[closed] test flight

[doneisdone]

WHO: Marcoulf, Nikos, Teren
WHAT: ostensibly subterfuge, in truth a lot of shitfighting
WHEN: Kingsway
WHERE: Perendale
NOTES: stupid

"I've got a lead," Teren says in a low voice, tugging off the middling-quality Orlesian mask she's taken to wearing in the guise of a wine merchant (it covers the scars on her eye, makes her less memorable). She shuts and latches the door behind her, enclosing them in one of their inn rooms where they can speak with some privacy.
They've been here for several days now, conducting their 'business', listening to surrounding conversations and gauging the state of affairs in Perendale. These are Teren's old stomping grounds, and she knows the gathering places where sound doesn't carry, the shady haunts where the respectable and loud-mouthed don't dare to go-- but with this in mind, it's all the more vital that she conceal her own identity.

"There's some sort of meeting happening tomorrow evening," Teren continues sinking down onto a stool and tugging off her terrible Orlesian boots, "if we're lucky, we'll meet some faces of the resistance."

Comments

[exsecutus]

Nikos glowers right back at Teren, radiating as big an energy field of fuck you as he can manage.

"We make contact with the resistance in the city," he says, tightly. "We inform them of anything that we know about the situation. Tevinter's occupation, what we have observed of its forces, its governance. And we offer them our support, now, with gaining access to General-Mayor Gosleus. His records, his correspondence, his quarters. Whatever we can get, we get with help from the resistance. What we find will be ours as much as it is theirs. He will be receiving some orders from Tevinter. The plans for Perendale. Any further conquest. The short report of what we have seen is control, and order, and it will not last for long. Something will change, and it could be overnight, or in a fortnight, or in a year's time. We don't know. We can't gamble the fucking chance."

[hassaran]

Firmer this time: "The rhetoric is not helpful. If you wish to convince me you will do it with plain facts and clear plans. Now do you have intelligence to suggest Gosleus has recently received new orders from Tevinter with plans for Perendale or elsewhere, or is that a guess? Have you identified a way of accessing his office undetected and an opportunity when you could do so for long enough to find and copy any useful material?"

[doneisdone]

Teren's gaze remains fixed on him.

[exsecutus]

"I have observed his office and I will be able to do no more than that if we pick up our skirts and run home tomorrow, which is what's been suggested. I can plan," he snaps, as much to Yseult as to the room around him--Teren, Marcoulf (still a silent observer), the city at fucking large. "You can give me that. von Skraedder wants a record of my achievements, a transcript from a damn training program, some proof I don't need to offer. When what we actually need is time, here. We can invest in this resistance. We can give them the support they need, now, to resist while there is still life and will in them, and room to move."

[doneisdone]

"Oh, is that what I want," comes the mumbled reply.

[esquive]

Here, Marcoulf does finally break his silence - a small clearing of the throat, a click of metal as he rearranges the riding harness draped over his knees.

"It would be a mistake," he says, the air of a man picking his words carefully. He glances sideways to Nikos as if saying it to him directly as a kind of apology might be better than simply stating it to the room. "To extend our timeline. Keeping the griffons here past the new moon won't go well."

[hassaran]

"de Ricart is right, you don't have time. Speak with the resistance. If there is some action they are already prepared to take in the next day that you might assist with, then help them as you can without revealing your presence. If not, then get as much information from them as you can, including what they believe would most support their cause, and we will plan a return. But either way you will all leave on schedule."

[exsecutus]

Nikos doesn't turn his glare on Marcoulf when he speaks up at last. He even takes the focus of his glare from Teren, directs the cut of its beam at the point where the floor meets the wall and leaves it, pointed, there, as the situation is decided for him.

Let me stay are the first words that come to him. He will not beg for it. He won't plead this case. There's a thick hatred in him, a sour bile. He sets his teeth against it, against all of it, and winches himself up very small and tight.

"If they are all gone when we make our return," he says, eventually, in a low voice. "I'll remember."

[doneisdone]

"Understood," comes Teren's clipped voice into the crystal, and she deactivates it, still watching Nikos. She glances away only long enough to meet eyes with Marcoulf: he seems to be on her side with this, but if he's not, she's going to have double the mess to clean up.

"Can we expect you to behave yourself," she says to Nikos in a growl, "or will we be throwing you over the back of a griffon like a trussed pig come tomorrow?" She Is Not Bluffing.

