[open-ish] I am the wheel

[altusimperius]

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?

Comments

todays byerly phone name correction: router

[dissolving]

"Half a year," Bizarre to speak it aloud, that he's stood longer now than some Rifters, or that kid from Research. Longer than the Circle. "But you're really gonna laugh."

Cedric sets box on desk, starts digging. He'll be back to the floor, just wants his face elsewhere, because:

"Rutyer sorta put me on it," Not by assignment or intention, Maker knows, but he did reframe it. Do they teach you Templar lads like they do the mages? "Gonna throw my name in for Mediation."

No reason to root in the box this long. There's nothing to find. Justification leaps unbidden to his teeth; smothered down. It's been half a year. He hasn't fucked this up.

(Wouldn't have stung like that, if he had.)

[altusimperius]

With an anticipatory grin, Benedict removes his coffee from the glyph and waves the latter away to take a sip of the former, folding his legs. Unsurprisingly, no laugh comes forth.

"Why is that funny?" he turns, arranging himself to look at Cedric, taking a momentary break from the work. "You're level-headed, you ask questions. I can think of far worse people to take the job."

Or to have already had the job, but he won't speak ill of the... departed for Orzammar.

[dissolving]

"Well, don’t know shit for dueling."

He cracks a smile, glancing up at last. Alright, so he's gone at the records a bit, but —

"Thanks," Relief slips past guard. "Just, after th'other day."

A shrug. He considers, surrounded by all the evidence of skill; of Benedict's tangible domain:

"Y'ever feel like a fraud at this?"

[altusimperius]

"All the time."

He doesn't even wait to answer, turning back around to focus on taking a drink from his coffee,

"by 'the other day' do you mean our crystal conversation? They're," a pause to stare off in the distance, collecting his thoughts, "like that, often."

[dissolving]

Still a fraud,

"Dunno if that's a relief, or a warning."

A shame, maybe foremost. Cedric's seen Benedict roll over of an argument, only that's not the same thing as skill, is it? However Artemaeus went about that talk, he got them all to talk. This is his domain.

"Guess 's partly the conversation," Not the bits Benedict heard, "But more... still not used to it, y'know? No one in charge, no one's got final say. Dunno how the dwarves ever did it."

Maybe the Circle Colleges are a closer, apter comparison. Not one he's about to invoke.

[altusimperius]

"It can be both," he wryly casts over his shoulder, and then, after draining the last of his coffee, sets the empty cup down and swivels himself and all his paperwork to be facing Cedric again.

"It's not as easy as it was. Byerly can be crude and petty, but he's decisive, cares a great deal, and he stepped up to a thankless task-- one we're all distributing among ourselves now. I'm not sure anyone knows how to do it, and it was much easier to blame him for any chaos than it is to shoulder it collectively."

A brusque little laugh as he looks down, "Mother would be so proud." He flips a page, "I've become a Senator after all."

[dissolving]

The twinge of a smile isn't exactly funny. Acknowledgment, maybe, of the way things come back around. A fiddler. A splinter of authority. Walk on it long enough, and a limp just falls into your stride.

"You ever miss it? Must've been asked that a hundred times."

[altusimperius]

The resulting is slightly uncomfortable, but could be moreso, all things considered.

"I have," he admits, "but-- I do, sometimes. The weather, mostly, and being surrounded by fine things and never having to do any work for myself." He smiles wryly, fully aware of how punchable he was-- is?

"I don't miss the expectation of becoming a Magister." Flips another page, glances at it, sorts it, "I was never cut out for it. It would've been a disaster. ...and anyway, Mother will probably keep herself alive for so long, I'd never have been able to inherit in the first place."

[dissolving]

"Reckon I'd go crazy," Admission. "Never doing nothing myself."

Reckon by now, Benedict might too.

[altusimperius]

"Yeah." He pauses, chewing the inside of his cheek, and looks up with an odd expression.
"Crazy, or just... high all the time." To be fair, he's only high about a third of the time these days.

