"If I knew you'd be so good at this, I would've asked you to help earlier," is an admission, but one made with good humor.
They'd departed from the throng of people just beyond city limits maybe ten or so minutes ago. Lowtown bustles around them with increasing intensity the deeper they head back into Kirkwall, quickly overpowering the sounds of the refugee settlement by power of sheer volume. He's already considering how to put the things they'd been told to paper, key points to not forget. Not for the first time, he considers how effortless Monica makes this kind of work look; which is just a testament to how good she is at her job.
"Though," he adds, dry, "People are usually willing to talk even if you don't try to set them up."
“I’m a cleric,” says Richard, as though this should be obvious and his skill a given. There’s been no notable change in his affect between his comfortable reassurance of refugees and his historically cool handling of the space debris at his side. Maybe it just hits different, once you’ve seen him engage in a treason or two.
Or witnessed him having a mental breakdown in the baths.
He adds: “I’m not sure what you mean,” to complete the gaslight halo around his turning to look Holden up and down after that second note, his fingers busied with rolling his sleeves against the heat.
"I don't know what that means," can't possibly come as a surprise. There's something about his exasperation that almost feels performative; like, ah yes, Silas is saying something strange again.
But maybe he isn't being fair. Because he has seen Silas be kind, just not...like this. And, probably, Holden is a lot better at getting on his nerves than a bunch of scared people in need. Which is both a comment on the fact that he knows Silas has a heart, and also that Silas makes no secret of how irritating he can be.
In this moment, though, he raises his eyebrows.
"Was there a particular reason you said that I'd keep in touch?" A beat, then, "Twice."
Silas has paused in the castoff glow from a tavern’s open door, great shutters thrown open to the salt breeze and noisy street. The change in his poise from warfront to Lowtown is dramatic -- he’s clean and sharp, the brittle, prickling fray to his defensive posture buffed right out by a few days of decent rest.
Apparently.
His appraisal of Holden is still a little cool. Arm’s length, even, in spite of a barely-there crook at the corner of his mouth.
“I’d like a drink,” is distinctly not an answer to his question.
He's not the kind of person to pry, as a general rule. But if there's a particular way Silas characterizes himself and his skills, that seems like something not to be discarded.
If he were to be asked for an assessment of the man in front of him, he'd be able to answer easily, and in glowing terms. But a funny thing is that if he just went off conversation — even demeanor — he'd be hard pressed to suggest that this selfsame man actually likes him at all.
Actions speak louder.
He doesn't agree so much as move to follow in the direction of that tavern, accusing without heat, "I think you just enjoy not answering my questions."
“A chaplain,” he amends only once Jim has moved to follow, as if he expects the issue may be one of vocabulary rather than some more nebulous misunderstanding. He doesn’t seem to think it should warrant confusion.
The gods of this world are all impressively awful and that hasn’t stopped anyone from organizing to worship them.
It’s quieter inside than out -- still early for business, in spite of the fading light behind the clouds. There are refugees here, huddled around a few small tables off to one corner, taking advantage of the discounted dregs of yesterday’s stew. Hard to say if Silas’ decision to stop here is coincidence or educated or simply an inevitability in a city bustling with so many displaced civilians.
He indicates a table to his liking by taking a seat on one of the benches bolted down to it.
His first thought is of Anna Volovodov, the preacher who'd been responsible for pretty much all of the former Secretary-General's most instrumental speeches, had seen to exposing Errinwright's treason while the Roci was still in orbit above Io, and followed that up by being an instrumental part of the plan that'd saved all their lives in the slow zone.
His second thought is that Silas and the reverend doctor are probably as different as any two people can be. Then again, maybe not. He'd bet that Anna would be interested in sitting him down for a talk, and would probably come away talking about how much she's had the opportunity to learn.
He sits across from Silas as he considers all of that, this new facet he's learned about. I never took you for religious seems like a stupid thing to say; it's not like the topic has ever come up, amongst aforementioned dream treasons and breakdowns and nug hunters and war.
"Do you miss it?"
