It's incredibly tempting to cut in with something like, what His Majesty means to say is that he physically changes into a demon on some nights, so unless you want to wake tomorrow morning and discover some of your people eaten as a midnight snack —
But Nikolai has, as usual, chosen to describe his problem using the stupidest euphemisms possible. She owes it to him to allow this Commander to say for himself how ridiculous her king sounds.
Being spared the particulars is, no doubt, exactly what every man in charge of the security of a place loves to hear from the mouth of a fade-touched stranger asking to be put into a dungeon cell for the duration of an evening lest he otherwise wreak an unspecified kind of havoc.
For a split second, Flint measures the pair of them—an assessing look flicking from Nikolai to Zoya, then back again. Then he turns his full attention to her. He's spent too much of his life in the company of young women prone to their own opinions not to recognize the general demeanor of someone who might be relied on to give an idiot's shin a stern kick under the table.
If the shift in attention registers in any particular way, it doesn't register on Nikolai's face. Bristling over it does no one good. They are asking a favor. Nikolai needs this man to keep a secret.
And he will not undercut Zoya with protest, even if he feels some minor stirring of dread at what her clarification might be. Instead, his hands fold, expression casually attentive. Unworried.
Instead, her chin lifts incrementally as she meets Flint's eyes. He isn't the first military commander she's ever met, had to hammer out arrangements with; and he won't be the last. Zoya, in this moment, is not an annoyed girl. She's a general.
(And even without looking, without seeing — she knows how much this conversation costs Nikolai. She knows how hard-fought his composure is now.)
She says, "Three years ago, our country was torn apart by civil war. A man who you might call a mage unseated our king and queen in a coup and styled himself a despot. He showed no mercy to anyone who resisted him." She swallows down the words my king, says instead, "Nikolai opposed him, and for that, he was tortured. A magical mark was left on him that may manifest at night. Without necessary precautions,"
such as a dungeon cell,
"it can be hazardous to the people around him."
Her voice is level in the retelling, a soldier's briskness in the recitation of endured horrors. She's calm not because speaking of these things is easy, but because they are the bricks upon which her and Nikolai's new reality has been built.
The fixture of his attention is very pointed, the lines of his expression shifting faintly but inexplicably - the hallmarks of a man listening, and waiting, and considering the pair of them.
"You can have the cell," he says. It's a simple concession. They have rather a large collection of them currently without much use. That'd be true even if the only thing they wanted was to play some game of pretend on a stone floor behind a few iron bars. "But I will need to know the exact shape of the hazard. Particularly if it's arcane in nature."
Arcane prompts a second, sideways look to Zoya. The minute raise of eyebrows is less for the word in attachment to his condition than it is that the word is said at all.
But the space between merzost and arcane is not the topic at hand. Looking back across the table, he watches Flint's face. Finds the familiar in it, reminds himself he cannot falter.
And Nikolai won't make Zoya describe the monster.
"It is a demon," is blunter than Nikolai may have ever been. "Winged, clawed, and quite a mouth of teeth, I'm told."
He is not looking at Zoya anymore.
"The only time it can manifest is when I sleep. Once I'm behind those bars, the threat it can pose to your people is minimal."
Arcane, she thinks, her blue eyes briefly meeting Nikolai's. The making at the heart of the world. Merzost. She has much to learn about the vocabulary of the Small Science here, if she intends to.
(She probably does. How tiresome.)
But aside from the glance, her eyes stay on the Commander. She watches his demand, she watches for his response to Nikolai's answer, and she does not think about what it is Nikolai is saying. She does not imagine the demon at all.
(She does not remember the feel of the brush of its teeth against her throat, so recently.)
'It's a demon,' Nikolai says, and the fixture of the expression worn by the man behind the desk alters instantly into one of a very distinct breed of exhaustion. His hand rises, calloused fingertips rubbing roughly across the wrinkles of a furrowed brow. When Nikolai is finished, Flint's response is instant:
"Oh for fuck's sake."
Could they not have simply led with 'I'm possessed and now this is your problem'?
"Fine," sounds like 'Fuck everything.' "You will meet me in the courtyard this evening to be delivered somewhere secure. You will not speak of this to anyone. You"—is for Zoya—"And I will stand watch outside the cell for the duration of the evening to be certain of the effects. And if you expect me to keep this a secret beyond tonight, you will be disappointed. The other division heads will be made aware."
An interesting reaction. It sparks an immediate narrowing of Nikolai's attention, focusing in on the way Flint veers towards exasperation rather than fear or revulsion, or any of the other reactions Nikolai had braced for.
