[These offerings, the secrecy, the threadbare book already warm in his hand, they are achievements for the same covetous part of him that saw a tender patch and immediately pressed it. To be given something that will not be forgotten, not out of obligation, but because it is meaningful—
Leave your crystal when you go, he says. There is a replacement in that purse paired only to one and silence rushes in thick as blood to cover the rest.
Distantly, he wonders if it shows—if, as he stares down at the book and the Nevarran script thereupon, there is some way to identify externally the vignette of haze he perceives around it. There isn't. It doesn't. Only the hastening, shallow breath is significant.
Procillus will see you placed advantageously. At the very least, you may trust him to point you in a suitable direction. From there, I will be relying on your sense of navigation.
[Presumably this all takes the place of some simpler thing. You're welcome, or Be well, their equivalent nicety.
Held in reserve just far enough to play at objective, he finds the shape of all of this uniquely unsatisfying. There is a prickle of something he only knows isn't fear lurking at the edge of this arrangement and dislikes the uncertainty of being unable to pin down exactly what it is. This isn't how he'd intended to see this done, but he can hardly undo it.
Standing in the fire light, all drawn sharp gold edges and empty handed, Flint asks,]
[None, he could say, and leave it there. There is truth in that—what rushes and thumps within him is not a question at all,
paired only to one
it's the marrow-deep knowledge that were Ilias here, they would spend the night together—and that Ilias would be nonetheless relieved to watch him go.
Leander doesn't often speak to anyone without pinning them with his eyes, at length, his feline blinks slow and too far apart; but here his eyes are pinned to the cover.]
Who knows. A formless thing is cinched tighter, pulled in closer by reflex. His hand twitches at his side. Slowly, carefully, with a rasp in the sound that is from the late hour or the distinct lack of sleep preceding the long length of the day, or because he is rigorously measuring his own reply:]
[He's right, of course. Nothing could. Still: vanity rolls over, cracks an eye. Leander huffs through his nose, not quite a laugh. Again, softer, his lips drawn in—not quite a smile.]
That's not what I was asking, [as he turns, moves away—no yielding grasp will stop him—and rearranges the things in his hands so he may turn out his sending crystal, paired to no one in particular. Resolving, once again, into himself.] If you'd gone to him, I'd've stayed.
[The door, he unbolts—then closes his fist around the crystal, watches his own fingers tighten. The light rising between them, first blue, then white.]
Thank you, James, for the reminder. This weakness won't serve you in Carastes—I'll see it hardened before landfall.
[Hold a thing in a tight enough grip and eventually the pressure will strangle it. A fist crushes as well as it holds, and if it spends enough time squeezed shut then eventually opening it again is painful. All agonizing pins and needles.
Flint doesn't make any effort to catch him as Leander draws away. The scrape of the bolt is loud, but bearable. The scrape of the other thing—
He moves quickly when driven by impulse. The distance of a half dozen paces is marginal and then the door, if it has begun to come open, bangs shut again under the sudden presence of his hand. The toe of a boot wedged in tight against the base of the door. He's wrenched bigger men than Leander back from doors like this one and surely might easily do the same here. If he were fast enough, it wouldn't really matter what a mage might do.
But that's the opposite of the point and he makes no effort to touch Leander, only to bar his path.]
Wait. And speak to me. Which part of what I said implied you weak?
[The rush and bang of the door is surprise enough that the mage's focus, and thus the light, is diminished, and his eyes briefly wider beneath a scowling brow—the habitual diagnostic pause while they flick here and there—but he has stopped, and his weight set back, giving of space.
(For far too long has he been the crushing squeeze; his hand is yet frozen in that shape.)]
None of it. All of it. You wanted me thinking of you, and I have been. It's the same seed I'd've planted; that there was a place to plant it at all was my own failing. [Leaning in tall, through a sliver of teeth,] Now let me pass.
[His hand and toe remain wedged as they are, stubbornly fixed. If there is a part of him which shrinks under a mage's command, it has long been winnowed into a shape so narrow that it isn't impossible to put it away. To refuse the impulse. No, says his heavy hand.]
That isn't what I wanted, [is snapped back; in the moment it doesn't feel like the lie that it might have an hour ago. He doesn't advance by a step—there is nowhere to go—but the sensation of it is there in the line of his arm and the sway of his shoulder.] What I wanted was for you to know I was thinking of you and what you ought to have. Is that so unbelievable?
