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

[He hasn't had the pleasure - though is all too happy make a mental note to dock it from the list should he ever be in the strategically questionable position of entertaining.]

It's not meant to. But for the sake of avoiding an international incident when someone discovers you missing, I'll see if it can't be convinced. [Someone will grouse - it's twice as far to pull in the dead of night under a heavy fog - but the girl's been clambering all over the blighted ship at Vane's invitation. He wouldn't be surprised if half the men at oars arriving with the boat will have already taken to her like a favorite pet cat while he wasn't looking.

(That will need to stop too, he thinks, mentally adding it to the long list of things that are changing or will need to shift in the very near future to accommodate certain needs. Vane's tithe for his new position can be using the Vint ship as his classroom.)]

How goes your side project?

[He has no conceivable idea what she might be doing with that extra money, but she's not spending it on hair ribbons. Hazarding a leading guess can't hurt him.]

[ Another snort greets that comment about the international incident. ]

I don't think Rifters are that popular, Captain Flint. But - thank you. [ He's doing her a good turn, after all, and making up a rather ridiculous excuse for doing so. So she tucks her hair behind her ear and smiles up at him. Honestly, under all the gruffness and intensity, he really is quite sweet. She doesn't think for a moment that he wouldn't be brutal if it came to it, but that doesn't take away from his sweetness. ]

And my side project? [ For once, that's a question to ground herself, rather than a faux-innocent question to buy her time while she figured out a lie. ] It's a lot. There's a lot ahead of me. Did Captain Vane tell you about what I'm doing?

[Flint dispenses with the 'Aren't you mean't to be telling someone official if you aren't coming home line.' He isn't her mother and the rest of what she has to say promises to be more interesting.

He turns by a half degree, attention that had before been more or less singularly focused on searching out a dark shape in the fog dividing now with an interested tip of the head and the smallest pinch of speculation working a line across his forehead. Does she mean learning the rigging? Whatever Vane has been teaching her of sailing and ships?]

He hasn't mentioned anything specific.

[ A small nod. It's not surprising; Vane isn't a chatty sort, it seems. Not even with his comrades.

She could come at it indirectly, she supposes, try to feel out his sentiments before committing to this. After all, sharing her plans with the wrong person could, potentially, smother them in the very crib. But she feels she's got the measure of Flint on one or two things. She may not know whether he can be trusted to watch her back if they're on a mission together, or keep her secrets about her home, but he can be trusted to believe in this. She's confident in that. ]

I want to help organize the slaves of Tevinter to rise up against the Venatori and Corypheus. And to do so in such a way that they'll be in position to take hold of the country once he's dislodged, to keep them just putting the Archon back on the throne. So that when it comes, they'll have the ability to negotiate for their freedom and right for self-governance.

[He looks at her directly. In the dense, isolating fog, the end of the ferry slip could be mistaken for a closed room - removed from the dark ghost of Kirkwall turned to smudged outlines in the weather wall, at once entirely remote from the city's with its gross chained statuary and surrounded by it. Bundled by the shifting night, there is an eerie feeling of both dread and possibility - the sensation of a still moment in the wings, as if the fog could be drawn back like a curtain and what would materialize behind it would not be some troubled black sea and the hard outline of the Gallows' at its mouth, but a road leading North. As if here, at the end of an anonymous dock, they are neighbor to some altogether different place.

Flint narrows his eyes at her.]

And how do you expect to accomplish that?

[ He doesn't laugh at her. He doesn't, like she was half hoping, lurch forward and grasp her hands and murmur what a brilliant idea, Miss Jones, but she hadn't expected anything like that, either, even if it would have been decidedly gratifying. And he doesn't laugh. And anyway, level consideration is far better than praise, at the end of the day - if someone thinks your ideas are brilliant and you're brilliant, they won't question you, so you won't question yourself, so you won't actually improve upon your original notions. Narrowed eyes and a skeptical glance are better by far than words of praise.

She pushes her hair back from her face and lets a breath out through her nose. ]

I'm trying to worm my way on a reconnaissance mission being sent north. The Inquisition higher-ups, I guess they're thinking this way, too. But I think all they want to do is recruit the slaves to help us in the fight - not to do anything to really help them - but regardless. I need to find things out. I need to learn things about what life's like there, what their life is like, what can convince them that the risk is worth it. Once I have...then I'll come up with something more concrete.

