katabasis | [psl] dos rowdy boys

Best to get to it then, says the tilt of Flint's temple and the rise of his own cup. And here is the woman's laughter again, sharp and loud, and this time her companions laugh with her. There is a slapping of shoulders and the jangling of linked jewelry, a slosh of ale from a bumped hand, and a 'Fuck you' that is too good humored for anyone involved to take offense at. But give it a few hours. Eventually the bodies pressed into the tavern will heat the whole thing past tolerating, and Marcus may find the fight comes to him without any encouragement.

"Do you mean to stay long?"

Not that much casual chatter, apparently, as it doesn't sound like much of an idle question, though the wording is benign. But when measured against what passes as standard conversation between them, there is some amount of pressure inherent behind it.

Marcus lifts his tankard as Flint does, drinking deeper. By the time its lowered, there's the faintest crinkle of amusement somewhere around the eyes for the poor quality of the brew firmly confirmed.

Heeds the ambiance of this place. It is sort of charming, the rowdiness, even if he is not so much a part of it, not intermingled with a group that hosts that laughter or clapped hands on shoulders. Sometimes, a crowd can feel a little like hands around his throat, but finding shelter in going unnoticed means it's tolerable, even welcome, for at least a round or two.

So there's this easy answer, a quick absolutely not that gets held in check when Marcus instead catches something in Flint's tone, like an uneven thread in cloth. This whole encounter, really, is that: when have they ever shared a drink that wasn't a waterskin, in the wilderness?

"No," Marcus says, a more deliberate application of pressure in return. Challenge, maybe. "You?"

Flint's hand with its assortment of rings—hammered silver; a signet with a jagged hand cut shape; a broad square pieced worked with a simple pattern of leaves and set with a stone so small that it hardly matters save for how it refracts a prick of light off its dark surface—has already moved to fetch the bottle. It pauses there under pressure, thumb and fingers settled at the neck's root, before shifting to settle lower so the thing might be tipped with confidence to top off first Marcus' cup and then his own.

If Marcus had said Yes, he might have said Fuck, then we'd better find something to discuss. This is not that.

"Long enough," he says instead. "I wouldn't want to waste the bottle."

He'd plied both elbows to fetch it, after all.

A little belatedly, Marcus shifts his cup to help along the helping. A breath of agreement, smokey.

Silence, then, the kind he thinks could be gotten away with in a place like a waterlogged tent, where there is no ability between them to fill long hours with chatter. Here, at a table, it's liable to stand out more, where Marcus' focus briefly snags on that row of rings, trying to remember if he'd seen them during that particular period of time. If he'd taken notice.

No, their hands were busy. Behind him, braced against blooded flesh, stitching him closed. Between them, grasping beneath his cock. Up under loose hair, steering him.

Yeah, sure, he'll drink this beer, and consider what it is he wants to know about the other man. Whether there isn't merit in knowing nothing but these small, raw details, so easily summoned at the barest hint of something. He'd been, he thinks, fairly well behaved this past while.

"Do you like it?" he asks, as if to interrupt his own train of thought, somewhere in the settling of another breath of smoke. Looking back up from Flint's hand. "Command."

It doesn't take much to recall that there's a question he's been meaning to put to the man. Failing to have parsed the right moment—deeming it too involved, too familiar, too skirting near something he has decided has no place in the Gallows—, he might have nonetheless asked it here and not have the meaning sent askew. But there is the scar cut down one side of Marcus' face, and the prickle of sweat above the open collar of his shirt, and he decides that

No, there is no way to ask How fares your side? or to say My handiwork must have held; I don't recall a stern talking to from anyone in the clinic, without summoning something else forward.

The long drink he takes is not to dismiss Marcus' question.

"No need to paint me a tyrant, Rowntree," he says when he has set his cup down again. It's a joke. Really. "If I said yes, some wall would hear and relay it back to my ship where everyone will suddenly remember every grievance they've ever had with me. Call it leadership. I might agree to it then."

There's a play of some subtle sentiment in Marcus' expression — is that what I was doing? — and then listening.

