Between the splay of his knees, one hand crosses gently across the other's wrist, the different metals of Flint's rings flattened to a uniform glow under the influence of the glyph's band. The small cup hanging in the hook of an idle forefinger. Though it remains closest aligned, he fails to reach for the ankle of Marcus' boot—the impulse, too, made flat by the not-fire light and the darkness all around them and the attentive pressure of observation has slipped from off the point on which it had threatened to fix.
Consequently, the shape of his own attention has narrowed to a fine point. He watches Marcus, patient and not fully dissimilar from the animals across from them only that neither of them have any feathers to smooth.
"Why did you go, then?" is the question that's been invited. It would be discourteous not to ask it.
It's the invited question. It would be discourteous to bristle at it.
He does, a little, and not outwardly. Reflexive, and already given for little lapses in conversational patter as a habit, it's not so remarkable when Marcus is quiet for a span of some seconds where that feeling is measured, and smoothed back. There are Circle mages for whom Marcus would find that question suspect, and almost everyone else who has lived beyond them.
Almost. "A mage is brought into that place, most times, a child," he says. "And then for all of their life thereon, until they're old and feeble, those in charge of seeing to that bed and that meal will do all they can to ensure he stays one, in all ways that matter. A bad child in need of punishment or a sick child in need of care or one that is obedient and deserving of reward and praise. And perhaps he grows to love scholarship and arcane theory and politicking for promotion and finds some measure of progress that way."
A shrug. "Or he doesn't." A beat, there, to breathe from his cigarette so he doesn't burn it out uselessly between his fingers. Tone tempered, quiet. These aren't new ponderings, even if they're altered to fit the shape of the conversation.
The low murmur of sound in reply to this is a kind of agreement, a signal of understanding. Though for a moment after there is no particular thing he seems eager to say. Instead, Flint studies him for a measure. Cold night air; the faints sweet-acrid taste of the cigarette smoke. They are both less grimy than they ought to be, sweat stripped from skin by the rush of flying and remarkably little in the way of clinging viscera given the day's work. By no means bearing no mark of the evening's violence, presently suffering the consequences of Flint's own ambition to see this particular loose thread tied to the Venatori scouts resolved, but all in all: significantly less battered than might be reasonably anticipated.
No, he decides. It is difficult to picture Marcus comfortably shut up in a Circle tower library. Not strictly an impossibility; only somewhat ill fitting.
"I suppose we can't all have a natural affinity for maths."
Under Flint's study, Marcus' focus folds back down to cigarette end, the ashing of it. Says mm at that, and undergoes an adjustment in posture.
The foot that isn't enjoying that point of contact is drawn in, knee lifting. Listing forwards rather than slouching back, these minor changes reminding him of the physical toll of the day that isn't so readily apparent on the outside but tugs at sore muscle and wearier bones beneath. It is satisfying. He has no complaints.
"And then, if your affinity for maths," he's seen Flint write numbers down, and there's this talk of exams, it doesn't seem unlikely, "amounted to only the written theory of those things it calculated and counted. The imagining of navigation, and not going anywhere."
It isn't a counter so much as an extension of the thing. This would be a different kind of conversation if he had suspicion that Flint viewed the Circles as capable of providing any real sort of satisfactory existence. Another breath of smoke before Marcus goes to put it out between fingertips. Too little left to comfortably handle, but he'll keep the remaining scrap of unburnt leaf for later.
"I taught a bit. Illiterates, some who'd never learn if not for the Circle. But even that came to feel a little like sharpening knives and then putting them in a locked drawer forever."
"It's clever," he says, fishing up that tin cup from the hook of his finger. Moving to position it so he might turn the thing idly about between the fingers of both hands. "To have afforded any Circle mage an education to begin with. I imagine it lends the Southern Chantry a great deal of latitude in any argument. To say nothing of what they gain from having the labor of an army of scholars at their behest."
The cup's surface catches and glints dully in the glyph glow, too dark and scratches and weather-beaten to really constitute as reflective.
"The worst disciplinarian I knew in the service was a Laetan mage. The first of his family, getting on and anxious for his children which I gather had yet to show any similar skill. The illusion of advantage makes for strangely familiar adversaries."
He's been privy to some of those inter-mage 'debates' on the crystal.
Marcus retrieves his cigarette case, arm balanced on a knee as he carefully cracks it open. Some rearrangement of its contents to put the twist of finished cigarette inside, a glance up towards Flint as he speaks. Thinks, briefly, for how the promise of Tevinter had seemed like a restoration of dignity, first and foremost. How little that would have been true, in hindsight, even if they'd gotten all else they'd been promised, and not the indentured servitude they'd have entered into instead.
