[closed]

[katabasis]

WHO: Flint & Yseult
WHAT: Talking shop
WHEN: Early August, post-abomination
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: N/A

"If we weren't about to start burning our way through Antivan shipping, I'd suggest we start with finding some connection willing to smuggle goods into Tevinter on our behalf alongside their legitimate shipments. To Carastes or Neromenian."

It's too hot to have this conversation in either of their offices; neither of them have windows pointed in the right direction to catch the breeze at this hour, and there has been enough sweating and misery in the Gallows this week that it seems imprudent to solicit more. Instead they've taken to one of the ugly narrow ramparts where the wind can suck away any delicate parts of this conversation long before it reaches any ear other than their own, and they have room to move with shadow as the sun slowly tracks around in its attempt to catch them.

From here, they can see Kirkwall and its harbor with all its shipping in miniature. The island chain to the west and south is a smudge on the horizon. And though they are on the wrong side of the Gallows entirely to look East, he can pretend he feels it like a tugging thing: the pull of the Amaranthine, and the Northern Passage and everything which lies beyond it.

(He's tired. He looks it.)

Comments

here it is definitely worth the wait

[hassaran]

"Because without the Inquisition we'd all be growing red lyrium by now," she says, dry still, not that impressed with his sulking so far. "And because no one has yet suggested a different path that didn't sound worse. But if you'd like to try, by all means."

i'll do you one better

[katabasis]

The look he gives her is exceptionally flat.

"Don't tell me you're satisfied with any of this."

[hassaran]

She matches it.

"It has been a few months since anyone here tried to convince me that perhaps we should let Corypheus win if we are not prepared to immediately and completely free every elf, mage, rifter, slave, et cetera. I consider that a form of progress."

[katabasis]

That flat look sharpens by a half degree, turns sidelong. Don't lump him in with Nikos Averesch.

"So then what does success in this look like to you? If we had a contingent of Tevinter rebels in our hands right now, what would you expect we be doing with them? Folding them into the Exalted March? Clearing the way to Minrathous? Encouraging them to lie down so Beatrix's forces might trample them without incident?"

[hassaran]

Her head tilts even further into irritation. Don't lump her in with whatever idiots he thinks would suggest that.

"By the time Tevinter has been pushed out altogether there will be no stomach or funds to continue. The Tevinter rebels help destroy the popularity of the Venatori and dampen enthusiasm for war, so that when the March steps over the border there is a government willing to negotiate. A few token concessions, and everyone goes home."

[katabasis]

His barking laugh is a humorless thing.

"I can't decide which sounds least likely - that Tevinter rebels will support a few token concessions from a government happy to shove them right back where they came from, or that Divine Beatrix will be content to simply step back over the border."

The abrasive quality of those thoughts finally shifts him from heel to toe and partly free of the interior wall's shadow.

"Those people,"—the rebels; the Divine; pick your preference—"Are hungry enough to recognize this as an opportunity to change what the Imperium is. If we want Valeriantus on our side, we need to put money and resources in the pockets of that rebellion so they recognize both that they're better off with us than otherwise and that they have enough power to not be discarded after."

[hassaran]

"You misunderstand me," is Yseult's reply, dry and bare. She doesn't move so much as a muscle when he does. "If you have an actual suggestion I am happy to discuss it, but perhaps this conversation would be more productive if you stopped alternating between treating me like a fool and spinning fairytales about launching invasions or having money and resources to give away."

[katabasis]

"Leverage Ferelden," is clipped back. "We have a Denerim spy at our fingertips who almost certainly can be made to see the value in committing aid to a rebellion in Tevinter if it means someone other than Orlais will walk away from Minrathous with contacts and trading partnerships with what replaces the Imperium. Establish smuggling routes - not to secret things into Tevinter, but to enable anyone looking to escape the Exalted March the ability to flee it and so collapse the markets of those places they leave behind. When Valeriantus and his people move in to make changes, they appear as heroes to anyone left.

"Meanwhile, find a soporati in Carastes who the city respects and sway him to support the effort. Or, fuck, murder them and lay responsibility at the doorstep of one of the Houses in residence there who the Magisterium dislikes so that the only ones dissenting will be the people the street sees as responsible. If what we can do is limited to granting favors and slitting throats, it must be with the goal of motivating people the Inquisition and Chantry have either failed to or discarded."

[hassaran]

"That would spread us even thinner," Yseult points out. Her irritation has lingered--'tell me how to do my job' wasn't what she meant either--but she's at least thinking about what he's said.

"If we divide our efforts further from that of the Inquisition and the Chantry, we will likely all accomplish even less than we are now. And risk setting us at odds with them in the process. Smuggling out people who wish to escape the March would see us transporting Venatori, or at least their more cowardly sympathizers. Boats full of Artemaeus. Whose shores would we be dumping them on?"

[katabasis]

"Why not be at odds with them? Or at least be willing to question them? Or, better—Convince them that it's to their own advantage that we pursue what they cannot while they turn a blind eye. If we're not doing what the Inquisition and the Chantry either isn't prepared or able to do, then what point was there in separating to begin with? Surely the Chantry has more than enough hands able to slit a throat or charm noblewomen in its employ already."