Cult AU

[keenly]

Dramatis Personae

ADIUTA
Elven Servant
Friendly but brainwashed.

MASTER INPROBUS
?????
Just a nice guy.

HARIOLUS
False Divine
Was not elected as Divine in Tevinter, so started a cult claiming himself as the true Divine.

EWAN
Praestes
Trying for promotion?

FAMULA
Human Servant
Serves Benedict.

FAMULA
Human Servant
Was forced to sever two of her fingers.

Comments

the last time they're all together

[keenly]

When Colin starts awake, his head hurts. He vaguely remember he was hit on it, but can't remember how. Dried blood has crusted in his hair and on his forehead, but that's the least uncomfortable thing right now. He's slung across a horse and bound to the saddle like cargo. Lifting his head, he blinks a few times and squints, trying to find someone he knows.

[altusimperius]

He may not see Benedict right away, but anyone could certainly hear him, whining as he is behind the gag in his mouth. He's wriggling fruitlessly around on the back of the first horse in the line, having never fallen unconscious but been subdued and hogtied all the same.

When he sees Colin lift his head, he gives a muffled cry of alarm. Hey Colin: we're being kidnapped.

He knows Athessa is behind them somewhere, but it's too dark to see her.

[sulahnan]

That's because she's looking down at her hands, bound together with rough rope and attached to the rearmost saddle. The cord creaks when she flexes her hands, trying to find any slack in her bonds, but every time she so much as tugs on the rope, the man on the horse turns to glower at her.

When she does look up, her elfin eyes reflecting the moonlight in eerie green, the man decides that it's impertinence and kicks his horse into a faster walk, forcing Athessa to keep pace or be dragged.

"Look at me again and I'll have that eye out, rabbit. Keep moving!"

[keenly]

He could disrupt everything if his head would stop spinning, but just reaching for a healing spell leads him to a brick wall. The manacles around his wrists have a rune engraved that's stopping him from casting. They're not dead yet, so their future doesn't look very bright. They'll be wanted for information, and Colin has no faith in his ability to hold up under torture.

He hears Bene and meets his gaze; hears whoever it is harassing Athessa and suddenly starts struggling. He has no plan for what to do if he gets to her, but his confused brain is making him try anyway.

Soon they stop before what looks like a fort with a wooden wall surrounding. Several people meet them, start untying the two men from the horses. Another blow against Colin's head does just enough to cause his knees to buckle and his struggle to end. Someone shoves him forward, and he stumbles in the correct direction.

Athessa's First Night In Paradise

[altusimperius]

No matter how she struggles or spits or fights, the captors glean painfully early that her legs are the problem. Once she's been dragged into the barn, all it takes is two cracks of a hammer, hard enough to fracture (but not splinter) both femurs, and satisfaction is reached.

With her bound hands looped over a hook, Athessa is dragged into a sitting position and left to wait.

[sulahnan]

She stays conscious for the first leg, but not the second. Her screams are outside of herself, and herself is retreating further and further into darkness.

When an involuntary muscle spasm twitches in her left leg, the sharp pain jolts her awake and she cries out, biting down hard on the gag and struggling against the hook with arms that are already alight with pins and needles from being held upright. How long has she been out? Surely only a few minutes.

She strains, trying to pull herself up with only the strength of her upper body, but she can't. She tries again, and cries out in pain and frustration when her arms begin to shake from the struggle and she drops back onto her rear. The reverberation from her hips to thighs heightens the pain enough that she almost retches, almost blacks out again.

Tears stream down her face and soak into the gag, and the salt stings a split in her lip where one of the men had struck her. Ow.

[altusimperius]

It seems like an eternity that Athessa is left alone, in pain, in the dark. When light finally spills onto the stairway leading down into the cellar, a brief exchange is made between a man's voice-- the one issuing commands at the transport-- and a second softer one, which answers obediently.
The door closes, plunging the room back into darkness safe for a lit candle which draws ever nearer, revealing the thin form of an elf in a light linen shift.
Her eyes are pale and moony, her hair so blonde it's nearly white and her face thin, starved even, but gentle as she kneels beside Athessa and extends one skeletal hand to rest on her thigh.