And he isn't so confident in his rapport with the man sitting on a rock, idle game of footsies and all, that Marcus wishes to test it at this hour by raising that point. It it still a small source of pricking shame for which he's yet to determine a solution.
"I almost came to appreciate the Gallows for that," he says, palming closed the case in his hand. "It didn't pretend at being anything other than itself, what they all are, in its practices. Just raw stone and chain. Even what few mages had excelled in any position weren't protected from its elements." A wry slant to his expression. "And then it was the first to crumble."
"As we discussed, all things in the correct measure would seem to have some bearing when it comes to guaranteeing what men and women are willing to indulge with complacency. Maybe if no one in the Gallows knew otherwise, or if the Knight Commander had made some effort to creating division within the ranks of the mages—"
Well, allows the tilt of his head. Maybe Kirkwall would have been the third or fourth to crumble.
His attention skirts, then, to the emptied cup between his fingers and it's black emptiness. Considers, briefly, fetching his own waterskin but decides against it. All this in a flicking glance, hardly a pause, before he shifts his heel. Bumps Marcus' boot where it's aligned with his.
"I'll mind the first watch, when it comes time for that."
Even a quick glance in the direction of an empty cup in the desert is enough to compel Marcus to collect up the waterskin, moving on lazy delay in conjunction with stowing away the case before uncapping it.
A return to business could be—well, that. But there is still something familiar about silent assent, very well, and listing further forward to insist water into the held cup.
"We might have anticipated an overnight stay," he suggests, a flick of a look upwards. "Brought with us a real drink."
A sidelong look across the little tin cup, shed biscuit crumbs swirling amidst the glug of cool water. Guard Captain Rowntree, they are ostensibly behind enemy lines.
But also—
A slant of the temple, a hand freed from the cup. Flint fishes after his saddlebags and, given a moment or two to shuffle through the contents, produces a small leather-covered flask.
A silent rebuke followed by silent presenting of the flask earns a smile—crooked, brief, imperfect—and a loosened breath.
There are even less responsible activities to enjoy behind ostensible enemy lines, in an environment where even the presence of Venatori is but one aspect of danger. It will be hard not to think about them if he tastes what he expects to be cheapish whiskey, familiar and biting, but he sets aside the waterskin anyway and reaches a hand for it.
And even a modest helping will just as likely make it easier for him to sleep in his armor, so it's not entirely irresponsible.
It is—cheapish whiskey, biting. The sort of taste which lingers sharp on the tongue and nips at the edges of the breath. When Marcus has finished with it, Flint fetches it back. Helps himself to a matching, biting swig.
(That crooked smile latches at something in him; maybe, eventually, he will hear Rowntree laugh a note instead of that huffed sound he makes
—he doesn't think.)
"I'm afraid there's not room reserved for a bedroll," he remarks, in reference to the saddlebags. Soft sand, it is.
Marcus glances to the small mountain of griffon on the far side of the runic circle, but he knows of his own that she's given to shifting around from the couple of times he'd taken his chances to try and rest against warm feathers and fur. Really, the look is more that of envy for how well they take to sleeping on open ground, but then, he can do and has done worse than soft sand.
With a breathed out 'alright', Marcus scoots backwards to collect his own saddlebags, legs folding. He sets about reordering the contents some so that when he goes to use it to rest his head, it won't be as annoying as it could be.
"Do we imagine that crystal-talk of snakes was an exaggeration?" is characteristically serious in tone, but a glance up is more wry than concerned.
"If it wasn't, the glyph is likely to draw them in this direction," is in some equally sober tenor as Flint sets the tin cup aside in facor of twisting the cap back onto the small flask.
Helping.
Once the flask has been stowed—a preventive measure to keep himself from nipping at it during the likely slack boredom of the hour in his immediate future—, he fetches the cup back up. Washes cheapish whiskey down with cool, crisp edged water.
A second glance, this time to see if that sober tenor does actually mean it, before deciding that
possibly, but he'd still rather be warm. Buckling his saddlebag closed, Marcus flips it over, setting it on the scrolled curve of runes just a couple feet down from Flint's boots. It's thoughtless, staying near, even before this promise of guarding him from snakes, when his instinct would have been different a short while ago.
Assurance also feels like something that is new, even if in jest. Jesting is new. It catches him as more obvious than his own actions. A thank you would be either too sarcastic or sincere, so it doesn't get voiced. Nods instead, busies himself in collecting his waterskin, drinking from it one last time. It dulls but doesn't wash away completely the sting of alcohol, the sour tang of recent cigarette.
