[ There are two kinds of meetings with Marcus. The first is the most frequent, a somewhat stiffly executed trading of work-related information when it is more efficiently done in person than over notes and reports. When it comes to the duties he'd applied for, he's been methodical and particular and serious in their execution.
The other kind is rarer, charged with a certain focused energy, either combative or directed elsewhere. Likewise serious.
Today, he has a list. It is on Flint's desk, pushed towards him with a flat hand. Barrow. Theophania. Vanya Orlov. Vincent Rovente. Redvers Keen. ]
Not all of them declared themselves.
[ Point is, this meeting is a little of both. He is healed, rested, fed and groomed, but sharp edged, a quietly restless energy beneath the surface. ]
[Having sensed something of a sharpened point to Marcus' trajectory, Flint has done them both the favor of clearing away some of his daily detritus—a stack of papers awaiting signature, a half dozen unread letters, a chartbook opened onto detailed pages of the depths surrounding the southernmost point of Rivain—from the center of the desk. It means there's little to impede the paper as it's slid his way.
He can read it just fine without picking it up, and so instead diverts the motion of his hand to the handle of the water pitcher. It's mid-afternoon, and warm this high in the tower; there isn't much left to drain from it into the corresponding cup.]
In what sense do you mean?
[The expectant shape of the look Flint gives Marcus suggests that he's perfectly aware it's a dense question.]
Barrow's hand was forced in admitting his history as a Templar.
[ Dense questions are fine, it seems, no flick or spark of irritation in response. ]
The rest [ an acknowledging nod to his list ] presented their affiliations in joining. Rovente is something of an envoy from the Chantry, and the Seeker speaks for herself.
[ Marcus pauses, considering what he's saying, considering if he is a few too many steps ahead of the point, circles back. ]
There could be others unknown to us, as with the clerk, and still more making their presence plain, like Brother Gideon. Those with Chantry ties who would sow discord, both written here and not.
[ without any detectable shared irony about who he is talking to, and who he is, and where the limits of selection might have been applied had they existed.
It's a sizeable contingent of effective combatants on this list, Maker knows. ]
And so we leave ourselves open to Chantry efforts to undermine our standing and abilities. I would begin with requiring that all of those in our company declare their affiliations more thoroughly. I would also question these ones here about their existing and past ties. Their former superiors, their current contacts.
Here, at last, Flint takes up the list from where its come to rest to survey the contents directly. Significant, yes; extensive, no. He studies it for the period which seems requisite given that second point—even if it means counting a few beats in his head past the point of having decided what he will say—before the fixture of his attention flicks back over top of it to the man across the desk from him.
"Is the aim here to safeguard Riftwatch, or specifically to rout the Chantry's attempts to meddle in our affairs?"
It would be nice and it would be credible, Maker knows, to have more than only former Templars listed on the page. But adding Mrs. Fitcher and Brother Gideon to its rank and then crossing them out might have been too whimsical. Marcus is silent and patient as Flint counts out some silent beats, all expectation by the time Flint looks up again.
There's an uncertain pause, where he measures the question against his intent, and says, "Safeguard Riftwatch. Arming ourselves with better information, and setting the expectation that we require it."
A pause, and he adds, "It's a beginning. More than we have now."
There are questions here which beg to be asked. Yes, it's a beginning—pointed in a direction that the whole company can be trusted to understand, given that abomination and heretic cultists have hardly proven any more discriminatory with their abuse than Riftwatch has with its membership. But what does the end of this look like? Is Marcus prepared to surrender his contacts abroad should someone find this line of questioning thus motivated? And how far does this—chasing the heels of what they know rather than what they don't—really get them? Does it buy them anything more than the illusion of action and bristled hackles from the Chantry's representatives? Are they breeding for trust, or for paranoia?
Someone will ask these things and they will be right to.
"Alright."
The page is set back down onto the desk, five fingertips pivoting it back around to face Marcus.
There's a split second after this instruction where Marcus thinks that this is where questions, caveat, qualification goes in place of it, but it's hardly a pause after these things do not happen before he picks the page up off the desk, and slips it into the book he had brought. He nods.
He shall keep Flint informed.
