faderift | [OPEN] there is a light that i leave on

He's not out in these taverns very often. It's not like the chance of being recognized in the city itself is exactly low despite how he nearly always wears his Grey Warden robes so they're looking at the symbol more than his face, but there's a certain amount of control in those streets. Out here? Anyone could sail in, recognize him, freak out, and then mob's your uncle.

A contact had come in, however, so his usual avoidance has been abandoned. As has the usual robes. Anders is in very loose trousers with a tunic over them, and a hood over that. He feels naked without his staff, but there's nothing for it. At least now he can head out... until he catches sight of the man packing up through an open door and pauses. That's one of the pirates who have joined with the Inquisition, he's nearly certain. Steel? No, another one's got a metal name, Silver something. He frowns as he slowly walks over - the name isn't coming to him.

"You're... one of the captains, aren't you?" His voice is on the more quiet side. The tavern itself may be loud enough, but sometimes Anders remembers to mitigate risks.

The back room only just warrants the name and open as it is, in the process of shifting things out of it and with no Walrus man left posted at the door, it's an easy enough approach. Flint's sorting through papers, putting them into stacks and rolling them into irregular cylinders as Anders approaches. He binds one with string, gives Anders no more than a cursory glance, and then finishes winding the cord about the packet.

"Flint. Of the Walrus. She's the galleon at the east end of the harbor with the stern carving." Without missing a beat: "What do you want?"

He could be anyone - Flint's bet is Inquisition, given the phrasing, but there's more than its stock roving these parts of the Kirkwall docks. Sailors and merchants and spies and thieves and poor bastards trying to make an extra coin or two of which he's made a reputation of being fairly free with for the right service. Make a habit of paying for little bits of intelligence and the man before him now could be literally anyone.

That's confirmation. Anders takes a breath, knowing this is a risk. Some pirates have been fine with him. Some pirates have even been fine with him, and that reminds him how much he misses Isabela. But that's neither here nor there.

"Flint." He probably looks like he's a bit slow, with the pausing and hiding his face. Or maybe he just looks really suspicious. That's likely the truth of it. "How do you feel about mages, Flint?"

At least the man hadn't asked his name. Yet. Though that doesn't rule out Flint hearing him on the crystals and hearing him called by it. "Particularly mages seeking a lasting freedom?"

His hands pause over their task midway through tying a knot in the twine about one of the parchment packets. Here now he does give the man with his deep hood a look that fixes, calculating, for a long beat before he resumes the matter of packing the desk's contents away into the open trunk beside it.

"I suppose it depends on who's asking." So much for that Yet, Anders. Not that he'd recognize the man who tore Kirkwall in two by sight even with out the hood, so there's no chance that Flint's grown so suspicious as to be pointed about it. No, it's just the requisite qualifier particularly given events in the North. A Tevinter spy asking questions like that is a world different from some destitute Fereleden mage fresh from the ruins of their broken Circle. And Maker only knows who might be watching this place, making note of who he's seeing and what's said between them.

(All the more reason to abandon the Boar and resume his post on the Walrus. The need for prying eyes and listening ears is past.)

Anders hesitates. This is nothing like the first network he set up, when he could find relatives of mages held in the Gallows and go from there. Now it's bigger, because his goals are bigger. And it means taking risks.

Decided, Anders steps in, out of the doorway, out of the line of sight of anyone not in the hall, and pushes the hood back. He's nervous. It shows in the tightness of his eyes, and the defensive way he crosses one arm in front of himself

"Anders," he says. "That Anders, yes. And before a bounty tempts you, know that the Inquisition already knows I'm here. I've been working alongside them for closing on three years now. I've also worked alongside some pirates before, so I thought that if some were deemed trustworthy, perhaps it was worth asking a few questions."

If he were the kind of man looking to cash in on that name, the Inquisition is the last place he'd take the man before him. He'd write to the Chantry first; failing that, he could make a fortune just by stringing Anders up in the nearest Kirkwall courtyard with just enough rope to let his toes touch the stone and charging passerby for the honor of throwing something at him. Anders could pay his bills for months. Luckily, there's no one else in the room to verbalize the temptation or else they might be headed in that direction even now.

