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WHO: Kitty Jones and Nikos Averesch
WHAT: two revolutionaries walk into a bar, aka have you heard the good word about how monarchies are an oppressive and outmoded form of government here read this pamphlet oh wow you've got a pamphlet too, how cool
WHEN: vaguely Justinian after the Rifter arrival
WHERE: the Boar's Teeth, a gross tavern in Lowtown
NOTES: nah

Brusque, and without comment, Nikos stuffs the last of his pamphlets under the lantern sitting in the center of the last trestle table. The paper is not very thick, but it's enough to tilt the lantern a little, shifting the light across the scarred surface of the table.

The Boar's Teeth is grimy in a way that Nikos almost likes, as much as he likes anything. He has spent enough time in taverns like this one. Patrons sitting hunched over their mugs of ale, as likely to be dead silent as to be muttering in conversation with one another. Low-lit, by crude wrought iron chandeliers and scattered lanterns, with plenty of shadows. Not too crowded, and no one too friendly trying to strike up conversation. Music, sometimes, but never by any bards all glittery and obnoxiously showy. When he was younger, he sought out places like this in a desperate attempt to be less-than, to find a place among the lower and working class. Slumming. He was an idiot. He fucking knows better now.

The pamphlets are Caspar's idea. Everything is Caspar's idea. But Caspar's ideas work, usually, so Nikos does as he's told, circulates the information, plants the seeds. Seeds is one of Caspar's words, too, and who knows where he got it from as he's never farmed a day in his life. A simple metaphor, Nikos said, once, and Caspar had laughed, and turned his stupid beautiful smile on him. But it works.

The language in the pamphlet is simple and digestible, written to be read. A short summary of the history of the title of viscount, the Orlesian occupation, the sanctioned process of nobility electing a new line of viscounts from their own ranks when the viscount dies without an heir. A king who is not called a king remains a king, inevitable tyranny. It draws no conclusions but poses simple and pointed questions, questions that the reader of the pamphlet will, hopefully, answer for himself, or at least begin toward consideration.

Or wipe his arse with it, Nikos had said to Caspar. Which made Caspar laugh, which made Nikos, against all odds, smile, because--Maker's balls--he's thirty years old and still besotted.

Not right now. Not on his face, at least. It helps that Caspar isn't in the room. Right now, Nikos is ready to get down to the business of drinking the last of his wine, and going back to the bar for more. That is, until he feels the particular prickle of someone's stare fixed on him, and he turns around to find the source.

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Kitty doesn't exactly trust pamphlets. In her experience, they're typically just nasty little tracts, full of pro-government propaganda - designed by the Ministry for Information to be full of pretty, eye-catching drawings that spread the foulest lies. What catches her eye about this one is that it's more writing than pictures, which is curious to her. It seems like there are more people here that are literate than there were back home, granted. But - it's still interesting, isn't it, that there are no condescending little bubbly drawings, no Kirkwall-version of vicious caricatures of the Czechs, no equivalents to the handsome shining magicians with their earnest expressions and flowing hair. It's full of arguments. Full of questions and challenges. And full of questions and challenges Kitty likes, lashing out against power, attacking what's comfortable and easy. Kitty has no real opinions on viscounts, no opinions at all on Orlesians, but even so...

She looks around to try to find the source of it. Instead - or is it instead, is this the source of these tracts - she finds Kostos, the irritable fellow from the library. Kitty studies him as he drinks, and tries to remember her conversation with him. Was he the sort of person who seemed to be willing to stand up against power? Not really, she thinks. He seemed too grouchy to be someone who cared about liberation. But maybe that's her assumptions talking - maybe, in truth, he's braver than she thinks...

When he meets her eyes, that's invitation enough for Kitty to go and join him. She's not drinking wine, or beer; she's here for one of the Boar's Teeth's apple turnovers, which someone told her were excellent. (It turns out they weren't wrong at all.) So she sets her half-pastry down on the table, and sits across from him, and comments, "Good to see you're finally out of the castle. Did you ever manage to find your bed?"

