The book is heavy in John’s hands, unfamiliar embossed cover and rustle of pages as he thumbs briefly through before snapping the tome closed once more. As all things must, it is at ease in his hands despite how rarely John has ever held any book for the time longer than it would have taken to pass it along to the next person.
“Thank you.”
With a hand opened into the space between them, a shrug of apology as John tells him, “I’d offer you something to hold its place, but i have nothing comparable in my sea chest.”
Which should surprise no one. All the stories John has live inside his head. They shift and evolve and grow from the version one might have first known them as, but John can trace back all these iterations, all the changes he makes and why.
"I'll manage," is punctuated with a dismissive flick of fingers. Likely there will be little time to indulge in simple pleasures anyway, and so it's hardly a loss.
(If all goes well, they will spend so short an interim here before turning back north again that he'll not miss it.)
Here, Flint shifts his weight up off the edge of the desk. From the slanting of his shoulder there is a clear intent in him to return to the work of the ledger, saying as he goes, "I expect you have a campfire conversation or two of your own to attend to."
Certainly there is a campfire that John could situate himself alongside. The men would make space for him. He could speak at length about any given thing, what he and Flint have discussed in here filtered through and made easily palatable to the men on the sand and beyond.
Flint's trajectory too is clear. He will round the corner of his desk, take back up his seat behind it. The ledger waits.
"I do," John acknowledges. "But it will wait for me."
Even worn, weary, one-legged, power dashed to a cold ember in his chest, John still his this: the certainty that he will speak and the men will clamor to hear him.
The book is a solid weight over one thigh.
"If you cared for company while you finish that."
An offering. A newness to it, in spite of everything.
"You and I both know the work out there is more vital than this is," he says, flicking at the edges of the pages with his fingertips. They flutter absently in answer. The ledger may be necessary, yes, but it merely acts to reset their circumstances here—sees to victualing, shelter. What John Silver might say out there stands to make them progress, and they have already spoken about the importance of moving quickly where they're able.
There's little need for the both of them to spend the evening squinting over counts of water casks, and the acquisition of salted pork and druffalo.
"See to the men," he says. As prophesied, Flint does round the corner of the desk and retake the chair.
Flint settles into his chair as John rises out of his own.
The movement is easier now than it had been once, but it isn't seamless. Not yet. (Does anyone but John recognize this?) But the sand underfoot is forgiving; it makes John's disappearance from the tent near-silent.
Zhivka entertains them. She is shrewd and withholding, but if their combined appeal hadn't swayed her, the book of names John delivers onto her dented desktop does. And so they are given free reign, more or less.
Less comes in the form of a captain by the name of Lawson, who takes offense almost immediately to the proposition put forth that evening on the beach. John had been speaking at a pitch, voice rising as all other conversation fell in accordance. He had been aware of Flint, shadowed and attentive at his back.
When Lawson spat into the sand, began shouting, it was past John to him.
By all logic, the duel spares them a makeshift war, perhaps the lives of a number of men. However—
"We might permit Joji to kill him in his sleep," John offers, uneasy. Watching a Flint buckles on the heavy Anders-stolen sword from the last prize they'd taken on the journey here. "Even if the spectacle might benefit us."
It's been a long day. Nearly a year long, if you look at the timestamps of this thread. This, at least, promises to resolve a number of questions with a satisfying kind of immediacy that the hours preceding it have largely failed to.
Progress, Flint thinks as he draws the sword from its sheath and checks the burr bite of the edge under his thumb, is a great lumbering ox. It takes all manner of whipping and cajoling to convince the thing budget, much less at speed. And to what end, exactly? An altar, apparently.
Which, fine. He can spill blood as effectively as any Imperium mage.
"If that man dies by falling onto a knife in his bed, we may as well leave here and begin begging in the streets of Ostwick for all the good it would do us," he says mildly. Satisfied by the nick in his thumb, Flint thrusts the ugly Ander sword back into his belt. The pommel strikes the sheath's decorative plate with a satisfying snap.
"I can beat Lawson. And if I can't, then we'd have been fucked either way."
