Benedicte Charthagnion's page

Benedicte is about to protest her over-sharing - he really does not need to know about her nakedness - when it's drowned out by the rest of what she's saying. "He did WHAT?!?" Rage, pure and hot, flames through his mind, burning bright. He and Etienne despise one another, they always have, but the thought of that vendetta being extended to his little sister is infuriating.

I'm going to kill him.

He is right on the verge of propelling himself out of the carriage to hunt his cousin down, when he remembers what he said to Elodie a year or so ago - Etienne is currently untouchable, and their own status in the family is even lower now than it was then. It's not in his nature to be rash, so he does manage to calm himself down, although his knuckles are white as his fists remain clenched. He's the older brother, which means he's supposed to be setting her an example, after all.

He lets out his breath in a long, slow hiss, and thumps the roof of the carriage, letting the driver know that they are ready to move. As it lurches into motion, he sits down and looks at Elodie as she sits facing him. "If he ever - I mean if he even thinks - I will - his internal organs will be my spell components." His rage has left him almost inarticulate.

Benedicte gives his younger sister a sardonic smile. "I somehow don't think you've been released from prison just to do manual labour. But beyond that, I wouldn't hazard a guess."

As she turns away from him and starts to change, he blinks and reddens slightly, hastily turning his back to her. The days where he was the one who used to help her into and out of her clothes are long-distant. "Right. Of course. I'll leave you to it. See you in the coach downstairs, the servants will carry your luggage down once you're ready."

She hears the door close, and has the room to herself again.

That's fair, this scene is in-depth just to help me establish our characters a bit, we will fast-forward from this scene to their arrival in Longacre

Benedicte shakes his head. "It's not a holiday, no. You - we - aren't welcome in this house right now and I think it's a good idea to put some distance between us and our beloved family." The sarcasm is biting. "It seems that someone is looking for people to do work for them, and they have heard about your... talents. They pulled some strings to get you out of prison, and I'm coming too as part of the deal." That's actually a separate deal, one made with their family to make sure he keeps an eye on her. Never mind that it effectively ends his training as a wizard, costing him his career. The alternative was that the guards would snap her neck in prison.

"As for what they want us to do, I don't know. I don't know anything about them apart from their name: Razelago. And I don't even know if that's real. They've given us an address in Longacre, Moragatalli Manor. We go there, find out what they want us to do, and do it. I'm not sure how long we'll be working for them." He pauses to let that sink in. "Our family is aware of the local ruler, Archbaron Fex. They've made some overtures to him but he's ignored them. They'd be happy if we can get an audience with him."

Benedicte doesn't particularly like much of his family at the moment - the fact so many of them want to kill his little sister will do that - but they are pretty much all he has in the world right now, apart from her. Keeping them happy seems like a sensible thing to do, which is why he has been careful in what he tells Elodie.

"So. Pack some everyday clothes that you don't mind getting dirty, and pack some nice dresses for if and when we meet the local nobility. And do it quickly please, sis. If Etienne finds out we're here, he'll do his best to make our lives miserable. Again."

"I took it with me, partly to make sure you didn't have it, partly for good luck, but also as something to remember you by. You can have it back now." He hands it to her. "I'm still not happy with what you did, but you've earned some trust after that answer."

He gives her a warning look. "Don't do anything to make me regret giving it back, ok?"

"And as for where we're going, the short answer is Longacre. No, I'd never heard of it either. It's a small town in the middle of nowhere but it's going to be our home for a bit." Thanks to you, he doesn't add. He's trying not to be bitter - he knows his sister's nature and it's not entirely her fault what she did - but even so, his whole life has been turned upside down and blaming her is the easy choice.

I know I'm handing out information in bits - if you just want an info-dump where he talks non-stop for like 10 minutes then I can do that if you prefer :)

Benedicte lets some of the tension he's been feeling relax as Elodie tells him the truth, rather than what he might want to hear, and the relief on his face is obvious. "Thank you. You dummy." This is said with a mixture of affection and exasperation as he looks at where she bit herself on the arm. "Come here." Taking her arm in his hands, he carefully wraps bandaging around the wound.

In one sense this is completely unnecessary: both of them have enough magical ability to be able to heal a minor injury like that without any difficulty. But the time, and the focus, lets some of the hostility in the room dissipate a bit.

"To answer your question, there was some magic in the potion you drank, enough to give me control of you if it's ever needed. I wanted to know if it worked, and now I know that it does I hopefully won't have to use it again. It was... let's just say it was one of the conditions for getting you out of jail. There are others, but you really do need to start packing."

The simplest way to find all the weapons Elodie had concealed in her room was for Benedicte to order her to retrieve them and give them to him, before he woke her up. He was slightly surprised by just how many there were.