Certainly it's not the first time Nikos has been mistaken for his brother. It's not even the first time he's been mistaken for his brother in a Kirkwall tavern, though usually that's ended closer to bad than not. Kostos has tempered Nikos' drinking without even meaning to, with all the taverns he's unwelcome in.

The mix-up, it's something to do with being twins. Used to blame each other when they were small, blame the maid's poor eyesight, confusing Nikos for Kostos, when of course it was just Kostos breaking the vase and not Nikos, and so on. That was years ago. The latest tavern mix-up is still quite fresh.

But it's not where Nikos goes, first. Instead he stares blandly at the girl that's just violated one of his favorite features of this tavern--no friendly out-of-nowhere conversation--and, very slowly, sets down his wine.

"No," he says, flatly. Folds his hands on the table. "I didn't."

Kitty lets loose a put-upon sigh, like his lack of sleep is something that results in her suffering. "It doesn't look like it," she admits, studying his face. "You look even older than usual."

Then she sits back. Squares her shoulders against the seat-back and asks about the thing she cares about far more than she cares about his sleep schedule. "So - did you read those pamphlets? The ones in here."

What the fuck. Nikos' brow furrows. His confusion looks--not surprisingly--like irritation, partially because he is, in fact, irritated.

Then he thinks, Oh. Sourly. The fact that he has a twin resurfaces, something he's not had to account for in nearly twenty years, before he followed Kostos back to Kirkwall and ended up getting banned from taverns and mistaken for him on the street and stuff like that. So this is also a Kostos thing, maybe. Yeah, he does look worse than his brother, tell him something he doesn't know, whatever. He takes another sip of wine, and doesn't bother to correct her. If she wants to make herself look like an ass, whoever she is, fine.

"I don't come to taverns to read." He sets the cup down. Is she fucking with him, or did she genuinely not see him setting the pamphlets out. And when can he escape to get more wine. He has about one sip left. "Are they worth reading?"

"I'd say so," Kitty says. She has one in her pocket, and she fishes it out now, smoothing it down before her. Pushing it towards the man. "Rather exciting ideas - quite a lot about the wickedness of the existing power structures. So."

She sits back in her chair and regards him. "What are your opinions on the monarchy? On politics? I'm awfully curious."

Nikos looks down at it without moving to pick it up, and without moving anything except his eyes. And then his eyebrows, as they lift a little. The pamphlet looks almost shabby on the tabletop. He resists the urge to snatch it up and stuff it into his pocket.

"I didn't ask," he points out, "why you were asking." Awfully curious; awfully apathetic. Who cares. But what he does care about--the monarchy, politics, existing power structures--Nikos can't resist the chance to talk about it.

"Monarchists are split into two groups. One stands to keep or to gain something from their support. The other has been kept ignorant of choice, raised on heroic tales of princes, queens, brave lords and viscounts--spoonfed that horseshit propaganda and blinded by hereditary complacency."

And he's sullen about it, if his tone is anything to go by.

Kitty's brows rise at the description. She'd expected a bit of - well - discretion. That's how it always worked back home. Innuendo and code-words, half-truths and lies as you tested and prodded and doubted the person you were speaking with. How can he know she's not a spy? An informant? How can he know she doesn't mean any harm? Either he underestimates her, or he's new to this, or he's dangerously reckless, or...or speaking freely is less dangerous here.

She really hopes it's the last. She really does.

"So what are the choices, then? The alternatives?"

Nikos looks back at her, sullenly impassive. He doesn't answer straightaway but, after a length pause--for consideration, perhaps--he pushes his cup across the table to her. It scuds against the wood. With that one swallow of wine left, there's not enough to slop over the sides.

"Fees are charged for lectures."

He folds his arms over his chest as he leans back in his chair, settling in to wait for his refill.

