[Good question. He wouldn't mind knowing the answer himself.]
A business associate. We have a shared interest which she [evidently] trusts me to see it through.
[It is, he thinks, definitely no more than that. Why she would send the papers to him instead of Silver, he has no idea. The pair of them, her and Silver, have some deeper affinity than he can claim, and his partner's ambitions - whatever they are - might as well be his. Delivering the papers to either of them would make no fundamental difference.
And yet, here they are. As agreeable as two cats in a bag.]
What was your arrangement? I might care to extend its terms.
[When the rest of him is rum-soft and unfocused, there remains a bead of steel in each eye. Steady. Thinking. It comes of having spent hours spying, which is really just advanced eavesdropping. Staking out. Waiting.]
I work in contacts. Information. [Papers that he can make copies of, coded or not.] And interest is developing in Tevinter. Consider it unrecognized opportunity in many ways.
[Opportunity sounds too cold for the sentiment that Nikos actually means. He scowls to himself, turned inward, is how he means it. That softness--the rum--puts the expression broadly across his face instead.]
[Flint's face is no better. For all it's sober sharp veneer of coldness, there's an unmistakable shifting in the lines of his expression - a downward tug at the corner of his mouth that might be irritation or dismay as easily some more sympathetic frustration.]
So it is. [As if his feelings on the matter and the Inquisition's investment in it weren't already made clear while engaged in the matter of pulling the Inquisition's people from the Galicia.]
But that isn't really what I asked. What did Max owe you for your work?
[In the library of his mind (dim, grimy, books turned oily with smoke from candlelight, fancier fixtures and furnishings long ago chopped apart or given away), Nikos sticks a mental marker in the stack marked Flint. That expression, whatever it means. Recorded for posterity, to be considered later. He hates people. Reading their stupid faces is still worth it.]
Contacts. Information. [He could seriously overstate, exaggerate, unopposed--but when (if, hedging the bet) Max is returned from Tevinter, the exaggeration would be easily unraveled.] I did my research, enough so that I've heard of Nascere. Some of it I even heard from Max, the conversations she had. And enough of what I heard suggests a parallel interest. It was my intention to see what use we could be to one another.
[And he smells like alcohol and his cloak is crooked and they're stood in a street in fucking Kirkwall, and just yesterday Nikos stood a few feet from this spot and watched a man piss on the wall a few feet in the other direction. And still, he can't help himself from some of the rhetoric:]
I would see all tyrants murdered, their holdings scattered, their wealth distributed among the poor and disenfranchised. That would be the opportunity.
What I am owed would be that chance at symbiosis. The information that would stoke fires on both sides.
[They're not words to be spent in one of Kirkwall's anonymous back alleys, stinking of refuse and the fish smell of the harbor, the air all dense as no breeze can find its way this deep into Kirkwall's maze of side streets and back roads. But then, they're not really for anywhere - are they? Where better do they belongs? With the packet of letters inside his coat, thick against his side, Flint looks at the man before him. He is not quite laughing as he says--]
[A cloud passes over Nikos' face, darkening his idealism. Too impatient, too ready for disaster, for the fight that he is always poised for.]
There's more. If you have an ear to hear it.
[--Clipped, sharp like he could cut with the words themselves. No one is ever listening. No one is ever ready. If Caspar were here, maybe he could say something more, something that makes real sense. If Nikos hadn't drank a small harbor, he'd maybe be able to parrot them back, put some of his smoldering anger into words that he ought to know by heart and have them come out full of truth and conviction. Instead his hands are curled already into fists, tight.]
You asked what I was owed, the price. That's it. Whatever you think of it, I don't give a shit.
[Not here, is his first thought. There are window ledges, however darkened and shuttered, high above them in this miserable side alley and there's no telling what eyes or ears might be present. It's just as likely that Nikos, all rum-soaked and wire tight, could be saying anything for the sake of anyone. I could resume that bargain if she doesn't return, he could offer, then set it aside for a time. Give the arrangement some breathing room so if any part has been made to unravel or rigged to explode, it won't do it in his hands.
Instead, Flint looks to Nikos's fists then to the storm in his face. His attention is stone heavy - not still and not really anything else either.]
[Not here would be the sensible thought. Postpone it, meet in a cellar, in a dim corner, in darkness smudgy with candlelight. In Cumberland, it was a student tavern. Hand around pamphlets.
Go on is an opening, an exposed chink to bite into. Nikos, like a half-mad dog with a locked jaw, digs in.]
Systems. Institutions. Toppled, dismantled, drawn and quartered, all of them.
[And from the ash, build a model that works for the people that it governs, but instead, Nikos' current frustration (one of many; he is perpetually frstrated)--]
And meanwhile the Inquisition satisfies itself that it is working for the good of Thedas. Eradicating this pressing threat. A worthy masturbatory goal that allows itself and its members to take comfort in their goodness. To forget, that before there was Corypheus, there was subjugation. Dominion. Systems that will be in place--systems that the Inquisition supports, allies with--after Corypheus is gone.
[Ah, says the look on his face. That blunt-side-of-a-knife good humor is annoyingly persistent even while being mauled.]
Did you come to the Inquisition planning to leverage its intelligence, or is it an ambition you've acquired since?
