[It could be why the lead in Carastes matters, or something about the shape of the war or about things that are right to do. Hand Valeriantus and his ilk tools and so curry strength in the slaves of the north. Divide the soporati from the invisible master of what the Magisterium promises them; these are broad convictions simply conveyed. They are things which can be trusted to resonate in the south.
He could easily pretend not to understand the question.]
You remember the house on that island.
[In the fire light, visible because Leander is so near and looking straight at it, that gap in his expression gives halfway. Inside it lives—]
Long before Corypheus opened the Breach, the Imperium saw fit first to strip everything from the people who would have made a home there. And then to murder one of them for it. So I would see Corypheus undone, yes. But the thing which empowered him in the first place—that I mean to burn to cinders. And I will be damned if the fucking Southern Divine thinks she should be who sets light to it just because she imagines herself to be a fitting replacement.
[Resonate in the south, perhaps, but not in him. Leander is no one, from nowhere, and his faith a disjointed construct, formed in fragments scavenged or discarded. The house on that island, so unnamed, is one such piece—there and gone again, preserved only in memory. That he stood in a place which no longer exists in the world, that is a thing of incomparable beauty. Like watching a living thing become dead. Like watching something burn. He remembers.
The ripples, rolling quietly and inexorably outward to touch every shore—the awareness that he himself might create them. He remembers that, too.
The scope of this man's intent is very grand, indeed.]
[In the dream, Qarinus and Carastes had been places subsumed by the Qun. It seems somehow fitting then that they should come from the same direction. If there is to be any basis of truth in a dream, why not bend it in a direction that favors them?
It's a thought that would seem inconsequential in the harsh light of day when placed in context of the wide world. But in a closed room and close together, it's possible the see the idea for what it is. Broad and dangerous. A thing with teeth and purpose enough to use them.
For an instant, the answer to this consensus shows both black and heated in him. Not a spark, but a fierce and ravenous darkness.]
Given the events of last night and this place's indecision, we will need to have you off quickly in order to avoid the shadow of whatever conclusions might be reached.
[If under Leander's hand his grip eases then it is by a matter of degrees.]
[The dreaming mind is unrestrained, and the spirits weaving those visions sometimes carry knowledge unknown. Inspiration lives everywhere, comes from anywhere, and is not itself concerned with safety. You follow it or you don't. And in his dream of the north, Leander flourished. Does he, awake, not deserve the same?]
Tomorrow, then. I need only dispose of a few things... the rest is done.
[Slowly, as not to draw any eyes, he has excised himself from the material of the Gallows. All that will remain of him is his work on the infirmary walls, and perhaps not even that, after they learn where he's gone. All he need do is take an assignment, some busywork or other that will send him to Kirkwall, and slip away.
Call and response: the weight of his hand becomes a squeeze. The seething dark within that fissure does not frighten him, but hisses painfully. Asks to be pried open, its anatomy tenderly examined. To be understood in raw form. That he could love, he thinks, if not the man it wears.
Pride, in its fraught contempt for rejection, does not permit him to ask—
What I want, he'd said with his hands, in silent study, is to know you—a man who cultivates himself to be seen and never known. Eleven paces. A Tevinter altus who would have understood. The exquisitely fine saw-edge of grass pulling through his fingers. The smell of dirt. That black fissure, whispering.
What he wants: to turn now and see a treasured shape in the doorway.
Soft, soft, in tender revenge for asking what Ilias hadn't thought to ask,]
[It's like a sharp point. Like the the persistent pump of blood that comes from a lethal wound. Every time the pressure over it is peeled back, there is some shock to find it still flowing. Isn't a body meant to eventually run out of blood?
(The shape of a woman is standing on the far side of the stack bookshelf. She is visible in parts and pieces, viewed in snatches through the shelf's tight packed contents. A pale hand. An untrimmed sleeve. An ear with no earring hanging from it. A dark eyes, looking. As far as the ghosts haunting the Gallows' go, she is patient.
'Has she spoken?'
'Not that I've heard.')
