She shows up with an appointment. She follows all rituals of deference and respect that might be expected within a military organization, including those that Riftwatch has long since dispensed with. When she stands in the doorway, she stands at a sort of attention - awkwardly, because this is not a soldier born, nor even a soldier for long, but with earnest respect.
She's small, and her face hints at youth (though it can be hard, sometimes, to tell with elves). Not much to look at. But...But a very keen eye might notice that the mage staff in her hand has carvings consistent with one of the lesser Altus families in Tevinter. And given who she is, it's not likely that the original owner of that staff gave it as a gift.
"Lord Commander," she says. Minrathous-accented. A knowledgeable ear - even one that's been years away from Tevinter - could likely place that accent as that of a slave. "I would like to present my qualifications to be part of your division."
His ear is practiced. Maybe he'd learned this lesson as a boy on a fleet ship with the favor of a commission and little else, on long cruises to and from Imperium held ports on Seheron. Or maybe it may be attributed to an old man who had tended the grounds of the little Chantry crammed above a seaside village which had otherwise had little capacity for slaves. Or maybe it's simply the natural state of anyone from that place to be aware of the subtle gradations of who belongs where and what is owed to whom, and attempting to fix an origin point to these things is as useless as trying to race the sun to the horizon.
What is clear is that, despite however many years he's spent away from the Imperium, is that the man sitting at the end of the large table in the office's room does notice. That much is obvious due to the unmasked flicker of surprise that crosses his face, and in how abruptly he straightens and lays down the compass alongside its matching ruler with which he'd been plotting some course east across the Waking Sea from the charts scattered about this end of the table. Appointment or no, he hadn't set those things aside when she'd arrived. But she seems to have won Commander Flint's full attention now.
He looks at her, and at her staff (though whether he marks its design in that brief glance from a table length away is impossible to say). He puts his quill down.
"All right." He's been a long time away from Tevinter, yet it's still as obvious in him as it is in her. "Go on."
The door to Flint's office looks, in this moment, like an open maw. Abby knows that the urge to impress him is leftover from the gut twist Isaac's impassive gaze gave her, and can't help herself regardless: she wants him to think her useful, a competent, and reliable member of Forces. Hopefully what she wants to ask isn't about to make her difficult.
She knocks once, and winces. Her knuckles are still healing from where they slammed into Ellie's jaw.
"Flint." There's something different in the way she approaches him at the desk, fingers touching the edge of the door in suggestion of closing it, "Can I talk to you for a sec?" She might seem distant to him, and quieter. The typical twinge of nervousness that usually accompanies her in hasn't bothered to show up. He may notice that one of her eyes is brilliantly bruised, one dark edge splashed across the bridge of her nose.
It's ordinary to find him halfway through a heaped stacked of reports at that desk, midway through signing a draft of something or reviewing a series of papers from the field or in the process of drawing up some finicky list of duties he'd been too irritated over to leave in Matthias's more than capable hands. Today, whole there is evidence of all of those things papered across the deck, they're pinched in under an open book that looks suspiciously like something someone might read for fun instead of out of obligation. The text is columned for verse, and on one of the facing pages is a delicate drawing of a person's face turning away—
A marker is placed. The book is shut. There is just one chair on Abby's side of the desk, and the tilt of Flint's brow seems to suggest she's welcome to it.
For a sec.
"I trust you're not trying to talk your way out of scraping hulls."
Riftwatch's little fleet of rowboats and sailing dinghies have only this week been hauled up onto the quay where they will soon be cleaned and sanded and repainted in preparation for winter.
But no, those bruises and that tentative slant to the request in combination all suggest otherwise.
Between them, Flint departs the gathering first. John remains for some time around the fire, finishes a few cups of wine. Finds himself pleasantly surprised when nothing goes absurdly, destructively wrong, as tends to be the tradition. Eventually, takes his leave to ascend the many flights of stairs to his room.
There is work to be done, if he were so inclined. It would only be one more flight of stairs to his office. Or a short trip across the harbor into Kirkwall, where surely the Walrus men are gathered at the Red Lantern. Or a salon in Hightown is packed with people celebrating, in the right mood to open their purses for a good cause.
But the end of the evening finds John in the plush armchair he'd appropriated from one of the guest bedrooms, shutters cracked open and a bottle of faintly glowing liquor set on the sill alongside his crystal. The sea chest tucked away in its far corner been opened. The oil lamp is burning. John has occupied himself with the assembly of some joints, pouch of elfroot over one thigh opposite a few sheets of parchment bearing cramped scribbling John is half-reading as he works.
Which proves to be a blessing, as it makes it considerably easier to knock the door open with some combination of wrist or elbow. Flint—with the black sheepskin mantle still about his shoulders, and the black about his eyes worn down to grey smudges without the wolf's mask—follows, insinuating himself halfway over the threshold before he bothers with a knock to the doorframe with the knuckles of a loosely bent hand.
The impression is an odd combination of grizzled and boyishly out of sorts: heavy shoulders, smudged makeup, shockingly sober despite the hour and the general uncharacteristic effort made to be seen indulging in the holiday, and a palm scraped raw enough that it can be seen by lamplight at the distance of a few paces.
"Do you keep any bandages?"
He's loath to go rustling around down in the infirmary at this hour. There's probably a line forming for late night holiday witherstalk.
