"It means," he says, drawing some definition out from behind his ribs. Warm as he is, it takes a moment to put the thing into some logical order. "That the Gallows is all in service to this war. It isn't a place for living in."
It is not what he imagined quitting the sea for.
(Nevermind that he can picture other men, in other chairs, in other forts, who he would prefer to be little like who nonetheless rankled under a yoke similar in appearance.)
His response is understated, first, a quiet vocalisation on a breath out. Agreeable understanding. No, the Gallows is not, and how strange it had been to, for that second time, step onto its docks while it cast the same shadows as it had the first. But it isn't the connotation that Flint means and it is an easy thing to quiet steer back from that path, and consider another.
"But we do live there," Marcus says, after a moment. "In spite of it."
In small ways. You can, in small ways, make a home out of anywhere.
Flint's answer to this is some low hum—more acknowledgement than either affirmation or skepticism. He tilts his face back to its natural upright position. The ceiling above them has a crack in it, and the general view of the plaster around it isn't so interesting as to keep him from letting his eyes shut. Just for a short while, he doesn't tell himself so much as he simply expects it.
"My point was that the Gallows is hardly retiring to a house on a rich Antivan vineyard," he says. The bed is warm. "It's entirely possible that if I'd traded up instead of across in circumstance, there'd be no reason think of the sea at all."
Sure. That sounds like it could be a true thing someone who made his fortune through theft at the end of a sword's point might say.
The quiet mh out of him at further clarification doesn't sound unconvinced. Ponders that, this supposed house on a rich Antivan vineyard, the sort of thing that wouldn't have occurred but certainly sounds compelling, and it doesn't entirely negate the possibility of something simpler, nested in it.
So, sure.
And Flint asks his question, and in the midst of it, Marcus adjusts. The roll of his body is not quick, not really aimed towards some specific next movement, just settling on his back. Foot leaving off where it had rested against ankle, hand coiled back from Flint's chest, but there maintains the line of contact, thigh, shoulder.
"If we're speaking of trade," as opposed to a means to nudge him off the prior topic only, "I don't know the value my place would have been there. I was there when it was a rebellion, and left when it ceased to be. I wouldn't miss seven years as a foot soldier of the Chantry."
He considers not saying a thing, before, "Riftwatch has been the better home." He rides griffons and sees much of the world and gets to walk around a city when duties permit and there are people who are good, mixed in the people who are intolerable. He had told Flint he misses his war, too, and apparently these two impulses can co-exist.
In a minute or two, Flint decides as Marcus shifts fully off of him, he will sit up and extract himself from the warmth bed with its crinkling straw packed mattress and see whether there's any water in the pitcher by the door that he might use for cleaning himself up with. He'll only lay here with his eyes closed, listening to Marcus's thick consonants, a few moments longer.
(Maybe Marcus is speaking to the very thing that dissatisfies him; Riftwatch may be faintly divorced from the Chantry and in the least respectable trade city on the Waking Sea, but it still postures at an air of legitimacy. That, the expectation of what civilized places do for civilized people, rankles against the skin. Moreso, from that sixth floor division office. All this courting favor of rich fucks abroad, and playing by the rules that the Divine would prefer them too, and—)
In the close, over warm atmosphere of the room, these irritations hardly rise past a simmer.
"You might send word of your endorsement back to your fellows still with the Inquisition and see whether you might sway anyone else to divest of the Divine's banner," has the timbre of an idle remark, unserious in the sense that it seems highly unnecessary. Surely everyone with the Inquisition knows full well of the Gallows and what might be expected of them there.
Marcus doesn't have his eyes closed, entertaining himself in the contrasts and similarities both of skin tone and line of muscle and scar tissue, what little he can see where he idly considers the topography of both of them laying this way. Then, up at the ceiling.
Either to prevent or give serious thought to the possibilities of not getting up and seeking water and getting clean. Of what further value they can get out of a let room. It is, at minimum, nice to lay here with the air warm enough to make it practical, soothing where it turns cool against sheen of sweat.
A breath out. "They're too busy trying to sway me to the opposite," is also nonserious. If any of them made ardent appeal, it might work, but most understand why it is he might choose to keep his distance. And they, from here.
A grunt of acknowledgement after a time becomes— "Then we'll have to make do with present company."
And then it has been his handful of moments, and the hand across his middle slips from it to plant on the mattress. Flint levers himself up to a sitting position. He is sluggish about kicking his feet off the edge of the bed and is so much more so about rising to them that he allows himself to linger momentarily. To feel the pull of muscle, and the tender sensation in his shoulders from having borne so much of Marcus' weight.
