WHO: Max & Various WHAT: A little catch-all post, mmaybe some open starters to come but I'll edit if so. WHEN: Ambiguously Harvestmere WHERE: Places NOTES: Black Sails spoilers and discussion of slavery in the thread with Silver.
She has existed again in public spaces for some weeks now, if only quietly at first, a rustling of skirts and clacking of heels moving through the halls with purpose. She's seen to necessary tasks with the sort of efficient persistence that fills hours, that distracts. Perhaps she has even existed near John, in a brisk, brittle sort of way, as if a kind word might shatter her, so she'd rather he didn't. Time, distance, and a dogged return to normalcy are the paths to recovery she's chosen, and they have almost been effective.
But only almost. Some wounds, when left untended, only fester. (How long has it been, since they last looked at the ones they'd left on each other? That she had left on him?)
So it is she's stolen him away during a quiet moment tonight, a bottle of dry red wine presented as either a peace offering or the necessary social lubricant for the conversation she intends to have. She pours, a glass for him and one for her. Takes the first sip, just to show it isn't poisoned. Takes another just to drown out that thought.
"There is a place just north of the Silent Plains," is where she eventually decides to begin, "That Anne heard spoken of some months ago." Months that feel like years, now. "The estate of a reform-minded man who obtained his laborers from an unusual source."
"This man, we were told, found it profitable to offer his services to wealthy families — some of the most prominent in Tevinter, on occasion — with a need to make troublesome relations disappear. Cared for, tended to, but never to be seen or heard from again."
"It is where I intended to send you, had I captured you." A life of silence and obscurity. Of imprisonment. Of slavery. Her fingertips are pressed very firm to the stem of her glass, but her eyes do not drop from him. "At the time, I think I imagined it a kinder fate."
Max will seek what she needs to heal. John is aware that those she would most like to lean on are not in attendance, just as he is aware of his own shortcomings when it comes to offering comfort. He is talented at spinning lies, and sussing out what people want to hear. But the kind of honest, raw empathy he thinks she deserves is not in him. He dredged it all up for Flint over a campfire, attending to the gnarled wounds of his past. Max is something different. The terrain between them is uneasy, and John doesn't know what is to gain from a clumsy attempt at easing her pain. If it goes wrong, then what? He can't afford Max's ire.
It feels like a risk to accept her parlay this night. But something soft and yielding in John carries him alongside her. It notes the effort she is making. There is nothing between them that is not an exchange. She is eliciting trust from him. John sets aside his sword and crutch, and only lifts his cup when she begins to speak.
"Interesting choice in topic."
How long ago that moment feels: standing upon the beach in the dark, weathering the shock as Max tilts the world beneath his feet. Something twigs in the back of his mind—wealthy families, disappearing troublesome relations. John takes a long sip before he speaks again.
"And what drove you to bestow that kindness on me?"
John's voice dips over kindness. Something ugly and indignant clings to the word. A kindness, to be unmade. A kindness, to be forgotten. He feels anger rise and then fall, looking into her eyes as he tries to understand her motive, to judge whether or not this is a truth she is giving him.
She looks...fragile. He has not seen her laid open like this, even when he'd found her pale with fear standing over two corpses and a pool of blood.
Like all things between them, there is calculation in it. A gift chosen, a meeting place, a gesture of reassurance. A vulnerability, set before him like a bared throat. Of course she wants something from him in return, but for once perhaps all that means is his ear. His consideration of a subject they have both been keen not to address before now. His willingness to entertain whatever change that may bring about between them, at most.
(If that results in securing her footing with him, or clarifying the precariousness thereof, well, all actions have consequences.)
"The alternative was to kill you." No apology, no uncertainty; that was the decision as she saw it then, and sees it now. He'd been an obstacle in her path that she'd seen no other way to surmount; it isn't in her to not surmount it.
"At the time, that was a choice I did not want to live with. But now—" Now he's reached for her when she'd been lost. Strove to see her safe when her safety mattered hardly a whit to anyone else. Asked her freed from not so different a life than the one she'd have condemned him to. Things she doesn't ask of anyone, and would ask of him near least of all.
She doesn't say any of that. Does not, in fact, answer his question in so many words at all. But there is certain pitch to her brow, a softness that isn't calculated beyond the fact that she's decided to show it at all.
"Now I think I would prefer not to live with either."
It is difficult for John to gauge how much weight this moment should carry. As she speaks, he is reminded very much of himself, vomiting out truth to Madi as pain scorched him inside and out. Is that what it takes for the pair of them to make such admissions? Pain scraping them so raw they have nothing else to do but bare themselves in one form or another? He doesn't doubt that Max has carefully crafted this moment to elicit a favorable response from him. But it's the truth behind it that John wishes to assess, and understands he may never be able to.
That's the trouble with the pair of them. They are a matched set. He sees in her all that has made him a formidable force at Flint's right hand. From Max, this is the closest he will ever have to explanation and apology for what has been broken between them.
"If we're being honest," John begins, some dark humor in that turn of phrase. "I would have gone farther to see you safe."
