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[ She'd really thought she'd get away with it. She was actually starting to relax a little. So what does she do? What does she say? Any ounce of tension she'd lost before comes back in full force. Does she say something? No; he'll know her voice. She can't -

A moment passes. One that's rather too long. And then, finally, she shakes her head, remaining silent, unable to trust her voice. ]

I said-- [begins the oarman.]

She's fine. [It's not a sharp correction by any means, but it does slaughter conversation until Flint suggests to their skipper:] I'll give you tonight's drinking money to take a small detour. That ship there.

[The Walrus is a darkening shape where it lays at anchor.]

[ That -

That breaks her self-control. She whirls around, then, face pale, lips thin, eyes wide, wildness in the way she half-crouches. Her motion is sudden enough that the boat pitches, just a little bit - not enough to threaten capsizing, but it's significant enough. And, not to be missed: a hand sits on the hilt of her dagger. ]

No. No detour.

[The oarman curses - sit down, you fucking-- and so on, but Flint seems even more off put. Not by the sway of the boat, righting now. No, the paleness of the girl in question and the hand on the dagger is a surprise. He studies her, sharpening like slowly drawn belt knife, as the ferryman hisses and grumbles.

After a long beat and without looking back, Flint allows:]

Nevermind it. Your other passenger is in a hurry.

[ And she's surprised by his surprise. Was that not a threat? That - Surely it was. Surely he'd recognized her, surely he'd known, and he'd been planning to use the fact that she was trapped to abscond with her. Except that now he's...not doing that. Why not? Because she's onto him? Or did he just say it to unnerve her?

Or did he actually just want to go to his ship?

She feels a flush of embarrassment almost strong enough to wipe out her fear. She sits, then, shoulders hunched, silent, eyes fixed balefully on Flint. ]

[There is an urge to stare straight back at her - to wait until some opportune moment reveals itself so he might reach past the line of her hand on her knife, take her by the scruff of her neck and her like a disobediant child. Do you have any idea how much grief you've caused, you little shit? If Kitty Jones hadn't been keeping secrets, hadn't primed everyone for paranoia, does that meeting of the division heads go any differently? Unfuckinglikely, but even the vague possibility is prickly enough to grate like a splinter in a fingerpad.

(But Gwenaelle Baudin saying, You're a scary old man, is there as well and tender as a freshly jabbed bruise.)

So instead he looks to the knife and her hand on it.]

Are you planning to use that?

[ She doesn't quite understand the question a moment. It takes tracing his gaze for her to realize that she's still clutching at the knife. The embarrassment rises higher still, and fear becomes less than her sheer flustered humiliation. Fear would have driven her to glare and demand, Will you give me a reason to? But humiliation, instead, prompts her to work her stiff fingers loose from the hilt of the blade, and to flush deeper still, and to look away from him. ]

I -

[ God, she feels so stupid, prickly and hot and dizzy. And she shouldn't, because she was looking after her survival, and you should never feel embarrassed for doing what you need to to survive. But she does.

Somehow, she summons up some last bit of defiance, enough to mutter - ]

I'd just sooner not be taking any unscheduled trips to your ship and finding myself amongst your crew.

I was under the impression you were welcome there. [Like a ratline climbing mascot. Sailors are strange creatures and will adopt anything as a pet.] But if they've done something to offend you, then speak directly with Messr. Silver. He'll see that the offensive party doesn't look in your direction again.

[ She looks back to him, her brows drawing down - more in confusion than in hostility. Is he being sincere right now? ]

I mean - Yeah, no, they're all decent folk there. I - like them. [ Quickly, nervously, her hand comes up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. ] But they're still under your command, aren't they.

[There is something made purposefully flat in his regard of her as he says:]

Them, along with a not insignificant portion of the same organization to which you belong. Is that a problem?

[ Her frown deepens, and she stares at him with real confusion. ]

Captain Flint, I've got information you want. Don't pretend you haven't at least thought about how you're going to get that out of me.

[Good. She should be confused.]

I've considered it. What concerns me is that you think my solution would be to secret you off to my ship in the night and, what? See how many fingers of yours I might persuade the men to break for it?

[ She presses her lips together and lifts her chin. The defiance is quite clear. More subtle is the fear - but it's there in the way her hands ball into fists, the way her feet tuck under her, as though bracing for something. ]

As a start. Yes.

[Here, a pause in which Flint tips his head as if to glance backward to the oarman in the ferry with them and then seems to decide better. The man has lapsed into the kind of silence that suggests he is pointedly ignoring everything happening in the boat about him. It presumably makes life easier. So instead he simply looks at her - not patiently, not without some flickering shape of irritation living in his face, but by no means so much as shifting forward in his seat to invade the territory she's staked out there in the bow.]

Then you apparently think I’m a tyrant and a half wit.

[ She shakes her head, lips thinning even further. ]

Not sure what's halfwitted about it.

[Then he will instruct her.]

Have you ever seen someone be tortured, Miss Jones?

[ Her eyes flicker just a moment. She swallows. But then she looks back at him and answers, quietly: ]

Yes.

[Then this will not be a hypothetical lesson.]

And who do you suppose the hand doing the work most wanted to affect - the body receiving the punishment, or the witnesses to it?

[ That seems like a mad question. ]

The person being tortured. Obviously.

Don't be willfully stupid. You're smarter than that. [It is not a compliment.] You know these things are made effective by being seen - that the shame and fear it inspires are what gives the tool its edge.

Do you know why I have no interest in having your fingers broken, Kitty?

Because you'd have to do it in secret, I'm assuming. Because Thranduil and the others wouldn't let you do it openly. You'd get in trouble.

[ A shake of her head. ]

But I think you're wrong about that. That it's got to be seen. It all depends on what you want to get out of it, doesn't it. If what you want is control, then sure, maybe you'd want it seen. But torture for information's different.

[ The boatman is clearly very intent in his desire not to be pulled into this. ]

I wouldn't know. I can't say that I've ever tortured anyone for intelligence before. What I would say, [and here, irritation having been talked into a flat shape, he sets his elbow easily on the boat's gunwale and regards her dully] is that the reason I have no desire to break your fingers is the same reason that I haven't made any effort to reconcile what has clearly been described to be as some kind of misunderstanding. I am otherwise occupied, and you are not so broad that I cannot simply go around you.

Apologies, [he says to the oarman, who has almost certainly heard stranger] We're in dramatic moods this evening.

[ There's some twinge of outrage somewhere deep inside her. Something more important than her? Her thoughts have been on Flint and nothing but Flint these past days. And he has the audacity to tell her -

She swallows it down. She straightens her shoulders and looks levelly at Flint. ]

And when your current crisis abates, Captain Flint? What then?

[He looks back at her, elbow still hooked there and all in darkening shadow from the lantern at his back.]

I believe I made myself clear, Miss Jones. I have better things to invest in.

[Then, fingers lacing easily across his middle, he turns his attention back to the oarman: ‘Now, about this Qunari gold—‘]

[ A pause. It - How strange that it hurts. Why? She doesn't give a shit. She oughtn't give a single shit. But the utter dismissal in his voice makes her breath catch slightly. What an idiot she is. ]

You're such a hypocrite.

[ A little low, a little thick, but it comes out. ]

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