[closed]

[katabasis]

WHO: Silver, Flint
WHAT: Two pirates scouring Kirkwall's bookshops in the service of important diplomacy work.
WHEN: Early Drakonis
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Doing their JOBS.

It is their fourth stop. They've wound their way through the more prominent Hightown booksellers, having worked their way from out of the company of skittish shopkeepers anxiously overseeing the systematic scrutiny of their shelves by two alleged pirates and into the clutches of what can only be described as Kirkwall's most peevish old bat:

"I don't care who you think you are; you can't be here this long without purchasing something," she'd wheezed at them in the cavernous old place, one hand trembling at the head of her cane and the other arm wrapped around a ginger cat with large blinking eyes.

Which is why they now own a collection of romance novels with increasingly unlikely love interests, including but not limited to a Chantry sister and a shapeshifting witch, between them. It's also why they're being left alone now to pick through the labyrinthine shop's back room, wading through unorganized stacks of used titles, and--

Choking on dust, mostly.

"Have you considered simply copying the book instead?" This said into his sleeve while scrubbing a thick layer of grime from one of the room's upper shelves.

Comments

[hornswoggle]

If they hadn't been pressed into purchasing an absurd collection of novels, John might have been amused at finally crossing paths with a shopkeep who wasn't visibly unnerved by the pair of them.

But faced with the yawning stretch of shelves and crates, John feels like the price of admission wasn't worth facing up to the task of making a respectable effort at searching. If the book is here, they'll likely have to clear a few layers of cobwebs before they can even discern the titles. John sighs, then coughs, waving a hand to disperse the dust that single action stirred.

"I've considered finding whoever made the promise and having them thrown into the sea," John answers. "But apparently only a printed, leather-bound copy will do. It seems the lady is very particular about her library."

John lifts a book, then abruptly drops it as a pair of spiders crawl across the cover. He curses under his breath before lifting it a second time, gaze cutting slyly to Flint.

"I can't imagine what that must be like."

[katabasis]

From his post high on what can only be described as Thedas' most rickety ladder, Flint cuts a flat look back down at him in return.

"Then it's a good thing the crew is less selective," he says, dry with a nod to their new acquisition tied with a bit of twine. Surely Silver's read Mhavos' dirty books aloud four or five times through already.

[hornswoggle]

"Oh, I don't know. I think they're developing some pretensions."

Or they just enjoy John's increasingly wild embellishments. He's not going to take any guesses now.

There's a heavy thud as John overturns another box, displacing several books and a small sheaf of lightly-nibbled papers.

"But I think I'll start with the book with the Cetus on the cover tonight. Unless you have another suggestion?"

Suggestion from their new clutch of books, or suggestion as in something John needs to be discussing to turn the men in one direction or another? Unspecified. But it's been some time since John's attended to the latter on Flint's direction, rather than under his own power.

[katabasis]

"As good a place to start as any."

The low thud, thud, thud, as Flint rehomes a series of books from the shelf at eye level to the one just below it that he'd already combed through creates a persistent rhythm which grounds the room. The old books leave his fingertips all discolored; one of them is mysteriously and unpleasantly sticky.

(Is that dismissive of their new clutch of books, or dismissive of the direction the men might be turned in? Unspecified.)

[hornswoggle]

Are they actually paying for the privilege of cleaning this shop while they search for an obscure book?

The thought strikes John with such intensity that all he can do is bark a laugh. Even if it wasn't the old bat's deliberate design, it's fairly genius. He lifts one book to examine the cover, observe the place where the gold-stamped letters are peeling up at odd angles, before dropping it into the crate he'd just emptied.

"That shelf isn't going to bear much more weight," he cautions, though what's a broken shelf in the midst of all this disrepear, before continuing, "And that's not much of a suggestion."

But then, is there any urgency? Is all that's necessary a lurid book about a Cetus to keep things in check? (Yes.) What further commentary on the topic can there be?

[katabasis]

The shelf is fine.

He pauses, elbow hooking briefly on the shelf before it occurs to him how dirty it is. The brief contact is enough to leave behind a smear of grey all over his coat's arm by the time he unhooks his elbow. "Do they need a better one?"

