when Bene turns the corner and sees Gabranth approaching from the opposite direction. It's too late to flee, he's no doubt already been clocked, and... well, he's trying not to do that sort of thing anymore.

So he stops, and he waits.

And Gabranth, unhelmeted and straight-stared as he moves down the corridor, sets the full measure of his pale stare on Benedict, drawing nearer with heavy footfalls before—

Passing him entirely. Shunning Benedict's presence, as Gabranth has been known to do before, when disappointment sticks harshly to his own silhouette.

But his steps are slow. Deliberate and heavy. He makes his way to the training grounds in silence.

A deep breath inhaled, exhaled, then sucked back in all at once as a horrified gasp when Gabranth simply passes him; Benedict looks after him for a moment, crestfallen, then begins to follow with a timid, "wait."

Gabranth's footsteps slow to a halt, the heavy scuff of metal fading into abrupt quiet. He does not speak, but the set of his head turns— tilting by degrees back towards the sound of Benedict's voice, soft as a whisper.

It is perhaps a miracle Gabranth had heard him at all.

It hits on something deep inside, a crawling fear that should he fail to meet expectations, Benedict will simply cease to exist in the minds of those around him; that he's not even worth the effort of getting angry.
It strikes him clearly in the moment. He knows that to say the wrong thing will push Gabranth away, possibly for good, and the lonely little boy beneath the surface cries out at that reality.

"I'm sorry," he says, pausing some feet away from Gabranth, "don't go."

Ironic, in some tangled sense: it was Benedict that wished not to be troubled. To be freed from loftier demands. He'd stormed off before— gone still now— his body shot through with tensity. Gabranth had left him to his own devices simply because it seemed wanted, and what good could he do otherwise? They've no immediate missions to complete, and Gabranth cannot safeguard him against hypotheticals— it seemed only logical at the time.

Now, it seems as though he'd been mistaken. He must have been, for he's somehow been granted an apology.

His eyebrows knit low, shadowing the set of his own pale stare.

"Why do you apologize?"

"Because," Bene begins, and realizes he has to think about it. Why is he apologizing? He's the one who was offended, who felt dismissed.
But if he doesn't, he may be left entirely without Gabranth's company, and the possibility of that is too intolerable to imagine.

"I don't want you... to be angry with me." It's clear by his tone and the uncertainty of his stance that he isn't completely sold on that, but the pleading gaze with which he fixes Gabranth has its own message.

"Yet you were content to be angry with me long before now." Gabranth counters idly after a long beat, lifting one gloved hand to gesture passively through the empty air between them.

He is not wielding it as a club, that difference, only using it to show the strangeness (to his mind) of such a sentiment. For anger is a thing that lives where it lives, and dwells where it dwells.

"You acted like you didn't care," Benedict says quickly, imploringly, his shoulders tensing as he balls his hands at his sides. "I don't... I don't know what you want. Because when I think I do it, it doesn't seem to matter. And..."

The pathetic crux of it is here, the sudden acknowledgment of it taking all the wind from his sails. He lowers his voice to a mumble, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"I want you to be proud of me."

“I expect much from you because I believe you are capable of much. Pride will always dwell in your successes, yet know you already the shape of my approval.”

Stern. Harsh as cold wind. Unmoving and unbreakable, both— that is the form it takes. The form it always must take. Gabranth is not his brother. Much as he has tried to walk in the shadow of that memory, he cannot make it so.

“How do you imagine it ought be, if what I offer dissatisfies.”

"I... suppose I don't know."

Benedict seems to wilt as he stands there, chewing the inside of his cheek. It's not like Gabranth is going to envelop him in a hug or give him a lolly for doing something right; it occurs to him that he doesn't necessarily know what a normal level of approval looks like, apart from just. Neutrality.

But there is one sticking point, as ashamed as he is to admit it:

"...not pouring my wine out, maybe."

“Fine.”

Gabranth concedes, albeit with a harshness in his tone that speaks of something stern and stubborn. A point of contention already argued over: the nature of his actions at the time— his motivations for taking the course that he did.

But not every lesson can be learned by tugging by the nose. Something Gabranth himself has come to terms with.

He is, to his credit, trying.

“Next time I shall demand you spill it yourself. Does this suit?”

It takes all of Benedict's self-control to not roll his eyes, instead keeping them fixed on Gabranth's.

"Maybe let me show you," he says irritably, "that one glass of celebratory wine doesn't make an idiot of most people."

He gives a sneer of distaste, but forces himself to say anyway: "and I can limit it to one glass. If you're that worried."

It’s the final addition that seems to appease him, where the tight-knit edges of his brow line might suggest he’s fully entrenched in his own ironclad ways, the sharpness of those creases ebb then. Calm.

Calmer.

“One glass. And only in trusted company.”

"Only in trusted company," Benedict repeats, seeing the reason in it easily enough. A smile ghosts onto the corner of his mouth, a hopeful look in his eyes as he watches Gabranth's expression, sees the tension easing.

Maybe it'll be all right.

"...what're you up to now?"

A single nod serves as contented acquiescence between them. A pact sealed, in essence, and when Gabranth moves it is with a gesture for Benedict to follow along at his side.

"I intend to train with my newly acquired courser." If one could call a dracolisk the equivalent of a warhorse which, apparently, Gabranth does. "Come. It should know your scent sooner rather than later."

"A courser," Bene intones, and walks along at his side with a newly-regained spring in his step, just happy to be included. "What kind?"

“Unique.” Gabranth says. A descriptor soon emphasized when they reach the stables and he clicks his tongue, prompting a bestial, dry hiss from the back of one stall as a gold and black speckled dracolisk steps snorting out of the shade.

One gauntleted hand mutedly scrubs beneath its chin, the animal clicking long fangs together.

Big dragonhorse.

“His name is Maric.”

Although Benedict has seen a dracolisk before, he has never been this close to one. He seems reluctant to come within biting range, standing carefully back behind Gabranth's shoulder as he watches it in nervous fascination.

"Like King Maric?" he asks uncertainly.

“Indeed,” he agrees nigh instantly, distraction painted throughout his features as he keeps the whole of his gaze trained on the animal at his side. “For it was Jone who named him.”

Yet after a moment one open, gauntleted palm extends itself in Benedict’s direction, an invitation waiting to be taken.

“Come here. He'll not hurt you.”

It says a lot about Benedict's level of trust in Gabranth that he actually takes the invitation, stepping gingerly forward to hold up his hand as he would meeting a horse or a dog, heart pounding.

He could lose a hand this way. But Gabranth wouldn't put him in harm's way intentionally, surely.

Surely.

And sure enough, when Maric tips his oversized head forward, it’s only to bump the cold front of his muzzle against the flat of Benedict’s palm, nostrils flaring. Like any tame animal accustomed to bridling, riding and general human attention, there’s only one thing he’s actively searching for.

A treat.

“Is it not an impressive beast?” Gabranth asks almost flatly, the question itself betraying a clearer sense of admiration for the animal, rather than all his typical disdain.

Better than a horse.

"I've heard that grown men will wet themselves to be charged down by one," Bene says with a smirk, still a little uncertain, though he gives the creature a tentative little scratch right on the top of its snout.

[closedish]

GABRANTH

sobs i,m so tired i forgot this sorry

one million years dungeon (no shh kisses ur head)

definitely the dungeon

NO, KISSES

YOWLS

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