Despite everything about Flint's presentation, the way he speaks and conducts his affairs and the little skulls stitched into his collar on that one shirt (the discovery of which made for a distracting few seconds during some particularly dry division meeting), it's often easy for at least Marcus to forget his origins. Or at least, to forget to consider them as real as opposed to an abstract shadow behind him. Of a ship, and a crew, and a history.

"Then I'll amend it to leadership," he concedes. "And ask if it satisfies."

As opposed to like, which might have some distasteful connotation.

"It suits me," is a straightforward answer and a sideways one both.

But if it's difficult to picture the reality of James Flint as some roving Nocen Sea captain rather than a man in tower leaned over a map, then must it be more difficult imagining him removed from that sixth floor (or from roving a ship's quarterdeck) entirely? He'd come to the Inquisition in the summer, and before that time the following year they were Riftwatch and he'd captured the office he still holds today.

"Whether it satisfies tends to rely on the hour." Before helping himself to the cup again—"The men. The weather. The positioning of the moon."

A slant look, a quirked brow. He's funny.

Maybe. Marcus appears to assess whether this is true in a missed beat of his cup pausing at his mouth, before finishing the movement.

"The literature," he appends onto that list once its lowered, maybe also a joke.

He turns his cigarette between his fingers where the end of it rests over the edge of the table, which is almost begging for it to be knocked out of his hand by someone brushing by too closely. What minor twinge of humour had settled into his expression remains, as he brings the cigarette back up to his mouth.

"I imagine it must be grand, doing only exactly as you please and having everyone rush to obey," is definitely a joke, even though it sounds very much like his normal speaking voice, if in an accent that has gotten a little looser. Less from watery ale, more from context.

There is some answering grunt over the edge of the cup before he helps himself to it's contents. Yes, and the literature.

"That's right. What with Riftwatch being so pliable."

When he reaches the point that there is little more than a finger's width left in the bottom of the tin cup, he fills it again. Offers the same to Marcus, a bump of thick blown glass against the metal edge. A tak of clipped contact. The bottle rights, and the hand with its collection of rings withdraws from it.

"Is that what you were hoping for when you took your post?"

This time, Marcus anticipates it, angling the cup accordingly as he releases smoke back into the air. It flutters, slightly, with a breath that is not quite a laugh.

"Mm. My tyranny over the guard roster," to clarify. He hasn't many lofty ideas as to the significance of his station, for all that he has taken it very seriously, and has pushed at its limits as to the authority it wields. He draws his cup back to himself, not quick to bring it up to drink from, considers what a real answer might look like.

Something he's willing to state out loud, anyway. "Our division attracts a certain kind," he settles on. "I'd rather dictate their days and evenings than the other way around."

So sue him, says the tip of his head, now raising again his cup. At least he has been, by all accounts, evenhanded with his dictatorship.

Fair enough, answers some rise of the eyebrows or a pull at the corner of Flint's mouth. It is a sympathetic instinct; who is he to begrudge a man who may have had precious little of it the impulse toward a little control?

"It does begin to beg the question as to why you're here at all. With Riftwatch."

Not that they are, as a company, so rife with a certain kind overall. But there are places out therr, he knows, with none at all. Mage enclaves sprung up thanks to the messy end of their war; with Fiona; nearly any profession anywhere else. It is not an ungenuine question—he is looking at Marcus directly for an answer when something beyond the man's shoulder catches his attention.

His whistle is short and sharp, a hand raised halfway to make a Come here gesture. The rangy elf woman making a careful search of the tables along this wall lifts her attention, narrows her eyes, and then makes to close on their position.

"Flint?"

"That's right."

"I was told you'd be alone."

"Strange weather we're having," he says, and produces a stack of coins in exchange for the heavy envelope the woman produces from inside her cloak. "Two days, unless I send word otherwise."

She nods curtly, sweeping the coins from the table. With a last suspicious look for Marcus, she melts away. In her wake, Flint takes up the heavy envelope. As he slips it inside his coat, there is very little about his demeanor that suggests he's feeling particularly guilty about insinuating himself at Marcus' table for this purpose rather than strictly the pleasure of conversation. But given there is still some of the bottle to account for—

"As you were saying."

