[OPEN] you don't know my brother he's a broken bone

[katabasis]

WHO: Flint, Marcoulf & YOU
WHAT: Catch-all for Solace
WHEN: Solace generally, backdated or forward-dated as is convenient.
WHERE: Kirkwall, various
NOTES: N/A, will update as necessary.

FLINT
i. a tavern

Kirkwall rises out of the sea, shaped like Tevinter and the Qun both. In the shadow of the Gallows, there can be no shaking the reminder of either nation. Flint thought it first from the Walrus' quarterdeck as the ship had made its way into the harbor under full sail and no colors at all. The city which finally greets them looks for all the world as if it could promise only one thing. You do not matter, whispers every old stone in Kirkwall - even the ones under the shadow of the Inquisition's banners. But maybe if the stones can't be convinced, there are people in the city who might be. That's the trick.

--and the trouble, seeing as they can't very well show up and start making demands of the Inquisition's local leadership. No, his job at present is to seem non-threatening enough so as not to induce panic and so pointedly ever present so there can be no choice but for someone who should to pay some attention to the anchored ship, to the men on it, and to Max and her money and to what she will eventually ask for.

To that end, Flint's acquired the use of the back room of one the grimy taverns along Kirkwall's docks. He keeps the dividing screen between it and the rest of the floor poorly extended so that he might go about his work - perfectly legitimate bookkeeping and discussion of revictualing - in sight of the other patrons and vice versa. Surely it takes no time at all for gossip to do its business:

There is a ship in the harbor which flies no nation's flag. Her crew has only been allowed ashore in small numbers which must mean they have a secret worth guarding and tongues loose enough to ply. Meanwhile, her captain does business from The Boar & The Bat. He speaks with the unmistakable accent of a Vint, asks lots of questions, and might just be persuaded to pay for the answers.

ii. the library

It's late, but there's a light burning in the library yet. It illuminates a table where Flint has seemingly taken up permanent residence, presiding over a mountain of charts, pamphlets, papers, and reports deemed unimportant enough to be shelved rather than locked in someone's desk drawer. Given the prodigious range of reading material at hand, it's not immediately clear what exactly he's looking for. It must be of some importance though as he's been at it for hours tonight and in days prior has combed through more than his fair share of the stacks.

He keeps a small ledger at hand, noting down names and places and figures as it pleases him. In the rare intervals where he steps out for some much needed fresh air, the light is left burning to ward off any ambitious late-night clerk from clearing away his collection and the notes are taken with him - folded twice and tucked away into his pocket. When not bent over his work or stretching his legs in the nearest half-lit courtyard, he can be found picking through the library's collection: pulling books out, then re-shelving them if they don't suit.

MARCOULF
i. the training grounds

The flash of his sword is one among a dozen in the yard. Marcoulf works quietly and systematically with the rapier, running himself through a series of lunges and pulls and side steps against his own shadow as the sun rises high and hot over the Gallows. For anyone with an eye for swordmanship, he's not poor with the blade; and for anyone familiar with an Orlesian chevalier or two, the exercises are like enough to doubtlessly be informed by some sensibly trained hand.

Marcoulf's clearly no teacher though despite the smattering of green hands swinging swords and maces around their more experienced peers in the training yard. He's too tight lipped to be useful to his neighbors, largely reliable only for trouncing unsuspecting victims and for accepting any challenge.

ii. notice board

The Inquisition might house, feed and clothe its ranks, but mostly what that boils down to is a lot of linen for washing, potatoes for peeling, and seams for mending. Even given the toll the delegation to Minrathous had taken on the stabels' population, Marcoulf's found plenty to busy himself with. Today that means patching shirts in the shadow of the Gallows' notice board. He's made himself perfectly comfortable on the stone step with a cushion that looks suspiciously like it might belong to one of the more well-appointed state rooms and has been steadily working his way through the basket of linen with his ear tipped toward anyone grousing about whatever they find posted on the board.

He's far too busy diligently closing holes from pulled threads and reinforcing fraying cuffs to read anything himself, you see. And it takes his attention to thread a needle, of course. And naturally it's much cooler in the shadow cast back here than standing in the sun squinting at tacked up bits of paper. All very logical reasons for why he might ask the next person who happens to examine the notice board's postings:

"Anything interesting?"

WILDCARD
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Comments

[rathercommon]

"How do we know what's different, though?" It's a question that's been weighing on her ever since her conversation with Bartimaeus, where he talked of the way history repeats itself. It's a question that's lain even heavier on her since coming to Thedas. Because here's another world, a separate world, with none of the history of hers but all the same patterns. All the same cruelties. What does it mean for humanity, that it's like it here?

