faderift | [closed]

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It's not about what we agreed," he snaps right back. The point of the fire iron scratches on the hearth stone. "It's that we agreed with the understanding we all knew what the other had committed in seeing it done."

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?"

"I have never cared to claim this for myself. You knew as much. I said—"

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.

"I don't care what you do." A half step forward shortens the distance between them by a significant margin. There's a threat of violence in it - not from a blow, but from fingers digging in. It's the impulse to grip so hard that marks are left behind, white knuckled.

"What I want to know is why, if this part isn't it, you have any commitment to that idea at all."

John doesn't flinch.

"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."

The point of the fire iron rises and falls, swaying in the turn of Flint's hand - flashing gold, then transforming into a line of shadow against the firelight at intervals.

"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."

Several points are coming to a head in this conversation. Like so many things that have happened since he tore a schedule from a ledger years ago, none of it was anticipated. The difference now is that he needs to proceed with care, rather than on pure instinct. This conversation is like a wound tearing open; John can't risk the damage escalating beyond repair.

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?"

"What are you so concerned that I might commit you to while you aren't looking?"

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.

What can he object to? The longer the argument stretches, the larger the stretch of unknowns loom in John's mind. His grip doesn't loosen.

"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?"

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