Flint had recognized that in John. There is still something soft in him that recoils from violence. There is still something yielding. It goes away if John allows it, and is all too easily ignored, but it is there. It's what had propelled him to seek a way out for her. It's sentiment. Even after all they have inflicted upon each other, it has remained.
"Is the idea of my friendship still distasteful to you?"
Friendship means something different here than it had on that beach. The rift had changed so many terms. Perhaps if war had never come to their island, they would have never had to reconsider their respective positions. But it did and the reprieve from the business of Nassau has given them both a little breathing room.
And it's perhaps easier for her to speak of the pair of them than it would be for her to speak about what had happened to her when she had been a captive. John has questions, but John is a patient man. He can wait until the time is right to ask after what Anne had heard, what might be hidden from the world in the places Max had intended to imprison him in.
There's a quick flinch at her brow. Would she have done the same for him? No. Maybe. She would like for that to be an option, should he ever be in danger. Softness is something she strives to make room for in her life, in every choice where space can be made for the possibility, but it isn't something she expects to have. But then, perhaps they are not so different in that. There is something to be said for the impulse, separate from the result. He would have tried. She would try to try.
"The concessions required by your friendship were distasteful to me." Were. That isn't an answer. A clarification, more like. She wouldn't go directly against her own interests for him. She might not still, but—
"I would not object," warmer on her lips than the word implies, even hopeful, "were it offered without them."
Here, where that's possible, where their interests are aligned. (For however long their interests are aligned.)
He has so little doubt in Flint. Sat together in a small borrowed boat, winding their way through a plan to bend the Inquisition along with the rest of the world to their purposes, John had felt power crackling between them and understood what it would bring forth. What Max wants to keep Nascere as it had been, hemmed in and tied to Tevinter. Flint wanted to break Tevinter's hold, then break all of Tevinter. John had looked into his face and recognized that between the two of them, they could bring that to pass.
It would be a small thing to lie to Max now about what the future holds. But Max has done one thing right: she came to him in pain and offered him a truth. John falters at the idea of meeting her with anything less.
"Who knows what the future holds?" John says finally. "Perhaps when the Inquisition has finished the points on which we've differed will no longer be an issue."
Simply put: his friendship comes irreversibly with the goal he has tied himself to with flesh, blood and bone. Tevinter's influence will be purged from Nascere. John will speak that ending into reality.
"I'd even say that it's unlikely you have anything left to object to, knowing what Rogers is."
The corners of her mouth pinch, just so. How much she wants to agree, to act as though she could not already see the point at which such a friendship would break. Imagine this optimistic proposal from the John Silver who left for Charles Town beholden to no one, instead of the one who came back, bound hand and foot to something larger than himself. She'd have thought less of it; it might have been more true. Nowadays, she has no trouble seeing the end of things.
"The Venatori have made Flint's war unavoidable, yes. If Tevinter burns itself to the ground, you will not find me wasting my tears over its ashes." Tevinter has never been her goal; only the surest means to an end.
"But there will come a time when it is possible for peace and prosperity and stability to return to Nascere again — when this violence ceases to be a necessity and becomes a choice. How do you imagine Captain Flint will choose then?"
There are things John could say. He knows all the words, has heard Flint unspool them in the quiet space between them as the sea rocks the dingy beneath their feet. John understands what they are trying to do. But he does not find a place for them here in the space between him and Max. Max is not going to be roused to their cause this way. John has tried once before, and he has not yet learned which angle would sway her.
Perhaps she would understand better if she knew what John was. But that is still too great a weapon to ever hand Max. The fragile truce they've brokered between them can't sustain the kind of secret that carries John's life along with it. He is an apostate. He can still suffer greatly for that.
"We are committed to building something better," John tries, and there's some grim humor at the altruism glowing within those words. "Do you think I don't want to come out the other side of this to something stable enough to make a life on?"
After they've thrown it all over. After they've delivered a better system unto this land. That's when they all must begin to rebuild, when the dream Flint has becomes real. John's fingers tap at the table beside his now-empty cup. He does not look down at the stump, what's left of his leg, does not think of what comes next for him.
"He knows when to stop fighting. If you don't believe that of him, you must believe it of me."
Max's chin tilts, just so. It isn't as if she imagined John eager to risk his own skin, of course, but for all that he has become intwined with Flint's crew, she had never quite pictured him putting down roots. (There was a woman, wasn't there? Rumors that had seemed to Max out of character in much the same way. What if neither were?)
"I do." Softer, as if deciding only as the words leave her lips. "I do believe that of you."
Not of Flint. But Flint's friendship isn't what she's after today. Flint's won't be the one tested.
"Perhaps as long as that we have that in common, we need not be at odds."
To think, if things had gone differently in the beginning—
It was always about security in some form or another. He had never quite explained that to Max. There hadn't been time, and afterwards it hadn't seemed to matter. He'd given up his share, so whatever he'd planned for it was severed from him as thoroughly as his leg had been. Freedom, comfort, all of it, he'd have to achieve it by different, more difficult means.
Madi. At the end of all of this, she waits for him.