[For a Circle mage—for a man wearing a knife-punch scar on the back of his neck—that phrase lands a particular way.
To his minor credit, Leander doesn't laugh, but his voice briefly flutters with it—some scraped edge gleaming fresh, his eyes newly backlit. He doesn't back away, or even seem to consider it. Flint's aggressive shape, though it fills what little space is left, daunts him not at all.]
Go on. Tell me, James, what you think I ought to have.
More than what other people here would give you credit for.
[He doesn't flinch in the face of that brittle, snarling kind of humor. Instead his response is like an animal's open jaw searching out a grip--snapping at something he believes has the density to sink teeth into.]
Respect. Trust. Not to have your purpose questioned every time you lift a finger in service to this fucking war. Think of what I'm asking of you. What I'm risking for it. Would it not be simpler for me to trust Yseult with this work? Why award it to you if not to prove something on your behalf?
[The bite lands, and he bears it in dreadful stillness, the crystal's blue light in his fist—not active, but charged, pure energy humming inside.
The elements of this are themselves attractive. Respect. Trust. To be given a thing in confidence that might have gone to someone else—that should have gone to them. A dangerous secret, the most beautiful kind, in his hand and charged. The urge to destroy it is immense, a mouth gaping wide around them both, black and starving. Something must go in.
His brow relaxes; his head takes an angle of whetted curiosity, ready to slip in sharp.]
Why? Do I remind you of something, James? [This can't be for him—no one gives selflessly. His voice settles soft.] Or someone?
[His hand at the door comes momentarily away, the briefest departure so it might curl into a fist and then is forced down again. Not heavy enough to be marked with any sound, but with enough lash down restraint in the thing to imply the desire. Don't just stand there, it demands, as if it were possible for a limb to be frustrated by the rise and fall tempo of—]
What difference does it make? I know that to give the appearance of either only to snatch them away the moment they become inconvenient is the mark of a fucking coward. It serves only to isolate those willing to demand better from a thing. Is it not something to— [Like a jerk on a line, he checks himself. More firm, less sharp; they are so near to the door and someone passing at this hour might hear the shape of voices.]
When this is finished, should we in fact go to Minrathous and carry down Corypheus. Tell me, have you given any thought to what you will have after?
[The movement of that hand, the hand becoming a fist—oh, it brightens him, like firelight's gleam on a blade, all too fleeting. Isn't that what everyone wants? To be spoken to in their own language? He could respond with such eloquence—
But instead he stands back, after a glance to where a gap between door and frame would be, hearing the necessity in that change of timbre. If this could be spoken through silence, too, they might share a moment of fluency: that he could own everything and still have nothing; that through him snarls a void which nothing can fill.
And for reminding him of that, Flint may have his own words back.]
[It should sound like being denied something. But in that space against the door made artificially close by Leander's desire to pass through it and be away, it is like rewarding that snapped tight jaw with a taste of blood on the tongue.
Strung taut, but so sure that it sounds almost patient:]
Because if you haven't considered it, I want to know if it's because it truly doesn't matter to you or if it's that someone taught you not to.
[Leander's grin suddenly splits his face like a wound full of teeth.]
What is it you're looking for—a way in? And you think a moment of condescension will reveal it? How simple I must seem to you.
[He's backing away from the door, step over step, his wake magnetic, heavy, his mouth relaxing.]
What I want is beyond my reach, so I will satisfy myself in the meantime. Tomorrow I will leave for Carastes, and from there I will take as much as I'm given, and more than that, and more, until the wound I've made closes around me and I become indistinguishable to them. And then I will eat them from the inside.
I don't know that any of it matters. But it's what I've decided.
[Is there even a question as to whether he will let Leander step away? Or does he allow himself to be pinned there by all those teeth, by the violence in that intent? Or is maybe there something in it that wounds, an unidentified cut which stays him and later he will find by the realization that he's begun to bleed?
Stood at the door, bracing it still, Flint watches him. Something leaps high behind his ribs and clutches. The frustrated shape of it makes him grimace. Condescension, he'd called it and the urge to take Leander by the scruff of his neck and shake him for it is—
He sets his teeth, retracts the toe of his boot and moves his hand to the door's latch.]
It was a real question. I did want to know.
[The door is pulled open. Go on then.]
Edited (Dont try to line edit right after a nap i tell u what) 2021-05-24 01:45 (UTC)
[It should be satisfying, that look, the strained relenting, but the open door—open, now that he's stopped trying to leave—something about the shape of it is wrong.
