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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.
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.
no subject
"Where would you like to begin? With a headache? If so, I can regale you with the details of the whole mess with Artemaeus if you like," he says, rises from the chair.
The cup comes with him as he moves to fetch the singular iron by the fire. But before it can be applied to turning the embers, he pauses. He looks to Silver and it's as if something has just occured to him.
The point of the iron sets against hearthstone. The empty metal sound is like a coin dropping.
"Does Madi know?"
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"No."
There's a bitter edge to the smile that works its way onto John's face.
"And it's certainly not the sort of topic one discusses by letter."
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"And if she were were here? What then."
What a useless question. But Silver's posed ones like it before.
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It doesn't matter. The answer is the same. There's no way around what became necessary after what he'd done in Nevarra. There is no way to withhold this part of himself from them. He has devoted himself to Flint. He has devoted himself to Madi. He reached out in the road and crushed the bones of a rider who meant to do them harm. It was not an action that can be hidden, and John could withhold and omit, but he cannot lie outright to them.
no subject
"You--" He revises slowly, grip on the iron adjusting compulsively. "You agreed we should come here. She agreed."
There are enough disparate pieces in this that the dark wound behind his ribs shouldn't expand as rapidly as it does. But here is the form of the thing whose shadow has plagued him, sharpened to a point that actually matters.
Fuck the loneliness of this place, or the frustration of it. Those are blows that can be absorbed.
"I don't care that you're a mage. I don't even care that you kept it from me." The cup is set on the mantle; that blind hum rises up in him. It takes shape. "But, forgive me, if that is the extent of what you've seen fit to do with it in all this time, while all of us have been so desperate—
"She agreed. And you allowed her do it, knowing she wasn't even fully aware of what she was giving away. Because you've been too afraid of losing more of yourself to this."
no subject
It's one touchstone, one logical thing to anchor himself with as Flint's voice falls over him, one condemnation after another. In some way, it's a relief. This is not simply about Madi. It's about what he has kept from Flint, about what John hasn't done and what they've both born because he hasn't.
The calculation was inevitable. John knows that as he also knows what will be required of him one way or another, whether he cares for it or not. Eventually he is written into the story as a mage and apostate, and he will bear it.
"You know very well what happens to a mage that loses themself. I take my life and yours into my hands each time I perform any kind of magic."
They die, consumed by demons or put to the sword upon being revealed. People around them die by their hand, or as punishment for harboring them. John's concerned himself with the former, only recently with the latter. (He wanted to make a life with Madi. What life do they lead with templars dogging John's steps?)
"Speaker Fabria took the time to kindly remind me of it as well, in case I forgot after having spent most of my life weighing every action I took against the many possibilities of what can go wrong."
The finer points between the kind of magic John has done and what happens when he reaches farther, lifts aside the veil to what lies beyond, John doesn't know and cannot explain. He can't explain how hard it was to summon any strength after the amputation, nor the relief it was when he felt that moment of connection again when his health returned. John forces himself to relax his white-knuckled clutch of the mug.
"What do you think would have been different? The decision we made is still sound. We need help. And do you think I would have let you walk into a pit of snakes unsupported?"
Points from the past dragged forward out of the dust: Madi could not leave her people. Billy couldn't be trusted not to advance his own vendetta. John would go.
He does not say what he has thought for months on end now: their business here was never meant to be measured in years?
no subject
It's about having left her there. It's about how they might have avoided the circumstances which led them to that decision in the first place. What does one mage matter? He's had this conversation with Fabria and the answer is maybe nothing at all. But maybe something. It's about--
"What are we here for if not for this? If we aren't making a place where you don't have to be ashamed of this?"
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No need to account for my life's events in the context of a story that somehow defines me.
There is no way to come within glancing distance of this subject without feeling as if he is being strangled. Panic cinches tight around his ribs. The crack of open door tightens towards closing. He leans forward, lays his hands upon the crutch without attempting to pull himself upright.
"But I am here. I have remained here, with you, working to make that place a reality. My commitment has not and will not waver."
He has bound himself to this man, to the woman waiting for him in Nascere, to this cause and the war they've set in motion. It would be impossible to cut himself loose. He'd bleed to death.
"And if more is asked of me, if what is needed to heal this break is for me to make use of this, I will."
One thing John learned very early: nothing comes without a price. That lesson is as true now as it had been then. Maybe he won't break his fingers, or draw out a spill of blood, but he'll give up this single, agonizing truth for this war. It comes to the same thing.
no subject
"What I want to know is why, if this part isn't it, you have any commitment to that idea at all."
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"Because I am committed to you, and to Madi."
And, continuing smoothly—
"And because whether or not I choose to claim this for myself, it does not mean others should hot have a world where they feel free to do so without fear. I believe in the world the pair of you labor to bring into existence. I want to see that come to pass."
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"But you see what you're asking for. For her and I, and what we want to be clear to you. Meanwhile," --that is a bark, so sharp it must ring in his own ears because he moderates himself immediately in the aftermath. He bites down on a breath, a closed fist around his own frustration; white knuckled, the venom of it oozing out between clenched fingers. He changes tack. "You can tell me. If there is some part of what we're doing here that you disagree with. All I ask for is the reason."
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Movement is, as ever, a calculation. He is capable of rising in one motion. It's the trick of bracing himself while reaching out, of the crutch being in place to take his weight when his hand folds over the tight fist of Flint's grip on the poker. (He feels the warmth of the ring against his palm, the familiar vibration of his own magic banked and smoldering there.)
"I am sorry I kept this from you. I'm sorry for what the keeping of it has cost you."
Is it true? Some of it. Enough of it.
"There is no disagreement. You know we are of one mind in pursuit of the leverage we need to change the conditions in Nascere. That can't be in doubt." He hopes. "What do you want me to tell you? What reason are you seeking?"
no subject
It's a blunt question, the point of the fire iron setting with a hard snap against the floorboard. If it isn't a question of what he isn't giving away - not what Silver is, not what they are meant to be here for, not the island or everything tied to it -, then it must be in the shape of what they're accomplishing and the direction he has pushed them in to do it.
"Just tell me what part of this you don't want, and I'll see that it's avoided or resolved," he says, the line of his arm and hand sharp and everything else moderated by force.
no subject
"My concern isn't for what you may do."
Says John, without knowing the full extent of what Flint has gotten up to in the past months. He'd cautioned Billy against blind trust, against believing too strongly in Flint, but he feels the pull of it again now. It takes on a different shape for John than it had for Billy, or for Mr. Gates, or the crew on the Walrus; for John there is the unshakable, implicit understanding that their objective is the same. That they are of the same mind, even now, so surely there can be nothing too objectionable nor past their combined ability to rectify.
"Is it so hard for you to imagine that wishing to know your mind and share your thoughts isn't born out of distrust?"