"I know you have people you wish to provide for," John says, careful of the tone, the expression on his face. He does not mean this as a threat. "I am much the same."
The closest John will come to acknowledging Madi in Max's presence: couched in ambiguous phrasing that could so easily apply to his crew, to the number of pirates fighting back on Nassau. The similarity is pleasing to him, reassuring in a way he does not like to fully consider. That sameness has always been there, which is truly what makes this difficult, makes them both wary of each other. Moreso than ever these days, with Max's priorities having shifted in a way John hadn't anticipated.
"All of which to say, I'd prefer not to be at odds with you."
For many reasons, anywhere between genuine appreciation and dreading the idea of having to constantly account for her as a threat to his machinations. But it all came to the same thing, really: it would be nice to be on more even footing with her.
[ Straddle, true to its name, sits astride the border of respectability, a liminal space where noble ladies laugh with butcher's sons and the odd, lucky groomsman goes for a nice birthday drink. It is hardly Nascere, where the usual divisions of social class shrink to nothingness in comparison to one's standing with a crew — here, the division is the point. The transgression of boundaries would not entice if there were no boundary to transgress. But it is something, to find a space where neither of them is truly out of place.
Not that Max intends to present herself as anything but a lady. She's dressed for the part, in bright silks and a patterned shawl for Kirkwall's abominable cold, and she's found them a table on the upper level. It's not private, but it is out of the way, where the music floating up from the half-story landing masks their conversation from any wandering ears without drowning them out.
It occurs to her then that they've only spoken via the crystals, not in person, and while she has an idea of the other woman in passing, dark haired and bright mannered and yet bearing some resemblance to her cousins all the same, she does not know her face.
Luckily, it is a striking one. ]
Lady Vivas. [ is a guess, but a confident one. She rises to offer a hand. ] It is a pleasure to finally meet.
( Marisol is dressed more in the fashions of Antiva than the Marcher states. There seems to be a lack of love for vibrancy with so many in these cities, and she cannot excuse it as the impending cold, now she has been here close to a year. At least the cold does not bother her so much - she loves it, even if she prefers the cold in the context of crossing seas and feeling the lash of salt spray.
She is only a little shorter than her cousins, although far more inclined to warm smiles and brightness, both of which she offers Max as she draws closer, and accepts the offered hand. )
The pleasure is mine. ( And, because she is in the presence of a beautiful woman, and because they are in a place where those usual divisions and roles of class and society begin not to matter, she touches a light kiss to Max's knuckles before releasing her hand. ) A friend of Nikos' is a friend of mine. Please, call me Marisol.
[ Have beautiful women kissed Max's hand before? Yes. Certainly. But has a beautiful noble woman kissed her hand in public, in a halfway respectable tavern, without a hint of mockery? Well. Now one has. Something delicate shimmers in her smile for it. ]
Marisol, then, [ warm. ] Though I do not know if Nikos would go so far as to call me a friend.
[ Does Nikos call anyone a friend? But it's affectionate. She likes Nikos, even if he does occasionally exhibit a unique talent for ruffling her pride. He is discreet. He gets things done. He asks only necessary questions.
Marisol, however, is a bit more of an mystery. Max gestures for her to sit, please, and motions for the waiter to fetch them something to drink, if only to give her a moment to consider the other woman. ]
As you seem to be quite dear to him, you may, I think, know more of my situation and my interests than I do of yours. Perhaps, before we consider how we might help one another, that is where we should begin.
Nikos would not call most people friends within earshot. ( Fond, for all the faint dragging of her cousin. She takes a seat, leaning back into it with the kind of poise that comes from years of observations in how to look relaxed and like you’re entitlef to be in any given circumstance— or maybe just believing you truly are so entitled. )
That is a question that could lead to me saying a good many things that aren’t very interesting at all, ( she cautions, playfully conspiratorial. )
But, what you may hear easily is that my father is Amancio Vivas, and my mother is Constanze Asturias. I was one of those imprisoned in the Rialto Circle, and I had my hand in the mage rebellion, and when I arrived in Kirkwall I terrorised the Inquisition with my pet flamingoes. Some believe I have a particular vendetta against rifters - incorrect - and that I have more dresses than sense. That may be true, but only because I have a great many dresses.
( She shrugs, ah well. ) What would you like to know? I promise I’ll tell you everything that I feel like telling.
[ This sort of ease is something that used to come more readily to Max, she thinks, but in Marisol's presence it's hard not to follow suit. An elbow rests on the table while she listens, eyes brightened by the other woman's dramatics, but also watchful, reading between the lines and unafraid to let that show. Marisol can tell her a great many uninteresting things, but the way she tells them — flippant and flittering from one detail to the next, as if each was of equal weight when that cannot possibly be so — is not uninteresting to Max at all. ]
Why come to the Inquisition at all? With your family, your connections, surely once you had your freedom, you could go anywhere you wished.
( It was not a question many thought to ask, or at least not in quite the same way. Usually it was more of a why that begged the reason Marisol was in this location and inflicting torment. She is not blind to the assessing edge to Max's gaze. She is watchful, careful; good. )
Before the negotiating delegation went to Skyhold to debate the phylacteries, mages could not inherit. Whether we can is still... contentious. Technically we have the right to legal recognition, but before that, I could not claim my birthright, not matter how willingly my parents would have bestowed it.
