[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]

"Enough," is not precisely true, but, "I'll manage," is. The details of her knowledge of Amaranthine piracy and especially how it was gained seem irrelevant at present.

Whether she is about to say something more or not is interrupted by boots in the hall followed swiftly by the opening of the door. Soldiers hustle Flint roughly to his feet, held beneath the arms as his chain is loosed from the wall. He is permitted to walk down the hall under his own power only in the sense that his feet remain within reach of the floor and he is able to paddle at it as they go if he wishes--he will be borne along at a clip regardless.

The room in which he is deposited is very similar to the last, except for the lack of a second chair set opposite the table. Instead he is dropped onto a tripod wooden stool, chain looped through the bars of a narrow grate in the floor and a ring overhead, but left loose enough to permit a natural posture. Tagaris joins them once this arrangement is complete, pausing at the corner of the table, fingers tented on its surface.

"Now that you have had a chance to consider the matter, would you care to explain your presence here?"

[katabasis]

There is an inevitability to this. It is the logical next stage in the pattern of their holding. If they were first treated with some degree of civility, then the path forward inevitably leads away from that.

There is very little point, he thinks, in making himself comfortable on the low stool. Yet he can't help but to shift the angle of his battered knee until the ache from being hurried along the corridor has been somewhat minimized.

That it is only the first day and that Tagaris doesn't strike him as the kind of man who takes pride in impatience is a strange kind of consolation.

"Perhaps we might begin with discussing where 'here' is," is a no.


Not long after Flint's departure, the door to the storeroom opens once more. In what must come as no surprise, the figure which passes through it is no soldier but Fidan. She carries an open sided lantern, the warm glow of the flame casting the room in a full and pleasant light as it is hung from the hook seemingly designed for exactly such a purpose at the low ceiling's rounded apex. In her other hands she has both a pitcher and cup; a generous measure of water is poured into the latter and then set carefully within reach of Yseult.

"I don't know that we have much time so let us be direct. Have you learned anything, Nina?"

[hassaran]

She reaches for the water as Fidan retreats, taking a quick gulp first as if wary of having it snatched away again. "I'm trying," she says after another sip, "We were finally talking but they took him. As soon as he comes back I'll try again."

Tagaris certainly does not look as if he is pleased with this development, a sigh of disappointment but no surprise accompanying the gesture that rings the bell at the door once again. "You know as well as I what comes now, I think," he says. "In the general sense, at least. You are a man who knows both violence and pain. I have no doubt that you believe your endurance formidable, and perhaps it is. It will not matter. All that you gain by delay is further pain. If you will not think seriously on anything else that I have said to you, think on that."

The door opens, and several additional soldiers carry in a large metal bathtub filled with water before filing out again. Tagaris lifts his staff, and the surface of the water begins to freeze. After a moment, when a healthy crust of ice has formed atop it, Tagaris gestures, and the two remaining soldiers take Flint up again by the arms and drop him face-first into the tub, hands on his back holding him under.

oh my god i can use this icon

[katabasis]

"I believe the hope is that he will be more happy to talk to you after some time spent with the Magister," Fidan reflects absently as her attention shifts about the room. For a moment, the chained woman before her seems to be the least of her concerns.

(In another place, Flint goes rigid against the grasp of those shoulders—straight backed and balking as he is thrust past the frozen surface of the water. The force of the cold is so shocking as to bite directly past the rind of well-reasoned composure. A sense of dignity is the rational thing to first strip from a person.)

With a soft sigh, Fidan takes the little working knife from her belt and sets it into the open sided lantern with the blade over the fire.

"I've been ordered to give you similar encouragement. If you submit willingly to it, I will be able to be kinder to you. But if you struggle, I will need to call in someone to assist me. So refrain from kicking out if you please."

This as she bends with care to release the heavy binding from around one of Yseult's ankles and warily begins to undo whatever lacing her boot may possess.

[hassaran]

There are two calculations made as Fidan's intentions become clearer. The first is by now so instinctive as to be practically instantaneous. Even half-shackled, she can see how she could get legs around the elf's neck, crush the metal edge of the cuff into windpipe, and use her rare weight advantage to end it. Unless of course Fidan is a mage after all.