The flinch of his fingers is involuntary.]
My partner. [Isn't wrong.] Miranda. My wife.
[It makes sense that hers is the spirit that persists. He's done so little to satisfy it.]
Leander settles, and sits with him. What an honour it is to be shown the site of a scar that will never heal. To make a gift of one's pain, and trust him to hold it. If he could cover it with his hand, touch the ragged edges, the anguished pulse—perhaps then he would feel something for it.
The space is scant; to recite in whispers against a shorn hairline, in his voice like smoke, he needn't lean very far.]
And in Minrathous, in the heart of the Archon a sliver of fear grew, Stabbing like a wound. Though he knew not why.
[It's clever, in its way. All this undoing, all these cities cast in black. There is a satisfying parallel in it. And an unflattering one. And both of them are true.
The sound he makes is low—not a laugh but related to it. The closed fist sensation in his chest is satisfying in the way that his fingers closed around a wrist or a stone for bludgeoning is and it's easily recognizable even in that narrowed space. Anger is his oldest companion.
It's the familiarity that induces his grip on Leander to ease. Not giving it up; just relaxing into a shape he is used to. What other equal thing could there possibly be to divulge?]
[A creature of horrible elegance, deigning service to this most deadly thing for the beauty of its burning, it's a likeness that settles like furs around the neck. He should like to wear it, if only a little while—]
I've only ever loved one person.
[The touch of Leander's brow, gentle, replaces his lips.]
Two years ago, when some of Riftwatch's people were named dead—had he not returned, I would have hunted the ones responsible and ended them all. Every one, to a man. I'd have pledged the rest of my life to that.
[Not equal, perhaps, but a glimpse of understanding. Leander needn't guess at the nature of that flame, nor induce it to learn its shape, and that is a rare thing. The matter of his confidence is simple: should James mistreat this gift, Leander will kill him. The same ought to be true in reverse. Anything less is unworthy of his respect.
His next breath suggests a smile.]
He prefers other company. [No one keeps him for long.] But were it to happen now, I'd do the same.
[The tip of his face is a slight thing made blatant given their proximity (the soft set of Leander's brow). No more intimate, but intent. If there is a kind of consolation in the familiar, then this falls into the same circle with that pitch dark anger knotted in his chest. What creature isn't compelled by seeing something recognizable?
He listens. The angle of how Leander has settled alongside him on the chair arm is too sharp to look him in the eye, so instead Flint studies the fine bones visible in the backs of Leander's hands. The shape of his wrists. Some miscellaneous seam in his clothes which is lit incongruously bright by a happenstantial catch of fire light.
'It happened near the end of Bloomingtide, he'd said.
Flint tilts his head further. Far enough, this time, to look up at Leander with one shadow darkened eye. If there is any humor in it, it's the dark and canny kind—temper and self satisfaction all at once. I thought I recognized you.]
Under similar circumstances, I might have stabbed Byerly Rutyer too.
[Making room, now, so he may be looked upon more directly, and so he himself may do the same. He doesn't go far. (Nor is he fooled into thinking he's been seen. Hundreds of moments—thousands of them—)]
[He gives too, following the natural twist required to study Leander by setting his shoulder against the far arm of the chair. The empty cup is removed from its precarious position or steadied there. His hand stays though, secure where its chosen to settle.
No. Rutyer rarely does.]
I beat Coupe then. Clipped her in the face with a wooden block.
[No laugh this time; that was for the call-out. A moment's thought back, to the list he'd read over and over, to the sound of Matthias's tremulous voice.]
That's right—your friend John Silver was among them. [A pause. His head turns a fraction.] Your friend, or...
[Study fixed, that hand (with its series of rings and worn callouses and small scars) remains in place. Five minutes ago, stripped of any real context, the answer Flint gives him might have meant anything.]
[Something drops, small and silent. Like ink on a blotting page, it's distinct as it lands but doesn't spread far, destined to become just another contextual feature. It doesn't matter. That the loneliness he saw and chased is of a divergent quality, not immediate at all—he isn't alone at all—
Meaningless. This time tomorrow, Leander will be gone.