A hand, finally, to the runes, as he sinks down to get comfortable. The slight renewed glow is only detectable thanks to how dark it is elsewhere, their diminishment having been slow enough not to notice until being restored. They'll keep for an hour, as promised.
Pushes some sand away. Settles. Resigns himself to the angles of armor, trusting a long day and a nip of whiskey will do its work.
As Marcus makes himself comfortable, Flint shifts his heels softly in the glyph-light tinted sand. Turns the small cup. Eventually drains it of the last meager sip of water, and remands it back to the cluttered depths of his saddlebags alongside little flask and half spent envelope of salve. He eats another biscuit, dry and miserably hard, and watches the soft shapes of the griffons shifting and settling in the mostly dark. Listens to the soft incidental rasp of sand against the edges of armor, and makes no interruption that might keep Marcus awake for longer than the body might otherwise feel like permitting.
It is dark and cold. But, given the radiant warmth of the glyph, the sting of a chill at his back is very nearly pleasant. At length, when there is no risk in doing so, he allows his attention to wander back to Marcus where the man has lapsed into sleep so he might give him some serious albeit somewhat automatic study. Curious, a little, to make note of how he lays and what he looks like when he isn't tucked up under his arm.
Eventually, when it comes time to swap posts, he set aside the minor mending project he'd made for himself to keep awake and alert (weaving some fine cords drawn from a saddlebag into a length of braid that he means to repair a slightly worn section of Buggie's harness with) and he reaches out to at last lay a hand in Marcus' boot in the moonlight. Rouses him thusly. And, when Marcus has vacated his spot on the sand, Flint makes no bones about crawling into the shape the other man leaves behind in the sand. There remains the shadow of warmth there, and he has no qualms about being more opportunistic than an Anderfels serpent.
It takes longer than it might if he had a bedroll, or better yet, a well-stuffed mattress in one of the nicer appointed rooms of the Gallows, but sleep hooks in without too much struggle. No tossing and turning, at first, set on his back like a flipped turtle by the time breathing comes much slower, peaceful.
When the runes dwindle and go out, it takes a few minutes more before the biting chill has him bodily seek out warmth, a rasp of sand on leather and metal, the creak of saddlebag, as he unconsciously burrows in to the dip in the earth he's made, arms folding, one loose hand burying fingertips into earth. Sleep deepens once more.
The kind that necessitates Flint rousing him both back in the Gallows or, evidently, on a night's watch, disinclined on some physical level to cheat himself out of more hours on his own. But the cold nips at him when he rouses at that jostle to his boot, the ground hard, and the prospect of waking appeals just as much as that of trying to sleep more. Non-verbal in this state, grunts of ascent at report of no news, sand wisping off him as he leaves his bed.
Marcus is on his feet once Flint settles in, retrieving the staff laid nearby. He holds it long enough to recast that warm circle, which flare around to encompass griffons and Flint both.
Walks away, into the cold. Not far. Everyone within sight, still, but motion does something to clear the fog. And when he returns, there's a renewed scent of cigarette smoke.
Dawn comes early, out here. At first sign of it, Marcus isn't inclined to rouse Flint too soon. But it's inevitable, with the body's instinct to respond to direct sunlight, the sounds of wings shaken out, some chirps and whistling and talons and claws all rustling. Flint will also come to to the feeling of not being alone, as well, where Marcus had at some point settled nearer, not touching, but seated in the sand and sharing space.
Unoccupied with any task, meditatively regarding the sight of rolling desert and rock touched with sunrise colours.
He comes to slowly— and then all at once, abruptly aware of the soft scrape of sand and the nearby clicking and rustling of large beasts; the angle of the daylight casting blue shadows through the scraggly underbrush clustered about the cliff base and painting the rock face in glowing shades of ochre; Marcus near enough to hand that the slant of his shadow skims at the edges of where he lays in the cool sand; the rushing away of some figment of sleep, blurry edged shapes of a dream rabbiting off as an animal might slip between the off white and yellow brambles of the scrub.
Propping himself up on an elbow, shedding filaments of sand, he makes a low (automatic) noise of complaint. Stiff joints, something pinched between the shoulders—liable to be shaken loose once he's upright and working, but an irritant when still more than halfway horizontal.
No good mornings. Instead, turning halfway over—toward Marcus, rather than away—, Flint draws his bag from under his shoulder and makes to scavenge through it.
The natural change in breathing that comes with consciousness steers Marcus focus back to the other man; first just keying into listening to him prop himself up, twist around, then looking over, unmoving from his sit. Another point of difference between them: mages notoriously recall every little detail of their dreams.