It's clear that she has no memory at all of doing this, which is something he'd wanted to check. Better to find out how this ritual works now, rather than when he needs it. That said, the experience of turning her into some mindless thing was unnerving, to say the least. It's not something he particularly wants to do again.

He understands her confusion - and her anger - and he holds his arms up peacefully. "Yes, there was magic involved. How much more I tell you depends on whether I can still trust you. So. Answer me this - that student you killed." Benedicte doesn't know or care what his name was. "Everyone else is assuming that you just lost control, that you didn't mean to kill him. Is that right? Or was it deliberate?"

His time away from her has been difficult, for both of them. They're not as close right now as they were 12 months ago. But he needs to know if that underlying bond is still there. Will she tell him the truth, or not?

But the moment passes.

"It's not poison, no. If our family wanted to kill you, they would have to get through me first." Although right now I'm wondering why. He doesn't say it out loud, but the thought is practically in a speech bubble over his head.

He pours the potion into her mouth, holding her gaze while she drinks it. There's a momentary paralysis when nothing works, she can't even breathe, and then it's over as though nothing happened. She's probably about to ask her brother what it's all about when he says a command word that she doesn't quite hear and everything fades out...

...and she's sitting up on her bed, back in her room at home (although it won't be her home for much longer). From the light coming through the window, it's early afternoon. Her chains are gone, she's clean and dressed, and one of the maids has just finished brushing her hair; Benedicte gestures at her and she curtsies and leaves the room.

Benedicte nods at his sister. "I realised you didn't need to be awake for them to bathe and dress you, so I left them to get on with it. But now you need to pack. Our coach leaves this evening." He's clearly not in a mood to explain himself.

"Believe me, I'm not here because I want to be, Eloise. I'm supposed to be doing my exams in Egorian, remember? Instead, I'm..." he trails off, and looks at her silently for a moment or two before he trusts himself to speak again.

I'm cleaning up your mess. Again.

He clears his throat and starts over. "The good news is, you're getting out of here today. But I need you to drink this, before we do anything else." He hands her a potion; it's clear from his tone that she can drink it of her own free will, or he will have the guards hold her down and force her to drink it. It's the final component of a ritual their family put together: the price of letting her go free is a safeguard to ensure that in an emergency she will do exactly as he commands.

But she doesn't need to know that, so he doesn't tell her. "It will help you feel a bit better." Which is true enough: it has a negative energy component, so it will heal the various bruises and cuts she has suffered during her captivity.

Chelaxian prisons are not nice places, and there's very little in the way of daylight, so Elodie's probably not clear on how much time has passed since she has been here. But when the guards come into her cell and drag her upstairs to where Benedicte is waiting, she can see from the light that it's early in the morning.

Benedicte's fury at her actions has lasted him all the journey back from Egorian and through the meetings he has had with their family, but ultimately he still loves his sister - the sight of her bedraggled and bruised and chained is enough to make him relent... slightly. Whatever she's done, I'm glad she's out of here. He knows next to nothing of the mysterious patron who has arranged this, beyond the name Razelago, but he is glad she won't be ending her days here.

"Hello, Elo." It was never a good joke, even at the best of times, but it was always a good gauge of her mood.

The feel of her warm tongue on his wrist, lapping up his blood, feels both strange and at the same time, strangely familiar; he finds himself, almost without realising it, reaching out and gently running his fingers through her long (tangled and messy) black hair. He gives a grateful nod when she is careful not to catch his skin with her teeth. "Good girl. That's my good girl." He carries on like this for several long minutes, letting her feed; before wrapping his hand around her hair and (gently but firmly) pulling her head back, away from his wrist.

"That's enough for now, Kittykat." It's said with a smile: the lapping of her tongue and the slight noise she made, like a cat's purr, made him think of it. But it's an affectionate nickname that will stick; although he'll never call her that in front of anyone else.

He gives her a smile and a critical look as he sees traces of blood still on her lips and the middle of her chin. "Hold still." He uses his thumb and forefinger, like the quasi-parent he almost is, to wipe the red away.

Benedicte carefully hides a smile at his little sister's pleading, which has reached the 'I'm not tired can I stay up a bit longer' stage. "First, you've no idea how much blood you need - and I seriously doubt you need it in place of food. If I come down to breakfast tomorrow and you're not eating toast and eggs and everything else in sight, then I'll be surprised. Second, you got those teeth ages ago - if blood was vital to you then you'd have gone for someone before now."

He gives her a stern look. "No servants, no beggars, no orphans, no animals. I'll give you some of my blood from time to time and we'll see how we go. If it really does turn out that you need it in order to survive, we'll reconsider. But I think you'll be just fine."