It's tiring, playing coy. You can say what you want, to a point. People will indulge you, looking at you in a way that is really looking through you. Placid smiles, patient waiting for you to shut up. Be wary of carrying it too far, or else you end up a wanted man, but in Kirkwall, they don't have a monarchy, do they. They have the wealthy, the viscount, the upper class that doesn't let anyone in to their sector of the city so they can keep clean. So what's the danger of talking about the monarchy when they can't even see the hand of classism.

Oh, so he's one of those sorts, is he? The problem is that as soon as he knows he can get something from her, he won't stop trying to get something from her. But, well, the drunker he gets, the looser his tongue will become...

"I'm looking for a conversation," she replies, "not a lecture." But even so, she stands up and grabs his goblet. She doesn't have much coin, but she has enough to buy a cup of wine. Cheap wine, admittedly - the cheapest she can get - but still.

She drops it back on the table in front of him, then crosses her arms and looks at him expectantly. "Fee paid."

It's not actually a paid fee until he drinks it. Rather than say this directly, lest he be dragged into more conversation, Nikos grabs the cup and takes long drink. It's cheap wine. He can tell that instantly, that vinegar pinch to the bouquet. Fortunately Nikos likes cheap wine just as well as he likes expensive wine.

With a little more wine in him, he feels prepared to-- well, hopefully not have a conversation. She seems keen on talking. Nikos gestures, with his cup, as he swallows his mouthful of wine.

"You first. Alternatives."

At once, her face becomes less alive, the line of her mouth hardening and a bit of the brightness going from her eyes. Is this the game, then? Get her talking, have her caught with pamphlet in pocket, earn a bit of coin for catching a traitor? Because it would be an easy set-up, wouldn't it. He seems a bit of an unlikely sort to really believe in anything revolutionary - he's old, after all...But also, doesn't that make him a poor trap? The people who are set out to trap you, they tend to be young and shining-faced and earnest. They seem likely. They're not grunting and wine-drunk. And you definitely don't know where they come from, they're not people you already know...

Still. Her answer is cautious. "I don't know," she says. "I've never lived with a king before. Nor a viscount." (Proof she read the pamphlet: she pronounces it viss-count.) "So I wouldn't even know what it's like, to build an alternative."

Vicount. He doesn't correct her. Yet. And perhaps he should feel some sense of pride, that she's apparently making reference to the pamphlet, but that's more Caspar's thing. Though he understands caution, keeping quiet when necessary, he feels more swift impatience than anything else, toward that slow answer. He's mentally flipping through possibilities, countries that might be described as living with kings, living without viscounts.

"Well, you're not Dalish," he drawls, as he leans back again, taking his cup of wine with him. "So it's not a Keeper. Which would be pedantic. If this is pedantry, or some attempt at cleverness, I'll tell you now: I despise it." Except when he's wielding pedantry against someone else. "What country do you come from, that you're free of hereditary power?"

Does he not know that she's a rifter? She rapidly reviews her conversation with him to try to remember whether she'd given herself away at any point. Perhaps not. And the shard in her hand isn't always glowing or anything - it's dormant now. So - perhaps he doesn't know she's a rifter, even though she's fairly certain he does...Maybe he's just screwing with her. But also, maybe he's not - and if that's the case, should she give herself away? Reveal she's one of the feared and despised few? Or should she try to blend in?

She hesitates a breath, then remembers - right. This answer can be truthful without giving her away; there's a place like this in this world.

"We've got rule by the magical elite," she responds with a shrug. "With those without power stamped down. No kings there."

Nikos' left eyebrow ticks up. Looks aren't everything--but she doesn't look like a Vint. And her choice of language would potentially exclude her from the ranks of anyone who would rub elbows with the magisters.

"And the alternative is leave?"

His tone--dull, unimpressed--belies that he would be sympathetic to that, as a choice. Staying and fighting is of course much better--to the bitter end, well, maybe not. Nikos isn't interested in bitter ends. He prefers survival. It's easier to keep fighting when you're alive to see the fight continue.