Is this so commonplace here that they can afford to be bored by such matters? And if it is, then what are the chances there's some remedy for it? He won't hope for anything yet, but the look he directs at Zoya is full of possibility.
If it is not so dissimilar to the look Nikolai wears when boarding one of his new, untested airships, well.
But, rather than the dozens of questions now piling up, Nikolai answers very smoothly, "That isn't necessary. I'll be telling them myself, now that we've handled the particulars of it."
There are objections he'd like to make, first among them the demand this man makes to witness the night's events. It is humiliating to consider, but Nikolai doesn't care to haggle over the terms when it might be easier to simply throw him into the sea and have done with it.
Zoya's most basic instinct is to bristle at Flint's tone, at his orders, at the way he thinks he can speak to the king of a nation, and the commander of his army. There's nothing unreasonable to the notion that the other division heads will need to know — she'd expected it — but everything the Commander chooses to be, in this moment, has her eyes sparking.
And yet Nikolai sees something else. When he looks to her, he isn't dismayed; he glows from the barest of implications. We hope or we falter, as he's said to her before. And in this moment, he looks scarcely like a king to her, instead more like a boy who's heard whispers of sunrise after a long night.
Not that Zoya is moved. She says, simply, "Fine." And if it sounds a little like your manners need as much work as your hairline, well. She had the self-control to leave it unspoken.
"You will do nothing of the sort until I give you leave to," he clips back impatiently. The last thing he needs is an hours long debate on how to handle rifter possession. There is a fucking Seeker on this island, a dozen or more rifters sensitive to the treatment of their fellows, and at least one Division Head with no patience for the Fade-touched.
They haven't begun to handle the particulars.
"Tonight, we will assess the risk. After, we will present your case to the other division heads to determine how best to handle your affliction. I would strongly advise against the thought of the word 'demon' much less it's repetition of use until then."
The snap of that impatience, the order it carries over with it, is an insult of sort. One that settles in the wake of the tenor of conversation, which Nikolai has been mostly content to turn his attention from.
But he knows immediately that Zoya will not take kindly to that. And even though Nikolai had promised himself to patience and diplomacy, to bear up under the reveal of the curse that had plagued and shamed him with good nature and ease into the hands of a man he knows nothing of, he still feels tension drawing through his body, straightening his posture. Charm has ever gotten him through most discussions of this nature: a collection of people sat around a room unsnaring a problem to satisfaction, and he reminds himself of this as he draws breath to answer—
"I'm very grateful that you'll speak alongside me to your fellows," Nikolai tells him, sincere over each word. The bright glow of a few moments earlier has ebbed. "And I am eager to hear your advice as to how to move forward, as I know I am blind to much of what is motion here already. But I hope you understand that there's no need to give me leave. I would prefer we approach this in collaboration."
A compromise, one that hopefully draws away the sting of that until I give you leave had left in it's wake.
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no subject
It's incredibly tempting to cut in with something like, what His Majesty means to say is that he physically changes into a demon on some nights, so unless you want to wake tomorrow morning and discover some of your people eaten as a midnight snack —
But Nikolai has, as usual, chosen to describe his problem using the stupidest euphemisms possible. She owes it to him to allow this Commander to say for himself how ridiculous her king sounds.
no subject
For a split second, Flint measures the pair of them—an assessing look flicking from Nikolai to Zoya, then back again. Then he turns his full attention to her. He's spent too much of his life in the company of young women prone to their own opinions not to recognize the general demeanor of someone who might be relied on to give an idiot's shin a stern kick under the table.
"Would you care to clarify any of that?"
no subject
If the shift in attention registers in any particular way, it doesn't register on Nikolai's face. Bristling over it does no one good. They are asking a favor. Nikolai needs this man to keep a secret.
And he will not undercut Zoya with protest, even if he feels some minor stirring of dread at what her clarification might be. Instead, his hands fold, expression casually attentive. Unworried.
no subject
Instead, her chin lifts incrementally as she meets Flint's eyes. He isn't the first military commander she's ever met, had to hammer out arrangements with; and he won't be the last. Zoya, in this moment, is not an annoyed girl. She's a general.
(And even without looking, without seeing — she knows how much this conversation costs Nikolai. She knows how hard-fought his composure is now.)
She says, "Three years ago, our country was torn apart by civil war. A man who you might call a mage unseated our king and queen in a coup and styled himself a despot. He showed no mercy to anyone who resisted him." She swallows down the words my king, says instead, "Nikolai opposed him, and for that, he was tortured. A magical mark was left on him that may manifest at night. Without necessary precautions,"
such as a dungeon cell,
"it can be hazardous to the people around him."