Whatever his was has been frittered apart anyway, cast aside. Instead, the three to four hours of quiet contemplation are more burdensome. Of regarding a person in a state of warm vulnerability, of some quiet unbraiding and rebraiding of thought and feeling as the sun slowly stained the sky. The Venatori came by and I murdered them all so there's no trouble anymore, might be a fun joke.
"Nothing," instead, rolling his shoulders forward and grimacing a little at the tension gathered there. Under less flattering light of encroaching day than the forgiving ambiance of runic circle (which, now, has almost dwindled to nothing, the faint marks of magic faint on the sand), they are both a bit greyer and grimier than they remember being.
Tracks Flint's hands without yet moving, as if he has yet to shake off the mode of watching over.
"Mm," is a thick sound low in the throat. He feels as crusty as he looks, grit touched at every seam. Dark coat (worn to ward off the night's cold) dusted definitively red.
From within the bag is produced: the flask, the last hard biscuit, a hock of dried meat which must be planned to parlay with the two griffons stretching wing and forelimbs a stone's throw away, and—
A lower grunt. Right.
"Do you care for either of these?"
He withdraws his hand. Turns it. There in the palm rest a heavy silver ring with flat slab into which a palm branch has been engraved, and a thin black band with a winking speck of a pale gem set into a groove. Both, undoubtedly, stripped off the hand of a corpse and forgotten until this moment.
There's a moment of blank confusion when this unexpected thing is offered, a delay until Marcus can order events around how Flint had seen to the bodies last night and this is why he has produced and offered jewelry. He presses his palms into the ground on either side of himself so that he can scoot closer and peer at them.
There are merchants who have enjoyed shaking more gold loose from him than they might have otherwise but only after enduring the length it may take Marcus to make his selections. The couple of seconds spent evaluating could be mistaken for an attempt to discern resell value.
When he selects the black band and its gemstone, taking it from Flint's hand, it could go either way. Rather, it's unique to his eye compared to the small collection he already has, and he imagines it matching well with the silver and blackstone that Flint had remarked on. Here, there are thick crescents of dirt under his nails, a bruising cut at one finger, and desert dust caught in the fine seams of his skin, but he slips the loop onto a finger anyway to check the size.
The divvying of loot can be settled with a grunt of approval or the abstaining of selection.
"Thanks," Marcus says, and instead chases the impulse that has him go and hook his fingers at the edge of Flint's red-dusted coat collar and insist a kiss against his mouth.
He has tipped his temple already—that somewhat habitual mannerism he has of slanting his head to one side and peering askance across any measure of distance—, in precursor to some note of acknowledgement for the choice, and so is easily snared. Supple to the shape of a hand at his collar. Turning his face by that farther degree necessary so as to be most easily made victim to Marcus' insistence. Something easy in the slant of his mouth that could be willingly coaxed into parting amenably.
(Had he thought much of kissing him in that glyph-lit darkness, cold air prickling across the nearly bare crown of his skull? No, actually. Not really. But it's possible that's in some sense more noteworthy than the reverse is.)
"You're welcome," he says instead, warm in that close space in defiance of the lingering chill still palming over the desert's lowest points. Give it a half hour, and the sun will have risen high enough to strip back any memory that cold has ever touched these latitudes. Inside Marcus' shadow, his fingers have closed loosely about the heavier silver band with his thumb fit absently through its center, though the ring is too small to really live on that finger and there is work to be done here in the early hours of daylight which should necessitate clambering up out of the sand rather than tilting his face up to encourage the shape of their mouths.
It's nice here, and it would be nicer to stay. It's become well familiar for that first brush of contact to have Marcus next want to press his mouth against Flint's again, to coax it to part for him. He knows that following that impulse would have him wishing he could press Flint down in the dirt beneath him and soak up what contact is made available, and then so on and on, until he runs out of things to want or he forces Flint to check him.
You're welcome and instead of anything else, Marcus loosens from that tug at Flint's collar. Raises a hand to brush a thumb over red bristle low on Flint's cheek, where a streak of sand is crumbled loose. Then, he levers himself away, not as much with the sense of having stolen something as he might have felt, not that long ago.
Muscles stiff and desert dust making interesting patterns along trousers and the drape of leather under his belt where it had crinkled. Snares up his saddlebag on his way to leaving Flint, for the minute, to whatever morning ritual can be scraped together out here.
Conversely, Marcus drawing away does feel a little sacrificial. Frustrating, maybe, though Flint is aware of it only momentarily and makes no effort to delay him—the formless ember of interest slipping between the fingers before it has time to chew its way toward real heat.
