faderift | [closedish]

"I am practiced." The answer is without hesitation - he brushes the disbelief off like rainwater. "Over two hundred years of being the foremost architect on my continent and of nobility may have something to do with it."

He takes a moment to sip from his water before adding, calmly, "Beyond that, I have an incredibly long fuse at social events. I do not get angry."

He doesn't seem to smile, either.

"Huh."

Two hundred years, which means he's on the older side of things-- that's explanation enough, and yet.

"Nobility doesn't mean someone's good at diplomacy," he says, the corner of his mouth twitching up in a little smirk. How topical.

Diabhall marks the smirk with a quirk of his brow.

"Of course. But standing about at social and business gatherings while people attempt to court you for funding, lectures, or work will certainly be of assistance."

Chilly as his tone is, he doesn't take offense. If anything, this only underlines the choice he has already made.

He shrugs.

"Still, I am a stranger in a strange land here. Far be it from me to presume anything. I'm certain the Assistant To The Head Of Diplomacy should know better than I."

"All right," Bene concedes, figuring sure, why not-- but then Diabhall's last statement garners him a funny look, like it's not entirely clear whether or not that was an insult.

"...well you don't have to be that way," he replies, teetering on the edge of affront.

A blink of red-pink eyes.

"What way?" There is no hint of tease in his tone - perhaps a splash of genuine confusion, even. He seems to take a beat to retrace his words.

"Ah. I see how that may have seemed. I was stating fact. I do not make habit of passing judgement and insulting men I have only just met. My apologies." His tone is still dry and droning, face betraying no real emotion.

"I only meant that you hold your station for a reason, I expect. And thus your opinion is one I ought to respect."

Clearly all the time he spends around Byerly has Benedict too willing to raise his hackles over perceived jibes-- or unperceived ones-- but maybe everyone isn't like that.

Or maybe they are. But hostility never did anyone any favors.

"I see," he says simply, watching Diabhall's face with an air of mistrust, and concludes that it is better not to tell him how or why he acquired his position.

Perhaps it had been just a bit of a jab, he reflects at the mistrust. But if so, it was needless. It isn't as if his pride could have been hurt.

He shakes the branch of conversation away, opening his sketchbook to a fresh page (and flipping past both recreations of structures in the Gallows and a late-night sketch of a familiar young elf with long, braided hair) to take up his charcoal.

He starts to sketch out the corner of the dining hall, replicating the brickwork and beams.

"So then, what do you do here, beyond title? I am still learning how Riftwatch really works." He doesn't look up, tone arched.

"I assist the ambassador."

Spoken a bit sulkily, with the vague feeling that he's being judged and not knowing on what.

"Take notes, keep track of maps, gatherings, people who matter. Answer correspondence." It's not the most glamorous work, but it's better than what he was doing before.

"Important work."

There's no irony in the statement - Diabhall glances up, nodding approvingly to punctuate his statement. "Oftentimes the assistant's work is what everything else is pinned on, in the end. Particularly where diplomacy and correspondence are concerned."

It's unclear to the elf why this man is suddenly taking tones with him this way - but he opts to pay it little mind, and this shift in conversation is his stilted, chilly attempt at a peace offering.

"Back from whence I came, I had occasional assistants and interns. Their work was invaluable. I should be so lucky as to be able to provide that to someone else now."

"Hm."

It's a sound of assent, but still doubtful if not outright hostile. It's easy to fall into the assumption that he's talking down about assistants, but Benedict is also forced to remember the way he used to talk about servants. ...and... possibly still does, but that's neither here nor there.

"Well. If you're interested in Diplomacy, I can introduce you to Byerly." Who will no doubt love him,.

It would be fair enough to assume that Diabhall's arch tone carried some sort of patronization - not that long ago, he wasn't precisely known for being caring of his own servants and interns. Making an effort to mitigate his natural coldness is a relatively recent change for him.

Still, he means what he says, and he does not flinch in the face of hostility.

"I may take you up on that sometime," he muses, pausing momentarily to take a bite of bread and cheese. Not much of an appetite. "But upon reflection, I think for now I may remain with Research to see if my initial impulse was correct. Besides - one of my old interns is in the division. Someone I know being about may help me find my footing."

