[closed] if you're here and I'm here then who's flying the plane

[katabasis]

WHO: Flint & Yseult
WHAT: Trust exercises
WHEN: Immediately pre-hasmal invasion
WHERE: Near Hasmal
NOTES: will include content warning in subject lines if applicable

It's almost guaranteed that their contact has utilized the flow of refugees across the border and toward Hasmal as a cover to pass into the South, though they aren't meant to meet them in that. Doubtless every breed of intelligencier currently peddles their trade there, for if an agent of one secret network might slip in that direction then why not agents of all?

Rather, after crossing the broad width of the Minanter on one of the point-nosed ferries (in the company of a pilot with a near supernatural skill for weaseling extra coin out of pocket, but who tactfully neglects to intervene in the debate his passengers are engaged in), they hire a pair of horses and turn west toward what is allegedly an all but forgotten trading post by the name of Drake's Landing which is said to boast such luxuries as a nearly empty inn and the cheapest drink in the political tri-corner.

At some point—perhaps after the fourth or fifth narrow bridge that they have to coax the horses across, for the landscape is threaded through with twisting offshoots of the Minanter—Flint remarks, "If we come this way again, it would be faster to row in."

Maybe that's how the Venatori beat them to the Landing. Or maybe the ferry pilot had a raven in the little cabin at the back of his boat who had carried word of a certain notable captain of Riftwatch swiftly North.

Regardless—

Comments

[hassaran]

He's right. There is no question that it would have been faster to make this trip over water. Yseult doesn't say that. She says, "Only because of all the rain this last fortnight," as if that's an important distinction to draw, as if she's some expert in western Minanter water tables. It's been that kind of trip.

She's been to Drake's Landing before, the kind of place where it's hard to go unnoticed but it doesn't cost much to bribe everyone in town to forget. That there's no one else on the road and no real signs of life as they ride in doesn't exactly set off alarm bells.

"The ferry lost more time than the bridges. Let's get this over with."

[katabasis]

"The ferry," he snips back, heels digging fruitlessly into the hired horse's sides. The animal had decided on its pace the moment they'd left its picket, and no amount of encouragement has compelled it to lengthen its stride.

"Would you have preferred we swim across the river?"

It has been that kind of trip. The disagreement which had spurted them both in this direction has fed a half dozen minor 'negotiatons' since, including sich minor points as the acceptable rate for the horses and the character of the weather—

A figure has stepped into the crossroads. Flint hardly glances in their direction.

[hassaran]

"We could have crossed nearer to Hasmal, as I said." There's just something about him that now demands a pettiness Yseult did not otherwise know she had in her. Maybe this constant urge to snip and snipe is just an effect of exposure to the miasma of it emanating from Flint. That feels right.

A figure has stepped into the crossroads, and Yseult gives him only a cursory scan, nothing immediately leaping out as wrong, but then her attention's already divided between the inn where they're to meet Valeriantus's man and the will required not to scream. Her horse continues forward more or less of its own volition before slowing to a stop before the hitching rail. It's not that smart, there's just a water trough beside it.

Soon enough she's on the ground, heading for the steps up and looking over her shoulder ready to be annoyed that Flint is even the slightest bit behind. That's when the figure in the crossroads is joined by a half-dozen or so others. There is no mistaking it for anything but coordinated action, nor their intent for anything but unfriendly. In the space of a heartbeat Yseult has a throwing knife in her hand and aimed at the throat of the Venatori who's just stepped out of the inn, but the mage's spell stops her where she stands, arm out and wrist curled just short of releasing the blade.

[katabasis]

The quiet deteriorates rapidly.

Flint, having only just dismounted, is afforded the luxury of throwing down the hired horses reins and drawing the sword at his belt before the contingent in the crossroads closes in. The horse shies back in reply either from the initial hiss of the blade or the flurry of motion which follows. The first hacking swing of that sword is so heavy that it knocks loose the grip of the leading Venatori or hired mercenary or bounty hunter. He struggles to recover, deflecting the upward return of Flints sword seemingly by dumb luck. But then Flint has a hold of the man's forearm and the power to simply divert his sword manually, and there is no avoiding the successive lance.