Regardless of the specifics of faith, it's not as if, say, the Chantry is known for its tolerance of anyone who isn't a non-magical human born in Thedas. And there is, actually, the point of specifics of faith. All of which to say: it seems like there should be something to miss, be it related to community, or actual vocation.
The love, guidance, and power of his god, namely. Eye contact with the innkeeper sees a pair of tankards brought over in exchange for bronze coin Silas flops ready across the table.
“It’s complicated.”
Predictably, he’d rather drink than elaborate, his tankard lifted and tipped cheers (to what, exactly?) ahead of a long swallow and a steep breath in to match. The only people who catch him in religion are often religious themselves, like occasionally recognizing like. He rarely speaks of it, and there’s certainly no open outward sign. Jimothy Holden, on the other hand:
There's a cant to his head that says something like fair. What isn't complicated, honestly, especially after being ripped out of your life for a completely different world?
He accepts his own tankard with a brief nod of thanks, salutes whatever it is they're saluting, and allows the topic to drop. If Silas wants to tell him, he will. And if not, there's nothing wrong with that. There still feels something of luxury in beer that came from real grain, plants that grew in a full g in natural soil, whatever the taste otherwise. He'd have to be here another few years before he stops comparing to some truly shitty Ceres brews.
The question, though, prompts a snort.
"Command's a funny way of putting it." He doesn't exactly spend a lot of time telling the other three what to do; and they're all able and willing to tell him to fuck off when he errs. Regardless: he shakes his head.
"I miss the crew. And I miss the ship." Which may seem like a paper-thin distinction to what he's being asked, so he takes another swallow and adds, "It was home. For me, and for all of us. Nothing before or since has been the same."
The ale is mediocre, for what it is: lukewarm and dark and a little bitter. Silas drinks deeply enough to have to scrub the back of his hand under his mustache once he places the tankard down, setting the pace or steeling himself or simply wasting no time in flushing alcohol through his system to distance himself from the day.
“Is the title of ‘Captain,’ purely an aesthetic designation?”
His curiosity is genuine, for all that there’s an arch tang to his asking. He doubts it.
He considers that question over the rim of his tankard, wryness flitting across his expression.
"I'm not sure how much I've ever told you about our operation." Which feels strange, now that he says that. Maybe there hasn't been much opportunity for the topic to come up — with him, with anyone, really — but that feels like a lapse. "The Rocinante is usually just crewed by the four of us, counting me. We all have the a quarter share in the ship and split everything equally. We make decisions together."
The thought occurs to him that he's glad Don Quixote doesn't seem to exist in this world; if only because he's positive Silas would never let the reference go if he recognized it.
"If any of the others wanted to be captain, or to find someone else, I'd be the last person to stop them."
Noncomprehension flickers tell-tale through the lines across his forehead. Doubt, a supposition that he must have misunderstood. Four people is more of a bandit crew than a fully-fledged operation. He thinks, fleetingly, to Loxley, Viktor, and their erstwhile paladin. What sort of a ship is only crewed by four people?
“What kind of ship is it?” will have to do -- a compromise between pride and intrigue on short notice.
Commercial? Mercantile? Not mercenary, and -- he looks Holden over as if for the first time, the easy slope of his shoulders, the tilt of his chin -- surely not military.
He isn't wrong. The Roci would be crewed by at least a dozen under normal circumstances; four is barely a skeleton crew. The Martians have had plenty to say about that, and other perceived slights against a ship that started out as theirs.
But it was a legitimate salvage, so they don't get a say. Just the same, they never have and never will dock at a Martian port.
What kind of ship is it? He assumes Corvette-class light frigate isn't the kind of answer that's expected here.
A shrug. "We take jobs from people who could use our help. Sometimes they need the protection of a gunship. Sometimes it's closer to transport, or checking weird shit out before someone might get hurt."
Sometimes it's about hiring the last ship out of Eros to investigate ancient alien structures. But if there's one thing he can be grateful about in Thedas, it's that the protomolecule hasn't followed him out here.