[ She looks at him and tucks her hands into the pockets of her trousers. She doesn't expect she needs to point out why she's bringing it up with him. Instead, she just tilts her head at him - a silent, Well? ]

Edited 2018-10-05 15:02 (UTC)

[That calculating, narrowed look is still there in the wrinkles of his face and the crooked line of his mouth. If anything it's deepened, growing more pinched and calculating by some immeasurable degree, and for a moment the expectant tilt of her head garners no response at all.

But he doesn't straighten and he doesn't turn his attention back to out past the end of the slip either.]

Who else is involved in this?

[This being an under-baked, completely insane version of an idea that might yet have some hope of being winnowed into something with merit given half a chance and the support of anyone not completely incompetent, or shackled by the Inquisition's obsession with its own reputation, or both. Even more bewildering still:]

And what on earth did you say to Charles Vane to get him to discuss any of it?

[ Now she looks at him like he's a bit mad. ]

'Good afternoon, Captain Vane, I've got a notion that I'd like to discuss with you'? After which he said, 'All right, go ahead, I'm listening.' Is that some daring and cunning rhetorical move I wasn't even aware I'd mastered?

[ Then: ]

And the other person involved in this is Nikos Averesch. He's one of the twins, the slightly stouter and grouchier one. I made the mistake of saying some kind things about you, so now he's fairly well convinced you've brainwashed me and are deadly-dangerous to us all, so if he does contact you, be aware that he's probably going to test you and your commitment to seeing justice done.

[Maker's breath, Vane needs a ship to command immediately. If he's so bored as that and not given something to chase, trouble is bound to follow. Thank fuck Araceli's already made to keep him busy.

Flint gestures dismissively - fine; forget the question of Vane entirely. And even the matter of Nikos Averesch of all people - he'd smelled like the inside of a bottle the last time Flint has seen him, hadn't he? - testing much of anything, much less anyone's commitment to justice. Someone doubting his intentions here is maybe the least surprising thing she's ever said to him.]

This entirely undefined them of Tevinter slaves - how does the Inquisition intend to make contact in the first place?

Don't know yet.

[ She scratches her nose. ]

It's one of the reasons I want in on their expedition north - it'll let me tap into the resources they've got, the contacts they know. Of course, it's possible they don't actually know any, which is part of the reason I reached out to Captain Vane. I don't want to ask him to enter into any situations that'll...You know. [ She gives a small uncomfortable shrug. I don't want to force him to revisit past traumas is, hopefully, understood without her having to say it aloud and impeach Vane's manly courage in front of someone he seems to have a complicated relationship with. ] But hopefully he'll know some.

[ She looks at Flint, then, with his impassive face and his hard jaw. She wishes she'd raised this question in the daylight. He was a little bit more scrutable then, the illumination helping her pick up on the little shifts in expression that hinted at his true feelings. Here, in the dark, she's at a loss. ]

So what do you think of all this? I mean, I'm happy to answer questions all you like, but most of them are really going to come down to I don't know yet. So I want to ask you. You know more about Tevinter than I could learn in a month's worth of eavesdropping. How can I do this? [ She'd meant to ask a more modest question, a could I do this, but as soon as the more grandiose one is out of her mouth she realizes it's the right one. She doesn't want to waste time debating whether something is impractical or whether she should temper her ambition or whether she should keep her head down. She just wants to go out there and smash something to pieces, and what she wants to know is how it can be done. ]

[It is the right one. Because the answer to 'could I?' is no for a dozen, for a hundred, different reasons. Because 'could I?' is a question asked by someone whose hand might hesitate to implement its answer and if it was possible, if there could ever be a hope of a slave rebellion rising in Tevinter, uncertainty would be the first thing ready to smother it.

'Pretend for a moment this is true. What does it look like?' That's a question to arm men with. That question is how true things are made.]

The difficulty of provoking a slave revolt on the continent is guaranteeing that your force will have enough time to find their footing and seeing that they aren't immediately cut off from whatever supplies they might have by the arms inevitably brought to bear against them. The Magisterium may take its time debating over the legitimacy of their new Archon, but there will be no disagreement over quelling a slave rebellion. [ He's speaking deliberately, calm and careful. Yet even so, there's a sense of sharpening here - not quickly, but steadily. He sounds like ambitious steel laid on whetstone.]