With all that said, he does believe her when she says that the few sips from Arthur have made her thirsty for more. "I'm not about to let you bite me - I'd have trouble explaining the wounds to our apothecary. So..."

Drawing a knife from his belt, he presses the blade to his wrist with a slight gasp of pain as it cuts his flesh. The blood starts to well up, and flow out in a steady trickle. "Here you go, Elle." He holds out his arm for her to feed from. "No biting, remember."

His little sister's plan to feed off the servants is as horrifying and badly thought out as he had feared, and he hurries to try and set her straight in language she will understand. Right and wrong don't come into it. "Good servants are hard to find, Elodie. They have to be competent, loyal, and discreet. The rest of the family values having good servants much more than they value having you. So please don't do anything that will make the good servants leave. Or the rest of our family will... will not be happy with you. And you will be punished." It's hard to tell an eight-year-old that the rest of their family will put her down without a second thought and Benedicte can't bring himself to tell her that directly.

"But you're right: I can't feed you every day. Once a week or so will have to do. Which I would point out is a lot better than you're getting right now." He looks her straight in the eyes. "So do we have a deal? No more biting or trying to feed from anyone else?"

Benedicte gives a heavy sigh. "You're not cursed, Elodie. You're just... different." He gives a silent prayer of thanks that she has talked through her idea with him before putting it into action.

"Biting the servants is a terrible idea. If they panic, or you lose control, I just... it could go so badly wrong." All they need is a blood-caked servant running through the hallways screaming, and the rest of the family will decide she's too much of a liability.

He sees the shape of an idea, and he doesn't like it. But it beats the alternatives. "Alright, here's what we're going to do. If I let you feed on me, do you promise to leave everyone else alone? No biting at school, no more animals, no servants."

Yeah, this is Cheliax so I figured they're not shy about punishing kids - it's more that if it had been one of our cousins, they would have got a couple of hits for doing what you did; but because it's you, they pretty much carried on until their arm got tired. Sort of reinforces that the rest of the family is against her, except for him.

"Well..." Benedicte puffs out his cheeks and wishes - yet again - there was a grown up to handle this. He's only five years older than she is, this shouldn't be on his shoulders. And yet.

"Well, you didn't kick anyone. So there's that. Thank you for sticking to our agreement." He lets her put her feet on his lap while he thinks about what to say next. "Biting people, though... that's not ideal. It's new, though, I mean you're finding new ways to get into trouble rather than doing the same old same old." He smiles at her, but it's not really funny.

"So... how do we make it so this doesn't happen again? Do we just need to start serving your meat extra rare?"

He sighs as the silence draws out - she doesn't seem to appreciate his humour. Valuable lesson time is being lost, but that isn't on her, he reminds himself. "They shouldn't have called you a freak. I will go down there and remind them of that myself, if I have to. But work with me here, Elle. How do we stop this happening again? What do you need? Was it the blood that set you off?"

Benedicte gives a quiet sigh as he sees what has happened. There is a time and a place for beatings, but you don't normally inflict that level of punishment on a child. But then, he knows there are some in their family who see her as a monster rather than a kid.

He sits down on the bed near her, careful not to disturb where she's bruised - he was going to give her a pat on the shoulder, but he settles for softly squeezing her foot instead, a gesture that puts into words what he doesn't need to say: I'm on your side. "We both know I'm not going anywhere, Elodie." He shakes his head, aware with every minute that passes that he is falling further and further behind in his studies.

Still. This is important. "So, what did you do this time? Have you been kicking the boys in - between their legs again?" He carefully changes what he was going to say: he doesn't know how much she knows about anatomy, and he does not want to be the one who has to explain it to her. "I thought we'd agreed you weren't going to do that any more."

Benedicte pauses briefly to collect his thoughts before knocking on the door of his little sister's room and letting himself in. He's annoyed at being dragged away from his own studies to deal with whatever new mischief she has cooked up, but taking that out on her achieves nothing - she's eight years old, he reminds himself. Which is still probably old enough to know better.

But he's not here to punish her - someone else will have done that already - he's here to work out what's going on and try and stop it, before their family decides that she is too much of a nuisance to keep around. Breathing in deeply, and then out again, he pushes the door open and gives her a smile.

"Hello, Elo." It's a very bad (non-)joke, the sort of dad-joke that their own father would never make; but it tells of the sort of quasi-parental role he has been forced into ever since their mother died in childbirth. It's a very bad joke, but it's a very good way of gauging Elodie's mood: on a good day she'll just roll her eyes, and if it's bad, she'll snarl at him instead. Knowing what mood she's in lets him know how best to approach her.

"Hello, Elo." His voice is still in the process of breaking; it cracks and warbles slightly.