Should Commander Flint be sitting at his desk, with an ear to the hallway rather than all attention fixed upon the work occupying his desk, he might hear the susurration of sound on the opposite side of the doorway. A murmur’s worth of conversation, perhaps conducted with a hand upon the heavy brass handle, conducted in the span of a minute and punctuated with a soft tread of steps receding farther on.
There is first a slight rasp of turning, pausing for a breath, perhaps to rearrange the order of entrants. And then the whole heavy door swings inward on its hinges.
Derrica enters first. Marcus is left to close the thing behind them, and latch it against interlopers. Derrica’s fingers are at the clasp of heavy travelers cloak, assured at least of their welcome as she greets, “Commander, we urgently need to speak with you.”
Marcus closes the door. Latches it, for good measure.
He is also dressed for (or rather, from) travel, his own cloak still damp at the hems and spotted with specks of earth from riding, kicked up from hooves. Urgency, as mentioned, conveyed in a sort of undercurrent of energy, a quick sweep of a look across Flint's desk as if he could tell from here if anything in front of the Commander might be important enough to earn their dismissal.
Decides, from here, that there isn't, but doesn't echo Derrica, only expectantly angles for one of the chairs by the desk.
Gwenaëlle knocks, but it's perfunctory; in the interests of not walking in on anything scandalous, she just sends Hardie in first, so that presumably the shouting will alert her. Absent that—
she is moments behind her dog (presently: scrounging at Flint's thigh for treats), out of sorts in a way that heralds the sort of directness she is more comfortable with. Something is on her mind; whatever it is, she's already decided not to beat around the bush about it. Dropping herself into a chair without waiting to be invited, she says, “You're always circling propaganda.”
Not so that she always notices, in the moment. To step firmly away from that was a decision she'd made and never wavered on, assured of her reasons why, and it's not something that she's easily drawn to thinking on as anything other than a good argument for why she had to learn how to hold a weapon. Fat lot of fucking good anything else she'd done beforehand did except make her a target, and for what? Accomplishing nothing she's proud of.
But she is aware. It had been the thing that first brought her to his notice; she unpicks the threads of conversations later, when they collide with other thoughts. And in Starkhaven, for a moment, she had thought of all the places that she could write...
And that had seemed...plausible. Something that she might be willing to do. Not publish, no, but maybe something productive. Nothing that she's definitely willing to do, or has a clear idea of how she'd approach it, but enough of a notion that she might waver, a little, from her considered position of I'd sooner slit my wrists and write FUCK YOU in the blood.
“I am not promising to do anything, and nothing that I'm considering involves publication,” to be clear. “But I had a brief thought that might not be an abject waste of time and energy, and I thought if you have an actual idea then we might as well talk about it while that's still on my mind.”
All the better that her opinion on the subject has softened somewhat, given the convenience of the razor on the shaving stand. Scandalous affairs conducted in the division office adjacent apartments being somewhat reserved for more ungodly hours of the evening, what Hardie and his mistress have interrupted is an apparently much delayed bit of a grooming. Flint, heading the dog's insistent nose off with a knee—stop; not those pockets—sports lather on one half of his jaw and neck, and bristling auburn hair on the other.
Shooting great holes into Tevinter cavalry with that infernal enchanted hand cannon evidently had left very little time for keeping his face neat. But there is a difference between being covered in soot and spotted in someone else's blood, sporting two day old stubble in the immediate aftermath of spitting in the Imperium's eye and doing so here on the sixth floor of the central tower a few days further along than that. There are already letters coming in from the Inquisition; there are appearances to think of should the next ones come by way of a warm body rather than by raven.
(And his neck has been itching against the collar of his shirt with murderous fucking intent.)
"Okay," is distinctly put upon syllable as Flint manages to both foist Hardie away and steady the teetering shaving stand with an elbow.
It is hardly mysterious that Julius looks worn out, when he tracks down Commander Flint. It's been an exhausting and difficult few days for everyone present, and Julius was in the thick of both the battle and the evacuation that followed. It's plenty, regardless of whether Flint has been briefed on Marcus's close call; if he has, he can make his own guess on how much it has contributed to Julius's fatigue.
It's not an easy time to arrange a private conversation, however, so Julius knows it's at least a partial inconvenience when he opens with: "Commander. Might I have a word in private? It is not an emergency but it is somewhat time-sensitive."
He hopes, at least, Flint knows him well enough by this point to trust that Julius is unlikely to waste his time.
It is definitively an interruption. Flint, who has only just finished passing out various tasks—Forces division members scattering across the muddy embankment that the combined foot traffic has reduced Vallomire to in only a few short hours—has the look of a man who has just had his momentum checked and isn't incredibly enthusiastic about it regardless of who might be on the other end of the line.
Not an emergency, but time-sensitive ranks just barely among the top items on his to do list. And it has been a long series of days even before they ever waded into the the ground around Starkhaven. Were it not Julius, and we're he not perfectly aware of the fact that the other man has every motivation not to here tugging at his coat sleeve, he might simply cut him him short and be done with it.
"You have my attention," he says instead.
Nevermind that they are standing just outside the emptied barn that has been converted into the field office, and that a hand stretched in either direction is likely to clip someone hurrying along. This is what passes for privacy, apparently.
John Silver and Madame de Cedoux arrive back in Kirkwall, wind their way towards the ferry with a stolen horse and a sheaf of papers lifted from an Imperial soldier. The Chantry Mother in question is safely ensconced in a public house of exceptional repute, to be settled more permanently in the morning.