[exsecutus]

Since they're not in a standoff any longer, Nikos turns away and returns to the wine. He pours out into his glass, downs a quarter of it, quickly, and refills, finishing off the bottle and filling his glass nearly up to the brim.

"I don't care what the fuck you do," he says, with his back to Teren, and takes another mouthful of wine before he says anything more. The sour taste of it curdles, so unpleasant it's nearly pleasant, and not nearly distracting enough.

[esquive]

Marcoulf's own attention slides away from the pair of them, winding back down to the work to be done with the harness. In this moment of supreme awkwardness, that translates to fiddling with the stitching and fussing with the security of one of the repaired buckles. Don't look at him; he's just here minding his own business.

[doneisdone]

Nikos' back is to her, and it seems the conversation is over.
Downing the rest of her wine, Teren then heaves a sigh through her nose that, coupled with the vacant look in her eye, might suggest a part of her soul just left her body.

"Tomorrow then," she grunts, sets the cup down, and turns to go. If she catches Marcoulf's eye, he gets a mumbled "goodnight" before she departs.

It's not immediate, but once it sounds like everyone's settling in, the tripwires come out.

[esquive]

The air's all stale after the Warden leaves - smells like that sour wine - and Marcoulf is all too happy to ignore it for a long series of minutes as Nikos works through the bottle and he fusses with driving the last few punch holes through the leather. Tap, tap, TAP. Tap, tap, TAP. By the time he at last turns his attention back to the stitching proper with it's dense needle and heavy waxed thread, he expects the uneasy pinch between his shoulder blades to have settled. It might not have followed Warden von Skraedder from the room directly, but he trusts it will find its own way from it given enough time and patience and with enough attention devoted to the busy work of repairs.

Think of what might happen if he doesn't secure this strap, and that buckle. How awful it would be - to fall from such a great height.

"It might still be done," he says very carefully to the room at large and without looking up. "The meeting could go well."

[exsecutus]

Somewhat sluggishly, Nikos looks up from his wine. The cup is not so large, which means he's nearly finished it. And the room is not so large, which means that the distance his look has to travel is, conversely, not so great. Which means that Marcoulf ought to be able to keenly feel its poison.

"The meeting could still go well." His tone is less tight, some of the tension unspooled by the wine he's quickly taken. Still dark, and displeased. "And then what."

[esquive]

"Then maybe they will have a plan which you can supplement. If we are here, then the Scoutmistress must see some value in this place." He forces the needle through the holes he's punched and pulls the stitching as tight as he can. If he is aware of the sharp point of Nikos' attention, he pretends it's aimed in some other direction.

[exsecutus]

He breathes out short and sharp through his nose. "Like she holds the threads to every story in Thedas, and our job is to pick the ones she wants for us to pull. The value is in the people. Not the place."

So. He takes another mouthful of wine and slumps back in the chair. The cup goes with him. Empty enough that the slosh of wine is a sound, and never makes it to the rim, to spill onto Nikos. "It's nice, that you share your thoughts now."

[esquive]

"They don't change the facts. The griffons cannot stay past the new moon."

The rest is all just-- some unrealized possibility. Maybe they will find something useful. Maybe the Scoutmaster needs this place for something. Maybe tomorrow General-Mayor Gosleus will choke on a fish bone. Maybe Averesch is right and the intent matters more than the means. But it sounds like bullshit and he has been to bloody places with no plan and a certain lack of concrete truths and that uneasy unreality can't really satisfy anyone, can it?

The dense thread hums a sweet twang as he leverages the last stitch, then plies the needle to knot it. "Pass me that candle, would you?"

[exsecutus]

There's a moment that might seem like refusal before, with a stilted cordiality, Nikos slumps forward and slide the candle over. Not quite passing, as was requested, but halfway to it. Almost helpful but holding back. Even if he weren't in a dejected drunken sulk, this behavior is just him.

"Do you intend to return?"

The chair creaks when he slumps back again, as if irritated by the constant shifting of his weight.

[esquive]

Good enough. He leans forward to take the candle from its plate and sets the flame to the twisted thread end until it smokes and catches to cauterize the fibers. Marcoulf doesn't raise his eyes from the task.

"To Kirkwall with the griffons, or here under some future order?

[exsecutus]

The chair creaks again as Nikos shifts, irritated, unable to sit still. Old habits and all.

"Here. As you were the one who really pushed for Kirkwall, with the griffons, I assumed that one."

[esquive]

"It's not my decision," he says, setting the candle back on the little table.