The spooking horse has judiciously removed itself from the situation in the matter of seconds it takes for the remaining armed force to overwhelm a single man with a sword. Flint is driven back into Yseult's seized still shadow, the crack of steel on steel bizarrely bright in the otherwise seemingly vacant crossroads. When some cudgel cracks a knee hard enough to drop him, it's at both Yseult's feet and those of the Venatori mage who has descended the stairs to patiently pluck the throwing knife from between her fingers.

[hassaran]

The mage buffs the blade of Yseult's knife against his robes, fine white silk and linen suitable to the arrival of summer in the north. They'll have a moment to contemplate the fabric up close as he circles past them, his hem passing close enough to Flint's nose to note that the edging looks like actual gold thread. Just as he's about to pass out of the fixed range of their vision, he lifts a hand. Two cudgels crack down this time.

When he wakes, Flint will find himself seated in a wooden chair before a wooden table. The room, not large, is stone on all sides, with the barrel-vaulted ceiling and lingering humidity that suggests a cellar. Across from him at the table sits the Venatori mage, his pristine white costume with its elaborate hood—pushed back now to reveal short dark hair precisely combed and lightly oiled into shape—at odds with the more rustic surrounds. He looks to be somewhere in his 40s, smooth-shaven with naturally arched brows and hooded eyes that lend a weight to his attention that in this context can only feel menacing.

He smiles. "Captain Flint. Or do you prefer Commander now? It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance at last. I have heard such things." An upward shift of those brows exaggerates a tone that hovers between scandalized and impressed. Such things.

[katabasis]

He is first aware of the ache in his shoulders and neck, a hum of pins-and-needle prickling that passes through his arms. There's a heaviness—first a clumsy lack of coordination followed by sharp jabbing fingers of pain as he straightens from the slouched shape the chair had allowed him to collapse into. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust in the confines of the stone room, or maybe to blink back the film better attributed to the headache pulsing high in his forehead. Maybe there is a bruise forming somewhere on his head. It feels like there must be.

A short, compulsive inventory: hands, fine; shoulders, stiff; left leg, sound; right leg, a swollen knee that protests the idea of sitting much less bearing weight. And then of course there is the man across from him, and the very quiet room which surrounds them, and the fact that they are alone.

After a long beat, he says, "You seem to have me at a disadvantage."

Which, while something of an understatement, certainly might be equally applicable to how Yseult wakes. She has been bound hand to foot and dumped with little ceremony onto a brick floor. The room is cool, faintly humid. A shuttered lantern on the floor some paces away spills only the barest slat of light. Otherwise it is mostly-dark, the claustrophobic quality of the room written in the stillness of the air.

"I can see you've woken up," says a voice from the gloom beyond the covered lamp. A pair of faint cat's eye sheens glint in the dark. "You're welcome to try sitting up if you like."

[hassaran]

Yseult's waking is too sudden to have disguised, stealing the moment she might have spent in feigned stillness acquainting herself with her surroundings and deciding on a plan. She takes back as much of it as she can by first tugging at her bonds and then rolling awkwardly into a sitting position after a failed first attempt. Her eyes have adjusted a little by the time she is faced in the direction of that voice, and she looks around the small, dark space with open dismay that appears to mount as facts sink in.

"What's going on?" she asks, a bit tremulous, as if valiantly holding back panic. Her accent is still Marches, just slightly broadened into something more generic. "Who are you?"

Down the hall, the man smiles, with his eyes and everything. "I am Magister Tagaris, but you may call me Ayaz. Perhaps in turn I may call you James? That would simplify things nicely, I think. You may find it presumptuous when we have only just met, but I am sure we are about to become much better acquainted. Tell me, James: what brings you to this part of the world today?"

[katabasis]

Tagaris.

The Magisterium is a strange, living thing. It's possible there was no such Magister when he last had been in such a position where he might be expected to recognize the name. It's equally possible that Ayaz had been unremarkable to slip from his memory. Or maybe he has yet to fully smear back the grimy layer laid over his thoughts by the—recent? How long since they were in that crossroads?—blow to the head.

Regardless: he can't immediately place the name or the smile, eyes and everything included.

"I would prefer you didn't," he says first. Slowly. James. After a long, aching moment, he supplies: "I would have expected you to know already. Unless you're telling me our meeting is uncommonly good luck."