During the crossing, John's voice comes through Petrana's borrowed crystal, querying: Where are you?
It is late. It is later still, when the door closes behind them on the cabin aboard the Walrus. The click of the latch is an audible thing. John breathes out in the wake of it, circling into the familiar space as Flint lights the lantern overhead.
"So our concerns were misplaced, in this event," John continues. There is blood crusted at the collar of his tunic, the inside of his coat. A minor wince as he leans against the table in the center of the room. "They meant to pose a question, and found the late Grand Enchanter more receptive than anticipated."
It has been some time since last they occupied this cabin; but in this short run of days between returning from Vallomire and this hour, he has spent a considerable cut of his time on the ship—abruptly sick of the towers, and the division office, and the lonely apartment adjacent to it. Tired of the company, of the stairs, of Byerly Rutyer's fucking violin, of the creeping sensation that arrives to visit him in the dark there on the coattails of whatever nightmare has been suffered in his sleep and is made more potent by the trap of the Gallows' heavy walls. If he can't sleep, then he will at least take some pleasure from the sensation of a ship shifting against its anchor, or see to reviewing the great piles of mail coming in from all over the Marches and beyond in a setting where no one is permitted to trouble him.
If he regrets it—
He doesn't regret it. But they have become accustomed to different ways of living, and the furniture arranged about the cabin affords little in the way of comfort to a man crusted with blood.
Flint closes the lamp with a snap of metal. He has been listening quietly for some time, and doesn't seem thrilled with this reassurance.
"We have twenty ravens at our disposable and they rode out to ask their question."
Did they take horses or griffons? He doesn't have the slightest idea. The crux of the thing isn't dissimilar.
It has come to my attention that certain things I had begun to take for granted had ought to be had out more directly - though I think Captain Rowntree need not hear of me taking a leaf from his operational book - and so I thought it merited saying to you, directly:
I do and have trusted you. Among your number within that tower, I surely trust you above all others, and, now that I have had a bit of time to
( sit with it and consider the other perspectives in play more seriously, and work off her first, kneejerk upset with silver, who narrowly avoided getting beaned with a water-skin, )
consider the matter, I wish to apologise, most sincerely, if my actions gave you cause to question that.
( and doing that via crystal was a bit more comfortable for someone who is not over-fond of such admissions, but, )
I would, of course, be glad to discuss that and any other matter with you in your office or perhaps a friendlier locale, if you wish it. But I did think it merited saying, in so many words. And, I suppose, it is a better thing not to take even one's -
( friends? )
- well, it is presumptuous, I know, to presume your support and agreement.
[The message goes unanswered for some time. These last weeks have been busy affairs, colored with enough suspicion and uncertain company that it has been a matter of prudence to let certain things remain lodged on the crystal until some opportunity for private review makes itself known.
—And then an hour further past that point, as he debates whether to be more or less exasperated on account of it.
Since this situation shows no signs of abating, I'd like to make available to you a guest room in the de Coucy residence if you'd like a reprieve. Please don't completely abandon de Fonce's house of horrors, I don't want her feelings hurt by an exodus, but if you need a break from either the house or the company, my grandfather's staff have been instructed to expect fluctuating additional bodies. You can bring Silver if he's making himself at home.
G.
( oh it turns out he didn't even have to be nice to her, cool. )
it's not exactly an echo. but if flint were to stand very near the door of his office, he could probably hear a muffled version of what comes through clearer: )
[Flint isn't quite near enough to said door to appreciate the precise sonic overlap. He is, however, in the office—or is in the apartment beyond it, the door between the spaces left ajar. He straightens abruptly from the work of rearranging a sea chest inside the room's heavy wardrobe at the crackle of the crystal. The small hairs at the back of his neck bristle momentarily on end at the sound of her voice.
[ A few hours after the dead return to life, when memories of this life are just starting to filter back in, Byerly stops by Flint's office. His tendons nearly seem to be standing out with his sheer furious effort to look cool and indifferent and wry - indolent little smile on his face, shoulder pushed up against the doorjamb, eyes still rimmed with red. ]
Just checking in, Commander. Reporting myself alive.
[It's lucky timing. From the looks of things—the coat over a nearby chair back, the saddlebags slung across one shoulder into which he's presently stuffing a collection of tightly rolled parchment tubes fit for fixing to a raven's leg—, Flint isn't long for the office.
Here though, he pauses. Straightens, a hand rising to secure the saddlebag first in its place and then moving to cinch closed it's flap. His examination of Byerly there in the doorway, all faux indolence, is brief but hardly cursory.]
Congratulations.
[This thoughtless motion of hands, all telegraphed momentum and it's accompanying shred of impatience is the most scattered he has seemed in— those undone weeks, no longer relevant to anyone. He'd appeared remarkably steady through those. But what would Byerly, who was a corpse then, know about any of that?]
The cups are drained. The bread consumed. The dwarves have multiplied to such a degree that their exit from the tavern is frustratingly slow-going.
But by and by, they make it out onto the street. The sky has grown darker. It's a remarkably clear night. The muggy heat of Kirkwall has broken, shifted towards cooler evenings. There is some time yet before the last ferry, and no clear consensus whether they wish to be on it.
Their unfinished conversation will become unavoidable should they return to the Gallows. It is unavoidable regardless, John knows. All the space Kirkwall affords them is the luxury of engaging it as they so choose.
