faderift | [open-ish] I am the wheel

Entry tags:

[open-ish] I am the wheel

WHO: Benedict Artemaeus and his many friends and admirers
WHAT: catch-all
WHEN: Solace
WHERE: around the Gallows
NOTES: HMU if you want a closed prompt, wildcards also welcome

I. Diplomacy office (open to first taker only please)

It's sweltering at the top of the central-- only-- tower, but nonetheless Benedict is there to dig through the files he himself organized over the past however many years, possessed by some spirit of Diligence (not actually, don't worry) to overhaul the whole system once he found what he was initially looking for.

A mug of forgotten coffee sits on the desk that used to be his, and he himself sits on the floor, cigarette in mouth as he leafs through some folio or another, sorting its contents into new piles.

II. Birthday Boy (ota)

The heat has temporarily broken for the evening, with a lovely little breeze slipping into the Gallows over the harbor. Benedict has parked himself out on the makeshift beach where he'd hosted the party, resting across a blanket and some pillows, with a bottle of wine and his water pipe to accompany him. It's a familiar sight for late July: a small party thrown for himself, to which anyone who feels like stopping by is invited and offered a drink and a toke.

He rests back on his elbows over a pillow, the pipe's hose pressed thoughtfully between his lips as he looks out at the sea, the picture of quiet serenity.

for Clarisse

It's midday, and the tower is quiet, with everyone heads down over their respective tasks; but if Clarisse is concentrating, this is likely interrupted by the little rap on her doorframe as Benedict pokes his head around. Neighbors.

"I'm making coffee," he sleepily announces, "want any?"

for Caius

The person in Caius' tent is not the person he met up in Tevinter, though that should hardly be a surprise, considering how the mission resolved; Benedict still, uncannily, maintains all of Fausta's mannerisms, even if he's not required to play-act anymore.

"I tried to snatch the best-smelling one," he informs Caius as he shows him to the tent, "which isn't saying a lot, but. We do what we can."
Batting the flap open reveals that he's done his best to make it homey, with an assortment of pillows and throws and tapestries that all seem to convene around his beloved water pipe, currently sitting dormant. A smoky, strong but not unpleasant aroma lingers within the space, suggesting that it was used recently-- but at least not inside, or they'd be suffocating.

for Abby

The Noose is moderately busy for a weeknight, but not so packed as to be suffocating. It's not unusual to find Benedict there, tucked comfortably against one of the walls with a mug of wine as he works or draws or just people watches-- it's safe to say he hasn't gone on one of his little dockside excursions since before the Envy Demon Incident, as much as he may want to. If nothing else, security is key, and getting too drunk is antithetical to that.

When he sees Abby's familiar face, he meets her eyes with a playful little quirk of his mouth and a nudge of his head. Sit with me?

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Clarisse is... well, she's in her office, if not concentrating. She has some paperwork sitting in front of her, but when Benedict pops his head in he definitely catches her doodling on her forearm with some black ink and a little brush.

"Oh, hey." A very smooth recovery as she sits up straight and smears ink across one of the papers with her arm.

"Fuck. Uh, yeah, actually. Coffee sounds good."

Benedict's little cat-smile forms-- yes, he saw, and isn't going to say anything-- and he nods.

"We don't have much," he admits, "but Byerly gave me a bag of his stash when I got the new position."

A pause,

"if you want a break, I can show you how to make it."

How to make it? Huh. A wild new idea she's never thought of before, but not a bad one.

"Okay." Clarisse gets up from her seat and crosses the room to him. "I've actually never made coffee before."

She's never made a lot of things before, actually. Jude was showing her how to bake bread, sort of, before he disappeared. But cooking anything other than, like, ramen? No.

He waits, supported by one shoulder on the doorframe until Clarisse approaches, when he straightens to lead the way to the stairs and the kitchens.

"I learned how when I started working for Byerly," he explains, "I had no idea. I had to run all the way down to the infirmary to ask a friend what to do."

She follows him, hands in her pockets. "It seems like it should be easy." In theory she knows what she's supposed to do. It's just beans and hot water, right? But there has to be something more to it, otherwise people would just chuck coffee beans into a mug like tea leaves.

"When I was growing up we never cooked," she says. "We had dryads who served everything." So convenient, until you're an adult living on your own and don't know how to make spaghetti.

"Neither did we," Benedict admits, with a small, relieved chuckle-- not the only poor little rich fuck present, it seems-- "it was mostly, um. Slaves."
You know, same thing???

"--but I," he quickly adds, "I sort of like doing it. For myself."

There's a slight raise of Clarisse's eyebrows at that, but not much of one. She's familiar enough with the ways this world works, by now. And it's not like the ancient Greeks were any better.

"It's good to be able to make something when you want it," she admits. "Not to have to rely on anyone else."

"It's true," he cheerfully agrees, "and-- I never thought I'd see myself making something for someone else, but there we were." And here they are.

He leads the way into the kitchen, where a few workers acknowledge his presence and return to their duties-- it seems he's something of a regular in here, even if there aren't many words exchanged.

"What's a dryad?" he asks, beginning to prepare the boiling pot.

Weird the way things change, huh.