The question already snags something, if not unexpectedly. A thing they'd brushed against already. Its direct nature permits a chance at a pause before Marcus still might have spoken without much thought—

And then the whistle, the elf, the interaction.

Through which he sits quietly, an air of confusion tamped down reflexively lowkey until a basic grasp of the premise settles. He's turned his focus back to his ale by the time the woman grants him a final look and moves off, lifting it once she has to drink from it deeply. It functions, perhaps, as a reminder. He remembers wondering if Flint ever does anything purposelessly, and that purpose is ever opaque.

Even something as simple as securing a table and an idle thing like a conversation to occupy him while he waits for something else entirely.

As he was saying, with the approximate ease he might with a mage sitting across from him, and not his commanding officer.

Marcus sets his tankard back down. There is no great adjustment to his answer, anyway, despite this brief churn of perspective, as he says, "I wished to help," simply.

Considers the crowded tavern. Maybe if he had walked in here with his staff, there'd been a problem. Perhaps, after enough years with the Circles in rubble, the majority sentiment would have allowed him to take his table with minimal issue. Depends on the hour, the building, his own disposition. It remains a question, regardless, as to what amount of southern Thedas he has access to at any given time.

"Not under the Inquisition's banner," Marcus says, looking back to Flint, raising cigarette again. A twitch of an eyebrow raise. "You all had less Templars when I first arrived."

Zero, actually, as far as anyone knew.

A turn of the hand there on the table top. Something something beggars can't be choosers, or maybe What can you do, or, or, or. Not dismissive exactly—some shadow of understanding in the thing which motivates the objection—, and also uninterested in justifying any so-called Templar's presence. Bitches, right?

"That's generous."

If this were a meaningful attempt to pitch the installation of company policy barring the inclusion of Templars among their ranks—

Well, Marcus might do it over cheap ale in a shitty overcrowded tavern, but it does not appear to be the agenda today. Ash tapped again over the side of the table before moving his hand in time for a stranger to brush by, stepping over embers and knocking their table just a little.

"And more mages," he adds. "I knew I'd have friends here. Still do," is, perhaps, an answer as to why he remains, despite these tidal shifts.

The table rattles, warm ale shivering in their respective cups and swirling round inside the bottle. Close by, that woman laughs again. It's a distinctive, crowing sound—sharp as the smoke produced by the cigarette is warm where it clings at the air above their heads and dissipates only lazily.

"I trust they're grateful to have you to hand," is far too broad and general to count as a compliment, particularly when so closely set with this question of Templars and punctuated as it is by Flint pausing to drink from his cup.

Nevermind the strange, unexpected prick of irritation it breeds in him—briefly sharp, briefly resentful of something that he can't name in the split second during which it surfaces. Only that it is there, sour on the tongue until it's washed away by watery drink. He wets his lips reflexively after.

It doesn't sound like a compliment, either.

So there is something prying and speculative in Marcus' study across the table—not that a sideways remark from Commander Flint is foreign to his experience of the man, but normally more interpretable. The close-to-finished cigarette is rotated between his knuckles again, letting it idly burn. Decides to speak plainly, then.

Why not. "Riftwatch is the first time I've been with a mix of kinds," evenly, focus now direct and set. Some spark of desire to convey meaning, though his tone is pitched much the same as before, quietly gravelled, and characteristically serious. "Not only passing through, but living and working. In the Gallows, no less. Aye, assuring, to know there would be some who would be grateful.

"Or just welcoming," a little dismissively, picking up his cup, focus fraying some. "I'm sure you were hopeful for the same."

Edited 2023-03-21 02:41 (UTC)

He meets that study, and it isn't without effect—some fine, bristling sensation prickling at the back of his sweating neck in the dense air of the crowded tavern. A faint lowering of the brow. Looking at Rowntree, meeting Marcus' eye, is not a hook he intends to be irritated by. Yet here is the barb at his lip even as the point of the other man's attention crumbles slightly.

He drains his cup. At this pace, they might be done with the rest of the bottle quickly, and he may be on his way.

"No," he says, sounding like the period at the end of a sentence. "I wasn't. I can't say that's ever been a consideration."