This perhaps is what drives them in to Emlyn's.
It is familiar ground. There is a bottle for them, unprompted. (Stronger than the one set on the table for them in their previous haunt.) An offering of a table in the corner, or perhaps the balcony, or would they prefer the narrow back room John has taken to holding his meetings within?
The latter affords them only marginal insulation from the noise of gathering sailors, but it more importantly masks them from impending interruptions, the frequency of which depend on the number of Walrus men who happen to be in attendance. Flint is charged with throwing open the shutters. John works the cork free, sat in the same rickety chair he once tumbled into, years ago now.
"Did she give us cups?"
John doesn't care so much about the contents of the bottle. But it has been put into his hands. It is ostensibly their reason for stopping here as they wound their way, noncommittally, downwards through Lowtown.
And the question beckons Flint back, away from the opened window.
If he resents the choice of locale—simultaneously too private, and too close to the company of Walrus men to indulge in a bit of proper drinking unless he can tolerate the idea of crossing under their noses while clumsy on his feet—, he makes no remark of it. His greeting for the proprietress (who has never made much effort to disguise her distaste for him) is perfunctory, but not altogether impolitely sour, and his leveraging open of the back room's various narrow shutters is attended to without complaint.
Here, a grunt of acknowledgement as Flint turns from the open window and brings the two cups he'd set aside on the sill with him. He clacks them against one another where they've been stacked together for effect. Yup. She gave them cups.
He doesn't linger at the window, though the cooler tang of the salt touched night air is a balm against the bare skin. Instead, Flint shifts back to the narrow little table, divides the cups, and sets them there where John might fill them. There is a second rickety chair he. He doesn't take it. The privacy of the room affords him the luxury of his restlessness, if nothing else.
It's hard to deny that Byerly-the-civilian looks quite a lot better than Byerly-the-head-of-diplomacy. Less pale, less tired, less peevish. He takes the form of that cruelest of figures, the free man who stands before the prisoner.
At least he comes to Flint's office bearing a gift: a bottle that does not, for once, hold any liquor. Instead: "Garum. The proper stuff, Tevinter-made. Do you get at all nostalgic for the stuff? You can have this, if you do."
It is natural, therefore, that Flint be sat at one of the stools around the office's broad central table with a chart book laid open before him. How would anyone know he was working, otherwise?
At this interruption, his attention lifts—fleeting from Byerly to the bottle, then slowly back again. The book with its myriad markings—coastal causeways and sounding depths and dangerous breakers—is allowed to flip closed with apparent carelessness.
"What do you want?"
Byerly now being in that coveted position of underling where he may be somewhat inclined to bribery.
I was alerted to the possible danger regarding a newly arrived rifter who goes by "Tav". I've included the relevant note for you and your colleagues' reference.
Tav agreed to meet with me about that which he calls his "urges", and gave thorough explanation as to their origin. [ Here, Marcus elaborates on the background he was told as succinctly as he can. This is being linked due to spoilers for BG3 content. ]
In short, I understand that Tav experiences murderous urges regularly, but is unable to control them at night. He indicates he fights them off during the day and, despite having magical ability, does not access this ability when his urges overtake him in his sleep. He had volunteered to be jailed at night or otherwise restrained, and seems enthusiastically willing to do what must be done to keep others safe.
I have had him locked into his room this evening, and he agreed to take a dose of magebane as an extra precaution. While I don't condone its continued use, I wished to make every effort to guarantee our internal security before this situation is better understood and you and your colleagues can agree as to an approach. I have informed him I am making this report.
As a note, he has thus far told Wysteria de Foncé of his affliction, as well as (for some reason) one of the visiting playwright's interviewers, Louis Boucher.
[Some hours after the receipt of the note—time enough to have grudgingly decided against simply discovering the new rifter's whereabouts and arranging to see the would-be murderer quietly displaced from that room directly into the sea with a heavy stone lashed to both ankles, and then to have consulted with the other division heads—, the reply comes by way of crystal:]
Edgard enters into Flint’s office (with permission) and it wouldn’t be shocking if he wasn’t recognized. He is bathed and clean shaven, his clothes look laundered, and his hair neatly tied back. It’s almost as if he was given a honestly moving pep talk.
“Commander, ser. Have come to speak to you about my performance in this organization and how I can do better.”
Edgard keeps his eyes to the floor in proper deference.
can't believe that link is broken and keeping me from the lore
Flint, with his attentions being presently consumed by a chart of the Waking Sea's easternmost channels and a frankly formidable stack of paperwork, doesn't immediately respond outside a low note of affirmation—yes, he heard you, Edgard. But after a long moment and a few succinct scratches of a pen, he looks up and says, "Go—"
—on is presumably the second part of that would be order. It dies an abrupt, unceremonious death behind Flint's teeth as he actually lays eyes on the man.
[ooc: hello!! i am happy to handwave whatever helping actually looks like, but wanted to take this chance to chuck Tavi at Flint while i can c:]
[following this announcement, a very tentative voice reaches out to Flint through the sending crystal. there's no denying the aristocratic arch to his Tevene accent, but his tone is full of candour. ...and fear, though he is trying to manage it. it seems Flint's reputation has preceded him. (he can thank Byerly for that.)]
...Commander Flint? Sorry if this is--[he stops himself and tries again,] My name's Octavius, I just joined the Research division. I heard Scoutmaster Yseult say you're looking into whether the people replaced by demons may still be alive. [it is a physical effort for him to restrain his hope.] I want to help, if I can.
