WHO: Benedict, some other people, you?? WHAT: just a catch-all WHEN: tra-la, it's may, the lusty month of may WHERE: around and about NOTES: If you'd like something bespoke I'm happy to include it!
Octavius can relate, though he thinks better of bringing up his own experience with violation of his living space and his autonomy. (Given, well, Benedict's mother was the one responsible for making it happen.)
He's got a few maps and tapestries in his arms when Benedict asks that question, and nearly catches his toe on a loose brick. "No," he admits, checks where he's going this time, and heads over to the desk to set them down just for now. One quick, neurotic look at the door, but in truth he's given up on the disguise anyway. "It's like he turns into a bloody ghost after he's been at Skyhold for a few months. Did you know they have his phylactery?"
"Ew," Benedict intones, with more breath than voice, turning to look at Tavi in mild horror, "no." It's one thing to keep phylacteries, a vile enough practice, but to keep Atticus' phylactery?
"Why don't they just track him down like a Southern mage, then?" he asks, drawing up a tapestry from the pile Tavi just set down, to get a better look at it. "They're hardly above that."
"That's the strange part," Octavius says while tugging over a chair, clambering up onto it (wobble-wobble), and reaching up to collect a few more maps off the walls. He wobble-wobbles alarmingly for another moment or two before hopping safely back to the ground. "Seems like his phylactery keeps insisting Father hasn't left Skyhold."
He drops this armful of, uh, stuff, on top of the other armful of stuff.
With a little scoff, Benedict goes to hold the chair still-- it wouldn't look great if the new guy brained himself in the Personnel office, especially when there's no demon to blame this time.
"Wait," he says after taking a moment to process, "what?"
"That's what I said," Octavius says. A beat, then a tip of his head and he admits, "Not in as many words, but I wrote back asking how that is even possible, and I haven't heard anything back yet."
"Well how should I know?" Snippy only because he's really thinking about it now. "I've never been to Skyhold, I don't know what the--" he waves a hand around, "--secret hidden passageway situation is like there."
settle down ladies you're both the prettiest ponies in this stable
The pissy energy fizzles out the longer he studies Benedict's scowl. Octavius frowns thoughtfully. "He never reached out to you after he left, then." It's not a question; he knows the answer.
Benedict shakes his head primly, avoiding Octavius' gaze-- he can't help himself, something about being back in the boy's-- man's-- presence has him reverting to old mannerisms and thought patterns. Like being back at home with his mother and feeling that childish helplessness. There's a spitefulness that rises in him, clawing to get out, and it's certainly not Tavi's fault.
"If he had," he sniffs, "I would have made him regret it." As if, but. Maybe somehow. Someday.
Well. What exactly is he supposed to say in response to that? Awkwardly, Octavius takes stock of what is sitting on the table waiting to be sorted, just to have somewhere to deposit his gaze while tries to get his thoughts in order.
"I'm sorry that he got you mixed up in his mess," he admits after a moment.
The awkward silence drags on for a few long seconds, enough time for Benedict to decide he can't stand it and come over to start picking up drapings, which he holds over the window (the window facing what used to be the Templar tower and which actually gets some light through it now that that's half-collapsed).
"It's not your fault," he mutters, glancing over his shoulder at Octavius, "and it worked out for the better anyway." He's not in Minrathous right now, for instance.
That response probably wasn't intended to land like a punch to the gut, but it does anyway. Octavius wavers a little bit on his feet, reaches out to steady himself against the desk, and tries to remember what sort of expression he had on his face seconds ago. Was he smiling? Frowning? Probably not the awkward rictus of a grimace that is there now. He clears his throat.
(This isn't Benedict's fault, either. Clearly, he doesn't know. Does he?)
"Yes, well," he starts, fumbles uselessly for a smooth segue into the subject of what transpired in Qarinus, and comes up empty. So he just. Lets the sentence hang, just like that.
It takes a moment for Benedict to realize how strange that reaction was, and it's something of a slow double-take that has him looking back at Octavius, eyebrow cocked inquisitively.
Even if he was capable of deftly spinning lies into existence on a whim to suit his purposes, he's not sure what good it would do here. Octavius meets Benedict's eyes, then sighs and looks aside and tucks his hands into his pockets.
What happened in Qarinus is, in truth, the instigating factor behind why Octavius has spent the last seven years in Hunter Fell. There was no safely going back, after that.
He clears his throat and begins, "Magister Artemaeus wanted to," hmm, how to put this delicately, "put pressure on Mother's family to work out some arrangement with the Inquisition, so that you would be returned to Minrathous." The ends of one of the tapestries still draped across the desk are perfect for fidgeting with while he tries to get out this next part. "She, um. Evidently thought that kidnapping me and my cousin Otho from the Nautia estate, and holding us for ransom, would be the most effective way to do that." Reluctantly, he looks up at Benedict again.
As soon as he hears his mother's title, Benedict braces for the worst: and he receives something close to it, precluded only by the fact that Octavius is still here, alive, and talking to him.
He sinks into the chair behind the little desk, lips pressed together tightly.