The flick of a smile that follows is unremarkable.]
[There, from the farthest side allowable by that narrow space of the chair, Flint studies the shape of him. There is a shadow of a thing which lives behind Leander that he thinks he perceives the shadow of. He knows what want looks like, and how it is similar to and distinct from desire.]
I didn't think to doubt it.
[His hand, lighter now, slips from Leander's wrist to his fingers. Touches his thumb. Shifts the silver ring there. If he is patient, he imagines that thing will resolve itself into some visible form. Or he will spy a direct path to lead him to it. Or—]
[No shuttering, no withdrawal. There is no physical or metaphorical widening of the scant gap between their bodies. Leander's presence, that shadow, is at its core as immutable as it is empty of humanity.
Flint turns the ring. His hands have relaxed; they do nothing in response.
[The shift of thumb and forefinger which is quietly turning that silver band by degrees stills.
There is no change in Leander. But in Flint's face, something slides sideways, goes reflexively blank, and then snaps defensively closed by instinct. Like a dog that puts its hackles up upon hearing a familiar, dangerous sound.]
[Not a look he had been hoping to see when he came here, but familiarity is its own comfort.]
You ought to ask him yourself, and trust his answer.
[Eleven paces across the soil, grass between the fingers. Hallways lined in frames. Following his own reflection—an illusion. How childish he's been. How small.
But he went willingly, and there is no shame in a lesson.]
You've secured everything you wanted of me. Was there anything else?
[There is something in Leander's stitched neat denial which clearly catches him aback. It's as a slash from some direction he'd momentarily allowed himself to look beyond. A cut, with that thing that looks like jealousy but is envy (and easily given to resentment) tugging at its seam—
The lightness of his grip comes fully undone. That hand is drawn back.]
I think whatever interest you feel is contingent on my value.
[The cut is faintly satisfying, the way those things are, the extraction of idle fingers not at all. Leander leaves his hands just where they are—the sudden lack radiating there at the joint of his thumb—and remains. He is not gone hollow, nor shut away, only quiet.
(Not a few people have found this infuriating; Ilias was always calmed by it. Called it kindness.)]
You needn't be insulted—I don't believe you've done it on purpose. And I do like you, James. Very much.
[Is brisk and automatic, the stamped bland shape of it meant to conceal some soured edge as he gathers the empty cup and the book from between his thigh and the chair's arm. Is it meant to be a comfort? That he should be a victim to impulse in addition to guilty of the thing.
The chair protests as he moves to lever himself up out of it.]
My contact in Carastes will expect payment for his trouble and you'll need coin for your passage. I've a sum set aside for you in my things. Wait here,
[Without thinking to, Leander frowns: reflexive, dissatisfied. Natural.
Firelight glints on his thumb as his hand lifts, barely hesitates those few inches raised. When he grasps Flint's arm just above the elbow, it's half to see what will happen—an automatic impulse, testing for next time—]
[The response is instant—a half turn which isn't enough to draw free, but is plenty of space to give the offending touch a sharp look which follows promptly along the line of contact to Leander. Flint has a cup in one hand and a book in the other; maybe one of them checks him from personally seeing that hand on him removed. Still. He is very broad and the fire light throws long his shadow.
(Yet it is a half turn back not a half step forward; the difference between a deflecting parry and defending through assault.)]
If we're to give your suspicions credit, I don't see why I should need you to.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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He could easily pretend not to understand the question.]
You remember the house on that island.
[In the fire light, visible because Leander is so near and looking straight at it, that gap in his expression gives halfway. Inside it lives—]
Long before Corypheus opened the Breach, the Imperium saw fit first to strip everything from the people who would have made a home there. And then to murder one of them for it. So I would see Corypheus undone, yes. But the thing which empowered him in the first place—that I mean to burn to cinders. And I will be damned if the fucking Southern Divine thinks she should be who sets light to it just because she imagines herself to be a fitting replacement.
[—rage.]