It sounds like a proper noun, confidence underscored by recognition. This list of motley errand classifications coordinated and agreed upon by such a small team rings distinctly familiar.
Why hasn’t Jim ever said so? Come to think of it, why hasn’t he ever said so? He stifles the thought with a long, slow pull at his tankard.
“I’d assumed you had a larger crew.” A knit at his brow fails to flatter.
He cants his head as he takes in that designation, the particular tone to it. What they do isn't so exceptional to a space populated by many ships taking up odd jobs for the cash; but recontextualize to a society fully groundside, and it's not hard to imagine what an analogue would look like. The work out of Riftwatch isn't so terribly different.
"You could say that," he agrees after another drink. "Though the adventures," he guesses, "find us more than the other way around."
And that's the story he's sticking to.
"Does it make a difference to you?"
Recognizing what he does; and, more as a joke, the smaller crew.
There had been a natural kindness about Silas in his handling of refugees -- flinty edges roughed out into a warmer, more lived-in burr, the blue of his eyes friendly. There are traces of that humanity in the fuzzy lines scruffed in around his mouth, the jut of his ears behind a glance that picks around the bones in Holden’s face with all the tender care of a vulture’s beak.
“I’d previously assumed your recurring impulses to martyr yourself were force of habit on behalf of an organization or crew comparable in size to Riftwatch.
“And that your disregard for my perspective was borne of status.”
Presumably as opposed to run of the mill self-importance. His look takes on a shady slant as he reaches away to draw over a bowl of whatever the Thedosian equivalent of mixed nuts happens to be.
There has to be something comedic to the way he opens and closes his mouth, flabbergasted. Whatever he'd been expecting out an answer, it had not, in fact, been this.
One of those comments is easier to address than the other, so what he says is, "You don't think I listen to you?"
Silas squares a nut or seed or chip or cracker at the back of his teeth and crushes slowly down upon it. It’s tough enough to call for a prolonged, grinding chew.
“I don’t take it personally.”
He says so just over the edge of his tankard on the precise delay and with precisely the inflection of someone who has taken it extremely personally.
“When I ask you for your insight, you deflect, when I suggest a course of action or bring a concern to you, you dismiss it. You don’t respect my expertise or trust my intentions. You are continually surprised when I am effectual.”
It’s a small wonder he hasn’t slipped a journal out of his pocket to reference under the table; his hands are occupied with sorting a fistfull of baked snacks into rough order along the wood grain before him. He has not looked up. Small white seeds in darker husks are cast back into the bowl when he finds them.
“I believe you prefer my healing because it is impersonal. You know if I ask questions I will accept being shut out at your convenience.”
What gets to him most, actually, is the way Silas doesn't look at him. Their relationship could never be called warm; weird jabs is pretty much how they communicate. But this is something else. That, and how uncomfortably close the last accusation hits, is more than enough to give him pause. (No wonder Silas had bristled so badly, just outside the smoking ruins of Tantervale — )
He's quiet for a long moment, considers and discards a few answers.
"You're right," he says finally. "I haven't treated you as well as you deserve." And hadn't he just recently worried at Derrica about not just treating her like a convenient source of healing? "And I am sorry. I hope I can prove to you that I trust you, because I do."
Respect, as well. But those are empty things to say; you don't tell someone, you show them.
“I’m aware trust cannot be compelled.” Logically speaking. “I’d thought,” he pauses, as he centers the last nut in the line. He’s not sure what he’d thought. He’s been fortunate in his accrual of benefit of the doubt, with notable exceptions. Barrow, Stark. Gabranth.
It’s hard to say with Poppell.
Some wounds are likelier than others to stay sticky and raw. There’s a wincing twinge through scruffy frown lines, a pinch at his brow. Imagine the level of presumption --
This entire conversation was probably a mistake.
“I just don’t want to be dismissed,” he changes course. “I’m not subordinate to you. And it’s objectively irresponsible besides.” He is very observant, and capable, and wise, his confidence there asserted with a firm look at last.
There are a lot of things he might normally say, here. But it's become clear over the course of this conversation that there's been some fundamental misunderstanding between them, so he only gives Silas a long, steady look.