And in the dark room, there is a scrape of soft soled shoes on the floor and the whispering of rustling clothes. Maybe that voice in the dark has risen from some invisible seat, or shifted forward from against the place where they have been leaning, or—

"Don't worry. You're perfectly safe. I'm only waiting for permission to release you. I didn't want you to be alone when you woke up."

The woman that drifts into that bar of light is slight and small and in the thin illumination she seems quite young. She is dressed in simple leathers with her hair cropped so short that it is more like a dark layer of down on her skull; it does nothing at all to disguise the elven shape of her features and ears.

"You can call me Fidan if you like. Do you know where you are?"

[hassaran]

Perhaps, when his mind has had time to clear, out will trickle some thin stream of recollection: an old man, a seat in the Magisterium chamber more often empty than not, a name down a list of likely votes against them. Not this man, clearly. He smiles again, the bend of his brows almost theatrical in its expression of puzzlement.

"No? But it is a name you prefer, is it not? Else you would not have kept it all this time. No matter. You may choose another, if you like. As for our meeting, I would not call it luck that someone has been speaking out of turn."


Fidan's assurances appear to have some effect, though Yseult doesn't play it as total relief, not this fast, not still bound and in the dark in more ways than one. Some slight easing of incipient panic at her words, a few degrees of tension released at her appearance as she offers it. "Fidan," she repeats, as if grasping a hold on a slippery thing, and then looks around again, shaking her head shiver-quick. "We were at Drake's Landing," she remembers, swallowing to wet her mouth. "Before. Are we still there?"

[katabasis]

The lamp is left hanging from the hook in the storeroom's ceiling. They have, it seems, reached the end of the darkness' utility. After all, there might be some quiet comfort derived from being unseen. Imagine if the marks made in effort to eke information out of them were made invisible, or if it was in any way made to snatch a few moments of sleep. What use would that be?

In that way, the opening of the door becomes as much a point of instability as any other. Does it precede a slew of monotonous questions? Will they be separated, and if so who will be taken from the room? What will Fidan bring with her in this hour? Or will the open door merely permit someone with oil for the lap, who will spends minute extinguishing, refilling, lighting and rehanging it while refusing to be coaxed into conversation.

The uncertainty and the montony both combine into a strangely disorienting shape. He finds himself thinking for no discernable reason (save exhaustion, which is beginning to wear as much as it shows, and he is old enough and tired enough that it shows readily) of long passages he has taken—the unbroken line of the horizon in every direction, and how without chart or compass it might be very easy to assume no progress was being made at all. He has never been unaware of momentum at sea (it is the first thing any boy on a ship learns), but he imagines that if he knew nothing about the progress of the sun or the seasonality of wind and tides that there might be some similarity between those moments and these.

"Did you sail with Darras?" he asks.

It's a sudden and impulsive question, dividing the quiet which has fallen naturally following Yseult's most recent return to the storeroom. She has been treated by a healer, the work of Fidan's knife at least partially undone, and they have been watered and fed something resembling food.

Belatedly, as if the silence is now something that must be actively warded off, Flint adds, "I may have asked before, but I can't recall the answer."

[hassaran]

Yseult can sleep anywhere, that much has become clear, stone floor and lit lamp making little difference, periodic interruptions no less than expected. But Fidan is clever enough to have spotted the lack of true exhaustion and adjusted accordingly. Even half-healed, there is no angle of shoulder or back that might be leaned against without resting on a blister, no posture good or bad that does not pull on something. She hunches over elbows on knees like a marionette on a hook, strings neither taut nor cut.

"No," she replies. The moment it takes her to speak might, in other circumstances, have suggested no intent to do so. But even within the space of a conversation time stretches differently now. Their captors seem not to do anything at regular intervals. "I've been on the Fancy, but never as crew. I can sail, if that's what you mean. Enough."

[katabasis]

"Enough," is echoed back in the tenor of an acknowledging hum.

That isn't what he'd meant, though in the moment following he is hard pressed to pin down exactly what he had—there is a kind of absurdity in indulging in passing curiosity while chained to a wine rack in a cellar with a swollen knee and what he suspects may be the headache and prickle of sweat so common in the kinds of mild fevers suffered in reaction to being pulled out of the bitter cold. By his inexpert reckoning, that means it has been some hours since he last enjoyed Tagaris' company. Maybe the next time the door opens, it will mean two soldiers again and another short, clumsy march to a cold bucket ahead of him.