With a heavy exhale, he shoves the neglected silver ring back into the saddlebag. Helps himself to a nip of the flask. Extracts the length of braided cording from his bag and lays for a long moment in his side in the cool sand while he finishes off the tail of the plaiting, knowing that the moment he clambers upright will mean shedding the easy languid sense pressed into him by Marcus' mouth on his.
But eventually, when he has rinsed his mouth out from his own waterskin and has repacked his kit, he sets the last hard biscuit between his teeth and heaves up out of the sand. The hock of dried meat is taken up too, and split between the thumbs, which must reawaken the smell for the two griffons abruptly alter trajectory from idle stretching to actively predatory. Heads swivel round, muscles ripple. Buggie clicks and bios at her siblings's shoulder; earns a sharp rebuke for it. A wrestling match is deferred only by prompt arrival of their meager breakfast portions, which they devour instantly.
There is no shaking free all the grit, but he makes some passing attempt regardless. Relieves himself in the pale sun baked brush, and promptly undoes that effort by drinking a meager measure of water while stood upright and scanning what of the landscape laid out about them can be spied from this sheltered outcropping. When there can be nothing else for it, he at last fetches his saddlebags and moves to muscle his way between the two unsatisfied griffons. Tack is adjusted. The worn length of harness strap is exchanged for the braided cording. Cinches are re-cinched. Bags are stowed.
"I'm going up to take a look," he tells Marcus before he shoves his boot into the stirrup. When they meet again on the plateau's table, it will be time to resume the stricter shape of commander and captain and he will do so without any prickle of remorse.
At the edge of makeshift camp, Marcus has picked back up his staff, slid it into its harness, buckled at the shoulder. The weight of it is a familiar and companionable burden as he takes a careful sip from his waterskin. Restraint stops him from draining the rest, as satisfactory as that would be in the moment. He can commend himself for his good behaviour, instead. Someone ought.
He repacks it as he hears the sounds of Flint making himself ready. Resecuring buckles, his ponytail, his scarf. Hesitates, then removes the ring from his finger to ferret it somewhere safe in a small compartment in his pack rather than risk losing the stone in it or scratching the shiny black.
By then, Flint is mounting up. Marcus gives a whistle, summoning Monster over despite her plainly ill temper. Reverts to a firmer hand in his handling, making her kneel properly as he reattaches saddlebags and checks her tack. Gravelled chirrups simmer down accordingly.
"Good," he says, swinging up into the saddle. Moving to secure himself there. "Better to be quick about it, lest some snake creep up on you."
A pointed look, a misbehaving boy who has just put something slimy into an upturned hand, is passed in Marcus' direction. There is something slanting in the line of Flint's mouth behind his whiskers—not laughing, but glancing toward it. Then, with a "Hup," and a kick of heels, Buggie sways round. Takes a heavy loping step, and then bucks up off the sand with a great rowing of her wingspan.
It takes only a lazy minute or two for her to clamber up to the height of the plateau, and she's happy to make a prompt landing somewhere where the sun is fuller. Flint doesn't bother to slide from the saddle. Instead he simply fetches up his glass and resumes his study of the immediate brilliant landscape from griffon back.
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Consequently, the shape of his own attention has narrowed to a fine point. He watches Marcus, patient and not fully dissimilar from the animals across from them only that neither of them have any feathers to smooth.
"Why did you go, then?" is the question that's been invited. It would be discourteous not to ask it.
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He does, a little, and not outwardly. Reflexive, and already given for little lapses in conversational patter as a habit, it's not so remarkable when Marcus is quiet for a span of some seconds where that feeling is measured, and smoothed back. There are Circle mages for whom Marcus would find that question suspect, and almost everyone else who has lived beyond them.
Almost. "A mage is brought into that place, most times, a child," he says. "And then for all of their life thereon, until they're old and feeble, those in charge of seeing to that bed and that meal will do all they can to ensure he stays one, in all ways that matter. A bad child in need of punishment or a sick child in need of care or one that is obedient and deserving of reward and praise. And perhaps he grows to love scholarship and arcane theory and politicking for promotion and finds some measure of progress that way."
A shrug. "Or he doesn't." A beat, there, to breathe from his cigarette so he doesn't burn it out uselessly between his fingers. Tone tempered, quiet. These aren't new ponderings, even if they're altered to fit the shape of the conversation.
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No, he decides. It is difficult to picture Marcus comfortably shut up in a Circle tower library. Not strictly an impossibility; only somewhat ill fitting.
"I suppose we can't all have a natural affinity for maths."