Immediately, Athessa will perceive that the bone is healing, but the stranger pulls her little hand away before the job can be completed.

"That's all for now," she whispers, in a thin, girlish voice, "but if you're good, my love, the rest will follow."

[sulahnan]

Perhaps it would've been kinder not to heal her at all, but the cruelty is probably the point, isn't it? Athessa can feel her bones shifting, can feel an agonizing tug on her marrow, and the pain has her crying out against the cloth in her mouth and more tears making tracks in her dirt-and-blood caked face.

She tries to say "please, just let me go," but the gag doesn't let it get any further than her teeth.

On Mages and Their Superiority

[sulahnan]

Inside the wooden fortress is not, as might be expected, the base of operations for a secret militia or a band of thieves and murderers. On the contrary, it is almost unsettlingly normal.

The fortress has been converted into a community, with shops and houses and stables and plots for farming, and other than the armed guards making their rounds and posted at every exit, one might believe that it is simply a refitted old fort housing refugees.

Until, that is, one makes note of the segregation being practiced between the men and women. Or the cavalier use of magic out in the open, or the way that every mage has behind them a servant with bowed and shaven heads and brands on their cheeks. These servants are of both genders, and do not dare to set eyes on anything but the ground beneath their feet.

In the center of the fortress is a structure far better maintained than the rest of it, and adorned with what might be considered religious symbols, but they're not that of the Chantry or any known sect that either Benedict or Colin are familiar with. It is into this building that the men are ushered, and brought before a man in simple, white robes.

"Welcome, my children," he intones, hands held before him as if in prayer. "To your new home." Then, to the guards: "Take them downstairs."

[altusimperius]

Something along the lines of 'new home, what the fuck' comes from behind Benedict's gag, his face a mask of terror and incredulity as he shakes his head at the guards coming to remove them even further.
He glances frantically to Colin, at least reassured to see that he's still here.

[keenly]

Colin's eyes roll toward Benedict, but his head still is still lolling, his body still limp from the paralysis. He's not the least bit calmed by any of the words yet spoken. If anything, they mean they aren't prisoners of war until the war ends, but permanent hostages.

[sulahnan]

Because Colin is the easiest to move with minimal coercion, he is the first to be led past the man in white towards a steep, stone staircase that descends into the bowels of the fortress. Benedict is second, treated with a firm but gentle hold on his elbows and carried if he will not walk.

Though the stairwell itself is poorly lit and prone to eerie shadows that stretch forth their inky fingers to caress the heels of the men as they make their way, the room that they are taken to is bathed in warm light and smells of sandalwood, cypress, and oils. Wooden bath tubs line the rectangular room on either side, and beside each tub awaits a servant and a cart of phials and neatly folded linens.

The servants do not move until one of the guards snaps his fingers. When he does, four of them approach Benedict and Colin in silence and begin to undress them.

Benedict - Getting Settled

[sulahnan]

Despite being assured that he's been requested specifically, despite their knowledge about who he is and his prestigious bloodline, Benedict's accommodations are as humble as the simple robes he's been given. The robes are undyed linen, the room is sparsely furnished with the bare essentials - which might seem a luxury compared to a dungeon or even a southern Circle tower - but the sensibilities are a modern hybrid between Orlesian and Tevinter architecture and style.

The Praestes that escorts Benedict to his room says little, engages less, and locks the door behind him with the simple instruction: "Wait here."

A servant is left with him, presumably to tend to his needs if he has them. This one has not had her head shaved, is only marginally less starved than the Famulae from the baths, and she very carefully avoids eye contact. Speaking to her betters without prompt is forbidden.

[altusimperius]

Having grown up in a house with elf slaves trained rather similarly, Benedict at least has the presence of mind not to push the woman's limits or expect any particular treatment or information from her. He's seen how the slaves would cower in fear of his mother. He's not a fool.