"If it makes you feel any better,"—not that she seems particularly ashamed—"Mister Silver couldn't tell you the difference between a brace and a halyard."

[hassaran]

"I'm sure he could pretend." Is a joke. "I know more than that," is an answer, the faintest tinge of defense in it despite her lack of shame. "But it's a benefit of being a quartermaster. No one expects a real sailor. I could have learned the ropes, but you can't fake the hands."

She spreads her palms, even softer now than they were when she arrived. The rounds of healing since have left no trace of the blisters and taken several small scars with them besides. She traces over the back of a knuckle where one used to be with an idle thumb.

[katabasis]

The rise and fall of his brow as his attention falls to the shape of his own hands suggests some flickering shade of amusement. No doubt that the last—however long—has done any part of him few favors, but there is no denying that the particulars of those hands have been defined by their work. Even long months of prioritizing division paperwork over the management of a ship have done little to diminish their roughened planes.

"My grandfather had been a fisherman since boyhood," he says, forming a circle with his thumb and forefinger and fitting it over a joint for emphasis. "Knuckles like grapes."

[hassaran]

A soft huff of humor in acknowledgment, recognition. "And my mother's feet. Not every knuckle, just--." She gestures with fingers similarly arranged at the ball of her foot, legs folded in front of her as much as the chain allows. "Dancer."

"I'll have to warn Darras." Time to accelerate the retirement schedule.

[katabasis]

Ah, says the tip of his head in reply to 'Dancer.' Once she has said it, it seems somehow a naturally drawn line from that to— Whatever it is that Yseult would claim to be.

"Are you hoping he might be tempted to stay off the account after all this all finished?"

Would Darras Rivain take exception (in whatever charming, flashing smile way he might be prone toward) to the phrasing stay off. He doesn't know the man well enough to say so definitively.

[hassaran]

"No." Would be strictly true, and once she might have left it there. A week ago, she would have. Keeping this from him feels less important, now. And perhaps it will make it feel realer, closer, than it presently does.

"Not hoping. We've a plan. Once this is over, we're finished with his work and mine. Assuming we both survive. Assuming it's ever over." There's no wood in reach to knock on.

[katabasis]

This is the second time his left knee has been left broken.

Presumably, someone will eventually be along to heal this one too. But the fact that the pain is consistent (and consistently shocking despite the repetition) rankles. There is a point, Flint thinks, where a mind's ability to conveniently forget the particulars of pain becomes a detriment rather than a boon. It makes it very difficult to become enured to the thing. It's possible, he supposes, that Tagaris shares this opinion. Not that the man's deigned to converse much with him. That too is a form of common ground.

Dead contacts in Perendale, they'd agreed. Names, numbers, and a sense of Riftwatch's organization. He'd used the former and been only a little dismayed to discover it wasn't new information to the Venatori here either—not surprising, but not terribly reassuring either. The latter waits in reserve; he has little intention of using it. If some avenue of escape doesn't materialize soon, it seems unlikely that surrendering further unremarkable information will produce it.

But for right this instant: a broken knee. A lamp hanging overhead. It feel like it's been a number of hours since last either of them went anywhere, but they have run out of the sort of conversations which welcome simple yes or no answers and he's in no mood to fill the silence with anything more complicated. So sleep, he thinks. And maybe he does briefly.

And then the door opens and for the first time, Fidan enters the room without Flint first behind taken from it.

She gives him only the most cursory look before her attention moves to fix on Yseult.

"Is there anyone who you would like me to write on your behalf, Nina? Anyone with Riftwatch. Or a family member perhaps?"

[hassaran]

If Yseult feels the loss of their jury-rigged camaraderie, she doesn't show it. She seems content to pass the hours listening to traffic in the hallways outside and the occasional snippet of conversation or scrape of movement overhead or in the distance, bit by bit building their record of guard routines and the building's layout, tracking what they learn on a map scraped into the dirt and wiped away again over and over as its contents are committed to memory. When burns and the length of the chain allows she is more active, with a modified calisthenics routine and diligent progress on working the edge of a cuff into the back of one of the wine rack posts like a chisel, slowly stripping splinters into makeshift lockpicks. And she sleeps, like a cat napping throughout the day, one eye always ready to crack open at the slightest shift in the air.