"What did you think?"
There's another point he's considering how to articulate, but it's secondary, less important than the possibility of getting this (whatever this ends up precisely being) out in the open.
There’s some inherent irony in pressing on someone for locking you out and then being reluctant to elaborate. It’s also natural to withhold from someone who withholds. Stalemate. He’s quiet while he considers further derailment, other directions to dig his heel in. The line of nuts he’s organized calls to him.
But he started it, and Holden’s witnessed him in worse states of embarrassing himself since he arrived here.
“I thought I’d proven myself.”
He’s not offended, just a little sore. Having to say it out loud certainly doesn’t help, even with plenty more that goes without saying -- the list of in spite ofs that includes dreamed treason, conspiracy, an episode in baths he doesn’t entirely recall the details of.
He breathes out, slow. It occurs to him that he'd thought the interview with a person who's lost their home and livelihood would be the only difficult conversation he'd have this evening. Apparently not.
"You don't have anything to prove to me."
Of course Silas doesn't answer to him. The title Captain means nothing here in Thedas, and less now than it ever did. It hadn't occurred to him, then, that his decisions — especially those tangled up in his own well-being — had the power to hurt someone else like this. The thought sits strangely in his mind even as he considers it.
(He's reminded of Laura and her concerns, little as he's ever liked hearing them. He's reminded, a little bit, of Elvi.)
"I never told anyone about that journal," he says in lieu of anything else, "having it or destroying it. I didn't want to ask for your healing, or anyone else's, at Tantervale, when so many people were worse off. This isn't a thing where I'm talking to other people and leaving you out."
Because of a lack of trust, or respect, or anything else. This is a thing where what Silas seems to be getting at, if he's really understanding now, just doesn't come easily to him.
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closed.
They'd departed from the throng of people just beyond city limits maybe ten or so minutes ago. Lowtown bustles around them with increasing intensity the deeper they head back into Kirkwall, quickly overpowering the sounds of the refugee settlement by power of sheer volume. He's already considering how to put the things they'd been told to paper, key points to not forget. Not for the first time, he considers how effortless Monica makes this kind of work look; which is just a testament to how good she is at her job.
"Though," he adds, dry, "People are usually willing to talk even if you don't try to set them up."
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Or witnessed him having a mental breakdown in the baths.
He adds: “I’m not sure what you mean,” to complete the gaslight halo around his turning to look Holden up and down after that second note, his fingers busied with rolling his sleeves against the heat.
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But maybe he isn't being fair. Because he has seen Silas be kind, just not...like this. And, probably, Holden is a lot better at getting on his nerves than a bunch of scared people in need. Which is both a comment on the fact that he knows Silas has a heart, and also that Silas makes no secret of how irritating he can be.
In this moment, though, he raises his eyebrows.
"Was there a particular reason you said that I'd keep in touch?" A beat, then, "Twice."
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It is important.
Silas has paused in the castoff glow from a tavern’s open door, great shutters thrown open to the salt breeze and noisy street. The change in his poise from warfront to Lowtown is dramatic -- he’s clean and sharp, the brittle, prickling fray to his defensive posture buffed right out by a few days of decent rest.
Apparently.
His appraisal of Holden is still a little cool. Arm’s length, even, in spite of a barely-there crook at the corner of his mouth.
“I’d like a drink,” is distinctly not an answer to his question.
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He's not the kind of person to pry, as a general rule. But if there's a particular way Silas characterizes himself and his skills, that seems like something not to be discarded.
If he were to be asked for an assessment of the man in front of him, he'd be able to answer easily, and in glowing terms. But a funny thing is that if he just went off conversation — even demeanor — he'd be hard pressed to suggest that this selfsame man actually likes him at all.
Actions speak louder.
He doesn't agree so much as move to follow in the direction of that tavern, accusing without heat, "I think you just enjoy not answering my questions."
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The gods of this world are all impressively awful and that hasn’t stopped anyone from organizing to worship them.
