[OPEN] there is a light that i leave on

[heirring]

WHO: Wysteria, Marcoulf, Flint and OPEN
WHAT: Open post/catch-all/buries myself in top levels
WHEN: Harvestmere
WHERE: Kirkwall and misc
NOTES: Prose or brackets are a-okay. Feel free to hit me up on DM or discord if you want something specific that isn't here. Just posting a wildcard and winging it is awesome too.

Comments

[katabasis]

[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.

[rathercommon]

[ 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?

lord god this is some tldr

[katabasis]

[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.]

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

[rathercommon]

[ 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.

911 I'd like to report a murder

[katabasis]

[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.]