[There is a long stretch—maybe ten minutes—where the message goes unanswere. Which is not beyond the pale. Presumably, the Commander of Riftwatch may presently have other items of concern engaging his immediate attention at this exact moment.
But eventually:]
If it isn't Rutyer's cousin.
[Sounds suspiciously like Flint's isn't the only reputation to precede ahead.]
Do you have any familiarity with anyone we know to be missing?
What he needs is to climb the stairs up from the ferry slip, to cross the Gallows' courtyard, and then to ascend eight further flights to the Forces division office and its adjacent apartments where he might reasonably transition into a horizontal and ideally comatose state for a few hours. But once one imagines the length of that journey, it instantly becomes remarkably less appealing. Besides, there is a stack of paperwork and letters waiting for him there too, and inevitably they will take precedence over his pillow once he is actually in the room in question.
So, no. He doesn't need anything that he might find here at the midpoint of this trek back to work, and it more than a little indulgent to say otherwise. However—
Gwenaëlle makes a quiet tch sound, more agreement than anything else, and tips her head; come along, then, toward the boat he can always most effectively critique from within it, on the plush upholstery and drinking her wine. Or tea, as the case may be.
“They make you row it yourself at this hour?” is half a question (another one lingering behind it, unasked, yet) and half a jest, although it's not as if she'd be so surprised if the answer were yes. Or if he'd just done it to prove some kind of deeply esoteric and masculine point, a thing she broadly doesn't put past him even if she does tend to be more than willing to ascribe sensible and correct motives to him after the fact.
"Unfortunately not. That one," he says, motioning to the Antivan City raven he is actually after (who is presently has casually alighted into a higher roost). "Has decided she doesn't care to make the trip."
Denerim, meanwhile, leaves off pursuit of the post earring and turns her attention to the picking at the collar of her new best friend's coat. This, evidently, is a more serious crime. It prompts Flint to catch the bird with both hands and to bodily remove her from his shoulder with an aggrieved crawk of protest. She makes no effort to escape however, reduced to a fat bundle of dead weight between his hands. No, don't put her back on her perch; she's too charming not to give a treat to. Look, her feet are broken. If he tries to set her there, she'll just flop dramatically back off—
Apparently birds can't read memos about being appropriately intimidated by Riftwatch's Commander.
“Dear me,” Petrana says, mild, having given up entirely on disguising her smile. She is, likewise, rarely appropriately intimidated by the Commander; perhaps not never. “I'm not sure I've ever seen them in such a state. Have you tried giving them a treat?”
(Enough of these creatures know that word to swivel toward her.)
There is a bruise gone yellow and green on the back of Flint's head that makes the close crop of his hair seem mottled and strange. Happily, it is more or less invisible when his face is turned in the direction required to actually hold a conversation, and so this discussion can be conducted without any overt reminders as to the consequences of certain personnel issues. No one need think in overly dramatic terms such as 'Yesterday's mild head trauma may very well be tomorrow's slit throats', and instead they may focus on being something like impartial and realistic.
Or whatever. There is, at least, no lingering headache to blame for his present irritations.
"Idiocy and malice often look remarkably similar," Flint agrees, setting aside the topmost piece of paper on the stack he is presently managing while Marcus speaks. He's behind on the miscellaneous paperwork that requires his signature and there are only so many hours in the day to catch up with.
"Would stripping him of his crystal be at all productive?"
It's the natural thing to ask next, but Marcus doesn't have a ready answer. A longer breath out, focus diverting down to his own notes.
Some hasty work, separating out his own instincts, biases, inclinations, before producing a reply. It's easy to imagine an isolated life in a Gallows room, and easier still to remember. The pen held idle in his hand slightly fidgeted with as he says, "It may. For the sake of himself and his reputation as well as anyone else."
His head tips. But. "I'd wait. Allow him to have contact, company, for the time being. Most of his transgressions have been in person, shouted through the door during his episode, or in the low moments after. And if we set a precedent for how to handle people being foolish over the crystals—"
Well, the turn of his hand says. Maybe they're onto something.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
new inbox so fresh and so clean clean
She's small, and her face hints at youth (though it can be hard, sometimes, to tell with elves). Not much to look at. But...But a very keen eye might notice that the mage staff in her hand has carvings consistent with one of the lesser Altus families in Tevinter. And given who she is, it's not likely that the original owner of that staff gave it as a gift.
"Lord Commander," she says. Minrathous-accented. A knowledgeable ear - even one that's been years away from Tevinter - could likely place that accent as that of a slave. "I would like to present my qualifications to be part of your division."
( ◡‿◡ *)
What is clear is that, despite however many years he's spent away from the Imperium, is that the man sitting at the end of the large table in the office's room does notice. That much is obvious due to the unmasked flicker of surprise that crosses his face, and in how abruptly he straightens and lays down the compass alongside its matching ruler with which he'd been plotting some course east across the Waking Sea from the charts scattered about this end of the table. Appointment or no, he hadn't set those things aside when she'd arrived. But she seems to have won Commander Flint's full attention now.
He looks at her, and at her staff (though whether he marks its design in that brief glance from a table length away is impossible to say). He puts his quill down.
"All right." He's been a long time away from Tevinter, yet it's still as obvious in him as it is in her. "Go on."
