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

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—

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.)

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?"

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.

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.

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

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should have saved that icon for this one

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