What does Flint want that he doesn't already know? There is no after. There is nothing for him but what is already familiar: relation and dismissal, turning over one another endlessly. There is violence. There are secrets. There are looks like the one he's just been given—and worse ones, should he allow anyone to see him. Adaptation. Becoming.
He comes to the door, carrying a light in his hand. Softly, lest his voice carry down the hall,]
There. You see? You've answered it yourself.
[A sound at waist level, like wet wood bursting in the fire, the minuscule creak and crackle of spreading ice. His fist opens; the community crystal falls to the floor, now only a stone.]
[The sting of it sits between the ribs—wounded pride or the distinct iron taste of failure. It would do him good to ignore it. To set it aside. If he is to send Leander a half a world away on the hope that he will be loyal to a thing he has no reason to love and a choice few for undoing it—if that is the only point in this, it would benefit him to make some last effort to reshape this before turning him loose. He might still in this last moment find a lie or some small touch that could do that service for him. He's quite certain of it.
But he'd see it now, wouldn't he? Notice, if he were to suddenly bend. No, he's made enough of a fool of himself and can't tolerate the idea of showing more of the thing.
So.
There are worse things to take to Tevinter than resentment. It's practically a kindness to prepare him in such a fashion.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Leave your crystal when you go, he says. There is a replacement in that purse paired only to one and silence rushes in thick as blood to cover the rest.
Distantly, he wonders if it shows—if, as he stares down at the book and the Nevarran script thereupon, there is some way to identify externally the vignette of haze he perceives around it. There isn't. It doesn't. Only the hastening, shallow breath is significant.
And this, his careful, automatic response:]
Yes. Thank you.
no subject
[Presumably this all takes the place of some simpler thing. You're welcome, or Be well, their equivalent nicety.
Held in reserve just far enough to play at objective, he finds the shape of all of this uniquely unsatisfying. There is a prickle of something he only knows isn't fear lurking at the edge of this arrangement and dislikes the uncertainty of being unable to pin down exactly what it is. This isn't how he'd intended to see this done, but he can hardly undo it.
Standing in the fire light, all drawn sharp gold edges and empty handed, Flint asks,]
Do you have any questions?
no subject
paired only to one
it's the marrow-deep knowledge that were Ilias here, they would spend the night together—and that Ilias would be nonetheless relieved to watch him go.
Leander doesn't often speak to anyone without pinning them with his eyes, at length, his feline blinks slow and too far apart; but here his eyes are pinned to the cover.]
You're the only one who knows I'm leaving.
[only to one, only to one, only one
With effort, he tears his gaze from the book.]
May I stay here tonight?
no subject
Who knows. A formless thing is cinched tighter, pulled in closer by reflex. His hand twitches at his side. Slowly, carefully, with a rasp in the sound that is from the late hour or the distinct lack of sleep preceding the long length of the day, or because he is rigorously measuring his own reply:]
I don't think I could satisfy you.
no subject
That's not what I was asking, [as he turns, moves away—no yielding grasp will stop him—and rearranges the things in his hands so he may turn out his sending crystal, paired to no one in particular. Resolving, once again, into himself.] If you'd gone to him, I'd've stayed.
[The door, he unbolts—then closes his fist around the crystal, watches his own fingers tighten. The light rising between them, first blue, then white.]
Thank you, James, for the reminder. This weakness won't serve you in Carastes—I'll see it hardened before landfall.
no subject
Flint doesn't make any effort to catch him as Leander draws away. The scrape of the bolt is loud, but bearable. The scrape of the other thing—
He moves quickly when driven by impulse. The distance of a half dozen paces is marginal and then the door, if it has begun to come open, bangs shut again under the sudden presence of his hand. The toe of a boot wedged in tight against the base of the door. He's wrenched bigger men than Leander back from doors like this one and surely might easily do the same here. If he were fast enough, it wouldn't really matter what a mage might do.
But that's the opposite of the point and he makes no effort to touch Leander, only to bar his path.]
Wait. And speak to me. Which part of what I said implied you weak?
no subject
(For far too long has he been the crushing squeeze; his hand is yet frozen in that shape.)]