She is ready when Fidan opens the door, having sunk back into Nina's slump-shouldered posture, upright but still somehow suggestive of the fetal position. Brows rise and then drop together, head shaken in an uncertain mix of confusion, hope, and fear. "What? Why? You would do that for me?"

The sudden buzz of anxiety about her is easily put on: is this a trap disguised as a favor, or a trap disguised as a final courtesy?

[katabasis]

What follows is a long beat of silence, the point of Fidan's attention on the other woman unwavering despite the slow rasp of chain from the direction of Flint where he is shifting where he sits. Delicately and without looking in his direction, she says, "I think you know why."

[hassaran]

It has been well-established by now that Nina, while not a simpleton, is at best a little naive, a bit obtuse. So it should be no surprise when she frowns harder, lines of upset deepening. "I don't understand."

[katabasis]

Fidan, who has yet to show any measure of real impatience, is methodical in this moment as well. Not kind (because there is no real form of kindness which can survive this room), but a certain breed of considerate.

"Do you remember our agreement? What you were meant to do when you were brought to him," she asks. "You should tell me who I ought to write a letter to on your behalf, or you should say now what you've learned from him."

From where he is forced to exist at the margins of this conversation, Flint stills.

[hassaran]

There are three ways this is most likely to play out:

1. Nina gives up some piece of useful information as demanded. Her disloyalty having been revealed, Flint will of course not be expected to tell her anything else nor to act to protect her; she is no longer of use.
   
2. Nina does not provide any useful information. Flint remains silent. Having been proven ineffective at both gathering information and motivating Flint, she is no longer of use.
   
3. Nina does not provide any useful information, but Flint intercedes and offers something up in exchange for her life. She remains useful as a hostage to his cooperation.

Not good odds, made worse for the matter being almost entirely out of her hands, dependent on Flint playing along. The way he's gone still suggests he's grasped the situation, not that it's so complex. There's little to do but stall and hope the odds on the wildcard fourth option become clearer.

She shoots a nervous twitch of a glance over her shoulder toward Flint like it's him she's scared of here, head shaking in a combination of negation and nerves. Out of Flint's line of sight eyes push wide at Fidan, brows mobile with questions, aiming for a silent what are you doing you're ruining everything sort of expression. "I--I-- I don't know what you're talking about," she says, head still shaking, "I wouldn't-- I told you I-- Commander Flint knows I'm loyal to Riftwatch, you won't fool him."

[katabasis]

The weight of Fidan's soft soled shoe on the chain between Yseult's ankles is just significant enough to pin her feet there. Like a great majority of elves, she is narrow and slight. If there is any measure of strength in her, then it is the wiry and hard won kind.

Flint says, "Even if she weren't, what possible reason could I have to tell her anything? Tell your master—"

There is the powerful scent of something sweet and burning. In the same instant: the air about Yseult turns dense, seeming to pressurize with such speed that all the world in Fidan's shadow grinds to a halt. And that clever little knife is produced from her belt, glowing lyrium hot.

It's possible at Drake's Landing that it was Tagaris who drove Yseult to a standstill. But there are alternative possibilities just as there are variations which, under pressure, might be produced here. With a hand on the rack to balance herself, Fidan leans down and plunges that wicked little knife into Nina's gut.

[hassaran]

This is not the first time Yseult has been immobilized by a surprise mage. It's also not the first time she's been stabbed in the gut. (Flint was there the last time, too.) It is the first time those things have happened simultaneously. The heat of the blade is new as well, though that takes a moment to register over the searing pain the jab alone inflicts. The impact ought to punch the air from her lungs, but even that can't escape the epicenter of the spell. Not so much as a flinch or a whimper.

Some pain is clarifying, others are blinding. This works the same spell on her brain as Fidan has on the air, sucking everything into a point of focus as narrow as that blade, slowing all thought to the most minute crawl. At the far edges of her mind beyond the pain she feels only some queerly muted mixture of embarrassment and disappointment. She manages, after several seconds of effort, to clench her teeth.