It seems like an incredible effort to clamber to his feet, but he manages it.
Behind Flint, the mattress rasps and the ropes slung beneath it creak. Marcus, not yet getting out of it, instead sits up, slides backwards so his back meets the scarred up frame and wall. Knees drawn up comfortably, laxly.
He doesn't say anything, here, watching Flint with frank appraisal, the things he chooses to do next. The slow way he moves, the pause at the edge of the mattress before rising. For Marcus' part, there is the strain of repetitious movement, if less pronounced than if it had been driven down into him by another.
He finds himself wondering a thing, so he asks, "Are you wanting to stay or try to make the ferry?"
"I've some work here in Kirkwall to see to yet," is more answer than Marcus technically asked for. Flint doesn't bother to fish after his clothes yet and instead, naked, pads to the pitcher and basin set just to the right of the door. All things being equal, he hasn't actually lost so much of the night to fucking around.
"There's an alternative if I don't catch the boat." Presumably one that doesn't charge by the candle mark.
And while there's no cloth for washing, but there is water in the pitcher. Flint brings both back within arm's reach of the bed, placing the basin on the rickety side table alongside their helpful vessel of lamp oil. A generous measure of lukewarm water is splashed into it. He fishes the edge of the coverlet up.
Only when Flint plucks at the covelet does Marcus move, heaving a sigh as he vacates that warm spot they've made in partial awareness for how he does not particularly want to find his bare skin touching this specific exposed mattress in this specific venue. The floorboards creak under bare feet, and he does move, first, to separate his clothing from Flint's, shaking out his tunic, draping it over the edge of the bed frame.
"Find a seat at a gambling table, maybe," because he doesn't have work to do, which is the kind of thing he can arrange when not on assignment. Moving towards the basin. "Win back my two bit."
His hands, first, dunking them into water in pragmatic fashion, fingers flicking. A scooping hand distributing water down across belly and groin, a careless spatter of wet on the wooden floor.
"There's money to be won at the Jackdaw if you're any good at keeping track of cards and can stay sober longer than the merchantman who wash up there this hour." They'd probably take Rowntree and his Starkhaven consonants for granted, too. No sailor takes any landsman very seriously as first blush.
As far as hot tips go, he wagers that's more or less worth the copper near the jar of lamp oil.
He makes brisk work of cleaning himself up—workmanlike, neither coy or embarrassed about about mopping up across his belly or between the legs. Clothes are sorted. His coat his shaken out, and the contents of the pocket verified to be only marginally crumpled. His belt is untwisted and buckled back on. It only then, jamming his belt knife back between it and his side, that Flint's attention falls to the activity of Marcus' hand.
"Where'd you come by that?"
The silver ring, common black stone. Its tck against a metal tankard. Its warm metal bite at the skin. Marcus hadn't worn any rings in the mountains.
He's in the process of tucking his tunic into his waistband when he thinks to search the ground, turning a half circle in scanning the floorboards before finding what he is looking for. The sliver of leather cord that Flint had tugged loose, and he's untangling it out of its half-knot, considering his prospects at the Jackdaw with warmer interest than the prospect of retiring early, and thinking around the space that exists in between where he offers to accompany Flint's remaining errands.
Turns his hand to glance at the ring, stone cut into a masculine square, set into heavy silver with some texture of design worked into the surface.
"Looted it," he admits, though it doesn't sound like admission. He is, anyway, talking to a whole pirate. "And learned it was near worthless when I took it to sell."
Or a merchant was attempting to con him, commonness of stone aside, but his tone lacks guile on the topic.
His hm is low and rumbling, a vague sound of acknowledgement—
"Tourmaline. It's a disappointing stone more often than not," sounds vaguely approving regardless. If nothing else, it's a good shap.
The belt knife is hooked into place; his hand with its own smattering of rings comes away from it on favor of fishing through a sleeve on his cost. In short order, Flint once more looks the part of Whole Pirate instead of merely being one.
Gathering hair back into place, the muscle memory rake of fingers to sit it the way he prefers, Marcus ties it off with practiced efficiency. Less neatly than if he had a comb and a mirror and an inclination to be fussier about his appearance than he does currently, sweat half-dry beneath his clothing and still a little aware of where Flint's grip had, at various points, set the future ghosts of yellow bruises.
"Do you have a story for each one of yours," he asks, during, a tip of his chin down at Flint's hand, "or did you come by them all at once?"
A mild teasing, some small brushing against a more familiar register and rhythm than they would have indulged in before the mountains, or even after the mountains.
