[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

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.