Marcus glances down, instinctively tracking that shift of movement where he feels Flint nudge his feet forwards off the glowing magic and away from where he'd pushed his own boot near. Back up, considering him, serious in the gentle glow of runic light and almost only that, by now, given it's his back to where the sun has set.
He could ask after it, that resentment. That word, simply. He is curious about it the most, he thinks. What does this process look like? What does it resemble?
Shifts his boot. A less subtle slide until his ankle settles at Flint's heel. Almost playful, though the rest of his demeanour doesn't match that, nor his response. Something else.
"Did you make it that far, before you left it?" he asks, instead. Designed in part to afford some room if there is more to it that Flint would willingly speak of, would wish him to know, but Marcus finds that in spite of that curiousity, he has no appetite for worrying at the thing like a bone, cracking it open.
Because it's familiar in a way where he knows he wouldn't appreciate it, in return. "The captaincy."
Something else. Had he either hand free really free, he might lean forward and reach out to catch that pressing ankle; run his fingers across dusty leather and see the shape of the thing altered from what feels a little like pity into another shape. He doesn't particularly care for the former. Not because of who it is doing it, just that the thing itself pricks a little at the surface of his pride. Instead, he fixes his attention on the ambient warmth of the rune band across the backs of his calves.
(It's chill there, the air at his back. Though the cliff face hanging above and the scrub about them wards off the desert wind, at least. Opposite that, the two griffons have reached a kind of accord. Buggie has settled for preening Monster's soot free feathers rather than yanking at them.)
"Close," he says, It had been. Managing an Altus with controversial opinions, and seeing his strange proclivities turned into profit would have done it. "But no."
Despite his intention not to feel it, there is some power left in it that grips him. Slants a line in his face slightly crooked. So. Lighter, as if this is a story that has been designed to reach this fact rather than any other and he now sees a way to his punchline:
"This may come as a surprise to you, but pirates are remarkably less particular about promotion."
The boot stays where it is, resting comfortably while Marcus smokes. Whether until Flint's hands become free or until one of them needs to take a piss or some other thing that pushes them in the few directions currently available.
The punchline is accepted as it ought to be, a slight ripple of humour—no, not surprised—and perhaps an opportunity to let the story, such as it is, drop anchor there.
It's not unconvincing. A Naval officer who struggled under the yoke of an oppressive system saw what he would need to become to become what he was meant to be, and left it behind for fair wages and deadly democratic processes and harassing the merchant sailors he didn't want to become. Perhaps that man develops sympathies, had harboured them already. That sounds containable within a dry aside about promotions.
If there is a prickle of feeling that there is more story beneath it, then that's an instinct borne of knowing there always is. And that Flint, in specific, would elect to edit.
"I imagine they're not very particular about most things," Marcus says, smoke escaping between his teeth as he considers the progress made on cigarette. "Including the state of the Magisterium, so long as there was trade to plunder."
"It depends on the man," he says, attention sliding to what remains of the biscuit with its soggy exterior and portioning out what remains of the water left in the little cup. He polishes both off. Wipes his hand on his knee.
"Some were happy with whatever fell into their lap without a thought for what would tomorrow. But then there are the escaped slaves, and those who left because of some dispute with the Magisterium's rule, or who had no care to be folded in under it again when the Imperial governor came calling on the island."
A tilt of the head, faintly red rune light touching across the fine bristle of hair at his temple. A faint spreading of the hands from where his elbows have hooked across knees. It's a complicated business.
Marcus picks up his waterskin, takes a swig somewhere in the midst of that. Offers, after Flint's gesture.
A beat of silence, after, no further questions to follow immediately. The occasional croaked avian-feline purr from Monster under the attentions she is getting, heavy head resting on talons with a wing angled to permit Buggie getting at the crumpled feathers beneath.
"I know there are some among Riftwatch, and out of Riftwatch," he says, tapping cigarette, "who think those that broke from the Circles only did so because we knew nothing of what would wait for us outside of it, when we were afforded warm beds, consistent meals." Like a dog might hope for is only unsaid because it is too easy to level his bitterness in that direction, even when it's not the subject at hand.
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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
He could ask after it, that resentment. That word, simply. He is curious about it the most, he thinks. What does this process look like? What does it resemble?
Shifts his boot. A less subtle slide until his ankle settles at Flint's heel. Almost playful, though the rest of his demeanour doesn't match that, nor his response. Something else.
"Did you make it that far, before you left it?" he asks, instead. Designed in part to afford some room if there is more to it that Flint would willingly speak of, would wish him to know, but Marcus finds that in spite of that curiousity, he has no appetite for worrying at the thing like a bone, cracking it open.
Because it's familiar in a way where he knows he wouldn't appreciate it, in return. "The captaincy."
no subject
(It's chill there, the air at his back. Though the cliff face hanging above and the scrub about them wards off the desert wind, at least. Opposite that, the two griffons have reached a kind of accord. Buggie has settled for preening Monster's soot free feathers rather than yanking at them.)
"Close," he says, It had been. Managing an Altus with controversial opinions, and seeing his strange proclivities turned into profit would have done it. "But no."
Despite his intention not to feel it, there is some power left in it that grips him. Slants a line in his face slightly crooked. So. Lighter, as if this is a story that has been designed to reach this fact rather than any other and he now sees a way to his punchline:
"This may come as a surprise to you, but pirates are remarkably less particular about promotion."
no subject
The punchline is accepted as it ought to be, a slight ripple of humour—no, not surprised—and perhaps an opportunity to let the story, such as it is, drop anchor there.
It's not unconvincing. A Naval officer who struggled under the yoke of an oppressive system saw what he would need to become to become what he was meant to be, and left it behind for fair wages and deadly democratic processes and harassing the merchant sailors he didn't want to become. Perhaps that man develops sympathies, had harboured them already. That sounds containable within a dry aside about promotions.
If there is a prickle of feeling that there is more story beneath it, then that's an instinct borne of knowing there always is. And that Flint, in specific, would elect to edit.
"I imagine they're not very particular about most things," Marcus says, smoke escaping between his teeth as he considers the progress made on cigarette. "Including the state of the Magisterium, so long as there was trade to plunder."
no subject
"Some were happy with whatever fell into their lap without a thought for what would tomorrow. But then there are the escaped slaves, and those who left because of some dispute with the Magisterium's rule, or who had no care to be folded in under it again when the Imperial governor came calling on the island."
A tilt of the head, faintly red rune light touching across the fine bristle of hair at his temple. A faint spreading of the hands from where his elbows have hooked across knees. It's a complicated business.
no subject
A beat of silence, after, no further questions to follow immediately. The occasional croaked avian-feline purr from Monster under the attentions she is getting, heavy head resting on talons with a wing angled to permit Buggie getting at the crumpled feathers beneath.
"I know there are some among Riftwatch, and out of Riftwatch," he says, tapping cigarette, "who think those that broke from the Circles only did so because we knew nothing of what would wait for us outside of it, when we were afforded warm beds, consistent meals." Like a dog might hope for is only unsaid because it is too easy to level his bitterness in that direction, even when it's not the subject at hand.
Shrugs a little. "Depends on the man, too."
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
(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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)