"I looted them," has a frank cut of shitheelery in it; the equivalent of a nip of teeth at a tender lip. Behind his whiskers, Flint's mouth slants in the direction of smug. "Some are worth money."
The last buckle on a gaiter is done up. The edge of the missed coverlet is flipped back to be certain nothing has strayed out of sight under the bed. And then there is no more benefit for the room, air thick and muggy even before the sweat of their exertions, to yield. It's possible that at this hour, the land breeze will finally be washing down through Kirkwall and carrying with something cool or at least the stir of the air with it as it hurries to meet the sea.
Might as well quit this place to take advantage of what little relief might be found from the heat while walking.
The sound Marcus makes to that is dismissive, where a neat bite back of a rejoinder would go if he were quicker towards a turn of phrase.
A couple of copper left on the bedside table, and their business, such as it is, is concluded.
The woman in front room doesn't look up at all at the sound of bootfalls, Marcus moving first down the stairs with characteristic heel-first heaviness, especially noisy on the wooden surfaces. Outside, the air is a relief, if only because it is moving around, even in this little cutthroat alley that first must move through. Maybe at the end of it, there is some obligate shuffle around a parting word they're meant to be partaking in.
That Marcus turns out of the alley and makes for the general direction of the Jackdaw without so much as a glance could be a deliberate avoidance of just that, if he'd thought of it at all.
There, at the end of the alley in the cooler touch of night air, Flint makes a similar turn as if by stepping out across the threshold of the lodging house has served to shelve any thought save for one related to the packet in his coat pocket or the business which awaits him down in various dockside public houses. There is no parting word, and he doesn't consider its absence much less think to mind it.
If, given a dozen strides, Flint so much as spares a glance back across his shoulder in the direction Rowntree had struck out in, then it's more or less entirely by happenstance. In short order, the night swallows both of them, and it will be some hours before freshening bruises make themselves known. In the intervening hours, they may be perfectly unaffected men.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
It is not what he imagined quitting the sea for.
(Nevermind that he can picture other men, in other chairs, in other forts, who he would prefer to be little like who nonetheless rankled under a yoke similar in appearance.)
no subject
"But we do live there," Marcus says, after a moment. "In spite of it."
In small ways. You can, in small ways, make a home out of anywhere.
no subject
"My point was that the Gallows is hardly retiring to a house on a rich Antivan vineyard," he says. The bed is warm. "It's entirely possible that if I'd traded up instead of across in circumstance, there'd be no reason think of the sea at all."
Sure. That sounds like it could be a true thing someone who made his fortune through theft at the end of a sword's point might say.
"Do you miss your place with Fiona's contingent?"
no subject
So, sure.
And Flint asks his question, and in the midst of it, Marcus adjusts. The roll of his body is not quick, not really aimed towards some specific next movement, just settling on his back. Foot leaving off where it had rested against ankle, hand coiled back from Flint's chest, but there maintains the line of contact, thigh, shoulder.
"If we're speaking of trade," as opposed to a means to nudge him off the prior topic only, "I don't know the value my place would have been there. I was there when it was a rebellion, and left when it ceased to be. I wouldn't miss seven years as a foot soldier of the Chantry."
He considers not saying a thing, before, "Riftwatch has been the better home." He rides griffons and sees much of the world and gets to walk around a city when duties permit and there are people who are good, mixed in the people who are intolerable. He had told Flint he misses his war, too, and apparently these two impulses can co-exist.
no subject
(Maybe Marcus is speaking to the very thing that dissatisfies him; Riftwatch may be faintly divorced from the Chantry and in the least respectable trade city on the Waking Sea, but it still postures at an air of legitimacy. That, the expectation of what civilized places do for civilized people, rankles against the skin. Moreso, from that sixth floor division office. All this courting favor of rich fucks abroad, and playing by the rules that the Divine would prefer them too, and—)
In the close, over warm atmosphere of the room, these irritations hardly rise past a simmer.
"You might send word of your endorsement back to your fellows still with the Inquisition and see whether you might sway anyone else to divest of the Divine's banner," has the timbre of an idle remark, unserious in the sense that it seems highly unnecessary. Surely everyone with the Inquisition knows full well of the Gallows and what might be expected of them there.
no subject
Either to prevent or give serious thought to the possibilities of not getting up and seeking water and getting clean. Of what further value they can get out of a let room. It is, at minimum, nice to lay here with the air warm enough to make it practical, soothing where it turns cool against sheen of sweat.