Instead Flint studies him while rolling another stack of papers against his hip. It's a calculating look, the mental math passing blatantly over his face.

"Then you can appreciate how asking 'How do you feel about mages' is like asking 'How do you feel about fire'." You specifically, he thinks, have a great potential to be dangerous.

And useful.

"But I've no quarrel with any Southern mage. Ask your questions."

There's an awful lot of weighing going on in Flint's expression. By the end of it Anders feels like the man could tell him every piece of information there is on the bounties offered for his head, and how Flint could best profit off of it. It's the risk with pirates. Some are good people. And some deal in people.

He considers commenting on how valuable fire can be, how some might say they liked having it but few would say they liked having mages, but there's no point. Flint is listening, giving him room. Anders leans against the wall, trying to relax a little.

"What would you charge to carry information, or a contact, or sometimes leaflets on your ships? There is nothing in place to protect my people from being rounded up again the moment Corypheus is defeated, and I'm endeavoring to change that. Faster travel and communication could help that."

And Flint's ships won't be watched the way Anders is every time he's on a griffon.

"My aim is construction, not destruction." This time.

He doesn't answer immediately, but his eyebrows do rise considerably up the length of his face. Flint's hands are still moving, winding a string about this new roll of parchment, but it's clearly automatic as is the knot he ties into it. He glances very briefly past Anders, through the open doorway to the main floor of the bustling tavern beyond, then back again. It's a long, uncomfortable piece of considering silence.

At length:

"Is this the work you've been doing alongside the Inquisition, or am I to assume it's more of a personal hobby?"

They both have to know the answer to that. There's no way Flint thinks the Inquisition is actually looking to help mages. But even if Anders didn't figure Flint to already know the answer, he's shit at lying.

"It's personal." He exhales, glancing to his side at the doorway, wondering what Flint had been looking at during that silence.

"I want to build schools, they... They'll want to consolidate power after all of this is over and the easiest way to do that is to put the elves and mages right back under their thumb. Corypheus is the most important issue we face, but I know where my people stand."

And they won't stand at all if they don't find non-mages willing to stand beside them. Mages can't do this on their own. And truth be told, they shouldn't. They need to be a part of communities and communities need to be invested in the mages if freedom is to last.

There are parts of it that have some sour, distastful tinge to them. My people and non-mages rasps like a rough stone on skin. It's different here, the South is different, but it's something he must remind himself of in the same beat as exmaining every other part of what Anders has to say, the open doorway behind him, the chatter from the tavern's main floor.

What a spectacularly bad place to have this conversation, he thinks. If the Inquisition knows of Anders's presence, there's every reason to believe someone keeps tabs on where he goes and who he talks to and what shadowed back rooms he attends to. If someone is there in The Boar with their attention turned to this room, Flint would sooner stab himself in the foot before being seen giving the man the time of day.

Were Anders someone different, he might take the spirit of the thing and say 'Let's begin with closing the door, shall we?' Instead:

"You make a compelling argument," he says, tossing one of the tied bundles into the waiting sea chest. "But I'm afraid you'll have to find someone else to carry your papers."

It's not a surprise. But he can't deny that it's a disappointment. His people need help, he needs help, and it doesn't feel like many will lend a hand.

He doesn't say any of that, though. While his mood is written on his face because he's got the worst poker face, Anders nods and pushes off against the wall before pulling his hood back up.

"Right, then. Thank you for your time." His voice is closed off, brusque. There's little point in asking Flint to not talk, either. The man will or the man won't. He's quite sure he can't influence that. He turns to go.

He doesn't say You're welcome, - that's a step too far, easily -, but he doesn't do anything to stop Anders from going either. There are conversations that could happen. That maybe even should happen. That, thinks Flint, is a man who might be convinced of certain truths in the right context and there's use in that. But not here. Not yet.

After a moment, Flint resumes shifting the stacks of paper, the rolled charts, the small collection of books from the desk to the sea trunk.

[OPEN] there is a light that i leave on

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