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lovingly details the opening of a door
puts thumb over timestamp
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...
Backdate early Kingsway
She knocks once, and winces. Her knuckles are still healing from where they slammed into Ellie's jaw.
"Flint." There's something different in the way she approaches him at the desk, fingers touching the edge of the door in suggestion of closing it, "Can I talk to you for a sec?" She might seem distant to him, and quieter. The typical twinge of nervousness that usually accompanies her in hasn't bothered to show up. He may notice that one of her eyes is brilliantly bruised, one dark edge splashed across the bridge of her nose.
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A marker is placed. The book is shut. There is just one chair on Abby's side of the desk, and the tilt of Flint's brow seems to suggest she's welcome to it.
For a sec.
"I trust you're not trying to talk your way out of scraping hulls."
Riftwatch's little fleet of rowboats and sailing dinghies have only this week been hauled up onto the quay where they will soon be cleaned and sanded and repainted in preparation for winter.
But no, those bruises and that tentative slant to the request in combination all suggest otherwise.
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crystal.
So do I get to teach you what you were teaching me, now?
( is book club about to get wild or. )
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satinalia.
There is work to be done, if he were so inclined. It would only be one more flight of stairs to his office. Or a short trip across the harbor into Kirkwall, where surely the Walrus men are gathered at the Red Lantern. Or a salon in Hightown is packed with people celebrating, in the right mood to open their purses for a good cause.
But the end of the evening finds John in the plush armchair he'd appropriated from one of the guest bedrooms, shutters cracked open and a bottle of faintly glowing liquor set on the sill alongside his crystal. The sea chest tucked away in its far corner been opened. The oil lamp is burning. John has occupied himself with the assembly of some joints, pouch of elfroot over one thigh opposite a few sheets of parchment bearing cramped scribbling John is half-reading as he works.
The door is not latched.
opening door description revenge
The impression is an odd combination of grizzled and boyishly out of sorts: heavy shoulders, smudged makeup, shockingly sober despite the hour and the general uncharacteristic effort made to be seen indulging in the holiday, and a palm scraped raw enough that it can be seen by lamplight at the distance of a few paces.
"Do you keep any bandages?"
He's loath to go rustling around down in the infirmary at this hour. There's probably a line forming for late night holiday witherstalk.
my trap has sprung
fully did write that whole tag then go 'wait a second-- gdi eppy'
https://i.ibb.co/Htxv9Nd/image.jpg
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+ marcus
There is first a slight rasp of turning, pausing for a breath, perhaps to rearrange the order of entrants. And then the whole heavy door swings inward on its hinges.
Derrica enters first. Marcus is left to close the thing behind them, and latch it against interlopers. Derrica’s fingers are at the clasp of heavy travelers cloak, assured at least of their welcome as she greets, “Commander, we urgently need to speak with you.”
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He is also dressed for (or rather, from) travel, his own cloak still damp at the hems and spotted with specks of earth from riding, kicked up from hooves. Urgency, as mentioned, conveyed in a sort of undercurrent of energy, a quick sweep of a look across Flint's desk as if he could tell from here if anything in front of the Commander might be important enough to earn their dismissal.
Decides, from here, that there isn't, but doesn't echo Derrica, only expectantly angles for one of the chairs by the desk.
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action. sometime after starkhaven. cw: self harm imagery.
she is moments behind her dog (presently: scrounging at Flint's thigh for treats), out of sorts in a way that heralds the sort of directness she is more comfortable with. Something is on her mind; whatever it is, she's already decided not to beat around the bush about it. Dropping herself into a chair without waiting to be invited, she says, “You're always circling propaganda.”
Not so that she always notices, in the moment. To step firmly away from that was a decision she'd made and never wavered on, assured of her reasons why, and it's not something that she's easily drawn to thinking on as anything other than a good argument for why she had to learn how to hold a weapon. Fat lot of fucking good anything else she'd done beforehand did except make her a target, and for what? Accomplishing nothing she's proud of.
But she is aware. It had been the thing that first brought her to his notice; she unpicks the threads of conversations later, when they collide with other thoughts. And in Starkhaven, for a moment, she had thought of all the places that she could write...
And that had seemed...plausible. Something that she might be willing to do. Not publish, no, but maybe something productive. Nothing that she's definitely willing to do, or has a clear idea of how she'd approach it, but enough of a notion that she might waver, a little, from her considered position of I'd sooner slit my wrists and write FUCK YOU in the blood.
“I am not promising to do anything, and nothing that I'm considering involves publication,” to be clear. “But I had a brief thought that might not be an abject waste of time and energy, and I thought if you have an actual idea then we might as well talk about it while that's still on my mind.”
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Shooting great holes into Tevinter cavalry with that infernal enchanted hand cannon evidently had left very little time for keeping his face neat. But there is a difference between being covered in soot and spotted in someone else's blood, sporting two day old stubble in the immediate aftermath of spitting in the Imperium's eye and doing so here on the sixth floor of the central tower a few days further along than that. There are already letters coming in from the Inquisition; there are appearances to think of should the next ones come by way of a warm body rather than by raven.
(And his neck has been itching against the collar of his shirt with murderous fucking intent.)
"Okay," is distinctly put upon syllable as Flint manages to both foist Hardie away and steady the teetering shaving stand with an elbow.