"No," she answers. Mouth running ahead of her brain, unfortunately - the smart thing would have been to lie. Well, what other choice do I have, all that, but she wouldn't leave, and she didn't - if what Petrana told her is true, there's still a version of her back home, fighting the good fight. So even when her brain catches up, she's not able to cover her denial - can't really come up with a good lie.

So - well. She pushes her hair back from her face. Lying is silly in this case. Right? It's definitely stupid. It'll be easier just to tell the truth. So she gathers her courage, and says, "I didn't leave voluntarily. I was taken away. Rifter. I wouldn't have left if I'd had a choice."

Oh. Nikos doesn't shoot a look down at her hand. He doesn't have to. He can see it out of his peripheral vision--not glowing at present, not immediately and obviously sharded.

"I think that's a defining characteristic of most of the rifters. Were you trying to deliberately obfuscate what you are, or was that an accident."

He knows enough about rifters to understand why someone might choose to hide. He knows enough about rifters to understand that most of them have all the subtlety of a drunken peacock on Satinalia.

So the two options are are you a liar or are you a blunderer, is it? Granted, Kitty was trying to conceal who she was from him. But that doesn't mean he has the right to accuse her of it. She bristles, and snaps back -

"I notice you haven't announced the land you're from, either. Are you trying to deliberately obfuscate what you are, or is your silence just dull-eyed idiocy? Or could it possibly be that it's just not your habit to chatter on about every detail of your autobiography soon as you meet someone. Especially when that autobiography makes the people around you awfully twitchy." She shakes her head. "We're talking about kings, and power, and the abuses of power, and that's universal - doesn't matter if I'm from here or elsewhere."

"It does," Nikos shoots back, without bothering to lean forward to make his counterargument. Dull-eyed idiocy is retaliation. He's not taking the bait. "If you're really after a conversation. I didn't ask for your fucking life story. The Tevinter Imperium is the only country ruled by magocracy in Thedas. I imagine there are some differences between that and whatever place you've dropped in from."

And then, with his free hand (the one not clutching his cup of wine), he gestures toward his face, his general bearing and mien. Accent, sullen irritation, a proclivity toward dark colors, blacks and greens. Thedas goth, not as hardcore as Kostos but still in the aesthetic. "Nevarran. Lived in Antiva. I don't have to go around shouting about it because if you were from here, you'd have had a guess at it."

Antiva is the place with the leather. She remembers that much. And Nevarra is separate, she thinks...She seems to remember having read about it. So it's not that he's an Antivan from Nevarra, it's that he's moved about before coming here. A constant exile, then? Reason enough to be short-tempered - though it makes that judgmental tone when he was asking about running away rather rich. Though, to be fair, maybe that's just what he always sounds like.

"And if you were from my world, you'd know I was a Londoner," Kitty responds primly, "but I'm not scolding you for that, and as a fellow immigrant I don't think you really ought to be getting haughty about a lack of local knowledge. I'm quite sure you were in my position, once." She flicks her hair from her face, then goes on, "And yes, there are differences between my home and Tevinter. True. But it'd be foolish for me to base all of my arguments and all of my thinking in my experiences back home, wouldn't it - if you're interested in shaping this world, then we ought to be thinking about how things are here."

But since he did provide some information, it'd be stupid to withhold now and make him clam up. So - "Anyway. Yes. London, which is a city sort of like this one, a bit. Much, much bigger, and much more crowded. And ruled by magicians, who didn't pass down hereditary power - they transferred power to whoever was best at scheming and backstabbing and murdering."

In her position, yeah right. Nikos holds up both of his hands. The one holding the wine, he has to sort of uncurl his grip, tip his wrist so she can see. Empty palms. No shards. "Not your position."

And none of this he will say, but: he's an exile, not an immigrant. Playing a drinking game with himself, Nikos takes a sip of wine. And technically Antiva is half his to claim--another sip. If he subscribed to the notion of hereditary power (another sip), if either Nevarra or Antiva gave a shit about women as people and not family vassals to be pushed back and forth across ledgers and family trees, weighed down by dowries and titles that they shed and don in succession, showier and showier hats. Two sips: that one is depressing.