( Something sharp flickers in the corner of her smile, fierce and waiting, ready to claim what is hers. It was what she had been raised to be, and she would not be denied by anyone. ) I came here because I was not willing to leave the fate of mages and Thedas in the hands of strangers, and because the world could not be saved without the support of Antiva. One Merchant Prince lending his support was important, and some others began to take note.
( She leans forward then, conspiratorial, her voice lower. ) And I would be a poor rebel if my cousin was my only contact, no?
[ There are pieces of Marisol's explanation that feel distant as fantasies to Max — family, inheritance, and birthrights are the stuff of dreams, the sort of foundation that can withstand generations and seems as though it could never be washed away. But the small and jealous creature that envies Marisol that has only ever been a fraction of Max. That smile, that she understands completely. ]
You want what is yours. What you have earned. [ Not, perhaps, the way things are usually earned, through labor, but through suffering and toil all the same, against a world that does not believe she deserves it. Max's hand unfolds across the table and reaches out to touch the other woman's arm, an idle side of a thumb to forearm. ] We have that in common, I think.
[ Rebellions, less so, but she did not miss how Marisol ordered those priorities. Max doesn't draw back as she continues. ]
You have contacts, I have contacts — of different sorts and in different places, I would wager, but perhaps that is precisely what makes us well matched. If our interests are in line, it may be that we could be of great help to one another.
( She is very aware of the contact, and it is— a strange thing. When she is used to being the one who offers contact, makes a game of it. Men are, she finds, so very easy to bend to her will with the indulgences of contact and attention. All the more, when she plays the part of the virtuous Antivan maiden, the forbidden fruit of a mage, an apparent maiden locked away in a Circle Tower, the tantalising thought of bedding the daughter of a very dangerous man. Men made many assumptions, and she could dance the steps all the more easily because it was an objective exercise, with no attraction on her part. People initiating contact with her who aren't her family, or the ultimately innocent flirtations with Petronella (too much friend to ever be lover) are rare.
With all that said, she is not one to be thrown or rendered blushing or swooning by a hand at her arm. It's just unusual. )
Careful. ( Quiet, still. Only for Max to hear. ) Nikos does not believe in any man having rights to wealth or property above any others. We are all equal, and our possessions should reflect equal worth, not one striving to assert themselves over another.
( A playful caution, but a caution all the same. ) He may watch ambition suspiciously. Don't give him cause to doubt you.
( That she is warning Max against Nikos' cause is something she had not anticipated, but there is something kindred in them, she thinks. They are women fighting to carve their place.
Of course, perhaps that is the game Max would play. Perhaps Nikos let on, even accidentally, of his disapproval for Marisol's pretences and manipulations in some areas. That hardly seems likely, though. Nikos is too careful and protective, for that. )
It would be very agreeable, to share common ground. ( She hopes they could be a help to one another. She'll admit that much. ) Am I too forward, to ask your interests?
[ The warning earns a delicate lift of the eyebrow. Interesting, that Marisol would give it at all — but Max does not look particularly worried, either. Nikos can disapprove of her sitting atop gaatlok gold mountain when he has lived through half of what she has to get there. All the same, it would be inconvenient to lose his favor. She dips her chin, acknowledging without showing a single indication she intends to bend.
The question is a good one, however. ]
The Inquisition's success, first and foremost. What that means in the end is different for me than for you, but the tool is the same.
[ But that is only half an answer. Less than half — the tool is not what Marisol asked. For a wavering moment, Max lets that hang suspended between them like she might call it sufficient all the same. The rest is more than she has spoken frankly of for some time, even to Nikos. Her purpose in Kirkwall, the thing that had kept her from being thrown overboard on their way to it, is to present herself as an ally to the more self-evidently useful men she accompanied here. And in some respects, they are of one mind. They want the Venatori scoured from Thedas. They want Nascere freed. But once that is accomplished? What singular vision could they possibly hope to follow then?
But that is precisely why Marisol is not an ally Max is seeking for Flint or Vane or even Silver's benefit; she is an ally Max wants for herself. Against the rest of them, if need be. That calls for a more honest answer. Her lips press together; fingers slide from the other woman's arm, lingering instead beside it. ]
Nikos may have mentioned my position on Nascere. [ That she dealt in information. That she was richer than the Maker. ] What he may not have conveyed is that it was more than just secrets and lucrative businesses arrangements. What I built on that island was a foundation — for commerce, for prosperity, for life that could not flourish anywhere else, and that had hardly had the chance to do so for more than the span of a spent temper before I began managing its affairs. That is what the Venatori took from me.
[ Not that she's bitter. ]
What I did there worked. It will work again. [ And Marisol could have an ally who controls an entire fucking island crucial to trade on the Nocen Sea, instead of just a friend with a few useful contacts. Her expression swings wry. ] There is only the little problem of the world ending, in the meantime.