At least if he dies in a fight with some shit Estwatch pirate, the rest of them will have saved time they might have otherwise wasted on playing revolutionary.
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no subject
“Thank you.”
With a hand opened into the space between them, a shrug of apology as John tells him, “I’d offer you something to hold its place, but i have nothing comparable in my sea chest.”
Which should surprise no one. All the stories John has live inside his head. They shift and evolve and grow from the version one might have first known them as, but John can trace back all these iterations, all the changes he makes and why.
no subject
(If all goes well, they will spend so short an interim here before turning back north again that he'll not miss it.)
Here, Flint shifts his weight up off the edge of the desk. From the slanting of his shoulder there is a clear intent in him to return to the work of the ledger, saying as he goes, "I expect you have a campfire conversation or two of your own to attend to."
no subject
Certainly there is a campfire that John could situate himself alongside. The men would make space for him. He could speak at length about any given thing, what he and Flint have discussed in here filtered through and made easily palatable to the men on the sand and beyond.
Flint's trajectory too is clear. He will round the corner of his desk, take back up his seat behind it. The ledger waits.
"I do," John acknowledges. "But it will wait for me."
Even worn, weary, one-legged, power dashed to a cold ember in his chest, John still his this: the certainty that he will speak and the men will clamor to hear him.
The book is a solid weight over one thigh.
"If you cared for company while you finish that."
An offering. A newness to it, in spite of everything.
no subject
"You and I both know the work out there is more vital than this is," he says, flicking at the edges of the pages with his fingertips. They flutter absently in answer. The ledger may be necessary, yes, but it merely acts to reset their circumstances here—sees to victualing, shelter. What John Silver might say out there stands to make them progress, and they have already spoken about the importance of moving quickly where they're able.
There's little need for the both of them to spend the evening squinting over counts of water casks, and the acquisition of salted pork and druffalo.
"See to the men," he says. As prophesied, Flint does round the corner of the desk and retake the chair.
tfw shenanigans morphs into "ok, but a duel"
The movement is easier now than it had been once, but it isn't seamless. Not yet. (Does anyone but John recognize this?) But the sand underfoot is forgiving; it makes John's disappearance from the tent near-silent.
Zhivka entertains them. She is shrewd and withholding, but if their combined appeal hadn't swayed her, the book of names John delivers onto her dented desktop does. And so they are given free reign, more or less.
Less comes in the form of a captain by the name of Lawson, who takes offense almost immediately to the proposition put forth that evening on the beach. John had been speaking at a pitch, voice rising as all other conversation fell in accordance. He had been aware of Flint, shadowed and attentive at his back.
When Lawson spat into the sand, began shouting, it was past John to him.
By all logic, the duel spares them a makeshift war, perhaps the lives of a number of men. However—
"We might permit Joji to kill him in his sleep," John offers, uneasy. Watching a Flint buckles on the heavy Anders-stolen sword from the last prize they'd taken on the journey here. "Even if the spectacle might benefit us."
A win will benefit them. A crucial difference.
no subject
Nearly a year long, if you look at the timestamps of this thread.This, at least, promises to resolve a number of questions with a satisfying kind of immediacy that the hours preceding it have largely failed to.Progress, Flint thinks as he draws the sword from its sheath and checks the burr bite of the edge under his thumb, is a great lumbering ox. It takes all manner of whipping and cajoling to convince the thing budget, much less at speed. And to what end, exactly? An altar, apparently.
Which, fine. He can spill blood as effectively as any Imperium mage.
"If that man dies by falling onto a knife in his bed, we may as well leave here and begin begging in the streets of Ostwick for all the good it would do us," he says mildly. Satisfied by the nick in his thumb, Flint thrusts the ugly Ander sword back into his belt. The pommel strikes the sheath's decorative plate with a satisfying snap.
"I can beat Lawson. And if I can't, then we'd have been fucked either way."
At least if he dies in a fight with some shit Estwatch pirate, the rest of them will have saved time they might have otherwise wasted on playing revolutionary.