So you will need to be ready to promise the slaves a buffer - not with the fall back position of joining our forces, but with the guarantee that the Inquisition will instead militarize the Tevinter soporati against the new Archon's rule. That the Magisterium may hesitate over just long enough to distract from the fact that their slaves are being armed. More importantly, it's your best chance to keep the two from cannibalizing one another entirely when whatever sensible voices might exist among the Tevinter mages are overwhelmed and they begin to rally for a fight.

Oh.

[ The soporati. The citizens of Tevinter without magic. She'd been so focused on the slaves, and on their power, that she'd scarcely even given thought to the role that the soporati might play. She wonders (feeling a twist of guilt) if it's because even she assumes that slaves haven't got anything to live for, that she just thinks they ought to give up their worthless lives. Oh, she hopes not. She hopes that it's just that she's so inured to middle-class apathy that she'd assumed they were a lost cause. Not that...they were worth more.

It's nearly enough to knock her off her stride, that realization of what might well have been her own cruelty. But Flint is talking, and what he's saying is useful, critical - no chance to lambast herself, not while she has him and has him sharing his thoughts. ]

We'll need to find out, then, how the soporati are being treated. What their prospects are. If I know people like that, they won't rouse themselves - [ A quick nose-wrinkle at the unintentional pun on waking up, soporati, etc. - ] unless their prospects for comfort are threatened. We need to get them to think that Corypheus will strip 'em of their...not even their rights; people are happy to give up their rights. Of their safety. Of their nice warm beds and their full stew-pots.

[A low sound - a humorless chuckle.]

Then it's lucky you'll be mounting a rebellion now, when they might so easily be primed to be paranoid of just such a thing. Given the events in Minrathous, you might only need to make sure they know the truth. It's only been fifteen years since Radonis took the chair and a new regime in the capitol might easily mean change. Make it known that a contingent of their precious magisters and Corypheus' Venatori are one and the same, then it's free men and women without magic who might be convinced they have the most to lose.

None of which [he says, hooking his wrist across the pommel of his beltknife] will actually get you face to face with any number of Tevinter slaves. But it at least will give you something to say when you get that far.

Yeah.

[ Kitty feels...energized. She feels lighter than she has felt in a while. There really is something astonishing about uttering radical ideas to someone - to an adult - and hearing real encouragement rather than just sit down, Kitty, you'll just get yourself hurt. She doesn't care about getting hurt. She doesn't care about staying safe. She wants to do something, and have people with her, and fight. ]

But that's something to get figured out when I'm there. When I'm there and in arm's reach of 'em. Are there any on your crew? Former slaves? Aside from Captain Vane.

No it's not.

[This, clipped and firm and fundamentally ignoring all of her questions. There are no doubt Walrus men who once were enslaved, but they aren't here to help her. Fuck - after weeks largely of moldering in a harbor with little to no money to spend and no prospects on the horizon of getting any, it would be a near thing to convince them they are still even here to leverage the Inquisition's aid. No man is going to have shit to say to her about the Tevinter's interior after so many years willfully removed from it, when they've come so far and secured no promises of their own.]

If you want to figure out how to best make use of this reconnaissance mission, you'll need to know where's it going and what it hopes to achieve before you get there. That at least will give you some idea of what's possible to do on arrival instead of just asking every ex-slave you happen to find what they know about being traded.

Why can't I?

[ She tilts her head slightly to the side, considering him. Protectiveness of his crew, perhaps? It'd make sense. He's got a commitment to them, first and foremost. They elected him. They chose him. Of course he'd feel beholden to them and want to protect them. - Not that he's wrong, of course. Having a plan before she goes in is a good idea. But she's curious why he's pushing back there. ]

Ask for information? They haven't got anything to be ashamed of, after all. Nothing to hide.

[Nothing to hide is maybe an extreme view of the situation, though not in the way she means it. He sniffs and glances back out into the fog wall.]

You can do whatever you like. My point is only that if you ask someone and they know the roads in the Northeast and you instead end up cutting across South Tevinter, it won't do you much good. Every slave isn't going to be relevant to you at this stage.

[ Oh. Well - ]

Well - it's less that I want to ask for directions, or something like that. It's more that I want to understand...where they came from. What their lives were.