Edited (casually triples the length of this tag, also makes a million typos don't look at me) 2018-11-01 08:02 (UTC)
( Nikos may have mentioned— Marisol's head tilts very slightly to the side, an acknowledgement. Yes, it would seem Nikos had shared some things, although she doesn't bother with interrupting. It would serve no purpose save to illustrate what Max has already deduced, and frankly what Max herself is offering is far more interesting. Marisol's gaze is sharp, attentive, and her mouth opens very slightly with the barest intake of breath.
Gently, carefully, she catches Max's fingers with her own. Only a loose hold, as she studies Max's hand a moment, before her gaze flickers up to her face. Wonders if the hands are callused from labour, or smooth and soft. Either could tell different stories, grant context to the picture. For a moment she is quiet. )
They took your freedom from you.
( A freedom that she had pulled together, had fought for, Marisol would wager. Freedom that had been built.
She didn't need to know the specifics to imagine it; her mother's family had its fair share of pirates, raiders, and they were a wild, dangerous breed. Defiance and carving out their place was in their blood. )
We've both been robbed, Max, but maybe keeping the world from ending can play its part in taking your Nascere back. ( Her smile is very slight. ) I had harboured a naive hope that Tevinter might offer hope to mages needing a fresh beginning, but I have abandoned such... childish hopes.
( And now, something in the smile turns... bittersweet, maybe. ) What do you think of mages, if you have had such terrible experiences of the Imperium?
[ Freedom isn't a word Max throws around lightly anymore. Once upon a time it was open windows and wind-caught curtains, a boat waiting in the harbor to take them somewhere she hadn't even bothered to imagine because together and away were enough. It was a dream tainted in the losing, a hope she told herself not to hold again without a solid foundation beneath her feet to support it. But Marisol calls that freedom too, and it doesn't feel like a fantasy. It doesn't sound like the sort of empty rabble rousing she grits her teeth at amongst the Walrus men. It sounds like something as solid as Marisol's hand in hers, and she looks for a moment surprised by that thought, by the carefully contained impact of giving this dream the name she hadn't dared to use. To imagine the meaning of the word having a different shape for her than those who use it so casually.
Her hand — smooth as a kept cat's — tightens on Marisol's almost imperceptibly. It makes answering the rest of her question all the more difficult. Max chooses her words carefully. ]
I believe that power, placed in the hands of those inclined toward cruelty, will be used that way. [ She looks at Marisol, and she thinks of Anne, blood wicking up the hem of her skirt and magic still crackling on her skin, fighting the ghosts of men long since dead. ] Being born a mage does not protect you from that. It does not create that. It simply is.
( A very slight quirk at the corner of her mouth. Not quite a smile, skirting the edges of that. )
Wise words.
( Perhaps careful, rather than honest; aware of who she is speaking to. She might keep the extent of her magical abilities secret from most, but person need only be sensible to have concerns about displeasing the daughter of a Merchant Prince. They are nice to hear, but she knows better than to be too taken in by nice words. Isn't that exactly how she likes to best disarm people?
It is now that one of the staff return with glasses and something for them to drink. She allows him to work to make space, rather than leaning back and releasing Max's hand to make it easier. Perhaps she is curious to see who will let go first, or perhaps she is indulging herself with contact. So long as she remains sensible it hardly matters, does it?
She waits for the waiter to have poured their drinks and depart before speaking. )
In my experience, those who have felt the string of cruelty hold their friends and allies all the more preciously. Trust and loyalty are... very valuable currencies. Those who violate such things?
( A little shake of her head. Presumably things don't go so well for them. )
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for john;
But only almost. Some wounds, when left untended, only fester. (How long has it been, since they last looked at the ones they'd left on each other? That she had left on him?)
So it is she's stolen him away during a quiet moment tonight, a bottle of dry red wine presented as either a peace offering or the necessary social lubricant for the conversation she intends to have. She pours, a glass for him and one for her. Takes the first sip, just to show it isn't poisoned. Takes another just to drown out that thought.
"There is a place just north of the Silent Plains," is where she eventually decides to begin, "That Anne heard spoken of some months ago." Months that feel like years, now. "The estate of a reform-minded man who obtained his laborers from an unusual source."
"This man, we were told, found it profitable to offer his services to wealthy families — some of the most prominent in Tevinter, on occasion — with a need to make troublesome relations disappear. Cared for, tended to, but never to be seen or heard from again."
"It is where I intended to send you, had I captured you." A life of silence and obscurity. Of imprisonment. Of slavery. Her fingertips are pressed very firm to the stem of her glass, but her eyes do not drop from him. "At the time, I think I imagined it a kinder fate."
weeps
It feels like a risk to accept her parlay this night. But something soft and yielding in John carries him alongside her. It notes the effort she is making. There is nothing between them that is not an exchange. She is eliciting trust from him. John sets aside his sword and crutch, and only lifts his cup when she begins to speak.
"Interesting choice in topic."
How long ago that moment feels: standing upon the beach in the dark, weathering the shock as Max tilts the world beneath his feet. Something twigs in the back of his mind—wealthy families, disappearing troublesome relations. John takes a long sip before he speaks again.