Also it's funny, that this rifter has moved right on to we. He can't tell if that's accidental, or a word she's chosen on purpose. Very inclusive. Which, he's not sure that he likes.

He leaves it all for now as he takes in her description of the system she's lived under. One more sip of wine, this one just for himself, before he gives comment. "Inheritance by way of blood isn't unheard of. It's dressed differently. Are status and title taken up by the murderer by default, or do they hold ostensible elections?"

That's not exactly how Kitty wanted this conversation to go. She wants to hear more about him, and Nevarra, and Kirkwall, and everything, not talk about back home. Especially since the question he starts out with is one that she has to answer with a reluctant, "I'm...not sure. They never reported honestly on the news back home, so all I know is the propaganda they fed us combined with what rumours said."

So what does she know for a fact? "There are never elections. Gladstone - our Founder - he dissolved the commoners' Parliament over a hundred fifty years ago and took sole power for himself. He ruled until he died, and then his apprentice took over, and then was assassinated and his rival took over, and so on and so forth with all these Prime Ministers supposedly being assassinated by Czech evildoers but more likely they just get stabbed in the back. Or, occasionally, the front." She shakes her head. "But at the end of the day, there was democracy once, and elections, but they killed it as surely as they kill each other."

"At least there's variety in the stabbings."

Assassins humor, a little like gallows humor. Or something. Nikos, still playing that one-man drinking game, takes another sip of wine. A drink every time you hear of a system of power squashing leadership from the people and installing a ruling class.

"And what if an assassin without any magic really did commit the assassination? Would be be allowed to assume power?"

Kitty shakes her head. "No. It's not like - oh, you kill someone, you get their place, that's written into the constitution. Nothing like that. It's more that killing leads to vacuums of power, and people step in to take advantage. It's like - " She leans forward slightly as she talks, getting a little bit into this discussion in spite of her earlier reluctance to speak.

"Just before I left, the streets were being stalked by this beast - a golem. It's a deadly creature, able to absorb magic and crush life out with its bare hands." A little shudder at the memory of it, of that horrible cold... "And no one knew where it came from or who created it. Well, it wasn't actually any great mystery, was it, of course it was one of the magicians - and right at the same time, me and my friends, we were being manipulated and tricked into going after a staff of enormous magical power and bringing it to where one of the magicians could get it. Not a coincidence. This magician, he was working in secret, through both the golem and us, because he never wanted to put his name to it. But he obviously wanted the golem to murder the higher-ups, and the staff so he could have the power to step into the vacuum when it came.

"So it's not even entirely about power, is it - not even entirely about magical ability. It's also about the ability to scheme and plot. They kill because killing makes opportunities for them, and because they can't think of a way to do it that actually involves drawing power from the people and their faith and trust. Or even cooperating with one another. D'you see? And then they pretend like it's all based on merit and not wickedness."

She talks, and she talks, and she talks. And Nikos lets her get through it all.

"Yes," he says, once she's come to a close. His voice has slipped back in that drawl again, "I see. I was being sarcastic." In case she was wondering. And he let her go on because he's kind of an arsehole, and because he recognized an opportunity to glean information, to sift through it later and determined if any of it is worth a damn. Picking out the relevant and interesting parts in the few moments where they appear, coins among sand.

"If it's based on the ability to scheme, then out-scheming seems the straightforward response."

Oh. She flushes as a cold wave of humiliation grips at her. Right. Of course. Sarcasm. And she was just going on. Stupid. So, as he drawls at her, she glares down at her apple turnover, and picks it up to take a great big bite, and once he's finished his comment she shrugs.

"Yeah," she agrees, non-committal, cognizant of the fact that anything more than that will probably get her mocked again. Then, neutrally, she asks, "So how's it work here."

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