[A sounding shot in the dark. But if he's close, a flinch could be telling. And if he isn't - well. Saying a thing aloud sometimes clarifies it as a possibility.]
[Raw anger is difficult to reign in once exposed. So there's a flash in his eyes, instead of a flinch. Shut up goes hand in hand with not here. And despite his consuming rage, and his penchant for saying whatever he feels, wielding bluntness like a weapon: Nikos isn't stupid. That's how he's lived this long. He would lecture anyone, parroting speeches he's listened to Caspar writing, right up until he grew too impatient to keep talking.
This would be more than a lecture. This would be opening a packet of coded letters, and giving away part of the key.]
I came to the Inquisition to influence what comes after the world is saved. Or if you prefer fatalism, what comes after it is destroyed. My ambition is more noble than climbing the ranks and leading projects, [a fuck you to Kostos, who isn't even there] and mouthing along with empty promises and beliefs. And I came to drink. The wine in Antiva is drying up.
[Sullen, he folds his arms over his chest, without even the slightest sway to give him away.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
A business associate. We have a shared interest which she [evidently] trusts me to see it through.
[It is, he thinks, definitely no more than that. Why she would send the papers to him instead of Silver, he has no idea. The pair of them, her and Silver, have some deeper affinity than he can claim, and his partner's ambitions - whatever they are - might as well be his. Delivering the papers to either of them would make no fundamental difference.
And yet, here they are. As agreeable as two cats in a bag.]
What was your arrangement? I might care to extend its terms.
no subject
[When the rest of him is rum-soft and unfocused, there remains a bead of steel in each eye. Steady. Thinking. It comes of having spent hours spying, which is really just advanced eavesdropping. Staking out. Waiting.]
I work in contacts. Information. [Papers that he can make copies of, coded or not.] And interest is developing in Tevinter. Consider it unrecognized opportunity in many ways.
[Opportunity sounds too cold for the sentiment that Nikos actually means. He scowls to himself, turned inward, is how he means it. That softness--the rum--puts the expression broadly across his face instead.]
no subject
So it is. [As if his feelings on the matter and the Inquisition's investment in it weren't already made clear while engaged in the matter of pulling the Inquisition's people from the Galicia.]
But that isn't really what I asked. What did Max owe you for your work?
no subject
Contacts. Information. [He could seriously overstate, exaggerate, unopposed--but when (if, hedging the bet) Max is returned from Tevinter, the exaggeration would be easily unraveled.] I did my research, enough so that I've heard of Nascere. Some of it I even heard from Max, the conversations she had. And enough of what I heard suggests a parallel interest. It was my intention to see what use we could be to one another.
[And he smells like alcohol and his cloak is crooked and they're stood in a street in fucking Kirkwall, and just yesterday Nikos stood a few feet from this spot and watched a man piss on the wall a few feet in the other direction. And still, he can't help himself from some of the rhetoric:]
I would see all tyrants murdered, their holdings scattered, their wealth distributed among the poor and disenfranchised. That would be the opportunity.
What I am owed would be that chance at symbiosis. The information that would stoke fires on both sides.
no subject
Oh, is that all?
[Like this is a joke they're suddenly telling.]
no subject
There's more. If you have an ear to hear it.
[--Clipped, sharp like he could cut with the words themselves. No one is ever listening. No one is ever ready. If Caspar were here, maybe he could say something more, something that makes real sense. If Nikos hadn't drank a small harbor, he'd maybe be able to parrot them back, put some of his smoldering anger into words that he ought to know by heart and have them come out full of truth and conviction. Instead his hands are curled already into fists, tight.]
You asked what I was owed, the price. That's it. Whatever you think of it, I don't give a shit.
no subject
Instead, Flint looks to Nikos's fists then to the storm in his face. His attention is stone heavy - not still and not really anything else either.]
If there's more to say, go on.
no subject
Go on is an opening, an exposed chink to bite into. Nikos, like a half-mad dog with a locked jaw, digs in.]
Systems. Institutions. Toppled, dismantled, drawn and quartered, all of them.
[And from the ash, build a model that works for the people that it governs, but instead, Nikos' current frustration (one of many; he is perpetually frstrated)--]
And meanwhile the Inquisition satisfies itself that it is working for the good of Thedas. Eradicating this pressing threat. A worthy masturbatory goal that allows itself and its members to take comfort in their goodness. To forget, that before there was Corypheus, there was subjugation. Dominion. Systems that will be in place--systems that the Inquisition supports, allies with--after Corypheus is gone.
no subject
Did you come to the Inquisition planning to leverage its intelligence, or is it an ambition you've acquired since?
[A sounding shot in the dark. But if he's close, a flinch could be telling. And if he isn't - well. Saying a thing aloud sometimes clarifies it as a possibility.]
no subject
This would be more than a lecture. This would be opening a packet of coded letters, and giving away part of the key.]
I came to the Inquisition to influence what comes after the world is saved. Or if you prefer fatalism, what comes after it is destroyed. My ambition is more noble than climbing the ranks and leading projects, [a fuck you to Kostos, who isn't even there] and mouthing along with empty promises and beliefs. And I came to drink. The wine in Antiva is drying up.
[Sullen, he folds his arms over his chest, without even the slightest sway to give him away.]
What of your ambition?