It's a real question as much as it isn't, half sly bullshit in response to that barking laugh and half actually cognizant of the fact that-- well, would he know? When was the last time Captain Flint more than a few hours with the men who make up 'his' crew?

https://i.ibb.co/ZKgXLPS/yzvp3j1.gif

[hornswoggle]

"Not yet," John answers, abandoning his attempt at deciphering the title of the water-warped book he'd wrenched from beneath another crate. It thuds into the emptied crate to his right. "But I'd like to forestall an occasion where they find my diversions and minor prizes unfulfilling."

And Flint is the answer to that? Maybe not.

Maybe this is just a fool's errand, another exercise in trying to press at the jagged edge between them and see how far it extends.

[katabasis]

In reply, a low noise as Flint returns his attention to drawing a further series of books from eye level. There's evidently a second row in hiding behind the first set.

"The question Val Chevin presents should resolve into work for them in short order. If they're restless now, they won't have the luxury for much longer."

A cloud of dust rises from the flipping of pages, the routine displacement of volumes from one space to the next.

"In the mean time, I'm of a mind to send you to Orlais." A glance - clarifying: "On business. With Rutyer."

[hornswoggle]

"I'm sorry, I must have misheard."

Punctuated by two more thunks of discarded books rattling into the crate.

"You're considering sending a Fereldan and a pirate to complete business in Orlais?"

Is this how Gwen had felt when John had tried to engage her assistance in subterfuge all those months ago?

[katabasis]

"Riftwatch's Ambassador is going to travel to Orlais to broker the loan of the two merchant ships to the navy," he says without breaking the rhythm of examination - pull a book down, flip through it, replace it elsewhere, repeat ad nauseam. Tomorrow his arm may be sore from all this practice. "He expressed the need for someone who knows ships in some professional capacity to accompany him."

Here, his eye line slides down from the top of the ladder with slow, painfully desiccated humor to land on Silver. You know things about boats, don't you?

"Apparently pirates used to be fashionably outrageous."

[hornswoggle]

"Perhaps I should see if Mr. DeGroot can be spared," John returns smoothly, privately pleased with the flicker of shared humor before he considers the task that's actually being put to him.

Inevitably, the same prickle of mortification and irritation rises in him. He may well be considered outrageous, but for a more singular reason than pirates of the past. The feeling will pass. Or he will be able to set it aside. He takes a moment to pluck through the contents of another box. Pamphlets, ribbon-wrapped diary, oversized, moth-bitten collection of maps—

"Why me? Is there an element of this that can benefit our business?"

[katabasis]

Here, unearthed from behind the first layer of books, a series of Orlesian histories. They are no more or less promising than the other caches of Orlesian titles in translation in the other shops they've been to this afternoon, but he stops reviewing the first row of books - all dry treatises on Free Marcher borders and old famoly lineage books - in favor is simply reshelving them below to expose the collection in its entirety.

"As things stand here, there's no way for us to bring both ships to bear. Our odds of securing the channel and retaking Val Chevin are increased with a strong allied force at our elbow. After the breaking of the blockade Orlais' force will need to be reinforced.

It benefits the war.

[hornswoggle]

"I see."

They are far removed from John's journeys to Llomerryn.

John draws a palm down the spines of a stack of books to better squint at their titles. A few would be interesting, if he weren't trying to seek out one book in particular.

"Then I'll go to Orlais with the Ambassador, and see if we can't secure the ships," John acquiesces. "Though I'd point out that you accompanying him would have much the same effect as my presence."

If this is official. If this is for the war, and not for their war, which more and more exist separately in John's mind when he considers the actions they take and which conflict is served.

[katabasis]

This backroom is one of many to be found among the slew of taverns crowding the Kirkwall docks. It is not, evidently, one often frequented by the Walrus crew, as evidence by the fact that they are given very little in the way of extra accommodation and John Silver is expected to pay for his drinks. But the building was once finer than it is now or even more disreputable than it appears, as this back room has clearly been designed for business and not for carousing. It costs ten coppers for its use and an additional two for a fire to be built up in the hearth. A narrow back door leading out onto a balcony and a series of stairs suggests the room's utility.

The service is irritatingly considerate - the maid in and out to poke the fire, the pot boy eager to sell them anything that might add figures to the bill. Flint is in no hurry to see either chased away, to be finished with the door opening and closing so that the sounds of conversation and laughter, the shouting from a dice game occurring in the main room might filter back here in intervals. Maybe this looks like avoiding the subject. Maybe he is waiting for Silver to decide this is a subject better discussed tomorrow, and to quit the room of his own accord.