Her voice is level in the retelling, a soldier's briskness in the recitation of endured horrors. She's calm not because speaking of these things is easy, but because they are the bricks upon which her and Nikolai's new reality has been built.
no subject
"You can have the cell," he says. It's a simple concession. They have rather a large collection of them currently without much use. That'd be true even if the only thing they wanted was to play some game of pretend on a stone floor behind a few iron bars. "But I will need to know the exact shape of the hazard. Particularly if it's arcane in nature."
no subject
But the space between merzost and arcane is not the topic at hand. Looking back across the table, he watches Flint's face. Finds the familiar in it, reminds himself he cannot falter.
And Nikolai won't make Zoya describe the monster.
"It is a demon," is blunter than Nikolai may have ever been. "Winged, clawed, and quite a mouth of teeth, I'm told."
He is not looking at Zoya anymore.
"The only time it can manifest is when I sleep. Once I'm behind those bars, the threat it can pose to your people is minimal."
no subject
(She probably does. How tiresome.)
But aside from the glance, her eyes stay on the Commander. She watches his demand, she watches for his response to Nikolai's answer, and she does not think about what it is Nikolai is saying. She does not imagine the demon at all.
(She does not remember the feel of the brush of its teeth against her throat, so recently.)
no subject
"Oh for fuck's sake."
Could they not have simply led with 'I'm possessed and now this is your problem'?
"Fine," sounds like 'Fuck everything.' "You will meet me in the courtyard this evening to be delivered somewhere secure. You will not speak of this to anyone. You"—is for Zoya—"And I will stand watch outside the cell for the duration of the evening to be certain of the effects. And if you expect me to keep this a secret beyond tonight, you will be disappointed. The other division heads will be made aware."
no subject
Is this so commonplace here that they can afford to be bored by such matters? And if it is, then what are the chances there's some remedy for it? He won't hope for anything yet, but the look he directs at Zoya is full of possibility.
If it is not so dissimilar to the look Nikolai wears when boarding one of his new, untested airships, well.
But, rather than the dozens of questions now piling up, Nikolai answers very smoothly, "That isn't necessary. I'll be telling them myself, now that we've handled the particulars of it."
There are objections he'd like to make, first among them the demand this man makes to witness the night's events. It is humiliating to consider, but Nikolai doesn't care to haggle over the terms when it might be easier to simply throw him into the sea and have done with it.
no subject
Zoya's most basic instinct is to bristle at Flint's tone, at his orders, at the way he thinks he can speak to the king of a nation, and the commander of his army. There's nothing unreasonable to the notion that the other division heads will need to know — she'd expected it — but everything the Commander chooses to be, in this moment, has her eyes sparking.
And yet Nikolai sees something else. When he looks to her, he isn't dismayed; he glows from the barest of implications. We hope or we falter, as he's said to her before. And in this moment, he looks scarcely like a king to her, instead more like a boy who's heard whispers of sunrise after a long night.
Not that Zoya is moved. She says, simply, "Fine." And if it sounds a little like your manners need as much work as your hairline, well. She had the self-control to leave it unspoken.
no subject
"You will do nothing of the sort until I give you leave to," he clips back impatiently. The last thing he needs is an hours long debate on how to handle rifter possession. There is a fucking Seeker on this island, a dozen or more rifters sensitive to the treatment of their fellows, and at least one Division Head with no patience for the Fade-touched.
They haven't begun to handle the particulars.
"Tonight, we will assess the risk. After, we will present your case to the other division heads to determine how best to handle your affliction. I would strongly advise against the thought of the word 'demon' much less it's repetition of use until then."
no subject
But he knows immediately that Zoya will not take kindly to that. And even though Nikolai had promised himself to patience and diplomacy, to bear up under the reveal of the curse that had plagued and shamed him with good nature and ease into the hands of a man he knows nothing of, he still feels tension drawing through his body, straightening his posture. Charm has ever gotten him through most discussions of this nature: a collection of people sat around a room unsnaring a problem to satisfaction, and he reminds himself of this as he draws breath to answer—
"I'm very grateful that you'll speak alongside me to your fellows," Nikolai tells him, sincere over each word. The bright glow of a few moments earlier has ebbed. "And I am eager to hear your advice as to how to move forward, as I know I am blind to much of what is motion here already. But I hope you understand that there's no need to give me leave. I would prefer we approach this in collaboration."
A compromise, one that hopefully draws away the sting of that until I give you leave had left in it's wake.