That possibility gives her pause, and it's the second calculation that keeps her still. She knows too little--nothing, really--about where they are and how to contrive escape from more than this room. Perhaps she could creep through the halls and find her way, but she could just add easily run into troops of guards or magical security and be re-captured in minutes having accomplished nothing but ensuring harsher security measures. Any attempt to find and free Flint would guarantee it. If she were confident of getting free and quickly alerting Riftwatch she'd simply leave him behind. But as it is, the chance of success is too slim to warrant the risks. There will be other chances. It's barely been a day.

"Please." She bites her lip, looking from the knife to Fidan. "You don't need to do this. I'm trying to get what you want, I swear it."


Elsewhere, Flint is held beneath the freezing water until he sputters and chokes, just long enough for numbness to begin to override the painful shock of cold. Then he is hauled back up, this time by the jerk of the chain dragging arms first out of the water and torso thereafter. Tagaris, now seated behind the table, looks up without expectation.

"I trust you will tell me when you have rethought your position."

A gesture, and the soldiers repeat the process. Every so often, Flint is allowed a few moments out of the water to ensure numbness never quite sets in, to feel instead the needle-sharp burn of hot blood into limbs, while Tagaris contributes another ice spell. Barring any interruption from Flint, this continues for an hour or two.

[katabasis]

An hour, two. He begins with holding a ticking clock—a heavy dwarven thing that had a long time ago lived in a now very distant place—very forward in the mind and recalling the pace at which it had marked the minutes. It makes sense to do. It should be easy to simply keep count. But here is the burning cold, and the struggle to fill his lungs after, and the scorched and swollen sensation that gnaws after both and those things are shockingly immune to rational measurement. As so the clock slips away, memory forcibly muted by the present tense.

"I know and I'm very sorry. I'm only doing what I've been told I must," Nina is assured as boot and stocking are stripped away and the heavy manacle replaced at bare skin. There is a swaying moment where it seems Fidan should move away again then—but then she pauses. She studies her directly.

"Do you think there is any way in which you matter to him? Consider the question carefully and tell me the truth please."

Three hours. Or half of one. "Wait—" doesn't stop him from being submerged again. It is natural for the body to struggle. When he is at last dredged out again, he makes some small gesture with his hands in their heavy bindings while spluttering to clear his lungs. Wait.

"Was it your father who held your seat before you?"

(Presumably this doesn't discourage the soldiers on either side of him from their work.)

[hassaran]

The soldiers are not discouraged. Back into the tub Flint goes, shards of ice scraping across brow as he's thrust under.

The next time the chain pulls him upright, it then goes slack, and Flint is dumped back onto the stool. One leg is wedged deeper into the grate below, leaving the others just shy of balanced. One of the soldiers leaves the room.

"Yes," says Tagaris from behind his desk. He looks up at Flint, smiles. "And no. I was adopted. At times he was my father, at others still a distant cousin."

The soldier returns, bearing a large wooden lid with a hatch at one end. The chains jerk Flint to his feet and then off of them, and the other soldier gives him a push, directing his swing toward the tub. Whatever encouragement is required to put him bodily into it is given in the form of rough, silent hands.

"You see, I too know the fringes of society. Food for thought."

He flicks his fingers, and the first soldier holds Flint down while the second fits the lid to the tub. It is snug and heavy and leaves only an inch or two of air between water and wood. They close the hatch.


Back in her cell, Yseult reaches for her boot, the motion not exactly casual but thoughtless, the instinctive drawing close of a posession. If permitted, she'll hold it tightly.

"Yes," she says first, without much certainty, "I think so." Her last answer is the most honest: "Maybe a little?"

should have saved that icon for this one

[katabasis]

Fidan, untroubled by the prospect of letting Nina keep her shoe, nods encouragingly.

"Then perhaps you might consider appealing to that."

That innocuous knife heated by the lantern's open flame is fetched down. The chain between Yseult's ankles are pinned under Fidan's boot and the clever little blade with its amplification runes for turning a low heat into a vicious one is pressed to the sole of the foot.

No questions are ever posed. The wandering application of the heated knife seems to have just one intent: to derive pain from whatever gentle places it is introduced to.

[hassaran]

Nina flinches, as far as Fidan's grip allows. Not far. Nowhere near far enough. When the blade lands she struggles harder, shackles jangling as legs fight, too constricted to pose any real threat. She doesn't scream right away. Silence comes more naturally to Yseult even now, and she presses teeth to fist and bears it a while with no more than the harsh scrape of labored breath. Eventually, screaming comes easier.

And in the tub, ice begins to creep out from the sides.