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The foot that isn't enjoying that point of contact is drawn in, knee lifting. Listing forwards rather than slouching back, these minor changes reminding him of the physical toll of the day that isn't so readily apparent on the outside but tugs at sore muscle and wearier bones beneath. It is satisfying. He has no complaints.
"And then, if your affinity for maths," he's seen Flint write numbers down, and there's this talk of exams, it doesn't seem unlikely, "amounted to only the written theory of those things it calculated and counted. The imagining of navigation, and not going anywhere."
It isn't a counter so much as an extension of the thing. This would be a different kind of conversation if he had suspicion that Flint viewed the Circles as capable of providing any real sort of satisfactory existence. Another breath of smoke before Marcus goes to put it out between fingertips. Too little left to comfortably handle, but he'll keep the remaining scrap of unburnt leaf for later.
"I taught a bit. Illiterates, some who'd never learn if not for the Circle. But even that came to feel a little like sharpening knives and then putting them in a locked drawer forever."
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The cup's surface catches and glints dully in the glyph glow, too dark and scratches and weather-beaten to really constitute as reflective.
"The worst disciplinarian I knew in the service was a Laetan mage. The first of his family, getting on and anxious for his children which I gather had yet to show any similar skill. The illusion of advantage makes for strangely familiar adversaries."
He's been privy to some of those inter-mage 'debates' on the crystal.
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And he isn't so confident in his rapport with the man sitting on a rock, idle game of footsies and all, that Marcus wishes to test it at this hour by raising that point. It it still a small source of pricking shame for which he's yet to determine a solution.
"I almost came to appreciate the Gallows for that," he says, palming closed the case in his hand. "It didn't pretend at being anything other than itself, what they all are, in its practices. Just raw stone and chain. Even what few mages had excelled in any position weren't protected from its elements." A wry slant to his expression. "And then it was the first to crumble."
So.
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Well, allows the tilt of his head. Maybe Kirkwall would have been the third or fourth to crumble.
His attention skirts, then, to the emptied cup between his fingers and it's black emptiness. Considers, briefly, fetching his own waterskin but decides against it. All this in a flicking glance, hardly a pause, before he shifts his heel. Bumps Marcus' boot where it's aligned with his.
"I'll mind the first watch, when it comes time for that."
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A return to business could be—well, that. But there is still something familiar about silent assent, very well, and listing further forward to insist water into the held cup.
"We might have anticipated an overnight stay," he suggests, a flick of a look upwards. "Brought with us a real drink."
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But also—
A slant of the temple, a hand freed from the cup. Flint fishes after his saddlebags and, given a moment or two to shuffle through the contents, produces a small leather-covered flask.
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There are even less responsible activities to enjoy behind ostensible enemy lines, in an environment where even the presence of Venatori is but one aspect of danger. It will be hard not to think about them if he tastes what he expects to be cheapish whiskey, familiar and biting, but he sets aside the waterskin anyway and reaches a hand for it.
And even a modest helping will just as likely make it easier for him to sleep in his armor, so it's not entirely irresponsible.
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(That crooked smile latches at something in him; maybe, eventually, he will hear Rowntree laugh a note instead of that huffed sound he makes
—he doesn't think.)
"I'm afraid there's not room reserved for a bedroll," he remarks, in reference to the saddlebags. Soft sand, it is.
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Marcus glances to the small mountain of griffon on the far side of the runic circle, but he knows of his own that she's given to shifting around from the couple of times he'd taken his chances to try and rest against warm feathers and fur. Really, the look is more that of envy for how well they take to sleeping on open ground, but then, he can do and has done worse than soft sand.
With a breathed out 'alright', Marcus scoots backwards to collect his own saddlebags, legs folding. He sets about reordering the contents some so that when he goes to use it to rest his head, it won't be as annoying as it could be.
"Do we imagine that crystal-talk of snakes was an exaggeration?" is characteristically serious in tone, but a glance up is more wry than concerned.
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Helping.
Once the flask has been stowed—a preventive measure to keep himself from nipping at it during the likely slack boredom of the hour in his immediate future—, he fetches the cup back up. Washes cheapish whiskey down with cool, crisp edged water.
"I'll keep them clear of you."
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possibly, but he'd still rather be warm. Buckling his saddlebag closed, Marcus flips it over, setting it on the scrolled curve of runes just a couple feet down from Flint's boots. It's thoughtless, staying near, even before this promise of guarding him from snakes, when his instinct would have been different a short while ago.
Assurance also feels like something that is new, even if in jest. Jesting is new. It catches him as more obvious than his own actions. A thank you would be either too sarcastic or sincere, so it doesn't get voiced. Nods instead, busies himself in collecting his waterskin, drinking from it one last time. It dulls but doesn't wash away completely the sting of alcohol, the sour tang of recent cigarette.