"And what drove you to bestow that kindness on me?"
John's voice dips over kindness. Something ugly and indignant clings to the word. A kindness, to be unmade. A kindness, to be forgotten. He feels anger rise and then fall, looking into her eyes as he tries to understand her motive, to judge whether or not this is a truth she is giving him.
She looks...fragile. He has not seen her laid open like this, even when he'd found her pale with fear standing over two corpses and a pool of blood.
no subject
(If that results in securing her footing with him, or clarifying the precariousness thereof, well, all actions have consequences.)
"The alternative was to kill you." No apology, no uncertainty; that was the decision as she saw it then, and sees it now. He'd been an obstacle in her path that she'd seen no other way to surmount; it isn't in her to not surmount it.
"At the time, that was a choice I did not want to live with. But now—" Now he's reached for her when she'd been lost. Strove to see her safe when her safety mattered hardly a whit to anyone else. Asked her freed from not so different a life than the one she'd have condemned him to. Things she doesn't ask of anyone, and would ask of him near least of all.
She doesn't say any of that. Does not, in fact, answer his question in so many words at all. But there is certain pitch to her brow, a softness that isn't calculated beyond the fact that she's decided to show it at all.
"Now I think I would prefer not to live with either."
no subject
That's the trouble with the pair of them. They are a matched set. He sees in her all that has made him a formidable force at Flint's right hand. From Max, this is the closest he will ever have to explanation and apology for what has been broken between them.
"If we're being honest," John begins, some dark humor in that turn of phrase. "I would have gone farther to see you safe."
Flint had recognized that in John. There is still something soft in him that recoils from violence. There is still something yielding. It goes away if John allows it, and is all too easily ignored, but it is there. It's what had propelled him to seek a way out for her. It's sentiment. Even after all they have inflicted upon each other, it has remained.
"Is the idea of my friendship still distasteful to you?"
Friendship means something different here than it had on that beach. The rift had changed so many terms. Perhaps if war had never come to their island, they would have never had to reconsider their respective positions. But it did and the reprieve from the business of Nassau has given them both a little breathing room.
And it's perhaps easier for her to speak of the pair of them than it would be for her to speak about what had happened to her when she had been a captive. John has questions, but John is a patient man. He can wait until the time is right to ask after what Anne had heard, what might be hidden from the world in the places Max had intended to imprison him in.
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"The concessions required by your friendship were distasteful to me." Were. That isn't an answer. A clarification, more like. She wouldn't go directly against her own interests for him. She might not still, but—
"I would not object," warmer on her lips than the word implies, even hopeful, "were it offered without them."
Here, where that's possible, where their interests are aligned. (For however long their interests are aligned.)
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He has so little doubt in Flint. Sat together in a small borrowed boat, winding their way through a plan to bend the Inquisition along with the rest of the world to their purposes, John had felt power crackling between them and understood what it would bring forth. What Max wants to keep Nascere as it had been, hemmed in and tied to Tevinter. Flint wanted to break Tevinter's hold, then break all of Tevinter. John had looked into his face and recognized that between the two of them, they could bring that to pass.
It would be a small thing to lie to Max now about what the future holds. But Max has done one thing right: she came to him in pain and offered him a truth. John falters at the idea of meeting her with anything less.
"Who knows what the future holds?" John says finally. "Perhaps when the Inquisition has finished the points on which we've differed will no longer be an issue."
Simply put: his friendship comes irreversibly with the goal he has tied himself to with flesh, blood and bone. Tevinter's influence will be purged from Nascere. John will speak that ending into reality.
"I'd even say that it's unlikely you have anything left to object to, knowing what Rogers is."
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The corners of her mouth pinch, just so. How much she wants to agree, to act as though she could not already see the point at which such a friendship would break. Imagine this optimistic proposal from the John Silver who left for Charles Town beholden to no one, instead of the one who came back, bound hand and foot to something larger than himself. She'd have thought less of it; it might have been more true. Nowadays, she has no trouble seeing the end of things.
"The Venatori have made Flint's war unavoidable, yes. If Tevinter burns itself to the ground, you will not find me wasting my tears over its ashes." Tevinter has never been her goal; only the surest means to an end.
"But there will come a time when it is possible for peace and prosperity and stability to return to Nascere again — when this violence ceases to be a necessity and becomes a choice. How do you imagine Captain Flint will choose then?"
And how will John?
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Perhaps she would understand better if she knew what John was. But that is still too great a weapon to ever hand Max. The fragile truce they've brokered between them can't sustain the kind of secret that carries John's life along with it. He is an apostate. He can still suffer greatly for that.
"We are committed to building something better," John tries, and there's some grim humor at the altruism glowing within those words. "Do you think I don't want to come out the other side of this to something stable enough to make a life on?"
After they've thrown it all over. After they've delivered a better system unto this land. That's when they all must begin to rebuild, when the dream Flint has becomes real. John's fingers tap at the table beside his now-empty cup. He does not look down at the stump, what's left of his leg, does not think of what comes next for him.