Clarisse follows him in and leans up against a table to watch Benedict do his thing. She's not as familiar with the kitchen staff, or the kitchen, and has only been in here a handful of times.

"Nature spirits. Wood nymphs, specifically."

"Spirits," Bene repeats, leaning to put the kettle over the fire, "like--" He looks over his shoulder at her, "--spirits?"

He vaguely recalls a conversation with Clarisse, one of their first, in which they talked about magic: unfortunately, he was very drunk at the time and doesn't remember the meat of it.

"Yeah," she says with a raised eyebrow, "they were all over the place where I used to live. And water spirits in the canoe lake, and satyrs helping out... monsters in the woods..."

Clarisse, too, is pretty sure they had some kind of conversation once upon a time that might have touched on this. But Benedict was drunk and she was still in her too-cool-to-make-friends era and she can't remember what she said to him.

"I lived at a secret camp for demigods," she says, just to make sure they're on the same page. "Kids who have one mortal parent and one godly parent. I grew up there."

This is certainly a page for them to be on. He gives her an odd look, but has to accept that this isn't even the strangest thing a Rifter has told him about their home world-- that she's so blasé about it is impressive, and also a little bit funny, if he's being honest.

"Like-- actual gods?" he asks, coming back to the counter, "like a Corypheus god," which is to say someone trying to attain godhood, "or like the Maker?"

Clarisse tries to think about how to explain this.

"Neither, I guess. Real gods, but not one supreme being who created everything. There are twelve major gods in power, the Olympians, and a ton of minor gods with their own domains. And a lot of them have kids with mortals. Half-bloods, we're called, or demigods. My father is Ares, the god of war."

She's been in Thedas long enough to understand that nobody here really gives a shit who her dad is, so she sounds a lot less smug about it than she would have, say, a year ago. There's still some pride in her voice, but... a normal amount of it.

"Huh."

Sort of like the Dalish have, he thinks-- or is it?-- but, "sounds a bit like the Imperial Senate."

He's half-joking, a smirk on his face as he pours beans into a grinder and begins to work at them, "the Magisters preside over the non-Magister Senators, who preside over everyone else, at least in name."

She smirks, laughing through her nose. "Yeah. Kind of like that, I guess." In broad terms.

Clarisse leans closer to watch, inhaling the smell of the coffee beans as Benedict grinds them. "Smells good." She's always liked it, even more than the taste of the coffee itself.

"It does," he agrees, grinding for a moment longer before it's time to pour the grounds.

"Of course-- the only people really presiding are the Magisters, even if there's nominally power in the lower ranks. It's the highest you can get if you aren't from an old family, which is one of the reasons Tevinter is the way it is."

Which is to say: totally awesome, but maybe also kind of problematic sometimes.

"That's how it is for us, too. The gods are in charge, behind the scenes. And it seems like regular mortals have the power, but almost all of the really powerful people have godly blood in them, so..." so it's really just the gods, still? In a way?

"It's not great," she admits. "But I get it. If you have all that power, why would you give that up?"

It's probably good nobody is paying attention to them right now.

Somebody definitely is, but it's all elves and servants and servant elves, and they already know exactly who they're dealing with anyway.

"And that's how," Benedict sighs theatrically, pouring the grounds into the percolator (or whatever, I'm not looking it up), "we got here." Because apparently some bitches think they can walk into the Fade and become gods.

"Makes you wonder if it'll ever really change," he muses, now pouring the water, "I mean... locking away mages is one way to keep them out of power, I suppose."

"I think things can change." Clarisse shrugs a shoulder. "Maybe not all the way, all at once, but if enough people give a shit and put in the work."

She's saying this as someone who stayed on the "nah, things are fine" side during the Titan war, but her feelings on that are too complicated to lay out in this conversation. But she does add, "From everything I've seen, locking people up doesn't work as a long-term solution though."

Benedict gives a funny little laugh, a little too high and sudden, but doesn't explain or even acknowledge it-- he rests his chin on his hand and waits for the coffee to start doing its thing, a strained, faraway smirk on his face.

"No, probably not," he muses, "one hopes there's a middle ground, and I think Riftwatch has done its fair amount of work in that regard. We'll just have to see how the chips fall when all's said and done."

She raises her eyebrows at that laugh, not sure whether she should ask or not. Finally she decides Benedict will tell her if he wants her to know.

"What do you think will happen to rifters then? After the war." Eventually, it will end, right? When all's said and done.

It's fair to say he doesn't want her to know, at least for now-- it'll come to light eventually, because it always does.

But in the meantime, he calms slightly, focusing on the coffee pot with his brow knitted slightly.

"I don't know," he admits, "...if we can fix the rifts, I. Don't know." An uncertain glance up at Clarisse, "what do you hope will happen?"

"I dunno," Clarisse says, but in a drawn out way that hints otherwise. She does know what she hopes will happen, but part of her is afraid if she says it out loud it'll be like jinxing it.

But that's stupid. Right? It's stupid.

"I guess I hope we can just stay here." Maybe not in the Gallows, specifically, but like... Kirkwall or something.

Though he's quiet for a moment, Benedict can't stop a little relieved smile from twitching over his mouth.

"I do too," he admits, with a furtive glance up at Clarisse. he'd miss you bitch

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[open-ish] I am the wheel

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