A hand, finally, to the runes, as he sinks down to get comfortable. The slight renewed glow is only detectable thanks to how dark it is elsewhere, their diminishment having been slow enough not to notice until being restored. They'll keep for an hour, as promised.
Pushes some sand away. Settles. Resigns himself to the angles of armor, trusting a long day and a nip of whiskey will do its work.
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It is dark and cold. But, given the radiant warmth of the glyph, the sting of a chill at his back is very nearly pleasant. At length, when there is no risk in doing so, he allows his attention to wander back to Marcus where the man has lapsed into sleep so he might give him some serious albeit somewhat automatic study. Curious, a little, to make note of how he lays and what he looks like when he isn't tucked up under his arm.
Eventually, when it comes time to swap posts, he set aside the minor mending project he'd made for himself to keep awake and alert (weaving some fine cords drawn from a saddlebag into a length of braid that he means to repair a slightly worn section of Buggie's harness with) and he reaches out to at last lay a hand in Marcus' boot in the moonlight. Rouses him thusly. And, when Marcus has vacated his spot on the sand, Flint makes no bones about crawling into the shape the other man leaves behind in the sand. There remains the shadow of warmth there, and he has no qualms about being more opportunistic than an Anderfels serpent.
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When the runes dwindle and go out, it takes a few minutes more before the biting chill has him bodily seek out warmth, a rasp of sand on leather and metal, the creak of saddlebag, as he unconsciously burrows in to the dip in the earth he's made, arms folding, one loose hand burying fingertips into earth. Sleep deepens once more.
The kind that necessitates Flint rousing him both back in the Gallows or, evidently, on a night's watch, disinclined on some physical level to cheat himself out of more hours on his own. But the cold nips at him when he rouses at that jostle to his boot, the ground hard, and the prospect of waking appeals just as much as that of trying to sleep more. Non-verbal in this state, grunts of ascent at report of no news, sand wisping off him as he leaves his bed.
Marcus is on his feet once Flint settles in, retrieving the staff laid nearby. He holds it long enough to recast that warm circle, which flare around to encompass griffons and Flint both.
Walks away, into the cold. Not far. Everyone within sight, still, but motion does something to clear the fog. And when he returns, there's a renewed scent of cigarette smoke.
Dawn comes early, out here. At first sign of it, Marcus isn't inclined to rouse Flint too soon. But it's inevitable, with the body's instinct to respond to direct sunlight, the sounds of wings shaken out, some chirps and whistling and talons and claws all rustling. Flint will also come to to the feeling of not being alone, as well, where Marcus had at some point settled nearer, not touching, but seated in the sand and sharing space.
Unoccupied with any task, meditatively regarding the sight of rolling desert and rock touched with sunrise colours.
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Propping himself up on an elbow, shedding filaments of sand, he makes a low (automatic) noise of complaint. Stiff joints, something pinched between the shoulders—liable to be shaken loose once he's upright and working, but an irritant when still more than halfway horizontal.
No good mornings. Instead, turning halfway over—toward Marcus, rather than away—, Flint draws his bag from under his shoulder and makes to scavenge through it.
"Anything?" Is doubtful, asked on pretense.
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Whatever his was has been frittered apart anyway, cast aside. Instead, the three to four hours of quiet contemplation are more burdensome. Of regarding a person in a state of warm vulnerability, of some quiet unbraiding and rebraiding of thought and feeling as the sun slowly stained the sky. The Venatori came by and I murdered them all so there's no trouble anymore, might be a fun joke.
"Nothing," instead, rolling his shoulders forward and grimacing a little at the tension gathered there. Under less flattering light of encroaching day than the forgiving ambiance of runic circle (which, now, has almost dwindled to nothing, the faint marks of magic faint on the sand), they are both a bit greyer and grimier than they remember being.
Tracks Flint's hands without yet moving, as if he has yet to shake off the mode of watching over.
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From within the bag is produced: the flask, the last hard biscuit, a hock of dried meat which must be planned to parlay with the two griffons stretching wing and forelimbs a stone's throw away, and—
A lower grunt. Right.
"Do you care for either of these?"
He withdraws his hand. Turns it. There in the palm rest a heavy silver ring with flat slab into which a palm branch has been engraved, and a thin black band with a winking speck of a pale gem set into a groove. Both, undoubtedly, stripped off the hand of a corpse and forgotten until this moment.
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There are merchants who have enjoyed shaking more gold loose from him than they might have otherwise but only after enduring the length it may take Marcus to make his selections. The couple of seconds spent evaluating could be mistaken for an attempt to discern resell value.