It’s quieter inside than out -- still early for business, in spite of the fading light behind the clouds. There are refugees here, huddled around a few small tables off to one corner, taking advantage of the discounted dregs of yesterday’s stew. Hard to say if Silas’ decision to stop here is coincidence or educated or simply an inevitability in a city bustling with so many displaced civilians.
He indicates a table to his liking by taking a seat on one of the benches bolted down to it.
“I’m expected to be cordial.”
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His first thought is of Anna Volovodov, the preacher who'd been responsible for pretty much all of the former Secretary-General's most instrumental speeches, had seen to exposing Errinwright's treason while the Roci was still in orbit above Io, and followed that up by being an instrumental part of the plan that'd saved all their lives in the slow zone.
His second thought is that Silas and the reverend doctor are probably as different as any two people can be. Then again, maybe not. He'd bet that Anna would be interested in sitting him down for a talk, and would probably come away talking about how much she's had the opportunity to learn.
He sits across from Silas as he considers all of that, this new facet he's learned about. I never took you for religious seems like a stupid thing to say; it's not like the topic has ever come up, amongst aforementioned dream treasons and breakdowns and nug hunters and war.
"Do you miss it?"
Regardless of the specifics of faith, it's not as if, say, the Chantry is known for its tolerance of anyone who isn't a non-magical human born in Thedas. And there is, actually, the point of specifics of faith. All of which to say: it seems like there should be something to miss, be it related to community, or actual vocation.
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The love, guidance, and power of his god, namely. Eye contact with the innkeeper sees a pair of tankards brought over in exchange for bronze coin Silas flops ready across the table.
“It’s complicated.”
Predictably, he’d rather drink than elaborate, his tankard lifted and tipped cheers (to what, exactly?) ahead of a long swallow and a steep breath in to match. The only people who catch him in religion are often religious themselves, like occasionally recognizing like. He rarely speaks of it, and there’s certainly no open outward sign. Jimothy Holden, on the other hand:
“Do you miss your command?”
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He accepts his own tankard with a brief nod of thanks, salutes whatever it is they're saluting, and allows the topic to drop. If Silas wants to tell him, he will. And if not, there's nothing wrong with that. There still feels something of luxury in beer that came from real grain, plants that grew in a full g in natural soil, whatever the taste otherwise. He'd have to be here another few years before he stops comparing to some truly shitty Ceres brews.
The question, though, prompts a snort.
"Command's a funny way of putting it." He doesn't exactly spend a lot of time telling the other three what to do; and they're all able and willing to tell him to fuck off when he errs. Regardless: he shakes his head.
"I miss the crew. And I miss the ship." Which may seem like a paper-thin distinction to what he's being asked, so he takes another swallow and adds, "It was home. For me, and for all of us. Nothing before or since has been the same."
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“Is the title of ‘Captain,’ purely an aesthetic designation?”
His curiosity is genuine, for all that there’s an arch tang to his asking. He doubts it.
“I get the sense you were well-liked.”
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"I'm not sure how much I've ever told you about our operation." Which feels strange, now that he says that. Maybe there hasn't been much opportunity for the topic to come up — with him, with anyone, really — but that feels like a lapse. "The Rocinante is usually just crewed by the four of us, counting me. We all have the a quarter share in the ship and split everything equally. We make decisions together."
The thought occurs to him that he's glad Don Quixote doesn't seem to exist in this world; if only because he's positive Silas would never let the reference go if he recognized it.
"If any of the others wanted to be captain, or to find someone else, I'd be the last person to stop them."
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“What kind of ship is it?” will have to do -- a compromise between pride and intrigue on short notice.
Commercial? Mercantile? Not mercenary, and -- he looks Holden over as if for the first time, the easy slope of his shoulders, the tilt of his chin -- surely not military.
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But it was a legitimate salvage, so they don't get a say. Just the same, they never have and never will dock at a Martian port.
What kind of ship is it? He assumes Corvette-class light frigate isn't the kind of answer that's expected here.
A shrug. "We take jobs from people who could use our help. Sometimes they need the protection of a gunship. Sometimes it's closer to transport, or checking weird shit out before someone might get hurt."