"He knows when to stop fighting. If you don't believe that of him, you must believe it of me."
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"I do." Softer, as if deciding only as the words leave her lips. "I do believe that of you."
Not of Flint. But Flint's friendship isn't what she's after today. Flint's won't be the one tested.
"Perhaps as long as that we have that in common, we need not be at odds."
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It was always about security in some form or another. He had never quite explained that to Max. There hadn't been time, and afterwards it hadn't seemed to matter. He'd given up his share, so whatever he'd planned for it was severed from him as thoroughly as his leg had been. Freedom, comfort, all of it, he'd have to achieve it by different, more difficult means.
Madi. At the end of all of this, she waits for him.
"I know you have people you wish to provide for," John says, careful of the tone, the expression on his face. He does not mean this as a threat. "I am much the same."
The closest John will come to acknowledging Madi in Max's presence: couched in ambiguous phrasing that could so easily apply to his crew, to the number of pirates fighting back on Nassau. The similarity is pleasing to him, reassuring in a way he does not like to fully consider. That sameness has always been there, which is truly what makes this difficult, makes them both wary of each other. Moreso than ever these days, with Max's priorities having shifted in a way John hadn't anticipated.
"All of which to say, I'd prefer not to be at odds with you."
For many reasons, anywhere between genuine appreciation and dreading the idea of having to constantly account for her as a threat to his machinations. But it all came to the same thing, really: it would be nice to be on more even footing with her.
for marisol;
Not that Max intends to present herself as anything but a lady. She's dressed for the part, in bright silks and a patterned shawl for Kirkwall's abominable cold, and she's found them a table on the upper level. It's not private, but it is out of the way, where the music floating up from the half-story landing masks their conversation from any wandering ears without drowning them out.
It occurs to her then that they've only spoken via the crystals, not in person, and while she has an idea of the other woman in passing, dark haired and bright mannered and yet bearing some resemblance to her cousins all the same, she does not know her face.
Luckily, it is a striking one. ]
Lady Vivas. [ is a guess, but a confident one. She rises to offer a hand. ] It is a pleasure to finally meet.
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She is only a little shorter than her cousins, although far more inclined to warm smiles and brightness, both of which she offers Max as she draws closer, and accepts the offered hand. )
The pleasure is mine. ( And, because she is in the presence of a beautiful woman, and because they are in a place where those usual divisions and roles of class and society begin not to matter, she touches a light kiss to Max's knuckles before releasing her hand. ) A friend of Nikos' is a friend of mine. Please, call me Marisol.
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Marisol, then, [ warm. ] Though I do not know if Nikos would go so far as to call me a friend.
[ Does Nikos call anyone a friend? But it's affectionate. She likes Nikos, even if he does occasionally exhibit a unique talent for ruffling her pride. He is discreet. He gets things done. He asks only necessary questions.
Marisol, however, is a bit more of an mystery. Max gestures for her to sit, please, and motions for the waiter to fetch them something to drink, if only to give her a moment to consider the other woman. ]
As you seem to be quite dear to him, you may, I think, know more of my situation and my interests than I do of yours. Perhaps, before we consider how we might help one another, that is where we should begin.
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That is a question that could lead to me saying a good many things that aren’t very interesting at all, ( she cautions, playfully conspiratorial. )
But, what you may hear easily is that my father is Amancio Vivas, and my mother is Constanze Asturias. I was one of those imprisoned in the Rialto Circle, and I had my hand in the mage rebellion, and when I arrived in Kirkwall I terrorised the Inquisition with my pet flamingoes. Some believe I have a particular vendetta against rifters - incorrect - and that I have more dresses than sense. That may be true, but only because I have a great many dresses.
( She shrugs, ah well. ) What would you like to know? I promise I’ll tell you everything that I feel like telling.
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Why come to the Inquisition at all? With your family, your connections, surely once you had your freedom, you could go anywhere you wished.
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( It was not a question many thought to ask, or at least not in quite the same way. Usually it was more of a why that begged the reason Marisol was in this location and inflicting torment. She is not blind to the assessing edge to Max's gaze. She is watchful, careful; good. )
Before the negotiating delegation went to Skyhold to debate the phylacteries, mages could not inherit. Whether we can is still... contentious. Technically we have the right to legal recognition, but before that, I could not claim my birthright, not matter how willingly my parents would have bestowed it.
( Something sharp flickers in the corner of her smile, fierce and waiting, ready to claim what is hers. It was what she had been raised to be, and she would not be denied by anyone. ) I came here because I was not willing to leave the fate of mages and Thedas in the hands of strangers, and because the world could not be saved without the support of Antiva. One Merchant Prince lending his support was important, and some others began to take note.
( She leans forward then, conspiratorial, her voice lower. ) And I would be a poor rebel if my cousin was my only contact, no?
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You want what is yours. What you have earned. [ Not, perhaps, the way things are usually earned, through labor, but through suffering and toil all the same, against a world that does not believe she deserves it. Max's hand unfolds across the table and reaches out to touch the other woman's arm, an idle side of a thumb to forearm. ] We have that in common, I think.
