Absently, Benedict takes the wine glass and simply chills it again (ironically, the less he's paying attention to it, the more successfully he does so) and hands it back, still avoiding eye contact.
"I was angry," he admits, "I wanted to go home. But there were people here, who..." are mostly gone now, but, "...convinced me to try. To make something of it. I'd been given a chance, so I got a job as the chamberlain, started sort of-- almost-- fitting in. I stopped writing letters home, hadn't done one in over a year when I got a message from Mother."
The small muscles in his face twitch: this is clearly not a pleasant memory.
"She had," he begins, with the air of knowing full well how this sentence will be perceived, "...sold... someone very important to me. I had to return to Tevinter and speak to her to find out where they'd been sent. To whom. --and I brought a friend with me, who was interested in helping freed slaves. My intention was to purchase the slave from her new master, then bring her back south, but I was stupid. It was a trap."
Another little twitch, and the rapid blinking that accompanies twinges of old pain, his lip curling as he holds back a stronger emotion.
"I mean-- the others made it back. It worked, in a way. I still have no idea where they ended up, where she's living now. My friend was a rifter, and she's -- gone." In the way that only rifters can be.
"--but I stayed behind, with my mother. I was. Weak, I thought she'd been hurt." That look again, like there's a needle being slowly inserted into his arm, and he's just trying not to notice it. "She... held me there, for a time. Made herself clearer, what she wanted. And then sent me back here again."
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Absently, Benedict takes the wine glass and simply chills it again (ironically, the less he's paying attention to it, the more successfully he does so) and hands it back, still avoiding eye contact.
"I was angry," he admits, "I wanted to go home. But there were people here, who..." are mostly gone now, but, "...convinced me to try. To make something of it. I'd been given a chance, so I got a job as the chamberlain, started sort of-- almost-- fitting in. I stopped writing letters home, hadn't done one in over a year when I got a message from Mother."
The small muscles in his face twitch: this is clearly not a pleasant memory.
"She had," he begins, with the air of knowing full well how this sentence will be perceived, "...sold... someone very important to me.
I had to return to Tevinter and speak to her to find out where they'd been sent. To whom. --and I brought a friend with me, who was interested in helping freed slaves. My intention was to purchase the slave from her new master, then bring her back south, but I was stupid. It was a trap."
Another little twitch, and the rapid blinking that accompanies twinges of old pain, his lip curling as he holds back a stronger emotion.
"I mean-- the others made it back. It worked, in a way. I still have no idea where they ended up, where she's living now. My friend was a rifter, and she's -- gone."
In the way that only rifters can be.
"--but I stayed behind, with my mother. I was. Weak, I thought she'd been hurt." That look again, like there's a needle being slowly inserted into his arm, and he's just trying not to notice it.
"She... held me there, for a time. Made herself clearer, what she wanted. And then sent me back here again."