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in the Starkhaven aftermath
It's not an easy time to arrange a private conversation, however, so Julius knows it's at least a partial inconvenience when he opens with: "Commander. Might I have a word in private? It is not an emergency but it is somewhat time-sensitive."
He hopes, at least, Flint knows him well enough by this point to trust that Julius is unlikely to waste his time.
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Not an emergency, but time-sensitive ranks just barely among the top items on his to do list. And it has been a long series of days even before they ever waded into the the ground around Starkhaven. Were it not Julius, and we're he not perfectly aware of the fact that the other man has every motivation not to here tugging at his coat sleeve, he might simply cut him him short and be done with it.
"You have my attention," he says instead.
Nevermind that they are standing just outside the emptied barn that has been converted into the field office, and that a hand stretched in either direction is likely to clip someone hurrying along. This is what passes for privacy, apparently.
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as promised.
During the crossing, John's voice comes through Petrana's borrowed crystal, querying: Where are you?
It is late. It is later still, when the door closes behind them on the cabin aboard the Walrus. The click of the latch is an audible thing. John breathes out in the wake of it, circling into the familiar space as Flint lights the lantern overhead.
"So our concerns were misplaced, in this event," John continues. There is blood crusted at the collar of his tunic, the inside of his coat. A minor wince as he leans against the table in the center of the room. "They meant to pose a question, and found the late Grand Enchanter more receptive than anticipated."
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If he regrets it—
He doesn't regret it. But they have become accustomed to different ways of living, and the furniture arranged about the cabin affords little in the way of comfort to a man crusted with blood.
Flint closes the lamp with a snap of metal. He has been listening quietly for some time, and doesn't seem thrilled with this reassurance.
"We have twenty ravens at our disposable and they rode out to ask their question."
Did they take horses or griffons? He doesn't have the slightest idea. The crux of the thing isn't dissimilar.
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crystal.
I do and have trusted you. Among your number within that tower, I surely trust you above all others, and, now that I have had a bit of time to
( sit with it and consider the other perspectives in play more seriously, and work off her first, kneejerk upset with silver, who narrowly avoided getting beaned with a water-skin, )
consider the matter, I wish to apologise, most sincerely, if my actions gave you cause to question that.
( and doing that via crystal was a bit more comfortable for someone who is not over-fond of such admissions, but, )
I would, of course, be glad to discuss that and any other matter with you in your office or perhaps a friendlier locale, if you wish it. But I did think it merited saying, in so many words. And, I suppose, it is a better thing not to take even one's -
( friends? )
- well, it is presumptuous, I know, to presume your support and agreement.
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—And then an hour further past that point, as he debates whether to be more or less exasperated on account of it.
But eventually, James Flint serial monologuer:]
It was presumptuous. But I'll take the apology.
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book, as pleasance's stay drags on.
G.
( oh it turns out he didn't even have to be nice to her, cool. )
crystal.
it's not exactly an echo. but if flint were to stand very near the door of his office, he could probably hear a muffled version of what comes through clearer: )
Guilfoyle said you stole my dog.
( you know when ;) )
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(This will take some time getting used to.)
Eventually—]
You weren't using him.
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action.
Just checking in, Commander. Reporting myself alive.
[ Yeah, what a totally chill dude. ]
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Here though, he pauses. Straightens, a hand rising to secure the saddlebag first in its place and then moving to cinch closed it's flap. His examination of Byerly there in the doorway, all faux indolence, is brief but hardly cursory.]
Congratulations.
[This thoughtless motion of hands, all telegraphed momentum and it's accompanying shred of impatience is the most scattered he has seemed in— those undone weeks, no longer relevant to anyone. He'd appeared remarkably steady through those. But what would Byerly, who was a corpse then, know about any of that?]
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secondary location.
The cups are drained. The bread consumed. The dwarves have multiplied to such a degree that their exit from the tavern is frustratingly slow-going.
But by and by, they make it out onto the street. The sky has grown darker. It's a remarkably clear night. The muggy heat of Kirkwall has broken, shifted towards cooler evenings. There is some time yet before the last ferry, and no clear consensus whether they wish to be on it.
Their unfinished conversation will become unavoidable should they return to the Gallows. It is unavoidable regardless, John knows. All the space Kirkwall affords them is the luxury of engaging it as they so choose.
This perhaps is what drives them in to Emlyn's.
It is familiar ground. There is a bottle for them, unprompted. (Stronger than the one set on the table for them in their previous haunt.) An offering of a table in the corner, or perhaps the balcony, or would they prefer the narrow back room John has taken to holding his meetings within?
The latter affords them only marginal insulation from the noise of gathering sailors, but it more importantly masks them from impending interruptions, the frequency of which depend on the number of Walrus men who happen to be in attendance. Flint is charged with throwing open the shutters. John works the cork free, sat in the same rickety chair he once tumbled into, years ago now.
"Did she give us cups?"
John doesn't care so much about the contents of the bottle. But it has been put into his hands. It is ostensibly their reason for stopping here as they wound their way, noncommittally, downwards through Lowtown.
And the question beckons Flint back, away from the opened window.
true crime girlies everywhere aghast
Here, a grunt of acknowledgement as Flint turns from the open window and brings the two cups he'd set aside on the sill with him. He clacks them against one another where they've been stacked together for effect. Yup. She gave them cups.