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The ripples, rolling quietly and inexorably outward to touch every shore—the awareness that he himself might create them. He remembers that, too.
The scope of this man's intent is very grand, indeed.]
Then let our first spark land in Carastes.
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It's a thought that would seem inconsequential in the harsh light of day when placed in context of the wide world. But in a closed room and close together, it's possible the see the idea for what it is. Broad and dangerous. A thing with teeth and purpose enough to use them.
For an instant, the answer to this consensus shows both black and heated in him. Not a spark, but a fierce and ravenous darkness.]
Given the events of last night and this place's indecision, we will need to have you off quickly in order to avoid the shadow of whatever conclusions might be reached.
[If under Leander's hand his grip eases then it is by a matter of degrees.]
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Tomorrow, then. I need only dispose of a few things... the rest is done.
[Slowly, as not to draw any eyes, he has excised himself from the material of the Gallows. All that will remain of him is his work on the infirmary walls, and perhaps not even that, after they learn where he's gone. All he need do is take an assignment, some busywork or other that will send him to Kirkwall, and slip away.
Call and response: the weight of his hand becomes a squeeze. The seething dark within that fissure does not frighten him, but hisses painfully. Asks to be pried open, its anatomy tenderly examined. To be understood in raw form. That he could love, he thinks, if not the man it wears.
Pride, in its fraught contempt for rejection, does not permit him to ask—
So he moves, intending to stand.]
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What difference does it make?, he doesn't ask. There's little room for the indecision implied in such a question.]
Tell me what you want.
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What I want, he'd said with his hands, in silent study, is to know you—a man who cultivates himself to be seen and never known. Eleven paces. A Tevinter altus who would have understood. The exquisitely fine saw-edge of grass pulling through his fingers. The smell of dirt. That black fissure, whispering.
What he wants: to turn now and see a treasured shape in the doorway.
Soft, soft, in tender revenge for asking what Ilias hadn't thought to ask,]
Who was it they killed?
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(The shape of a woman is standing on the far side of the stack bookshelf. She is visible in parts and pieces, viewed in snatches through the shelf's tight packed contents. A pale hand. An untrimmed sleeve. An ear with no earring hanging from it. A dark eyes, looking. As far as the ghosts haunting the Gallows' go, she is patient.
'Has she spoken?'
'Not that I've heard.')
The flinch of his fingers is involuntary.]
My partner. [Isn't wrong.] Miranda. My wife.
[It makes sense that hers is the spirit that persists. He's done so little to satisfy it.]
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Leander settles, and sits with him. What an honour it is to be shown the site of a scar that will never heal. To make a gift of one's pain, and trust him to hold it. If he could cover it with his hand, touch the ragged edges, the anguished pulse—perhaps then he would feel something for it.
The space is scant; to recite in whispers against a shorn hairline, in his voice like smoke, he needn't lean very far.]
And in Minrathous, in the heart of the Archon a sliver of fear grew,
Stabbing like a wound. Though he knew not why.
no subject
The sound he makes is low—not a laugh but related to it. The closed fist sensation in his chest is satisfying in the way that his fingers closed around a wrist or a stone for bludgeoning is and it's easily recognizable even in that narrowed space. Anger is his oldest companion.
It's the familiarity that induces his grip on Leander to ease. Not giving it up; just relaxing into a shape he is used to. What other equal thing could there possibly be to divulge?]
no subject
I've only ever loved one person.
[The touch of Leander's brow, gentle, replaces his lips.]
Two years ago, when some of Riftwatch's people were named dead—had he not returned, I would have hunted the ones responsible and ended them all. Every one, to a man. I'd have pledged the rest of my life to that.
[Not equal, perhaps, but a glimpse of understanding. Leander needn't guess at the nature of that flame, nor induce it to learn its shape, and that is a rare thing. The matter of his confidence is simple: should James mistreat this gift, Leander will kill him. The same ought to be true in reverse. Anything less is unworthy of his respect.
His next breath suggests a smile.]
He prefers other company. [No one keeps him for long.] But were it to happen now, I'd do the same.