When he selects the black band and its gemstone, taking it from Flint's hand, it could go either way. Rather, it's unique to his eye compared to the small collection he already has, and he imagines it matching well with the silver and blackstone that Flint had remarked on. Here, there are thick crescents of dirt under his nails, a bruising cut at one finger, and desert dust caught in the fine seams of his skin, but he slips the loop onto a finger anyway to check the size.
The divvying of loot can be settled with a grunt of approval or the abstaining of selection.
"Thanks," Marcus says, and instead chases the impulse that has him go and hook his fingers at the edge of Flint's red-dusted coat collar and insist a kiss against his mouth.
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(Had he thought much of kissing him in that glyph-lit darkness, cold air prickling across the nearly bare crown of his skull? No, actually. Not really. But it's possible that's in some sense more noteworthy than the reverse is.)
"You're welcome," he says instead, warm in that close space in defiance of the lingering chill still palming over the desert's lowest points. Give it a half hour, and the sun will have risen high enough to strip back any memory that cold has ever touched these latitudes. Inside Marcus' shadow, his fingers have closed loosely about the heavier silver band with his thumb fit absently through its center, though the ring is too small to really live on that finger and there is work to be done here in the early hours of daylight which should necessitate clambering up out of the sand rather than tilting his face up to encourage the shape of their mouths.
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You're welcome and instead of anything else, Marcus loosens from that tug at Flint's collar. Raises a hand to brush a thumb over red bristle low on Flint's cheek, where a streak of sand is crumbled loose. Then, he levers himself away, not as much with the sense of having stolen something as he might have felt, not that long ago.
Muscles stiff and desert dust making interesting patterns along trousers and the drape of leather under his belt where it had crinkled. Snares up his saddlebag on his way to leaving Flint, for the minute, to whatever morning ritual can be scraped together out here.
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With a heavy exhale, he shoves the neglected silver ring back into the saddlebag. Helps himself to a nip of the flask. Extracts the length of braided cording from his bag and lays for a long moment in his side in the cool sand while he finishes off the tail of the plaiting, knowing that the moment he clambers upright will mean shedding the easy languid sense pressed into him by Marcus' mouth on his.
But eventually, when he has rinsed his mouth out from his own waterskin and has repacked his kit, he sets the last hard biscuit between his teeth and heaves up out of the sand. The hock of dried meat is taken up too, and split between the thumbs, which must reawaken the smell for the two griffons abruptly alter trajectory from idle stretching to actively predatory. Heads swivel round, muscles ripple. Buggie clicks and bios at her siblings's shoulder; earns a sharp rebuke for it. A wrestling match is deferred only by prompt arrival of their meager breakfast portions, which they devour instantly.
There is no shaking free all the grit, but he makes some passing attempt regardless. Relieves himself in the pale sun baked brush, and promptly undoes that effort by drinking a meager measure of water while stood upright and scanning what of the landscape laid out about them can be spied from this sheltered outcropping. When there can be nothing else for it, he at last fetches his saddlebags and moves to muscle his way between the two unsatisfied griffons. Tack is adjusted. The worn length of harness strap is exchanged for the braided cording. Cinches are re-cinched. Bags are stowed.
"I'm going up to take a look," he tells Marcus before he shoves his boot into the stirrup. When they meet again on the plateau's table, it will be time to resume the stricter shape of commander and captain and he will do so without any prickle of remorse.
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He repacks it as he hears the sounds of Flint making himself ready. Resecuring buckles, his ponytail, his scarf. Hesitates, then removes the ring from his finger to ferret it somewhere safe in a small compartment in his pack rather than risk losing the stone in it or scratching the shiny black.
By then, Flint is mounting up. Marcus gives a whistle, summoning Monster over despite her plainly ill temper. Reverts to a firmer hand in his handling, making her kneel properly as he reattaches saddlebags and checks her tack. Gravelled chirrups simmer down accordingly.
Looks up at that, nods. "I'll follow."
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A pointed look, a misbehaving boy who has just put something slimy into an upturned hand, is passed in Marcus' direction. There is something slanting in the line of Flint's mouth behind his whiskers—not laughing, but glancing toward it. Then, with a "Hup," and a kick of heels, Buggie sways round. Takes a heavy loping step, and then bucks up off the sand with a great rowing of her wingspan.
It takes only a lazy minute or two for her to clamber up to the height of the plateau, and she's happy to make a prompt landing somewhere where the sun is fuller. Flint doesn't bother to slide from the saddle. Instead he simply fetches up his glass and resumes his study of the immediate brilliant landscape from griffon back.
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