closed.

[adjurator]

WHO: Alais, Byerly, Caius, Flint
WHAT: Flint makes a ZipRecruiter account to find a new career
WHEN: Backdated a bit
WHERE: Gallows
NOTES: Will edit as appropriate

The closer they come to the Gallows, the fewer glances they attract. Something about that seems backwards.

The day tastes stale. Kirkwall in Spring is mud and dust and salt, it clings grey about all motion. Alais wears the signs of recent travel, and a particular determined dread -- as though she's decided upon certain doom, and intends to be quick about it. Her hand gets them onto the ferry, their accents get them an escort. Eventually, they get an audience.

Alais shoots one last, queasy glance to Caius. Her cheeks puff out, she raises a fist to knock. The guard beats them to it.

"Commander," Ser Gareth sounds bored. "It's urgent."

"It is," She adds, defensive. "It could be important."

"It could be urgent." Gareth amends.

Comments

[katabasis]

The barked 'Enter,' sounds tinny and distant through the door, the cause for which is made plain the moment the door opens and presumably the two matters of urgent business are shuffled through it into the office beyond. The space is clearly made for working in, a large table with an assortment of reference material - charts and stacks of reports in the midst of being filed and a cup of tea left by some erstwhile assistant - dominating the center of the room, and beyond it at the division head's desk there is no division head to speak of.

Instead he comes in from the room adjacent, halfway into the act of shrugging into a sweeping dark coat. "Then be quick about it if it's so—"

Flint pauses at the sight of them. His arm slows its progress through its sleeve.

[adjurator]

Two fingers raised to tuck her hair behind her ears, she examines him — the coat, the ridiculous earring; it doesn't inspire confidence. Like an actor in a street play.

(At least the rumours are true; at least he's Tevene.)

"We left Orlais three weeks ago," Occupied, obviously. The alternative is shrinking. She shoots a sideways nod to Caius, "We want safe harbor."

Joining seems getting ahead of things. Actors don't sharpen their blades.

[sumptus]

Are they in the right room? The accent is familiar, the sword appropriately not, but it's the width of the shoulders shrugging into the coat that makes his spine straighten, orbiting his friend's far side.

"If that's something you can offer."

You. The Commander. Riftwatch. They have other options.

(They have one, singular, other option; best not to act like it.)

[katabasis]

Once fully into the coat, he straightens to study them down the length of his nose.

They're in the right room.

"Three weeks from Orlais. I assume that somewhere in that time you've come up with the second part of this request - what you stand to offer, why you shouldn't be turned out on the next ferry back to Kirkwall." Those might be good places to start.

[adjurator]

"There's a camp," There's the rumour of -- yes, okay, Ethereus likes to brag, and there may be nothing at all. "Where they're keeping the anchors. Higher up than us, or our officers."

Wait. Us is,

"Field research, that is, we." She falters. They planned this, she practiced it. Clearly not enough, clearly she didn't practice saying it to a pirate costume, "We've been looking for it. We can find it."

Ideally not firsthand.

[sumptus]

"We were getting close, before--" a nod to Alais's hand, bristling green. An obstacle, not the impetus. We're like you, that had been the plan, even if it's starting to feel like they don't have the slightest idea what that means.

"Guarantee our safety, and we'll finish what we started."

[katabasis]

'Guarantee their safety.' Have they considered bargaining for a dozen fine horses and a holiday villa in Antiva? Or something more modest, perhaps. The moon? Surely that is doable on Riftwatch's purse.

Flint regards them for all of a half beat and no more before he's fetching a leather bound book off the formidable desk. He tucks it under his arm, then fishes a set of saddlebags from the back of the chair and hoists them over his shoulder.

"Come with me."

Presumably, they will follow as he moves past them and from the office.

[sumptus]

That sounds a lot like not listening to Caius -- but a flash of temper is rarely productive, least of all in inclining anyone to sympathy. The clench of his jaw is cold, and the look he casts Alais increasingly wary, but they follow.

They still have their things. He still knows where the stairs are. They can still run if they have to, if they're quick.