Marcus' cup is still fairly full when it's set down, measuring the quality of Flint's tone, the finality of it.

Flicks a look downwards, noting the lightness of his cup. So, this time it's Marcus that reaches for the centre of the table, and takes the vessel by the base of its neck, and insists it across the space. Topping him up with a neat slosh, then withdrawing. Judging what remains in the bottle, and replacing the sip he'd taken from his cup with a splash.

"Then who did you hope to find, if not friends?"

"A trap that could be exploited to put something valuable to right. But that has little bearing on our present circumstances," he says, hand with its rings settling flat on the surface of the table near the base of the tankard. "It was the Inquisition then, and the thing we came to see protected is no longer pertinent to the state of the war."

And if its spirit is, Kirkwall remains a hostile place. It is best to remember that. If what they'd wanted was something familiar, they would have simply made for Estwatch.

That woman is laughing again.

"How fares your side" he asks, abrupt. "I'd meant to ask after it."

There is the minorest of hesitations when Marcus lifts his cigarette for the last drag—not for anything Flint says, but a darting glance in the direction of that laugh, an emergent flicker of very ordinary irritation for the noise itself. Has to wonder if the gaggle of warm bodies surrounding its source finds it equally charming.

Back to Flint. Absorbs this correction, considers pressing in the evaluative consideration that settles on him, sharp and curious both. Lets out a sigh of smoke, and gently places the burning end of the finished cigarette against the table, which is decorated in similar burns, scratches, scrapes. "Mm."

I'd meant to, something funny in that.

"The healer that saw to me hadn't any compliments to pass along," Marcus says, a little slow to match the rhythm of conversation change, but gets there. "Which I thought that was ungenerous."

He brushes the crumpled cigarette remains aside, the smear of ash.

"But it's just a mark. The rest underneath fares fine."

The drum of his first two fingers on the tabletop in response to this critique has a dismissive quality to it. Noted; he'll make certain to brush up his mending before next being stranded in the field with an obligation to stitch up the various bleeding wounds of his companions.

That this redirection, blatant as it is, sticks in any capacity is so moderately miraculous that he has serious doubts as to its longevity without encouragement.

"You should inform said healer that a matched set is usually worth more."

Ashy smear on his palm is next transferred against the edge of his own knee beneath the table, a negligent brush. A sharper breath at that.

"I might have noted how well it was tested."

If Marcus is speaking of the how well the stitches stayed during the following days of continued travel, then there probably wouldn't be that specific edge of eye contact or the curl at his mouth of self-satisfaction for an amusing turn of phrase just after it as he brings up his cup to drink.

Brief, that. A spark off steel, on its own.

Edited 2023-03-22 12:21 (UTC)

The flash it produces is distinctive—a brief, bristling flex of irritation followed almost instantly by some reset in the line of his brow. The look of a man who is intentionally putting slack into a response where none naturally occurs.

"If you were looking to preserve me from a few choices words, I doubt that likely to have done it," he remarks in place of Fuck off, you smug shit.

Lifting his own cup, there is some soft scrape beneath and between them as, under the table, Flint draws back his outstretched leg. The heel of a boot scraping over the dusty stone floor of the narrow public house. He's finished his business here. It's possible he has other places to be this evening.

There's probably something unhelpful in feeling a curl of satisfaction for that particular twinge of irritation he marks in Flint's brow, voice. Not sharp, that feeling. More familiar than that. It's why there's a cracking open of nearly-smile into nearlier-smile, briefly sharp toothed behind raised tankard.

Alert, then, to the scrape of boot heel, the fine signs of a meeting concluding. There is still a decent mouthful and a half in his cup, and the bottle is empty. Small tethers tug, unasked questions, curiousities—

"Are we finished here?" is what he says, more impulse than thought.

We is a generous assessment says the look lobbed across the narrow table in response. There is more than a mouthful and a half in his cup, but that doesn't stop Flint from draining it directly. It's set aside with a clink of metal against the tabletop, against the body of the bottle.

"You mentioned not intending to stay long."

And if he is obligated to listen to further crowing from the laughing party nearby, he may find himself growing irritated despite the heavy envelope against his side.

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