But what does it mean for humanity that there are people willing to fight, here, too? The Resistance had always seemed so isolated and alone. Some days it seemed as though there were no more than eleven rebels in all of London. But it's simply that rebels come in unlikely forms. For example, poetry-loving pirates with brutish appearances and Tevinter accents. (And she forgives him, now, for that murderous look - she and hers had murdered people who'd gotten too close.)

"A real break - a truly different way - that's hard. Sometimes you think you've found something different, but it's just more of the same - the same violence and cruelty. So, then." She pushes a lock of hair from her eyes. "What's your version of different?"

[katabasis]

It's the kind of question that seems impossible to answer from the back room of the Boar & Bat or from the deck of a ship or even from the war tattered ground of an island so many weeks north from the point they both share now. What comes after this fight and the ones that must ienvitably follow has been an unspoken question for ten years. He should have a ready answer by now.

Instead he takes a moment longer to study her from behind the scratched table. There's no reason for him to tell her the truth. That he doesn't know the full shape of what different looks like, only he's sure that it's both possible to make it and that men like him should have no part in its design. So what he settles on is:

"A world where your capacity for happiness and the freedom to achieve it isn't dependent on what form or name or ability you were born with. Where that's right, not just a matter of convenience." He pauses. Taps his thumb on the closed ledger. "And yours?"

[rathercommon]

"God, I wish I knew." She answers with something that's rather akin to a laugh - not of amusement, but of smothered frustration given vent. A hand run through her hair musses it, but she makes no effort to push it back into place, her passion distracting her from her (considerable) vanity. And from her work; she props her shoulder against the wall of this little back room, setting herself into a position of semi-comfort as she speaks.

"I've been thinking about it without end since...Well, no. That's a lie." She purses her lips. "I was going to say since I was thirteen, but there was a time there when I thought I knew the way to go about things. I thought I had the answer. Me and my friends, we all thought we knew. But the story was that to overthrow the wicked, we needed to arm ourselves. And to arm ourselves, we needed things. And before long, getting things became the whole point. Greed overtook all of us.

"So every time I think I've got an answer - and sometimes I think I've got an answer, sometimes I convince myself of it - I wonder whether it's ever any good. If I think, well, sometimes you've got to do violence, is that true, or is it just because some part of me has been taught to love violence? When I think, take away power from those in charge, is it just 'cause I want it for myself? What's gonna stop me from turning just as bad as them?"

And then, in contrast to the over-verbose fretting she'd just engaged in, she offers a firm and concrete, "Democracy would be a good start, at least."

[katabasis]

It pours free of her as water from a spout and he studies her as she goes. A comparison he thinks Kitty might mistake as uncharitable without the right context occurs to him - other young women he's known in similar postures and states, veering sharply in every conceivable direction after something she doesn't really know the shape of. It's an unpopular trajectory in most of the world, even Nascere. But in this back room with the door shut as in others like it, it's fine. Good, even. They're the kind of questions someone should think to ask.

He looks at her, leveling. The line of his mouth pulls at something like low, flat good humor behind his beard. "It's a start. That's good enough for today, isn't it?"

He's not sure it is. Someone should be thinking about their tomorrows, but it's not the kind of thing to say to a girl he seems to have just narrowly won back from-- whatever line they'd been near stepping over. It's not the thing to say to a girl at all. In fact the thought is almost entirely irrelevant to Kitty's existence beyond being spurred be it. It's sure as fuck not the thing to bring up if he's unprepared to direct it. So, sure. That works. The last thing he needs is to chip away at this nice shared footing they've found under themselves while she's in his de facto study in possession of--

Oh, that's what it is.

Flint's hand strays to a sheaf of papers on the desk. He lifts it, then sets it down again. Shifting a few more documents aside: "You didn't see a pen here, did you?"

[rathercommon]

Right. Funny thing that, isn't it? Not five minutes prior, she'd been thinking of ways to kill him. Now, she's spilled out enough of her history and her dreams to this man that he could probably have her hanged, if he had the ear of the right people. Five weeks away from her revolutionary comrades, and she's already so anxious for someone to talk to that she'll pour out all these dangerous thoughts to some random stranger?

But - not random. Either he's a kindred spirit or he's an agent provacateur far more skilled than any that Mr Mandrake ever tried to sow in their ranks. She believes him, believes his intentions, utterly. Of course, she's been made a fool of before...Well, she'll find out the truth of him soon enough, she supposes. Either someone will come banging on her door in the middle of the night, or they won't.

"A pen?" she asks. It's a convincing simulacrum of puzzlement. She shakes her head, and steps over to the desk to help him search - and, deftly, slips it under a sheaf of papers, so that the next stack he shifts he'll find it. "Oh - is that the one?" Then, with a winning smile - "No thieves in this fine establishment. Well, no, that's a lie, I know there must be dozens, but at least none with a hunger for writing utensils. Anything else I can get you, sir?"