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He listens. The angle of how Leander has settled alongside him on the chair arm is too sharp to look him in the eye, so instead Flint studies the fine bones visible in the backs of Leander's hands. The shape of his wrists. Some miscellaneous seam in his clothes which is lit incongruously bright by a happenstantial catch of fire light.
'It happened near the end of Bloomingtide, he'd said.
Flint tilts his head further. Far enough, this time, to look up at Leander with one shadow darkened eye. If there is any humor in it, it's the dark and canny kind—temper and self satisfaction all at once. I thought I recognized you.]
Under similar circumstances, I might have stabbed Byerly Rutyer too.
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[Making room, now, so he may be looked upon more directly, and so he himself may do the same. He doesn't go far. (Nor is he fooled into thinking he's been seen. Hundreds of moments—thousands of them—)]
He didn't know what he was asking, that's all.
[Poor thing.]
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No. Rutyer rarely does.]
I beat Coupe then. Clipped her in the face with a wooden block.
[That empty cup is tipped halfway for emphasis.]
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[No laugh this time; that was for the call-out. A moment's thought back, to the list he'd read over and over, to the sound of Matthias's tremulous voice.]
That's right—your friend John Silver was among them. [A pause. His head turns a fraction.] Your friend, or...
[While they're being honest—more or less.]
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My partner.
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Ah.
[Something drops, small and silent. Like ink on a blotting page, it's distinct as it lands but doesn't spread far, destined to become just another contextual feature. It doesn't matter. That the loneliness he saw and chased is of a divergent quality, not immediate at all—he isn't alone at all—
Meaningless. This time tomorrow, Leander will be gone.
The flick of a smile that follows is unremarkable.]
Well, as ever, you have my discretion.
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I didn't think to doubt it.
[His hand, lighter now, slips from Leander's wrist to his fingers. Touches his thumb. Shifts the silver ring there. If he is patient, he imagines that thing will resolve itself into some visible form. Or he will spy a direct path to lead him to it. Or—]
Does he recognize what you would do for him?
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Flint turns the ring. His hands have relaxed; they do nothing in response.
He stares.
Simply,]
He tried to kill me for it.
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There is no change in Leander. But in Flint's face, something slides sideways, goes reflexively blank, and then snaps defensively closed by instinct. Like a dog that puts its hackles up upon hearing a familiar, dangerous sound.]
His reasoning?
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You ought to ask him yourself, and trust his answer.
[Eleven paces across the soil, grass between the fingers. Hallways lined in frames. Following his own reflection—an illusion. How childish he's been. How small.
But he went willingly, and there is no shame in a lesson.]
You've secured everything you wanted of me. Was there anything else?
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The lightness of his grip comes fully undone. That hand is drawn back.]
You think I've no interest but to use you.
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[The cut is faintly satisfying, the way those things are, the extraction of idle fingers not at all. Leander leaves his hands just where they are—the sudden lack radiating there at the joint of his thumb—and remains. He is not gone hollow, nor shut away, only quiet.
(Not a few people have found this infuriating; Ilias was always calmed by it. Called it kindness.)]
You needn't be insulted—I don't believe you've done it on purpose. And I do like you, James. Very much.
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[Is brisk and automatic, the stamped bland shape of it meant to conceal some soured edge as he gathers the empty cup and the book from between his thigh and the chair's arm. Is it meant to be a comfort? That he should be a victim to impulse in addition to guilty of the thing.
The chair protests as he moves to lever himself up out of it.]
My contact in Carastes will expect payment for his trouble and you'll need coin for your passage. I've a sum set aside for you in my things. Wait here,
[is firm. An intentional severing.]
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Firelight glints on his thumb as his hand lifts, barely hesitates those few inches raised. When he grasps Flint's arm just above the elbow, it's half to see what will happen—an automatic impulse, testing for next time—]
I don't understand what you want.
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(Yet it is a half turn back not a half step forward; the difference between a deflecting parry and defending through assault.)]
If we're to give your suspicions credit, I don't see why I should need you to.
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