Or maybe he is just waiting to have a bottle of cheap wine under his belt first. It's only after the second one is delivered that Flint tells the service he'll call for them when they're needed next. The door it shut. The sound from the tavern beyond is reduced to its low, hissing hum. Beyond the back door, the rain has started.

[hornswoggle]

The table is very clean.

For whatever reason, that observation sticks in John's mind as they halve the first bottle of wine in near silence. The stilted conversation they'd traded on the walk here has lapsed. The sought after book rests on the table, remains there after the second bottle is delivered and the girl (Jocosa, he'll give her an extra gold before he leaves on the off chance he ever decides to add this tavern to his usual rotation.) has closed the door quietly behind her. John draws the bottle to him, leans forward to fill their cups.

"If one of us doesn't begin, we'll have wasted ten copper."

John is very good at affecting levity. His own personal dread at what he's begun is almost undetectable, and were he sat at a table with anyone else it would have gone unnoticed.

"Surely you have some opinion."

[katabasis]

He must.

He has been waiting for it to resolve into some recognizable shape during their walk down to the docks, through the arrangement of the room of their first glasses of wine as the fire was coaxed to life. Somewhere in there, he'd made the conscious choice to set away the sharpest edge of him; given a moment, he is capable of at least the appearance of moderation. He had expected to rest - a reasonable direction in which to take this conversation - to follow from that.

And here they are in a room, beginning in on their third cups of wine after a day spent hiking the length and breadth of the city, and he finds himself struggling after the disparate lines of this still.

You can say if you want to go, he forbids himself from. Saying so makes it more real, reality more willing to bend in that direction, and he doesn't know what that would mean.

Instead, pulling a drink from the cup, he goes with: "My opinion is that you are unlikely to be satisfied by anything I might tell you."

Which is dry and broad and feels true regardless. Either the extent of what he hasn't said will be crippling, or it will breed further uncertainty: is this the whole truth? How would anyone know?

[hornswoggle]

The dull ache in his shoulders, the burn in his arm, those pains have begun to fade as they've sat here. John knows all that pain will come back when he stands. Watching the expression on Flint's face shift and settle, he closes one hand around the cup (clean, what a novelty) and waits, watching Flint's expression as he speaks.

In spite of the tension and misery of this conversation, John finds himself chuckling.

"If I were in this for immediate satisfaction, I believe you and I would have parted ways a long time ago."

For all his faults, John is a patient man. If the reward is compelling, he's more than able to take the long, slow road. Kirkwall has been an extreme test of that ability. John has never been able to consider how close he's skirted to whatever breaking point exists in him, and now isn't the moment to attempt it.

[katabasis]

"Then you'll forgive me for having difficulty seeing which part of this has become so unbearable for you."

It's a sharp thing to say, but it doesn't sound as cutting as it might. His legs are stretched out before him at an angle toward the fire, a hand slowly turning his cup on its base. Flippant, maybe. Because he could suggest a half dozen things that might easily make these circumstances unbearable, but they aren't here to paint in broad strokes now are they?

"But, by all means. Consider yourself adjacent to my thoughts from this point forward if that will make it less so."

What does that mean? He can figure it out later. He swallows down wine and wishes he'd thought to ask for something stronger.

[hornswoggle]

Unprompted, John pushes the bottle into easy reach.

There is not immediate reply beyond that. John considers what he's been offered. He doesn't doubt the sincerity, but the vagueness of it fails to be reassuring. What will that mean tomorrow? What does it mean that this is now something they must negotiate?

"This fucking place," John says finally. "I never intended to set foot in Kirkwall in my lifetime, but..."

But here he is. Here they are.

"I understand your concern. I know I'm not able to undertake certain...projects, not without accepting some risk. But if we are no longer discussing the actions we've undertaken, regardless of which of us pursues them, then I don't understand my role."

It's a clumsy statement, as John tries to couch something more raw in detached tones. But he cannot leave Flint's acquiescence as it stands.

[katabasis]

"Your role," he says, fetching up the bottle to top off his cup. "Is the same as it has ever been. You will do what I cannot, and I will do the same in return. The place and the circumstances are the complication - the fact that you and I are in positions where we must sometimes make our own decisions on what qualifies -, not the relationship."

