bury it and rise above | closed

[hassaran]

WHO: Yseult & Darras
WHAT: Sometimes Riftwatch is a frustrating place to work
WHEN: Now?
WHERE: Scouting Office
NOTES: n/a

The office door is locked, but Darras has a key. Opening it draws cool fall air rushing past him from the windows thrown open at the other end of the room, fluttering curtains and rustling papers, tugging against the paperweights holding down three maps of Nevarra on the table, markers scattered on their sides, gathered into piles.

Undisturbed by the breeze is Yseult, her head ducked down low out of its path, ear pressed to the round door in a big metal box set in the center of the room. A dwarven-style safe by the looks of it and brand new, with neat gold-painted piping and POLLANDER & SONS SINCE 8:24 on the side. On top is a glass, nearly empty of wine.

Yseult doesn't look up, or even open her eyes, just holds up a hand with one finger extended.

Comments

[hassaran]

Yseult makes a noise in the back of her throat, a bitter little huff.

"None, would be my wager. We've scarcely punished a confessed traitor. And there are too many here like Flint who believe their personal goals are more important than anything else, no matter what consequences the rest of the world may suffer for it. Nothing will be done. And so I can't suggest anything, or else I'll seem weak and petty when it fails."

[staysail]

"Be much easier t' start marooning people." Darras hands the wine back to her with a kind of half-smile. This is a joke. "Or maroon yourself, if you like. They don't deserve you."

She won't like that, except perhaps as a joke, if she's in the mood for it. Perhaps she's not. Her assessment shades a little too close to what Darras actually is. Personal goals being rather small, but incorporating little of the world as a whole and focused more on, well, Yseult.

"'Course, I'd maroon with you out of protest. A great love story." But, back to the point at hand-- "I'd say you can't keep him on as is, but I s'ppose there's not much say in that, either. Even if there ought to be. Unless you think the others'd have him out of his position as this as well, without having to worry about failure? Who's it that votes these people in anymore, anyways."

[hassaran]

She doesn't mind it, at first. There's some telltale note of humor in the breath she exhales. It helps that right now, she agrees. Marooning Flint would be satisfying. These people here do not deserve her effort or her time. (Those Riftwatch is meant to aid are what keeps her, not those who are meant to be tools at her disposal in that work.)

But he keeps it up too long, enough that her lips are starting to purse when he pivots back to the point. She stops picking at a water-spot on her glass and tosses back the rest of the wine. "We do it. I don't know how the others will take it but I think it very unlikely they would vote to remove him. He's popular, in his way." There is a pause, one that hangs about her shoulders like an ill-fitting shirt she stretches against until a joint cracks.

"I liked him," she admits, disgust in the way her jaw works the words out. "It seemed he saw things as I do, at least when it comes to Riftwatch. I thought he shared my frustration with the pettiness and the refusal to put victory over Corypheus first above everything else. And then he goes out--." Her hand, extended, flicks sharply from the wrist and falls again. "I should have been more wary. I might have predicted this and stopped him."

[staysail]

Maybe Yseult's weakness is that she likes pirates. Not pirates, as a group. Individually. The thought occurs to Darras and wisely goes unsaid. She'd not like to hear it. Probably there's only a kernel of truth to it besides.

It's not in her to be tricked. Charm doesn't go far with her. Lies and half-truths go even shorter. He'd gotten away with his for so long by virtue of the fact that he hadn't known he was lying to her. Wouldn't seem to be the case here, so he discards that as well.

"When did he give the letters over? How long ago?"

[hassaran]

Yseult's brows draw together. "I'm not sure. Most likely not very long. A few weeks? Why?"

[staysail]

He shrugs, loosely.

"Means he knew what he was doing, all along. You can't predict it if he's concealing it from the start. You wouldn't know what you were looking for even if you knew t' look. But you're also sharper than you're giving yourself credit for. If Flint took you in by sharing your frustrations, must've shared them in earnest at some point in you knowing him. If he got hold of these letters and used them for his own purposes--there's more to it, then. What would be big enough to sway him to throw over Riftwatch's cause? That's where you ought to start."

[hassaran]

"Seeing what people are concealing is my job," Yseult replies dryly. The persistent line between her brows and the way she lifts her hand to press fingers along the ridge of her eye sockets suggests that his words aren't really helping, but she doesn't snap until the end, and then it's short sharp laugh, and that hand flung up, empty, and dropped with a slap on her thigh.

"What isn't big enough? Everyone here would throw over Riftwatch's cause for the slightest advantage for their personal cause. He had the nerve," and here she looks up, finger pointed as if she can sense Flint's location through the office wall, "To come to me in a rage because he thought I'd concealed the existence of Tevinter sources from him because his pet rifter revolutionary Kitty Jones lied to him. And then he does this, which is far worse, and expects us to just let him have his way."

[staysail]

As one of the selfish members of Riftwatch (if personal cause could be summarized by a single person, especially, one who he's sat next to now), Darras holds his tongue there. He'd throw over anyone or thing for Yseult. Not the thing she wants to hear. Certainly she'd not see it as some grand romantic gesture. He's slow, but he's worked that out. And it's beginning to take shape, like something glimpsed far off that you're now closer to. What matters to Yseult has to matter to him as well, even if it's just that she's the lens he sees it through. If it matters to her, then it matters to him.

She likely won't want to hear that either, this crude way of understanding the causes she'd champion. He follows her gesture instead, thinking this through, all the players in this game and how they move, and are moved.

"And what's his way look like, now?"

[hassaran]

"Supporting the Van Markhams in their coup," Yseult says with a shake of her head, "I don't know beyond that. He's made some deal with them, or thinks they'll suit his ends in some way."

She looks back at the safe for a moment, but concedes that she's not going to be continuing with that just now and instead pushes to her feet, pacing toward her desk. "I want him out, but it won't happen. And there's no one to replace him. I don't know if the others will even care. They could approve. They could be inspired to do the same!" She lifts a hand as if to gesture and drops it, turning to sit on the side of the desk, arms first crossed and then just as quickly uncrossed, hands pressed once again to her forehead. "This is why I work alone."

[staysail]

Darras' smile is one more of commiseration than anything else, with a bit of a wince. Throw it over, he might have suggested at another time, leave them to it, who needs it--if it's a bloody hassle, let them sort it--but he doesn't, this time, say it. Yseult has left her wine behind; Darras takes a sip of it, then shifts so he can sit with his back against the safe, facing Yseult where she's paced away.

"Find out what the others think," he says. "Or what they'll confess to thinking. There's no one better at reading people than you. Even if they say one thing, mean another--you'll have a hint at it. If you want Flint sorted, and you've got to work with the others, might as well know their measure."