None of it. All of it. You wanted me thinking of you, and I have been. It's the same seed I'd've planted; that there was a place to plant it at all was my own failing. [Leaning in tall, through a sliver of teeth,] Now let me pass.
no subject
That isn't what I wanted, [is snapped back; in the moment it doesn't feel like the lie that it might have an hour ago. He doesn't advance by a step—there is nowhere to go—but the sensation of it is there in the line of his arm and the sway of his shoulder.] What I wanted was for you to know I was thinking of you and what you ought to have. Is that so unbelievable?
no subject
[For a Circle mage—for a man wearing a knife-punch scar on the back of his neck—that phrase lands a particular way.
To his minor credit, Leander doesn't laugh, but his voice briefly flutters with it—some scraped edge gleaming fresh, his eyes newly backlit. He doesn't back away, or even seem to consider it. Flint's aggressive shape, though it fills what little space is left, daunts him not at all.]
Go on. Tell me, James, what you think I ought to have.
no subject
[He doesn't flinch in the face of that brittle, snarling kind of humor. Instead his response is like an animal's open jaw searching out a grip--snapping at something he believes has the density to sink teeth into.]
Respect. Trust. Not to have your purpose questioned every time you lift a finger in service to this fucking war. Think of what I'm asking of you. What I'm risking for it. Would it not be simpler for me to trust Yseult with this work? Why award it to you if not to prove something on your behalf?
no subject
The elements of this are themselves attractive. Respect. Trust. To be given a thing in confidence that might have gone to someone else—that should have gone to them. A dangerous secret, the most beautiful kind, in his hand and charged. The urge to destroy it is immense, a mouth gaping wide around them both, black and starving. Something must go in.
His brow relaxes; his head takes an angle of whetted curiosity, ready to slip in sharp.]
Why? Do I remind you of something, James? [This can't be for him—no one gives selflessly. His voice settles soft.] Or someone?
no subject
What difference does it make? I know that to give the appearance of either only to snatch them away the moment they become inconvenient is the mark of a fucking coward. It serves only to isolate those willing to demand better from a thing. Is it not something to— [Like a jerk on a line, he checks himself. More firm, less sharp; they are so near to the door and someone passing at this hour might hear the shape of voices.]
When this is finished, should we in fact go to Minrathous and carry down Corypheus. Tell me, have you given any thought to what you will have after?
no subject
But instead he stands back, after a glance to where a gap between door and frame would be, hearing the necessity in that change of timbre. If this could be spoken through silence, too, they might share a moment of fluency: that he could own everything and still have nothing; that through him snarls a void which nothing can fill.
And for reminding him of that, Flint may have his own words back.]
What difference does it make?
no subject
Strung taut, but so sure that it sounds almost patient:]
Because if you haven't considered it, I want to know if it's because it truly doesn't matter to you or if it's that someone taught you not to.
[Who made you this way?, he'd asked.]
no subject
What is it you're looking for—a way in? And you think a moment of condescension will reveal it? How simple I must seem to you.
[He's backing away from the door, step over step, his wake magnetic, heavy, his mouth relaxing.]
What I want is beyond my reach, so I will satisfy myself in the meantime. Tomorrow I will leave for Carastes, and from there I will take as much as I'm given, and more than that, and more, until the wound I've made closes around me and I become indistinguishable to them. And then I will eat them from the inside.
I don't know that any of it matters. But it's what I've decided.
[We did.]
no subject
Stood at the door, bracing it still, Flint watches him. Something leaps high behind his ribs and clutches. The frustrated shape of it makes him grimace. Condescension, he'd called it and the urge to take Leander by the scruff of his neck and shake him for it is—
He sets his teeth, retracts the toe of his boot and moves his hand to the door's latch.]
It was a real question. I did want to know.
[The door is pulled open. Go on then.]
no subject
What does Flint want that he doesn't already know? There is no after. There is nothing for him but what is already familiar: relation and dismissal, turning over one another endlessly. There is violence. There are secrets. There are looks like the one he's just been given—and worse ones, should he allow anyone to see him. Adaptation. Becoming.
He comes to the door, carrying a light in his hand. Softly, lest his voice carry down the hall,]
There. You see? You've answered it yourself.
[A sound at waist level, like wet wood bursting in the fire, the minuscule creak and crackle of spreading ice. His fist opens; the community crystal falls to the floor, now only a stone.]
I'll send word after landfall.
no subject
But he'd see it now, wouldn't he? Notice, if he were to suddenly bend. No, he's made enough of a fool of himself and can't tolerate the idea of showing more of the thing.
So.
There are worse things to take to Tevinter than resentment. It's practically a kindness to prepare him in such a fashion.]
See that you do.