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Marcus is on his feet, leading his horse, a big speckled-grey creature that ghosted his dreams too. Both iterations. He looks tired, but only the kind of tired that a satisfying day has brought on, where his ambitions for however long it will be until sundown is a meal, a long soak in hot water, making sure that the only thing that comes to bed are warm bodies and not handfuls of last minute letters and paperwork.

These plans stall out in his momentum as he's addressed by John Silver, any sense of surprised absorbed instead by looking him up and down. Then, "Aye," simple agreement, and he continues his way towards the correct stall to start offloading his horse.

It's a fairly tepid reception. John chooses to count it as a promising beginning as he follows along in Marcus' wake.

"I'd wondered if you would seek me out," John says after a moment, having come to a halt along the opposite row of stalls. Out of arm's reach, which is surely coincidence. "To ask at least one question, if not more."

"I'd thought to."

He goes through the routine of seeing to his horse without pause, unbuckling this and that strap, dragging down the heavy saddle, the blanket it rests on, setting it aside. Someone who works amongst the stables emerges at the sounds of creaking stall doors and rustling, and Marcus glances their way, before relinquishing Kevin to their care, to be brushed down and fed. The big warhorse seems not to mind either way, already questing after strewn bits of hay on the ground even while being led away.

Dusting off his hands, Marcus sets Silver more properly in his sights. "I should have," he adds, after some thought, Starkhaven lilt having a way of making everything sound pondered. "But given the circumstance, I hadn't mustered a reasonable explanation as to why you should give me answers."

A pause in which John studies him. He thinks, but does not say, Because of Petrana.

Flint's words of caution are not far from his thoughts now. It's not a matter of not trusting Petrana, it's a matter of understanding the nature of the tie between her and Marcus. How long does a secret keep within such a partnership?

"It would depend on the question," John says, some flicker of humor couched in the answer before, more seriously, "Though I should tell you, I'd thought to bring up the topic to you. Before the dream. Under...better circumstances."

Surely any circumstances are preferable to scenarios where they'd tried to kill each other in the snow.

Interest flickers behind his expression—had you?—before Marcus glances backwards to ensure the distance of the stablehand.

"Perhaps I might've hesitated, had you done so," he adds, and there is something in it that indicates to Silver's insight that this is, you know. Humour. Grim, gallows, a little apologetic. They sure did almost kill each other. He can't even blame Silver alone for his very nearly succeeding, when Marcus had pushed it so.

A very heavy perhaps, too. He'd betrayed everyone, mage or no. Marcus asks his question, that being, "Why are you hiding it?"

He can guess, but better not to.

Isaac hadn't asked him that.

The question had skirted at the edges of so many conversations, a stray dog nipping and shying away by turn. John considers it. He looks to the stablehand, listening to her coaxing murmur and Kevin's answering whicker.

He knows enough of Marcus Rowntree to presume that saying Because I would rather not have it at all would not be so well received. So instead—

"I learned very young, as I assume many of us did, what comes along with this ability."

Us comes smoothly, without betraying the prickle of discomfort that the alignment carries even now.

"I wanted a different life for myself. It seemed to me that one couldn't exist alongside the other."

Honest, if stripped bare of all atrocities, all sharp, ugly edges.

John will have to anticipate responses based off reputation and historical observation alone, as Marcus seems quiet and receptive to just about any answer, no ready retort lining up for what it might be. He nods, once Silver chooses one, a gesture of acceptance rather than approval.

"Not unless the life you envisioned was that of a prisoner," he says, "or in exile."

A pause, and then he asks, "I can't imagine that of what we both witnessed, in dreams, I'm the only one with questions."

Or worse, John doesn't say.

Within that pause lives pain and suffering and loss. John could dredge any of it up, but if he had not yet drawn the raw tangle of those truths out for Flint or for Madi, he will not attempt it for Marcus Rowntree.

Instead, he looks again at the stablehand, clocking the faint tuneless whistling accompanying her work, before tipping his head towards the open doors.

"Walk with me?" he invites. "I've questions, yes, but it's all better discussed without chance of an audience."

Marcus nods, picking up his travel satchel he'd unclipped from the saddle to tug it over his shoulder, and moves to lead them both from the stables.

The brightness of a spring day is beginning to vanish with an incoming shelf of grey cloud from the south. By nightfall, it will bring down a cleansing rain, one that will burn off by the morning, having done the vital kind of work that raises flowering things from the earth. For now, it's just sort of chilly, grey, and characteristic of the Free Marches.

The looming Gallows structures does a lot to contribute to the shadows. He does not look up at them as he says, "If your aim is to extract from me promise of my silence," business-like but not impatient, "you needn't be concerned."