[dissolving]

He hadn't really considered it. Sure, Artemaeus smokes a lot. Knows plenty for wine. Hasn't looked so much like a problem,

"Yeah?" Save that Benedict's got a look just now, like it might be a problem. "What's that been like?"

[altusimperius]

"Being high all the time?" The presence comes back into his face, a smile follows: "you miss a lot, but it feels nice in the moment."

He finishes sorting his current pile, tapping at the edges with both hands to neaten the silhouette, "sometimes I think I'd rather still be idle. Sunbathing on the Nocen shore all day, surrounded by beautiful attendants, eating and drinking whatever I fancy. It seems like a dream that life was ever like that at all."

He lies the stack neatly onto another, and marks it into his notes.

"But now it'd just be strange. I'd... well I'd miss everyone, for one thing. And, you know, the rest of the world doesn't stop turning just because you're closed off from it. Nothing will ever be like it was."

[dissolving]

He thinks better than to ask whether the attendants were human, and whether they were paid. Let his thrice-great grandmother strike him down. It won't be like it was. Benedict, at least, isn't going back to that life. It coils unspoken in the space above his tongue: Nothing will be like it was, but some of it, some of it probably will be.

(The Circles. If they've seen anything of this war, it's the consequence of magic unrestrained. It won't be them who decides it, but —

His hand curls about the anchor. If they live to see it, it'll both of them that do.)

"Y'ever make plans for after?"

The world doesn’t stop turning just because you're closed off. Maybe this is the problem, part of it: They still have to work together. That's easier, among friends.

[altusimperius]

His hand stilling on a new stack, Benedict takes his time absorbing the question, staring-- somehow, only just now for the first time, it strikes him that he has not made plans. A familiar little surge of unease tightens within his chest, and he purses his lips a moment, thinking how best to answer.

Nobody wants to witness a full anxiety meltdown during a casual conversation.

"Not," he says clumsily, "not-- solidly, no." He turns back to smile at Cedric, but in place of reassurance there's a distant fear in his eyes, the face of a prey animal unsure if it's been spotted.

[dissolving]

Standing, set back, his hands in plain view —

He's been spotted, maybe even before this. Cedric is a lot of things, friendly, and level-headed, and observant. That doesn't need to be a threat. Sometimes looks it. If he holds Benedict's eye, his voice is gentle,

But he holds Benedict's eye.

"You got time. Any Circle'd be lucky to have you," They mean something else, he knows. In Tevinter, they mean something else. For now. "That's where 'm going, after this."

Wherever the Chantry bids.

https://i.imgflip.com/4zo9ae.png

[altusimperius]

He's got time.

There's a nearly tangible drop in temperature between them as Benedict meets Cedric's gaze, his body and expression both still as stone. It's not Cedric's fault, perhaps, that talk of Templars and Circles and his place there has this effect on him-- but the words are out there, now.

"Well," he says, levelly, but with that same threatened hare look in his eye, "I'm not."

https://64.media.tumblr.com/aa26ba6d471c6dfe0011ae70443f7960/tumblr_osvu27S6ih1tpri36o1_500.png

[dissolving]

The dip of his chin's acknowledgment: Yeah, thought that's how that'd go,

"Sure," Bad odds as an apostate; more likely, some brief exception. Circles got ambassadors. Estates got advisors. Imperium's full of mages will need a transition, "Just... what we got here, 's not so different."

An isolated tower. A strange gaggle of them, bundled together, set to rules and reports. It's half funny, sometimes, how close the rebels have hewn to this place. Maybe says something,

"So I gotta act like it means the same."

Cedric steps for the door. Knows damn well when he's cornered someone: This is Benedict's domain,

Conscious to cede that.

"Let y'know if I turn anything up."

[altusimperius]

"Mmhm," Benedict grunts, visibly relieved by Cedric beginning to take his leave; he picks up another scroll, finally, but keeps watch from behind it, any previously existing friendliness now well and truly gone.

The scroll trembles slightly in his grip. He doesn't say more, his jaw clamped shut so tightly he probably couldn't if he wanted to.