It's hard for Octavius to mask his dismay over Benedict's clear distress at hearing this news, but he at least manages to stop himself from saying anything about it. Instead he just sighs and hoists himself up so he's sitting on the edge of the desk, shoulders hunched and feet crossed at the ankles.
"We behaved ourselves just long enough that I suppose she thought we wouldn't ever try to find a way out." Plucking at one of the tapestry tassels again, "Once the guard on us was relaxed, we slipped out through the kitchens. Theovas was with us; I'm not sure we'd have managed it without his help."
A little huff of breath-- that's not so bad, but the tension doesn't dissipate entirely-- if there's one thing of which Benedict can be completely certain, it's that Calpurnia Artemaeus doesn't let a slight go unpunished.
"She didn't try to find you? Or go after your family?" Perhaps she was too busy with her efforts to get him back. Perhaps she didn't even notice. That'd be nice.
He glances backward over his shoulder at Benedict, then lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. "Mother's been living in Nevarra since I was sixteen, and I joined her in Hunter Fell once I escaped. Otho was safe once he made it back to the Lurias, they're virtually untouchable." Aunt Ismene had married into power and influence the Nautias could only dream of. "Father was here with you at the time, and Gran--" A pause, before he goes a little pale and looks away. "Gran Vedici did die. I don't know how; I only heard about it months after the fact."
Silence for a second or two. A breath, then, "Anyway, there's no one else left for her to go after."
A dry, mirthless little laugh: sure there is, Bene's expression seems to say, and they're right here in this room. But it's been a while since his mother took any stabs at either him or the organization-- and she may not even know Octavius is here-- which works in their favor, at least for the time being.
It's somewhere in this thought process that somehow, out of the abyss of characteristic self-involvement, there wiggles a mote of concern.
"I'm," he says haltingly, looking into the middle distance, "sorry. That that happened to you."
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He's got a few maps and tapestries in his arms when Benedict asks that question, and nearly catches his toe on a loose brick. "No," he admits, checks where he's going this time, and heads over to the desk to set them down just for now. One quick, neurotic look at the door, but in truth he's given up on the disguise anyway. "It's like he turns into a bloody ghost after he's been at Skyhold for a few months. Did you know they have his phylactery?"
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"Why don't they just track him down like a Southern mage, then?" he asks, drawing up a tapestry from the pile Tavi just set down, to get a better look at it. "They're hardly above that."
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He drops this armful of, uh, stuff, on top of the other armful of stuff.
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"Wait," he says after taking a moment to process, "what?"
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"...you don't think he's," he murmurs, "living in the walls or something?"
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Benedict scowls at the middle distance. "I've avoided it. Avoided him."
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settle down ladies you're both the prettiest ponies in this stableThe pissy energy fizzles out the longer he studies Benedict's scowl. Octavius frowns thoughtfully. "He never reached out to you after he left, then." It's not a question; he knows the answer.
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE
Like being back at home with his mother and feeling that childish helplessness. There's a spitefulness that rises in him, clawing to get out, and it's certainly not Tavi's fault.
"If he had," he sniffs, "I would have made him regret it." As if, but. Maybe somehow. Someday.
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"I'm sorry that he got you mixed up in his mess," he admits after a moment.
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"It's not your fault," he mutters, glancing over his shoulder at Octavius, "and it worked out for the better anyway." He's not in Minrathous right now, for instance.
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(This isn't Benedict's fault, either. Clearly, he doesn't know. Does he?)
"Yes, well," he starts, fumbles uselessly for a smooth segue into the subject of what transpired in Qarinus, and comes up empty. So he just. Lets the sentence hang, just like that.
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"You didn't hear about what happened in Qarinus?"
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"What happened in Qarinus?"
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He clears his throat and begins, "Magister Artemaeus wanted to," hmm, how to put this delicately, "put pressure on Mother's family to work out some arrangement with the Inquisition, so that you would be returned to Minrathous." The ends of one of the tapestries still draped across the desk are perfect for fidgeting with while he tries to get out this next part. "She, um. Evidently thought that kidnapping me and my cousin Otho from the Nautia estate, and holding us for ransom, would be the most effective way to do that." Reluctantly, he looks up at Benedict again.
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Of course she did.
As soon as he hears his mother's title, Benedict braces for the worst: and he receives something close to it, precluded only by the fact that Octavius is still here, alive, and talking to him.
He sinks into the chair behind the little desk, lips pressed together tightly.
"How did you get out?"
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"We behaved ourselves just long enough that I suppose she thought we wouldn't ever try to find a way out." Plucking at one of the tapestry tassels again, "Once the guard on us was relaxed, we slipped out through the kitchens. Theovas was with us; I'm not sure we'd have managed it without his help."
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"She didn't try to find you? Or go after your family?" Perhaps she was too busy with her efforts to get him back. Perhaps she didn't even notice. That'd be nice.
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Silence for a second or two. A breath, then, "Anyway, there's no one else left for her to go after."
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It's somewhere in this thought process that somehow, out of the abyss of characteristic self-involvement, there wiggles a mote of concern.
"I'm," he says haltingly, looking into the middle distance, "sorry. That that happened to you."
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