OPEN

[deceivingly]

WHO: Yevdokiya an Waslyna O Bearhold, Tiffany Hart, Matthias, maybe my other characters + YOU
WHAT: a humble open log
WHEN: Fantasy March
WHERE: the Gallows, Kirkwall, the Wounded Coast
NOTES: bath nudity, butchering a seagull, nothing worse atm

Comments

[inkindled]

Locking the door now seems so obvious and logical that Matthias feels a flush of shame for not having thought of it. Stupid. He stays stood where he is, stick-straight and poised on the balls of his feet, half wanting to run off.

There are far worse people to have walked in the room. Silver, he's all right. But he's with Flint. But so is Matthias--but differently. He watches Silver's approach, that guilt still writ plain on his face.

"Just--looking." No. "Working." No. Matthias winces at himself, turns that into a pulled face, looks down at the desk, the note that Silver is depositing there. Why hadn't he locked the door?

"If I say not to discuss," he hazards, after another beat. "Is that really it? You'd just--leave it?"

[hornswoggle]

"I would."

True.

"But I can't guarantee I'd mention to the Commander he might want to be careful of what he leaves unattended on his desk."

This is said seriously, though John doesn't have very much concern for whatever is left on Flint's desk. The chances of anything sensitive being treated so carelessly strike John as so low as to be negligible in this moment.

"Should I deliver my note in person?" is an invitation, wholly left to Matthias to decide what course he wants to take.

[inkindled]

Matthias shoots a glance between Silver and the door, then back to Silver again, as if Flint himself might suddenly loom in that space.

He swallows.

"You can bring it in." He shifts a few steps away from the desk in what he hopes to be a significant manner. "And leave it. And don't-- look, please don't tell him, all right? I don't want to be sacked, and I don't want him to think I'm some-- lousy little sneakthief or anything. 'Cause I'm not, really."

[hornswoggle]

What he could say: What I walked in on says otherwise.

But John doesn't. There's only so far he cares to push, considering what Matthias knows about him, considering Matthias' good nature and how anxious he looks in the moment.

"You're not going to be sacked," is the first reassurance, made as John rounds one of the chairs and eases into it. His head tips towards the other. "But you should try to look less guilty, particularly if you weren't doing anything very wrong."

Is this the right lesson? Maybe, maybe not. It's the one John's capable of sharing. He had, after all, promised not to pry. It leaves him with this: a piece of advice Matthias might make use of.

[inkindled]

"Right. Yeah."

He does, at last, relax a little--though he doesn't necessarily look any less guilty for it. That's not the sort of thing you can put on with just a moment's notice. Or at least, Matthias can't. He suspects Silver would be able to without any trouble at all.

"Might've been a little wrong," he admits, "but not wrong against Commander Flint, like. More just--"

Uncomfortably, he shifts his weight, rocks forward onto his toes and then back onto his heels. He tosses another look at Flint's desktop. Takes a breath. Doesn't look back at Silver, not just yet.

"Someone I care about is missing. I was thinking maybe they were sent away on a mission, but it was secret, and that's why I didn't hear anything about it. I wanted to see if I could find anything out. But there's nothing that I saw, and I would've asked Commander Flint about it, but he's, I dunno, he's not going to tell me outright, is he? And I don't want him to think I'm an idiot." So instead he'll let Flint's associate think he's an idiot, well done, Matthias, really, and he pulls a face at himself, and casts his gaze down at the floor.