It sounds reasonable. To lay what this is at the feet of the city and the world than believes itself to be legitimate pressing in on them through it. Looking down at this conversation like he might a chart spread across the table in the division office, he can see that. And he can see his own place in it: a careful hand feigning easiness to lure Silver onto solid ground.

But looking at it technically and being present in it are different things. With the bottle replaced to the table's center, Flint regards the fire in the hearth rather than the man across from him. If there is a list he keeps of what is required of him, which part of this gets added to it?

"Hence why I'm sending you to Orlais with Rutyer rather than going myself, and why I trust you to see to the men. That we still have any crew left is a testament to your suitability to it. The role."

[hornswoggle]

Flint presents him with an escape. It's not unfamiliar. They've been trading these balms back and forth for months now, steadying each other each time the earth beneath their feet tips one way or another. John could accept this reassurance and it would hold for a time. Maybe a few months, maybe a few weeks. The trouble is, his role has changed. The knowledge of what he is has inevitably altered him in Flint's view.

He watches the gleam of firelight off Flint's rings as he sits back in his chair. Silence spins out between them, though it lacks the ease they'd once enjoyed. John sighs.

"Do you recall what you asked me when we returned from Nevarra? In your cabin?" John says after a time. "You asked when else. What other times there had been when I'd fallen back on it."

Would everything between them been less fraught now if he had answered differently then? John's thought often what he should have said, though more about how he could have gone unnoticed in the road. If it had only been the mages who had noticed—

But there's nothing productive in considering yet again how he could have altered the events in Nevarra. Only in considering how to repair that fracture, how best to break and reset that connection between the pair of them. John's hands spread, language of his body like a locked clicking open.

"Do you still wish to know?"

[katabasis]

The point of it reaching him is visible. Maybe this is part of why what Flint is works the way it does - the man's inability to keep anything from his face lends some weight of truth to every demand or driving point, and it finds some place here too in the way his attention on the fire flickers so severely. He appears as a man who is turning a thing over and over because he is one.

When Flint looks to him, there is something half guarded and half failing to be there in his face. The cup is turned by small degrees on the table.

"I do."

Which is true, but he isn't asking for it.

[hornswoggle]

The moment of hesitation can't be helped. Every instinct that has guided him towards survival rebels at the idea of up this truth so freely. A confession, have mages not been punished for less than outright admission of their crimes?

But there is no use in faltering. John raised the question. Nothing comes of it if he does not follow it with some answer.

"That night, in the Wastes. Not that it did me any good."

A slashed palm, stepping into shadows while the world blurred around him. John hasn't considered that misstep in a long time. Blurring out of sight mattered very little if where you were carried to wasn't as safe as previously imagined.

"When the ship went down on the blockade."

Propelling himself upwards, more panic than finesse as he'd drawn on that power. John's hands settle on the table. The ache in his shoulder reminds him (the leg, all that blood—) but it's beyond his explanation. Uncertainties do more harm than good.

"Maybe I would have done something on the warship, if it hadn't been our men on the other side of that door. I reached for it in Ghislain, to give myself a chance to get out of the mud and onto a horse. Beyond that...there is nothing remarkable to note."

And he doesn't owe anything that has come before they entered each other's awareness. Whatever that brings the tally to, whatever history John cannot speak, remains untouched, masked in the darkness of that half-opened doorway.

[katabasis]

Looking backwards, not to Ghislain or the blockade or anything that Silver mentions but drifting elsewhere, the question which floats closest to the surface is, What might it have looked like when they'd attempted to take Nascere if this had been on the table then? Mages make up some part of the street. How much farther might they have gotten had it been known Long John Silver was one? Or when they had been among the maroons, in that cage, when there had seemed to be no way forward. What had he said then?

What a waste, it seems to me, knowing it doesn't have to be this way.

Flint scuffs his knuckles against the rough line of his beard. He adopts a thin smile.

"Well," he says. "Then it appears we're all in order."

[hornswoggle]

"Are we?"

Because John knows. He knows the calculation Flint makes because he's made it himself, many times, in the months since Nevarra. It's inescapable.

And inevitable, in some ways. For all his desperation, John feels a specific end point weighing down on him. This truth about him can be utilized. How long can he ignore that?