[ Rebellions, less so, but she did not miss how Marisol ordered those priorities. Max doesn't draw back as she continues. ]
You have contacts, I have contacts — of different sorts and in different places, I would wager, but perhaps that is precisely what makes us well matched. If our interests are in line, it may be that we could be of great help to one another.
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With all that said, she is not one to be thrown or rendered blushing or swooning by a hand at her arm. It's just unusual. )
Careful. ( Quiet, still. Only for Max to hear. ) Nikos does not believe in any man having rights to wealth or property above any others. We are all equal, and our possessions should reflect equal worth, not one striving to assert themselves over another.
( A playful caution, but a caution all the same. ) He may watch ambition suspiciously. Don't give him cause to doubt you.
( That she is warning Max against Nikos' cause is something she had not anticipated, but there is something kindred in them, she thinks. They are women fighting to carve their place.
Of course, perhaps that is the game Max would play. Perhaps Nikos let on, even accidentally, of his disapproval for Marisol's pretences and manipulations in some areas. That hardly seems likely, though. Nikos is too careful and protective, for that. )
It would be very agreeable, to share common ground. ( She hopes they could be a help to one another. She'll admit that much. ) Am I too forward, to ask your interests?
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The question is a good one, however. ]
The Inquisition's success, first and foremost. What that means in the end is different for me than for you, but the tool is the same.
[ But that is only half an answer. Less than half — the tool is not what Marisol asked. For a wavering moment, Max lets that hang suspended between them like she might call it sufficient all the same. The rest is more than she has spoken frankly of for some time, even to Nikos. Her purpose in Kirkwall, the thing that had kept her from being thrown overboard on their way to it, is to present herself as an ally to the more self-evidently useful men she accompanied here. And in some respects, they are of one mind. They want the Venatori scoured from Thedas. They want Nascere freed. But once that is accomplished? What singular vision could they possibly hope to follow then?
But that is precisely why Marisol is not an ally Max is seeking for Flint or Vane or even Silver's benefit; she is an ally Max wants for herself. Against the rest of them, if need be. That calls for a more honest answer. Her lips press together; fingers slide from the other woman's arm, lingering instead beside it. ]
Nikos may have mentioned my position on Nascere. [ That she dealt in information. That she was richer than the Maker. ] What he may not have conveyed is that it was more than just secrets and lucrative businesses arrangements. What I built on that island was a foundation — for commerce, for prosperity, for life that could not flourish anywhere else, and that had hardly had the chance to do so for more than the span of a spent temper before I began managing its affairs. That is what the Venatori took from me.
[ Not that she's bitter. ]
What I did there worked. It will work again. [ And Marisol could have an ally who controls an entire fucking island crucial to trade on the Nocen Sea, instead of just a friend with a few useful contacts. Her expression swings wry. ] There is only the little problem of the world ending, in the meantime.
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Gently, carefully, she catches Max's fingers with her own. Only a loose hold, as she studies Max's hand a moment, before her gaze flickers up to her face. Wonders if the hands are callused from labour, or smooth and soft. Either could tell different stories, grant context to the picture.
For a moment she is quiet. )
They took your freedom from you.
( A freedom that she had pulled together, had fought for, Marisol would wager. Freedom that had been built.
She didn't need to know the specifics to imagine it; her mother's family had its fair share of pirates, raiders, and they were a wild, dangerous breed. Defiance and carving out their place was in their blood. )
We've both been robbed, Max, but maybe keeping the world from ending can play its part in taking your Nascere back. ( Her smile is very slight. ) I had harboured a naive hope that Tevinter might offer hope to mages needing a fresh beginning, but I have abandoned such... childish hopes.
( And now, something in the smile turns... bittersweet, maybe. ) What do you think of mages, if you have had such terrible experiences of the Imperium?
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Her hand — smooth as a kept cat's — tightens on Marisol's almost imperceptibly. It makes answering the rest of her question all the more difficult. Max chooses her words carefully. ]
I believe that power, placed in the hands of those inclined toward cruelty, will be used that way. [ She looks at Marisol, and she thinks of Anne, blood wicking up the hem of her skirt and magic still crackling on her skin, fighting the ghosts of men long since dead. ] Being born a mage does not protect you from that. It does not create that. It simply is.
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Wise words.
( Perhaps careful, rather than honest; aware of who she is speaking to. She might keep the extent of her magical abilities secret from most, but person need only be sensible to have concerns about displeasing the daughter of a Merchant Prince. They are nice to hear, but she knows better than to be too taken in by nice words. Isn't that exactly how she likes to best disarm people?
It is now that one of the staff return with glasses and something for them to drink. She allows him to work to make space, rather than leaning back and releasing Max's hand to make it easier. Perhaps she is curious to see who will let go first, or perhaps she is indulging herself with contact. So long as she remains sensible it hardly matters, does it?
She waits for the waiter to have poured their drinks and depart before speaking. )
In my experience, those who have felt the string of cruelty hold their friends and allies all the more preciously. Trust and loyalty are... very valuable currencies. Those who violate such things?
( A little shake of her head. Presumably things don't go so well for them. )