[katabasis]

So it is.

Plucking the pen from its hiding place, he draws a sheaf of papers to him and moves to dip the pen in the waiting inkwell. The soft scrape of the sharp edge is soothingly mundane in the same way the piles of paper and stacked ledgers are little more than dry correspondence and record keeping. Better to say nothing further about them or her surprise presence in the room; best to let her go away thinking of something else entirely. He thinks he's accomplished that much already. But maybe--

"Nothing. Only before you go, if you could satisfy my curiosity." Flint glances up at her as he taps excess ink from the pen. "The place you came from - how much do you want to go back to it?"

[rathercommon]

It's an unexpected question. Such a departure from what they'd been talking about before, and more than that - the question is one that she's not been asked yet. As a distraction tactic, it's quite good: emotionally charged, complex, difficult to answer. It takes her a moment to gather her thoughts, and to gather her thoughts with full concentration: a few tidbits of information she'd endeavored to commit to memory flee in the face of her thought processes.

"Oh." She utters that rather softly, then takes a breath. Her voice isn't entirely firm when she speaks, but she doesn't hesitate in her speech. "I don't want to go back. I've definitely things I want to accomplish there, but they've told me that there's another version of me back home, and that version of me, I've got to trust, is accomplishing those things. She's fighting for a better London. Me as I am here - I'm going to fight for a better Thedas. With my heart and soul."

And then, because she can't help but be curious, because the only Tevenes she's met are snotty about the grandeur and superiority of their gorgeous empire - "The place you came from, how much do you want to go back to it?"

[katabasis]

It's a nice idea, isn't it? Being two places at once, being two things independent of one another. He can see the appeal; he can see how it would make it easy to be in a strange place, being asked to do strange things for the good of strange people. But is it true?, he wonders, knowing that finding any real answer is likely impossible. Maybe what she's been told regarding the circumstances surrounding her arrival and what parts she'd left behind is just a story too. At least this one is useful to everyone involved.

He scrawls the date in the upper corner of the paper, then moves to begin drafting the rest. In comparison, her question is so much easier to answer than his. Flint gives it no thought at all.

"You couldn't make me go."

[rathercommon]

That's a bit interesting, that he doesn't even pause. And interesting that he immediately understands that she was asking about Tevinter. So in his heart, then, he isn't from Nascere. In his heart, he's still from Tevinter, but as an outlaw and an exile. What a strange thing, and what a sad thing, then. To fight for the liberation of a place when you don't feel like you're entirely of the place. She'd decided not to flee London for the Continent for practical reasons - the fight was better carried out from within England than from outside of it - but also in some ways because London was her home. Because she could fight better from her home. What sustains him, then, in his fight?

Perhaps it's his comrades. She hopes so. Perhaps it's the other pirates - Vane, and Max, and his crew - who keep him going and give him strength. Perhaps he loves them and fights for them. Or perhaps it's a grander sense of justice; perhaps it's his ideals that sustain him and keep him moving forward. A sense of what's right and wrong in the world. Or perhaps it is his island, his Nascere; maybe he loves it so much, even if it isn't the first thing he thinks of when he thinks of home. Maybe, even if he doesn't think of himself as being of that place, maybe it still brings him comfort and safety and warmth.

She watches him write, compassion - almost pity - in the quirk of her eyebrows and the set of her mouth. In that moment, looking at him, he certainly doesn't look the terrifying figure menacing her in the doorway; nor does he even seem the interesting, challenging man who'd spoken of politics just a few moments before. Instead, he just looks like someone who's worn. He looks exhausted. He looks like a man who's been on the road, who's been wandering, for far too long.

But - she needs to work. Right. She takes a breath and gathers up her tray and starts to retreat. But as she does, she says - "I hope you can find a place that is truly yours. I hope you find it someday soon." And, as she retreats, "Call me if you need anything."

[katabasis]

He pauses, the scratch of the pen hesitating. It strikes him as wrong-- or maybe too right and sharp for it, and for a split second as he looks after her that unevenness must pass across his face. If he'd meant to steer her down some different road, he's clearly managed it. But she's walked him there with her and for a moment he doesn't recognize it. He's been watching the direction of their feet so intently that where they've ended is briefly disorienting.

"Mind yourself," he calls after her, though the shape of it is completely different from what it would have been minutes ago. The Boar & The Bat's patrons can be rough and she's just barely more than a girl.

When she's gone, Flint's attention returns to the page to discover his hand has lingered too long. A drip from the pen leeches to fill the loop of an l, open space eaten away into a dark black spot on the page. He makes soft sound, strikes the mangled word from the page, and resumes his work.