"...you can just relax," he says to her after a moment, his tone serious and perhaps even dismissive. "Tell me something about this place, if it won't get you mutilated. Otherwise, just sit there and." He shrugs. "Take a nap."

[sulahnan]

If anything, his assurances make the girl look more tense, verging on fearful. She shakes her head.

"If I am caught sleeping—"

[altusimperius]

"Then--" Maker, this is hard. "--then talk to me, or don't. I don't care. I'll be getting out of here, and I suppose when it's safe then you will too."

Night 2 Benedict

[altusimperius]

The previous night, Benedict had managed to simply walk out the door of his little domicile, and though he had been hurriedly rushed back in, with a guard posted outside for the rest of the night, no real harm had come to him or the Famula chosen to be his companion.

With the solemn (and totally false) promises that he would stay put and do as he's told from now on, Benedict waits until around midnight and then, rather than cause any arguments, surreptitiously Sleeps the woman.
Walking out the door, he does the same to the guard-- it's truly an earth shattering difference to not be on magebane anymore-- and goes in search of Colin or Athessa, whomever he happens upon first.

[keenly]

As is his wont during times of extreme stress, Colin hasn't really left his new bedroom. Asking questions of his Famula has led him to conclude this place is worse than the Circle and just as compulsory. The only control he seems to have is to choose not to engage, staying in one place, shrinking his world so small it has no room for the dangers outside.

If only it ever worked that way.

His first option is really obvious: he needs a plan, lyrium potions and a clear escape route. In order to find any of those, however, he has to leave the room, and he can't.

There's the sound outside of someone falling to the floor. A moment later, the door opens, and Colin sucks in a breath, propelling himself off the bed to clasp Benedict in his arms.

[altusimperius]

Acting with much more confidence than he feels, Benedict steps in and embraces Colin tightly, breathing a sigh of relief into his shoulder.

"We have to hurry," he whispers, "the hex only lasts a few minutes."

Morning 3 Athessa

[altusimperius]

As promised, Inprobus returns two days later-- though he gives Athessa the entire night to think about her behavior, and arrives bright and early with a human guard carrying a bucket of water, and another elf.

With a nod and a gentle hand gesture to the Praestes, the guard proceeds to douse Athessa with the contents of the bucket. Wakey wakey!

[sulahnan]

She jolts awake, gasping from the shock of cold water and the pain of still broken legs, which isn't helped by the shivering. Athessa can't help the cry rent from her throat at this treatment, but she clamps her teeth down around it so it's more of a feral snarl than a wail.

Blinking rapidly to clear her vision of the water, she tries to take stock of what's going on—if there is anything she can do to get free, any injury she might cause to the Praestes or Inprobus, who this other elf is and so on. And she says nothing.

[altusimperius]

"Hello again, Res," Inprobus says pleasantly, "are you ready to behave?"

manhunt

[keenly]

Each of Bene's cries lead Colin to falter, but what causes him to stop is the silence after. He can hear people crashing about in the woods, and perhaps the reason they don't seem to be coming toward him is because he has gone still and utterly quiet. He thought he could do this. He can't. He has to go back, he has to know if Bene and Athessa are even alive now. All that remains is to let them find him.

[sulahnan]

The crunching and crashing of heavier feet carrying heavier people through the underbrush covers the approach of someone lighter, smaller, quieter. And it's lucky that this Famula finds him before any of the others who are searching.

A hand, missing two fingers, closes over Colin's mouth to keep him from crying out in alarm. With her other hand, the Famula raises a finger to her lips. "Shh."

[keenly]

The gasp Colin takes is through his nose. It takes him a few seconds to even feel the number of fingers on his face. No one is manhandling him, no one is binding or beating him, so he hasn't been recaptured. Slowly, afraid to breathe, he turns around to look at the young woman whose hand he healed. Shrouded as they both are in shadow, she must still be able to see the tears in his eyes.

"Is he dead?" he whispers under his breath.