[ She puffs out a breath. ]

You can't even begin to fight for someone if you barely even understand what they need, after all. [ Not that that ever entirely stops her, but...It's a bad way to go about things. ]

But - yes. You're right. The point's well taken. If you were to do it, how would you? Go about it?

Edited 2018-10-08 23:37 (UTC)

[Hm. He clicks a ring absently against the belt knife, a small metallic tak, tak, tak in the wavering lamplight.]

I [funny, how he makes it sound like 'you should'] would start with the fact that if I want this thing to have meaning, anything I do will need to outlive me.

[There, at last, some tacit nod to the inherent danger in this. Flint looks to her, squinting as if studying Kitty against the glare of the sun.]

Which means my sympathies, however far they might extend, matter less than the question of weapons and support and resources, and that all of those are useless if the slaves don't have a voice near their front capable of pointing the rest in the right direction.

With that in mind, I'd figure out where I'm going. Barring that, I'd talk to merchants and traders who might be familiar with the North and the estates or mines most likely to provide me with the numbers I'd need and find some reason to divert the mission in that direction if not already headed there. Something nearest the Pillars or on the coast would be best.

Once there, my goal would be to make contact with whoever speaks for the slaves - they will have at least one leader - and see that they understand the offer's legitimacy. Which means I will need to have considered how they are to be armed and supplied, where they will need to go after, and what steps will be taken to see that they can. I only have to ensure that the means to improve their tomorrows can be reality. Let them figure out that it will be better if they do this today - that whatever the risk, lifetimes are worth trading a security measured in minutes.

['Tak' says the ring against the knife for the last time. He turns his hand and plucks the lantern from its hook.]

That's our boat.

[And indeed, a shape is spidering out from the dark - gliding almost soundlessly through the fog.]

[ She listens - and, for once, doesn't speak. Instead, she stays quiet, thinking that over - trying to commit it to memory - as the boat approaches. And as it draws near, the only thing she has to say is this: ]

Thank you for the help, Captain Flint.

[ It's funny, or perhaps a bit melancholy, to think back on Mr Pennyfeather. She's still sick with the memory of the Resistance and their failure to do anything for the people of London, the way they wasted their time chasing trinkets and stuffing their pockets. It hadn't started from a place of greed, though, for all that it had gone that way. It had taken years, and the whispering of Hopkins in Mr Pennyfeather's ear, to take them off-course.

Could Mr Pennyfeather ever have been someone like Flint? If he'd been born in different circumstances, if he'd been shaped by the right forces? It's hard to imagine it. The wheezing, hunchbacked, limping old man could hardly pose a stronger contrast to the barrel-chested, booming-voiced Flint. The squabbling disagreements of the Resistance seem altogether unlike the workmanlike competence of the pirates (even if, to her considerable pleasure, the pirates themselves had proven rather fractious and opinionated, as she'd discovered listening to them).

And if Mr Pennyfeather was no Flint, does that mean that they'll prevail here? Because they were never going to win under Mr Pennyfeather's guidance. They were doomed from the start. Are the people here different? Is she different? Or will she just fall into the same old cycles, listening to a man with ideas and confidence but who won't ever help her win?

What awful things to think, Kitty. You were the one who asked him for his help, weren't you? She shakes her head to rid herself of the cynicism, turns a smile on him. ]

You'll not stay out too late tonight, I hope. You look a touch tired.

[His attention tips to her then, parting briefly with the boat as one long lines of its oars lifts and folds in to the murmur of 'ship to port'. It's a moment's study and no more, something in the lines of his face going crooked with neither good temper or concern - a brief flicker of bewilderment, maybe; the disorientation of being reminded of the necessity of things like skin and bone and sleep. It's hard to say in the lamplight.

The boat comes up against the ferry slip with a muffled thump. Callous gnarled sailor's hands catch hold of dock cleats and piling there to hold it fast and Flint cocks his head in a leading gesture for Kitty to step down into the boat:]

Miss Jones.

[Once a place is found, Flint passes the lantern down and steps in after her.] Pull for the Gallows, Dooley. [This said to a man at the stern.

With a whistle, the boat shoves off. It goes as it's directed.]

[OPEN] there is a light that i leave on

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lord god this is some tldr

i was gonna just give you a short one in return but then i decided nah

911 I'd like to report a murder