He doesn't linger at the window, though the cooler tang of the salt touched night air is a balm against the bare skin. Instead, Flint shifts back to the narrow little table, divides the cups, and sets them there where John might fill them. There is a second rickety chair he. He doesn't take it. The privacy of the room affords him the luxury of his restlessness, if nothing else.
wait'll they find out abt the third location
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https://i.ibb.co/ZNVyvRc/190215.png
guffaw
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It's hard to deny that Byerly-the-civilian looks quite a lot better than Byerly-the-head-of-diplomacy. Less pale, less tired, less peevish. He takes the form of that cruelest of figures, the free man who stands before the prisoner.
At least he comes to Flint's office bearing a gift: a bottle that does not, for once, hold any liquor. Instead: "Garum. The proper stuff, Tevinter-made. Do you get at all nostalgic for the stuff? You can have this, if you do."
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At this interruption, his attention lifts—fleeting from Byerly to the bottle, then slowly back again. The book with its myriad markings—coastal causeways and sounding depths and dangerous breakers—is allowed to flip closed with apparent carelessness.
"What do you want?"
Byerly now being in that coveted position of underling where he may be somewhat inclined to bribery.
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urgent report.
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We've discussed the rifter.
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“Commander, ser. Have come to speak to you about my performance in this organization and how I can do better.”
Edgard keeps his eyes to the floor in proper deference.
can't believe that link is broken and keeping me from the lore
—on is presumably the second part of that would be order. It dies an abrupt, unceremonious death behind Flint's teeth as he actually lays eyes on the man.
What the fuck.
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crystal;
[following this announcement, a very tentative voice reaches out to Flint through the sending crystal. there's no denying the aristocratic arch to his Tevene accent, but his tone is full of candour. ...and fear, though he is trying to manage it. it seems Flint's reputation has preceded him. (he can thank Byerly for that.)]
...Commander Flint? Sorry if this is--[he stops himself and tries again,] My name's Octavius, I just joined the Research division. I heard Scoutmaster Yseult say you're looking into whether the people replaced by demons may still be alive. [it is a physical effort for him to restrain his hope.] I want to help, if I can.
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But eventually:]
If it isn't Rutyer's cousin.
[Sounds suspiciously like Flint's isn't the only reputation to precede ahead.]
Do you have any familiarity with anyone we know to be missing?
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gwen;
What he needs is to climb the stairs up from the ferry slip, to cross the Gallows' courtyard, and then to ascend eight further flights to the Forces division office and its adjacent apartments where he might reasonably transition into a horizontal and ideally comatose state for a few hours. But once one imagines the length of that journey, it instantly becomes remarkably less appealing. Besides, there is a stack of paperwork and letters waiting for him there too, and inevitably they will take precedence over his pillow once he is actually in the room in question.
So, no. He doesn't need anything that he might find here at the midpoint of this trek back to work, and it more than a little indulgent to say otherwise. However—
"A cup of tea does have some appeal."
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“They make you row it yourself at this hour?” is half a question (another one lingering behind it, unasked, yet) and half a jest, although it's not as if she'd be so surprised if the answer were yes. Or if he'd just done it to prove some kind of deeply esoteric and masculine point, a thing she broadly doesn't put past him even if she does tend to be more than willing to ascribe sensible and correct motives to him after the fact.
nw if this is too crusty
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petrana;
"Unfortunately not. That one," he says, motioning to the Antivan City raven he is actually after (who is presently has casually alighted into a higher roost). "Has decided she doesn't care to make the trip."
Denerim, meanwhile, leaves off pursuit of the post earring and turns her attention to the picking at the collar of her new best friend's coat. This, evidently, is a more serious crime. It prompts Flint to catch the bird with both hands and to bodily remove her from his shoulder with an aggrieved crawk of protest. She makes no effort to escape however, reduced to a fat bundle of dead weight between his hands. No, don't put her back on her perch; she's too charming not to give a treat to. Look, her feet are broken. If he tries to set her there, she'll just flop dramatically back off—
Apparently birds can't read memos about being appropriately intimidated by Riftwatch's Commander.
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(Enough of these creatures know that word to swivel toward her.)
ditto
opens my arms
marcus;
There is a bruise gone yellow and green on the back of Flint's head that makes the close crop of his hair seem mottled and strange. Happily, it is more or less invisible when his face is turned in the direction required to actually hold a conversation, and so this discussion can be conducted without any overt reminders as to the consequences of certain personnel issues. No one need think in overly dramatic terms such as 'Yesterday's mild head trauma may very well be tomorrow's slit throats', and instead they may focus on being something like impartial and realistic.
Or whatever. There is, at least, no lingering headache to blame for his present irritations.
"Idiocy and malice often look remarkably similar," Flint agrees, setting aside the topmost piece of paper on the stack he is presently managing while Marcus speaks. He's behind on the miscellaneous paperwork that requires his signature and there are only so many hours in the day to catch up with.
"Would stripping him of his crystal be at all productive?"
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Some hasty work, separating out his own instincts, biases, inclinations, before producing a reply. It's easy to imagine an isolated life in a Gallows room, and easier still to remember. The pen held idle in his hand slightly fidgeted with as he says, "It may. For the sake of himself and his reputation as well as anyone else."
His head tips. But. "I'd wait. Allow him to have contact, company, for the time being. Most of his transgressions have been in person, shouted through the door during his episode, or in the low moments after. And if we set a precedent for how to handle people being foolish over the crystals—"
Well, the turn of his hand says. Maybe they're onto something.
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mea culpa. no worries if this is too old.