Sometimes it's about hiring the last ship out of Eros to investigate ancient alien structures. But if there's one thing he can be grateful about in Thedas, it's that the protomolecule hasn't followed him out here.
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It sounds like a proper noun, confidence underscored by recognition. This list of motley errand classifications coordinated and agreed upon by such a small team rings distinctly familiar.
Why hasn’t Jim ever said so? Come to think of it, why hasn’t he ever said so? He stifles the thought with a long, slow pull at his tankard.
“I’d assumed you had a larger crew.” A knit at his brow fails to flatter.
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"You could say that," he agrees after another drink. "Though the adventures," he guesses, "find us more than the other way around."
And that's the story he's sticking to.
"Does it make a difference to you?"
Recognizing what he does; and, more as a joke, the smaller crew.
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“I’d previously assumed your recurring impulses to martyr yourself were force of habit on behalf of an organization or crew comparable in size to Riftwatch.
“And that your disregard for my perspective was borne of status.”
Presumably as opposed to run of the mill self-importance. His look takes on a shady slant as he reaches away to draw over a bowl of whatever the Thedosian equivalent of mixed nuts happens to be.
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One of those comments is easier to address than the other, so what he says is, "You don't think I listen to you?"
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“I don’t take it personally.”
He says so just over the edge of his tankard on the precise delay and with precisely the inflection of someone who has taken it extremely personally.
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not the way to achieve that.
"That isn't my intention," is where he starts, because defensiveness is also not the way to achieve that, and then "When haven't I listened to you?"
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It’s a small wonder he hasn’t slipped a journal out of his pocket to reference under the table; his hands are occupied with sorting a fistfull of baked snacks into rough order along the wood grain before him. He has not looked up. Small white seeds in darker husks are cast back into the bowl when he finds them.
“I believe you prefer my healing because it is impersonal. You know if I ask questions I will accept being shut out at your convenience.”
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He's quiet for a long moment, considers and discards a few answers.
"You're right," he says finally. "I haven't treated you as well as you deserve." And hadn't he just recently worried at Derrica about not just treating her like a convenient source of healing? "And I am sorry. I hope I can prove to you that I trust you, because I do."
Respect, as well. But those are empty things to say; you don't tell someone, you show them.
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It’s hard to say with Poppell.
Some wounds are likelier than others to stay sticky and raw. There’s a wincing twinge through scruffy frown lines, a pinch at his brow. Imagine the level of presumption --
This entire conversation was probably a mistake.
“I just don’t want to be dismissed,” he changes course. “I’m not subordinate to you. And it’s objectively irresponsible besides.” He is very observant, and capable, and wise, his confidence there asserted with a firm look at last.
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"What did you think?"
There's another point he's considering how to articulate, but it's secondary, less important than the possibility of getting this (whatever this ends up precisely being) out in the open.
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But he started it, and Holden’s witnessed him in worse states of embarrassing himself since he arrived here.
“I thought I’d proven myself.”
He’s not offended, just a little sore. Having to say it out loud certainly doesn’t help, even with plenty more that goes without saying -- the list of in spite ofs that includes dreamed treason, conspiracy, an episode in baths he doesn’t entirely recall the details of.
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"You don't have anything to prove to me."
Of course Silas doesn't answer to him. The title Captain means nothing here in Thedas, and less now than it ever did. It hadn't occurred to him, then, that his decisions — especially those tangled up in his own well-being — had the power to hurt someone else like this. The thought sits strangely in his mind even as he considers it.
(He's reminded of Laura and her concerns, little as he's ever liked hearing them. He's reminded, a little bit, of Elvi.)
"I never told anyone about that journal," he says in lieu of anything else, "having it or destroying it. I didn't want to ask for your healing, or anyone else's, at Tantervale, when so many people were worse off. This isn't a thing where I'm talking to other people and leaving you out."
Because of a lack of trust, or respect, or anything else. This is a thing where what Silas seems to be getting at, if he's really understanding now, just doesn't come easily to him.
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