Closing this book—full of notes of happenings on watch, guard rotations, sundry other things that do not directly pertain to shaking down Chantry-adjacent members—is a signal of a meeting concluded, but it doesn't have him standing and leaving as is his usual. Instead, Marcus pauses over it, appears to steel himself to some degree, and say, "Regarding what happened—"
—could have just about anything following on from it. Throughout the return to Kirkwall, Marcus had spoken to as few a people as he could get away with. Exhaustion demanded he surrender discussions of intrigue to Bastien and the Seeker, the decision-making to the Commander and Derrica. Maybe he'd have wanted something different in its outcome. There'd been time for talk and he'd spent all of it white-knuckled and furious.
So it's here and today he says, "Thank you for your part in it."
Placating Tsenka Abendroth in the fashion required to delay her and see that the effort to recover Marcus and Julius be carried out a manner of the Division Head's choosing. The careful transfer of authority from himself to Derrica as means of giving himself a measure of plausible deniability on both sides. His part in it.
Here, in this room, Flint absently taps the tip of his forefinger at the top of the desk. The series of his rings, silver and gold and veridium, red polished aventurine and darker, flatter stones glint in the light filtered through the bank of narrow windows behind his shoulder.
"You're welcome. I trust that if our places were reversed, you would have made every effort to do the same."
Whatever mechanical shifts and turns that had to happen to have Marcus freed in the manner that he was—less efficiency? More? A massacre on the road, a dead Riftwatch agent or two, or a single Templar with an arrow protruding from the gap in his helm, or perhaps a calm conversation and some deal struck—whatever they are, he is freed. It was arranged, and it was done. There is a simplicity to it that he could complicate, quite easily.
Or he could offer gratitude, and maybe it was only a little bit physically painful to do.
Flint says that, and Marcus nods, once. "Aye," stated simply, apparently truthful, apparently satisfied that this gesture crossed the desk and stayed there.
Across the desk, the shape of his hand turns—some small, open palmed gesture which says Good talk or some similar sentiment. Indeed, what more is there to be said on the subject? Marcus is here. Julius is whole. Tsenka is a dreamer walking among them, and no one has made any motion toward paranoid overtures to check that, no matter how much the impulse might live right there under his fingertips. If there are any thoughts to the contrary which had kept him awake at night during their return trip from Orlais, then they're better left right where they'd begun—in his head, where they might be carefully turned over in private. Examined so thoroughly that hopefully he never has cause to do so while asleep.
(He had, if nothing else, steered Silver in Petrana's direction before climbing all those stairs to the griffon's eyrie.)
"You know," he says, as if he's only just remembered something. Maybe he has—some latent form sharpening under the influence of relevance. "That dream we all shared some time ago where we were warned of the Gates. It's a little strange to think of it now, but I believe I recall Julius and I searching after Madame de Cedoux."
His hand turns further, finally moving toward his half-filled cup.
Small as it is, that initial gesture is enough to indicate dismissal. Marcus gets as far as leaning forwards by a matter of a fraction, fingers hooking around the spine of the book, before pausing when Flint speaks up again.
It is unexpected, the thing he says. Marcus' expression had already been reflexively neutral, already thinking onto the next thing, but now there's a frosting over, fine tensions pulling subtle at the edges and a more needling focus in his stare across the desk. But it's more winter than fire beneath surface, less animated. Withdraw.
He flexes his fingers where he grips the book, relieving some tension, the couple of rings he wears purchased in Lowtown, adorned in dull stone and glass. He continues his paused momentum, turning to leave with the same dismissal of something being snapped free and discarded.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
action. backdated to not long after fitchergate.
The other kind is rarer, charged with a certain focused energy, either combative or directed elsewhere. Likewise serious.
Today, he has a list. It is on Flint's desk, pushed towards him with a flat hand. Barrow. Theophania. Vanya Orlov. Vincent Rovente. Redvers Keen. ]
Not all of them declared themselves.
[ Point is, this meeting is a little of both. He is healed, rested, fed and groomed, but sharp edged, a quietly restless energy beneath the surface. ]
no subject
He can read it just fine without picking it up, and so instead diverts the motion of his hand to the handle of the water pitcher. It's mid-afternoon, and warm this high in the tower; there isn't much left to drain from it into the corresponding cup.]