"An intern?"

Benedict tilts his head, raising an eyebrow-- since when do Rifters arrive in groups?

"Who's that?"

"Indeed. Imagine my surprise, finding someone I knew at all, let alone someone who has worked for and with me."

He takes a sip of water before replying, tilting his head a little.

"Allumin Etsija. Perhaps you know him?"

That stops Benedict right in his tracks. He pauses with a cup half-lifted to his own mouth, a widening of his eyes prelude to the shit-eating smirk that crosses his face.

"Oh, I know him."

Well.

That is a reaction, isn't it?

His own face remains as neutral as ever, save for one raised eyebrow. "Oh, do you?"

"We've met."

He's still playing coy-- it's rude to kiss and tell, after all.

"He's a friendly one."

The other eyebrow goes up at this.

Diabhall has known Allumin for a long time - longer than Allumin's own memory of himself - and he imagines this must be what it feels like to the younger elf when people try to say nice things about Diabhall to him that aren't quite the whole truth.

"Friendly? Hm. I don't know many who would say that of him, precisely. Polite, certainly. Cordial when needs arise, perhaps. But not friendly." He turns his attention briefly to his plate once more, arranging some cheese with a bite of bread before looking back up, a bit of scrutiny in his stare.

"...Beyond particular contexts, mind you."

"How mysterious," Benedict remarks, without even trying to disguise his smirk; those particular contexts are exactly the ones he's referring to, of course, and if he were more self-aware in general he might realize at this moment that that's the only version of Allumin he's seen.

Oh well, there's ample time to get to know him.

"Not that he isn't also a bit of a shrinking violet," Bene continues with a little wave of his hand, "but that goes away easily enough."

"...Indeed." It's hard to say, with Diabhall's droning monotone, whether or not the word feels more or less unamused than any others.

But Benedict may as well be waving a flag that states exactly what he's driving at with his own words, or, as they case may well be, exactly who drove at Benedict. And so the elf stares him down for a long moment, the only hint of any reaction at all the slow drumming of his fingertips on the tabletop while he considers how to reply. He's not upset, really. Not with what he knows.

But stranger in a strange land and all. This young man isn't impressing him with his behavior, but there's no need for him to be surly in return. (It's clear he doesn't know Allumin that well anyway, not REALLY, not like he - oh, useless thoughts)

"Again...rather depends on the situation, but true enough, that does sound like him." Turning his eyes down to assemble another bite of food, his tone remains just as dry, just as level -

"I still have a scar or two, in fact. But nothing I didn't request."

A little laugh, and Benedict is still all pomp and smugness-- until Diabhall's meaning finally hits him, and over the course of about five seconds, his smirk slowly dissolves into something rather more uncertain.

"...scars?"

Without missing a beat, Diabhall looks back up from his bite of food, chewing and swallowing politely before speaking. The smugness appears to have faded somewhat. Interesting.

"Yes, scars. Nothing anyone will see in polite company, mind. It's as you said - he's only a shrinking violet for so long." A sip of water, expression still stone in spite of the nature of what he's saying - he brushes a stray lock of long white hair over his shoulder, freeing it from his robe collar and (perhaps with subconscious intention) granting just the tiniest peek of black leather just beneath the edge of the fabric, taut around his throat.

"But again - nothing I didn't request. My tolerance for such things is, I am told, a bit extreme."

A long silence falls between them, the wheels turning in Benedict's mind as he stares at Diabhall, considering his words.

Finally, he responds with an inconclusive "...huh."

In response, at first, Diabhall simply nods.

There is a long moment before he replies aloud, a lightness cast over that chilly and droning tone.

"Did I misread your meaning? Apologies. You seem nervous at the thought of Allumin in that particular light."

"Oh. Uh... no."

As in, no, he didn't misread his meaning, though that's all Benedict is willing to divulge at the moment; whatever his thoughts on Allumin in any particular light, he's keeping to himself.

"Ah. Very well, then."

And regardless of where the conversation had gone, the elf pivots from it with no more trouble on his face than if he had been talking about the recent weather.

"Suffice it to say, it really was a surprise to find him here. The both of us were at my estate before waking here."

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