"I wasn't."

Of all the mages circulating through Riftwatch, Marcus Rowntree is the most direct in his approach, the most transparent as to what he holds dear. There is a reason John had let the time pass. It hadn't felt like a gamble to presume Marcus would keep this secret, even with a newly-arrived bevy of templars at hand and ample opportunity for him to do otherwise.

Yes, John might have asked, had Marcus not said. But it would have been confirmation of what was already a near-foregone conclusion. Marcus wasn't the sort of man who would wield a secret such as this as a threat.

"I don't intend to put much stock in events of that dream," John continues. "But if you care to tell me, I'd like to know what reason you had within it for switching sides."

Men and women of opposing factions may set their weapons on a table before they discuss matters of sensitive nature. A practical precaution, but it also changes the conditions of the conversation, when no one has their hand around a hilt while they speak. It's a little like that, offering that assurance.

Mages, of course, can never really put down their weapons, just as Marcus could always change his mind, or Silver could choose to do whatever he likes with whatever information he gleans, but it's the thought that counts.

He thinks about how to order his answers, willing enough to speak to it now that there's been some time to live with it, and after a few moments of thought; "I know I didn't see it as my switching sides. Or I strived to believe that, of myself. But it felt as though I was being true to my convictions, to see mages live freely in Thedas, and it was Riftwatch who failed to realise this. Or my closest friends within it.

"And the forces of Tevinter offered something else. An end to it. The Chantry can't cast its shadows, if all its structures are torn down, once and forever."

He can't imagine Petrana would be close friends with someone who would balk at a light bit of heresy, but Marcus glances at him to gauge response, all the same.

Edited 2021-06-05 23:48 (UTC)

No, John is not shocked by a little light heresy.

But he is slow to respond, gathering his thoughts as they pass from the stables along the cobbled walk towards the Gallows itself.

"I understand," comes first, thoughtful rather than accusing. "And I won't pretend that in our waking hours I have not felt constricted by the unwillingness of others in our company to recognize that those of us among them with magic may want more from life than what the Chantry deigns to give us."

Here is where such a thought comes from, John means. From Byerly Rutyer and Thranduil quailing at the idea of crossing the Chantry, and Yseult's unending refusal to pursue any course that may leave even the most minor form of change in it's wake.

Some sickening prickle of unease accompanies all of this. To speak these things aloud, align himself in such a way, feels akin to driving a stake through his own body, pinning himself in a place he had never intended to inhabit.

"Do you believe your work here could someday bring about any of your hopes?"

To see mages living freely. To see the Chantry torn down. Either or.

That glance holds, watching Silver as he speaks, when the first thing he chooses to say is I understand, and the words that follow seem to reflect that. It'd be one thing to navigate the things Marcus has to say to avoid an argument about it, or make him feel threatened, and another to indicate a more true empathy.

Marcus absorbs this, accepts it, and watches where they're going. His eyes tick up to the looming shape of the Gallows, considering an answer.

The truth of it being, "I don't know," and leaving it there for a moment. Then, "This place, the Gallows, Kirkwall, has gone through its share of change. But where Kirkwall broke its bonds from the Imperium and its slave practices, the Gallows stood as a prison. You could wake up to the sounds of the ship bells in the bay, and even voices, if the wind carried them, of free citizens going about their day, and then through the other wall—"

Well, he needn't describe it. It isn't the object of his mentioning.

"Now it's something different again, different enough that I was willing to step foot here again. What the shape of the world will be, after Corypheus is fallen, I don't think will be decided by those who stood apart from his falling. But I heard there was a group of people who splintered away from the Inquisition, and therefore the Chantry, and it seemed like a good start."

Edited 2021-09-03 03:36 (UTC)

Marcus is outlining a familiar calculation.

It is not so far from the one John has made himself, or what he and Flint have circled, over and over. And it comes out to the same thing, more or less: that this is a group of people who stand apart, are not yoked by the Inquisition yet mean to do some sort of battle.

It is a start. What kind of end it meets will depend on what they make of it.

"I'd avoided coming this far south, before we realized we had such a need for allies."

A wry smile. Look what they had gotten them. Nascere, cracked apart, fallen into the sea.

"It was costly," is what John says instead. "And I am aware that there are those among us who are not so interested in what comes after Corypheus, because a return to what existed before him was comfortable for them and they would not see it too far altered."

Had life been comfortable for John, far in the north? Did it matter now if it were? The place he might have made a home is consumed by sea and spirits.

"But I believe I may as well make myself plain to you, after all we've shared. I would see Corypheus thrown down and defeated, yes, but I would also see the way paved for us to make a more hospitable place for ourselves in whatever comes after him."

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notifs betrayed me please forgive

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