In what sense do you mean?
[The expectant shape of the look Flint gives Marcus suggests that he's perfectly aware it's a dense question.]
no subject
[ Dense questions are fine, it seems, no flick or spark of irritation in response. ]
The rest [ an acknowledging nod to his list ] presented their affiliations in joining. Rovente is something of an envoy from the Chantry, and the Seeker speaks for herself.
[ Marcus pauses, considering what he's saying, considering if he is a few too many steps ahead of the point, circles back. ]
There could be others unknown to us, as with the clerk, and still more making their presence plain, like Brother Gideon. Those with Chantry ties who would sow discord, both written here and not.
no subject
It's highly possible. [That's true.] I doubt anyone would seriously attempt to accuse Riftwatch's recruitment efforts of being selective.
[Says the Tevinter pirate to the separatist Southern mage.]
no subject
[ without any detectable shared irony about who he is talking to, and who he is, and where the limits of selection might have been applied had they existed.
It's a sizeable contingent of effective combatants on this list, Maker knows. ]
And so we leave ourselves open to Chantry efforts to undermine our standing and abilities. I would begin with requiring that all of those in our company declare their affiliations more thoroughly. I would also question these ones here about their existing and past ties. Their former superiors, their current contacts.
flips us to prose ty
"Is the aim here to safeguard Riftwatch, or specifically to rout the Chantry's attempts to meddle in our affairs?"
These are distinct locations on the board.
xoxox
There's an uncertain pause, where he measures the question against his intent, and says, "Safeguard Riftwatch. Arming ourselves with better information, and setting the expectation that we require it."
A pause, and he adds, "It's a beginning. More than we have now."
no subject
Someone will ask these things and they will be right to.
"Alright."
The page is set back down onto the desk, five fingertips pivoting it back around to face Marcus.
"Keep me informed."
no subject
He shall keep Flint informed.
Closing this book—full of notes of happenings on watch, guard rotations, sundry other things that do not directly pertain to shaking down Chantry-adjacent members—is a signal of a meeting concluded, but it doesn't have him standing and leaving as is his usual. Instead, Marcus pauses over it, appears to steel himself to some degree, and say, "Regarding what happened—"
—could have just about anything following on from it. Throughout the return to Kirkwall, Marcus had spoken to as few a people as he could get away with. Exhaustion demanded he surrender discussions of intrigue to Bastien and the Seeker, the decision-making to the Commander and Derrica. Maybe he'd have wanted something different in its outcome. There'd been time for talk and he'd spent all of it white-knuckled and furious.
So it's here and today he says, "Thank you for your part in it."
no subject
Here, in this room, Flint absently taps the tip of his forefinger at the top of the desk. The series of his rings, silver and gold and veridium, red polished aventurine and darker, flatter stones glint in the light filtered through the bank of narrow windows behind his shoulder.
"You're welcome. I trust that if our places were reversed, you would have made every effort to do the same."
Sure.
no subject
Or he could offer gratitude, and maybe it was only a little bit physically painful to do.
Flint says that, and Marcus nods, once. "Aye," stated simply, apparently truthful, apparently satisfied that this gesture crossed the desk and stayed there.
no subject
(He had, if nothing else, steered Silver in Petrana's direction before climbing all those stairs to the griffon's eyrie.)
"You know," he says, as if he's only just remembered something. Maybe he has—some latent form sharpening under the influence of relevance. "That dream we all shared some time ago where we were warned of the Gates. It's a little strange to think of it now, but I believe I recall Julius and I searching after Madame de Cedoux."
His hand turns further, finally moving toward his half-filled cup.
"Let's hope this is the end of my rescuing days."
no subject
It is unexpected, the thing he says. Marcus' expression had already been reflexively neutral, already thinking onto the next thing, but now there's a frosting over, fine tensions pulling subtle at the edges and a more needling focus in his stare across the desk. But it's more winter than fire beneath surface, less animated. Withdraw.
He flexes his fingers where he grips the book, relieving some tension, the couple of rings he wears purchased in Lowtown, adorned in dull stone and glass. He continues his paused momentum, turning to leave with the same dismissal of something being snapped free and discarded.