faderift | open | now give me something to believe in.

WHO: Cassian Andor & you
WHAT: A liaison from the Shadow Dragons arrives
WHEN: Bloomingtide
WHERE: Minrathous + Kirkwall
NOTES: Some injury description

arrival.

It’s a late spring night when a stranger arrives at the Widow Tavisa’s Boarding House.

Most regular guests would take the front entrance and speak to the innkeeper in the main room; but this one slips through the back entrance and takes an out-of-the-way servant’s staircase, into a shuttered wing of the building which isn’t supposed to be open to the public. But those rare people in the know might be aware that this leads to Riftwatch’s secret outpost in Minrathous —

The darkhaired man slumps against the locked door leading into their safehouse. He knocks on the door in a fixed, staccato rhythm identifying him as an ally. He has a hand pressed to his side with worrisome urgency, jaw tight and teeth gritted against the pain; he knocks again a little louder, in case whoever’s on watch is dozing.

No one’s expecting a new arrival right at this hour. It’s not ideal.

settling in.

After finally getting vetted and officially joining, Cassian tucks the Riftwatch pin into his pocket and starts to get the lay of the land, gathering information, pressing a finger to the pulse of this new city he’s going to be calling home.

There’s a kind of amiable affability to this new arrival, his smile calculated to be inoffensive and mild, even as the gears are very busily ticking away behind his dark-brown eyes.

You might find him at the Gallows bar, pouring himself a drink and smoothly sliding into the chair at your table to pry: “So, what’s your favourite place in the Gallows or Kirkwall?”

Or wandering the battlements of the towers and looking out across the city. Rebuilding is expensive, and so some parts of Kirkwall still bear the marks of the Venatori attack a little over a year ago: collapsed buildings that never got raised again, battle-scars and scorch marks from dracolisks. “What was it like?” he asks. “The Venatori attack.”

He also goes for long walks through the city, right past the alienage (although his gaze lingers), and venturing into the deeper recesses of the city slums. One particular afternoon, he emerges from Darktown blinking half-blinded into the dim light of Lowtown, which is right about when a few thieves assemble around him for an attempted mugging, knives brandished. “I really don’t have time for this,” he says to the ringleader, looking more annoyed than frightened; which is right about when a Riftwatch colleague might turn the corner and encounter the scene.

( Also happy to receive wildcards, or to write up a bespoke starter for you; just hmu @

quadrille if you’d like to discuss! )

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And there is another version of him which probably would’ve done the very thing Benedict Artemaeus feared. His mentor’s voice in his ear, saying: Take the shot. Maybe try to ransom Artemaeus for leverage (not knowing that they’ve already been there, done that). Maybe just go ahead and kill him later in his sleep, because one less Magisterium baby is one less Magisterium baby.

Good thing Luthen Rael isn’t here right now.

So instead, that realisation gets to take its merry time processing. Cassian put down his cup of tea, very carefully, and ticks back through how Benedict had described it. Unaware of the affiliations, didn’t want to go back, all of that adds up to a certain picture. He’s here, after all.

It feels like forcefully peeling his hands off the hilt of a dagger, but he forces himself to relax. Unclenching that jaw, letting the hackles sink. Doing the math.

“Disapproving, I hope,” he says, drawing a conclusion. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

(How did ‘welcoming the newbie’ manage to pivot and half-turn into ‘the personnel officer being interrogated’?)

Keeping very still, like a hare in a wolf's sights, Benedict waits until Cassian has spoken again before he even moves at all. This man does not need to know about the rest of the journey from proud Magisterium scion to here, Benedict knows that much, the Maker finally granting him a trickle of sense.

He nods again, afraid of what will come out if he speaks.

In that awkward silence, there’s no end of bitter questions that Cassian might like to ask.

Do you know, now, what sort of work your family’s been funding? Did you know there’s several Shadow Dragon cells currently gaming out how to kill Calpurnia and Aurelias? How many slaves did you grow up with? Did you have a favourite?

He’s usually so good at appearing benign and warm and friendly that the anger gets in the way, a splinter in his facade. But it’s always been there, roiling beneath the surface.

Somewhere along the way Cassian had picked up his fork, spinning it thoughtlessly in his hand, but he sets it down again when he reminds himself that he shouldn’t do anything. Good behaviour at the breakfast table.

“So long as that stays true, then we won’t have a problem,” he says, smiling. The smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

His eyes on the fork, Benedict shudders slightly in unconscious relief when it's set down again, and only then does he lift his gaze to meet Cassian's once more. He nods for a third time. Good behavior at the breakfast table.

Glancing to one side, he wonders unsubtly whether now would be a sensible time to fuck off, or if that would be taken as a rude dismissal.

In the end, Benedict is spared having to conduct an ungainly escape — and both of them spared this increasingly awkward not-conversation — when Cassian catches that sideways look, and cuts them both loose in turn.

“Thank you for checking in,” he says, mildly. “Was there anything else?”

And that, too, sounds like a dismissal; but at least a polite one.

“No,” Benedict says faintly, switching back to Trade— it feels safer somehow?— “I’ll,”

He stands, a bit too quickly; smiles a bit too brightly, “I’ll leave you to it.”

Then he takes his leave without looking back.

open | now give me something to believe in.

dying i love this

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cw just everything #tevinter

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🎀