[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]

So much for any pretense of delicacy then. --Which is more or less as expected as the uselessness of the second cup he'd had brought along with the bottle, but hope springs goddamn eternal.

"I'm sure Bonaventura finds that riveting." The paperwork. But that answers at least one of his half dozen questions as to how Vane is managing any part of his new assignment: he isn't. That picture of the arrangement strings together more willingly than any version of events that involves Charles Vane behind a desk.

(Flint has, pointedly and perhaps uncharacteristically, made no complaints at all regarding the promotion - if it can even be called that. He'd mentioned the necessity of keeping the man busy and saddling him with a title and Maker knows what else is certainly one way to go about it.)

"A room in the city, then? Or have the repairs on the Tevene ship's cabin been completed?"

[sclavus]

James Bethany McGraw Hamilton Flint, did you literally just speak the words 'a room in the city' to him with a straight face? He should stab you just for that. That is the look he is being given right now over the rim of this bottle. Who do you think he is, someone who owns tea cups and books and shit for fun?

There it is again, though. Finding places to stay that aren't here, and Vane narrows his eyes while taking another swig from the bottle in his hand. Because Vane gets what this pushing about looking for places to settle in and the demands of his new position is about, and because Flint isn't just saying it, this means Vane is going to be a petulant little tit about it.

"No. Cabin's still being fixed." That's... sort of not really true. It's livable at the moment, and maybe there's a split board or a broken window or a spot of chipped paint that needs tending to, but that is not the point here. The point is being a bitch to Flint. And clearly he's not interested in a room in the city.

As for the paperwork, honestly, he's only barely literate on a good, sober day. They would be months behind if he was really expected to be the one getting all of that done. But give him technical work and manual labor, and he'll have things in such order the Tevene naval admiral would weep. "She's been doing it by herself up 'til now. All I'm changing is taking out the other chores."

[katabasis]

He does his level best to discard that look being directed his way across the table. Instead, Flint takes a drink from his cup, then sets it aside entirely. Might as well dispense with the notion of pleasant conversation then and speak to this as business.

"Some arrangement will have to be made then. I've vacated the Boar and will be needing my ship back." My ship is such a specific combination of words. "With the Walrus at anchor, you're of course welcome to whatever hands can be spared to finish repairs on the Tevene ship. Mister Silver can provide you with a list of the most capable if you need it." Though it's unbelievable Vane would need it - he's spent weeks with these men now and is no doubt savvy enough to have done his own reading of their affairs.

(Which is part of the problem - the part where Vane is in such a position to do that reading whenever he likes, and speak of it with whoever occurs to him. But that's an altogether too delicate matter to square with directly.)

[sclavus]

"And my ship, you sent out with the fleet? When do I get that one back?" Vane snaps, not necessarily because he's actually angry about that in particular - Blackbeard had been captaining the Revenge at the time, and their separation had nothing to do with Flint's orders. He knows that, but he's spoiling for a fight, and Flint's really the only one who gives as good as he gets. "With my crew. My quartermaster. My former captain."

Ignore that Jack Rackham is no longer his quartermaster, but fuck all of you, he doesn't care. Ultimately, this is all rhetorical, and he ends the line of it with another long swig from the bottle in his hand, lips pulling back tight against his teeth as he swallows in a manner that speak of annoyance. As for Mister Silver's list, Vane shakes his head, dismissing it.

"Don't need it. I'd sailed next to or fought with most these men before you even got to Nascere." Pirating is something many men came to after leaving or running from the civilized world one way or another. To Vane, the edges of the earth, the outskirt slave camps, the war-ruined isles between Tevinter and Seheron, and the vast waters in between waiting to swallow them up has been his entire world, never so much as set foot in Minrathous.

For Charles Vane, Nascere and pirating are his air, and everything about Kirkwall is starting to suffocate him.

[katabasis]

Across the table in that dark, high backed chair, Flint has stilled considerably. He's quiet, studying Vane out from under the line of his brow with heavily hooded eyes and waiting for--

"Are you finished?"

With the temper tantrum.

[sclavus]

Flint asks that, with his hooded eyes and his thin patience, and Vane grins, that sharp kind of smile that bares teeth, that has more in the way of aggressive restlessness and nerves on edge than real anger. The one that's clearly picking a fucking fight, just because he wants a damn fight, and he can't pick one out in the city, else it comes back on them with the Inquisition breathing down their necks.

In answer, Charles holds up a single finger - one second, please - and brings the bottle back to his lips to chug probably a couple more shots worth.

And, while he's busy with that, his foot snakes out, hooks the toe of his boot under the front lip of Flint's chair, and jerks it up, trying to tip it back and drop Flint onto the deck. Nurr hurr hurr.