closed.

[hornswoggle]

WHO: John + Petrana
WHAT: secrets
WHEN: post abomination
WHERE: the gallows
NOTES: just discussion of secrets, nbd.

The work doesn't stop.

Whatever John wants in this moment has to be set aside. The uncertain grief of the news out of Nascere has lodged in his chest, exists as a hastily patched wound as he goes about his business. So he sleeps less, drinks a little more. The work goes on, and John cannot step back from it.

(He gave himself a single day. That is all.)

There is a small packet of papers in his hand, folded over neatly. John had them stacked at the edge of his desk, before he decided to ferry them to Flint's office himself. The annoyance of traversing all the way to Flint's office to find it empty registers dully, superseded by the heat of the day and the larger, more crushing matters on his mind. (Madi. The mage in the Gallows.) The packet is deposited on Matthias' desk before he begins making his way down.

"He's not in," is the greeting Petrana receives, though John has already moved to the side to allow her room to pass if she is so inclined. "And it seems Matthias is out as well. Not that I blame them, considering the temperature of those rooms."

Comments

[ipseite]

Maybe in a different life the small gesture wouldn't carry so much obvious weight; maybe she would've been able to take it for granted without understanding. Here, though—the number of people who presume to put their hands on her is vanishingly small, the number of those who've done it without her first initiating such things even smaller. She recognizes the purpose, here, because she has never reached for someone without purpose herself.

It changes the shape of her mouth, and that's all; but that's enough.

“In a Circle,” she observes, “you'd have had the benefit of many instructors—a particular Enchanter to oversee your mentorship, but a variety of instructors from whom you might learn lessons of equal value.”

Even after as long as she spent as the Inquisition's Kirkwall Ambassador, it's still assumed often enough that Petrana as a Rifter has no need or reason to know much of the world in which she now lives; its history, or the nitty-gritty of its present. For the most part, she's used that to her own advantage rather than protested the foolishness of it outright—but she makes no pretense, now, of having done anything less than thoroughly acquainted herself with what she speaks of.

“I don't say it in support of the Circles; you should have had the same opportunity elsewhere. I ought to have had that same opportunity, and I do hope that my daughter still may, in my absence. But—the assumption of an apostate is that you will not. It is therefore extremely beneficial for you to be more adequately prepared than you will be thought.”

—says the Rifter who passes Hightown gossip to her superior and discusses Tevinter intelligence with her ally.

A half-smile. “In due course. I think they will both be most interested in what you have to say; certainly, I am.”

[hornswoggle]

And it will keep him alive longer, though Petrana is considering the question of John from a different angle entirely. Isaac's calm warnings about the inherent dangers of reaching for magic at all run parallel to the kind of pitfall Petrana seeks to address.

There will certainly be some benefit in have some mastery, when he will be underestimated and unseen. John knows that tactic. It's kept him alive for a very long time. His acceptance of Petrana's assessment is the incline of his head, rather than an assertion of what he has learned, what he can do with a little blood and the snapping of bone.

None of that is what he wants to welcome into the space between them.

"There are aspects of our business that I think...I think come into clearer focus when the truth of what I am accompanies them."

A wry smile.

"Our dedication to delivering some tangible change to this place isn't an idle consideration. You understand how invested I am, at this point."

Petrana doesn't know about Madi, but maybe she'd understand even without that specific element of John's life being unveiled. Don't they all hope for some safe, quiet place to settle in without fear that pain and recrimination will shatter all the windows and drag them out over the shards of glass?