[CLOSED] Hoola wacka! Oola wacka! Something not right

[katabasis]

WHO: Gwen, Carla, Vane, Silver, Flint
WHAT: Abductions, pirates, and intrigue, oh my!
WHEN: Early Cloudreach
WHERE: Some Water
NOTES: For PROFESSIONAL PIRACY. Feel free to kick around your own starters beyond the two group threads I have ready to roll.

Comments

[elegiaque]

( gwenaëlle is at best wholly indifferent to both mr madrigal and the intrigues which have decided his fate; the only thought she spares for which irrelevant old crone ends up on the sunburst throne is mild irritation that everyone cares so fucking much, and the ultimate fate of a man whose existence she was previously contentedly unaware of will not keep her up nights.

if pressed, she might have to consult someone else to be reminded which elderly woman they're inconveniencing. all cats look grey in the dark, and yelp similarly when kicked.

what is interesting is the flutter of wariness, the murmurs of confusion late at night. gwenaëlle is up because she sleeps fuck all on the road or on the sea, and she is very interested in whatever the fuck is happening now. )

[katabasis]

[At some point in the intervening hours between when the launch and now as it's being hauled and stored aboard, a pair of Reaper-née-Walrus men had stood at the rail and given the shadowy lines of the other ship a critical examination and had at last come to the conclusion: 'If that isn't the Atrevida, I'll eat my own hand.' 'Who?' 'Captain Chiweshe. Or it was, a decade ago.'

But the mystery of the ship's provenance and the answer to the question of what the fuck evidently isn't to be found. Not above decks anyway. For all their wariness, the crew hops to at Silver's word. All at once a ship in stasis becomes one in motion and through it, Flint catches sight of Gwenaëlle there near the glow of the ship's stern lamps, the backing light illuminating the trim of a her figure and the direction of her attention and nothing else.

He pauses there as the ship begins to activate about them, something somehow both obstinate and like resignation in the set lines of his half shadowed face in the dark. He turns slightly - no more than a half degree - and says something to Silver that's too low to be heard over the thump of footfalls and the klunk! of rails being set into the capstan.

("There will be questions from the moment we return from the 'Atrevida'. I believe it would be in our best interest to address them directly," he had said before they'd even left Kirkwall.)

With a last glance in Gwen's direction that more or less says he fully expects her to follow, Flint makes his way below decks. Employing the Reaper's narrow officer berths to literally bottleneck conversation might not be the most delicate form of crowd control, but it's certainly guarantees a short interrogation. There's hardly anywhere to sit on those cramped compartments and standing comes with the constant threat of a concussion from the ship's low hanging beams.]

[elegiaque]

( the expectation is clear, and gwenaëlle meets it: she follows, falling neatly into step behind him and considering the circumstances of it. the opportunity to query him is so obvious that it never actually enters her head to do so—if he's ready for questions then he has prepared answers, and while that is not uninteresting, her interest is not 'how skillfully flint can explain himself'. she assumes it's quite satisfactorily. she's even prepared to assume that whatever the fuck is going on, it's to a purpose.

she's always learned more by shutting her mouth than running it. that she's rarely credited with having noticed that isn't accidental. and not that it hasn't been an excellent and useful experience, not that she doesn't appreciate every opportunity to go out to sea and make something of the skills she's acquiring by sheer bloody-mindedness, but she certainly fucking hopes it's about to turn out there's something more interesting to this than kidnapping some pointless antivan to dump into irrelevance.

but this is bait. she tucks her hands behind her back and smiles affably at silver by way of greeting. bats it around, and does not bite. )

[hornswoggle]

[ There is a moment of inaction in which John considers: Where am I best used?

The men at are work. John can hear the now-familiar sounds of preparation. He could go down to them, but he would create a delay. There's going to be a moment for him to stand among them and talk their questions into nothingness. To talk Mr. Madrigal into nothingness. To remind them all of what is and isn't in their best interest. As much as their time spent among the Inquisition has muddled things, certain routines have stayed very much the same.

He follows after. He doesn't sit, but he does find a place to lean his weight, where he can watch both Flint and Gwen's faces in the flickering light.

And he waits. This conversation will not be started by John, who will decide exactly how persuasive he needs to be by the tenor of stress in Flint's tone. ]