A breath out. "They're too busy trying to sway me to the opposite," is also nonserious. If any of them made ardent appeal, it might work, but most understand why it is he might choose to keep his distance. And they, from here.
no subject
And then it has been his handful of moments, and the hand across his middle slips from it to plant on the mattress. Flint levers himself up to a sitting position. He is sluggish about kicking his feet off the edge of the bed and is so much more so about rising to them that he allows himself to linger momentarily. To feel the pull of muscle, and the tender sensation in his shoulders from having borne so much of Marcus' weight.
It seems like an incredible effort to clamber to his feet, but he manages it.
no subject
He doesn't say anything, here, watching Flint with frank appraisal, the things he chooses to do next. The slow way he moves, the pause at the edge of the mattress before rising. For Marcus' part, there is the strain of repetitious movement, if less pronounced than if it had been driven down into him by another.
He finds himself wondering a thing, so he asks, "Are you wanting to stay or try to make the ferry?"
no subject
"There's an alternative if I don't catch the boat." Presumably one that doesn't charge by the candle mark.
And while there's no cloth for washing, but there is water in the pitcher. Flint brings both back within arm's reach of the bed, placing the basin on the rickety side table alongside their helpful vessel of lamp oil. A generous measure of lukewarm water is splashed into it. He fishes the edge of the coverlet up.
"You?"
no subject
"Find a seat at a gambling table, maybe," because he doesn't have work to do, which is the kind of thing he can arrange when not on assignment. Moving towards the basin. "Win back my two bit."
His hands, first, dunking them into water in pragmatic fashion, fingers flicking. A scooping hand distributing water down across belly and groin, a careless spatter of wet on the wooden floor.
no subject
As far as hot tips go, he wagers that's more or less worth the copper near the jar of lamp oil.
He makes brisk work of cleaning himself up—workmanlike, neither coy or embarrassed about about mopping up across his belly or between the legs. Clothes are sorted. His coat his shaken out, and the contents of the pocket verified to be only marginally crumpled. His belt is untwisted and buckled back on. It only then, jamming his belt knife back between it and his side, that Flint's attention falls to the activity of Marcus' hand.
"Where'd you come by that?"
The silver ring, common black stone. Its tck against a metal tankard. Its warm metal bite at the skin. Marcus hadn't worn any rings in the mountains.
no subject
Turns his hand to glance at the ring, stone cut into a masculine square, set into heavy silver with some texture of design worked into the surface.
"Looted it," he admits, though it doesn't sound like admission. He is, anyway, talking to a whole pirate. "And learned it was near worthless when I took it to sell."
Or a merchant was attempting to con him, commonness of stone aside, but his tone lacks guile on the topic.
no subject
"Tourmaline. It's a disappointing stone more often than not," sounds vaguely approving regardless. If nothing else, it's a good shap.
The belt knife is hooked into place; his hand with its own smattering of rings comes away from it on favor of fishing through a sleeve on his cost. In short order, Flint once more looks the part of Whole Pirate instead of merely being one.
no subject
"Do you have a story for each one of yours," he asks, during, a tip of his chin down at Flint's hand, "or did you come by them all at once?"
A mild teasing, some small brushing against a more familiar register and rhythm than they would have indulged in before the mountains, or even after the mountains.
no subject
The last buckle on a gaiter is done up. The edge of the missed coverlet is flipped back to be certain nothing has strayed out of sight under the bed. And then there is no more benefit for the room, air thick and muggy even before the sweat of their exertions, to yield. It's possible that at this hour, the land breeze will finally be washing down through Kirkwall and carrying with something cool or at least the stir of the air with it as it hurries to meet the sea.
Might as well quit this place to take advantage of what little relief might be found from the heat while walking.
no subject
A couple of copper left on the bedside table, and their business, such as it is, is concluded.
The woman in front room doesn't look up at all at the sound of bootfalls, Marcus moving first down the stairs with characteristic heel-first heaviness, especially noisy on the wooden surfaces. Outside, the air is a relief, if only because it is moving around, even in this little cutthroat alley that first must move through. Maybe at the end of it, there is some obligate shuffle around a parting word they're meant to be partaking in.
That Marcus turns out of the alley and makes for the general direction of the Jackdaw without so much as a glance could be a deliberate avoidance of just that, if he'd thought of it at all.
🎀
If, given a dozen strides, Flint so much as spares a glance back across his shoulder in the direction Rowntree had struck out in, then it's more or less entirely by happenstance. In short order, the night swallows both of them, and it will be some hours before freshening bruises make themselves known. In the intervening hours, they may be perfectly unaffected men.