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.
Silas can’t help but kick up a brow about the necessity of proving as he sees it personally, disagreement diverted into another look down, and then away, to the door.
That’s the nature of human relationships, isn’t it? People get to know each other. Faith has to be earned. It doesn’t matter. This isn’t a philosophical conversation.
“Humans weren’t meant to muddle through hardship alone,” he says, on the subject of the journal. “It’s not healthy.
“As for Tantervale: you and I are extraordinarily positioned to assist in the fight against Corypheus. We have access to resources and abilities refugees do not and are capable of assisting them in ways they can’t assist themselves. Understand that I’ve already run the numbers, so to speak, before I administer healing in the field, and prioritize efficacy over sentiment.
“We’re soldiers.” A pause weighs in before he further clarifies, with an added infusion of patience to back a sympathetic tilt for what he must quantify as understandable confusion: “I didn’t mend your bones because you’re handsome.”
He looks down, now, eyes briefly closing as a smile tugs at his mouth.
"Thanks for the clarification," he says, as if that was really the miscommunication here. And there he thought he could rely on his pretty face to get by in life, et cetera. But he also holds his hands up for a moment, palms out, as he adds, "I can trust your judgment going forward."
Which is, funnily, something he maybe should've known from the dreams. Silas is kind, but also more than strategic, and not at all wasteful. He's more than capable of making decisions with a cool head, no matter what they might be.
And at the place where Holden should, probably, address the last thing — it’s not healthy — he's quiet long enough that it could seem very much like he doesn't intend to say anything else at all.
Just, like, give him a minute.
"I didn't take it well," is said like an admission, "when Naomi left. When it really hit me. I'm trying not to do the same with Amos gone."
Don't tell him how he's doing on that front, thanks.
“Of course,” says Silas, by easy way of you’re welcome before Holden has a chance to get into the meat of the issue. He also drinks.
That is what they came here to do.
His raised hands get a glance -- and a late (but grateful) nod, because this clearly represents a concentrated effort at diplomacy. Holden should trust his judgment going forward. It’s flawless. Or at the very least considered, which is a level of awareness most of Riftwatch struggles to achieve.
He’s expecting it to end there, after a long break and a breath taken in to pave over any remaining gaps in understanding. But Holden speaks first and his eyes fix back on target, keen in the tavern light. A little surprised.
“The trick is to get a cadre of natives attached to you so they’re the only ones at risk of being affected by an unexpected disappearance.”
That — surprises a laugh out of him, actually, boyish and unguarded and unlike the usual brand of quiet humor.
"Shame I never thought of that," he agrees, finally returning to the matter of his own drink. A mark of that very considered decision-making on Silas's part, perhaps, to put them in easy access of alcohol during a conversation that'd make him want a drink. But he sobers as he sets the tankard back down, gives his head a shake.
"I wouldn't want any of them here with how dangerous things are getting," is likely an unsurprising thing for him to say with perfect sincerity. That aforementioned recurring martyr impulse, probably.
Both hands leveled to wedge the line of nuts he’s organized into a pile, Silas crooks a smile to himself at that laugh. Still a little reserved, as snakes in the grass are wont to be, but in improved spirits.
“I’m certain you’re well on your way.”
A pretty face does help there, he salts in with a look.
“In spite of your determination to foil my efforts.” He’s already made some headway on his ale, and makes more now, drinking deep now that the hard part of their being here seems past. And, so as not to rule out further discussion: “Thedas is an unforgiving world.”
The truth comes out at last, and it merits an amused sound somewhere into his next drink of the ale.
"Maybe next time," he promises, one of those easy assurances from the assumption that there won't be one. Or at least that he's not stressed about the possibility. And he doesn't linger on that, particularly with the next thing that's said.
There's a lot that comes to mind, actually, at the thought: not least of which include Derrica's retelling of the Annulment at Dairsmuid and the atrocities that the recent hostilities bred, resurfaced fears from dream treachery-adjacent events. But his thoughts trip over not something he knows, but something he doesn't.
"I don't think I ever asked you what the place you come from is like. How much of an adjustment it's been for you."
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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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That’s the nature of human relationships, isn’t it? People get to know each other. Faith has to be earned. It doesn’t matter. This isn’t a philosophical conversation.
“Humans weren’t meant to muddle through hardship alone,” he says, on the subject of the journal. “It’s not healthy.
“As for Tantervale: you and I are extraordinarily positioned to assist in the fight against Corypheus. We have access to resources and abilities refugees do not and are capable of assisting them in ways they can’t assist themselves. Understand that I’ve already run the numbers, so to speak, before I administer healing in the field, and prioritize efficacy over sentiment.
“We’re soldiers.” A pause weighs in before he further clarifies, with an added infusion of patience to back a sympathetic tilt for what he must quantify as understandable confusion: “I didn’t mend your bones because you’re handsome.”
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"Thanks for the clarification," he says, as if that was really the miscommunication here. And there he thought he could rely on his pretty face to get by in life, et cetera. But he also holds his hands up for a moment, palms out, as he adds, "I can trust your judgment going forward."
Which is, funnily, something he maybe should've known from the dreams. Silas is kind, but also more than strategic, and not at all wasteful. He's more than capable of making decisions with a cool head, no matter what they might be.
And at the place where Holden should, probably, address the last thing — it’s not healthy — he's quiet long enough that it could seem very much like he doesn't intend to say anything else at all.
Just, like, give him a minute.
"I didn't take it well," is said like an admission, "when Naomi left. When it really hit me. I'm trying not to do the same with Amos gone."
Don't tell him how he's doing on that front, thanks.
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That is what they came here to do.
His raised hands get a glance -- and a late (but grateful) nod, because this clearly represents a concentrated effort at diplomacy. Holden should trust his judgment going forward. It’s flawless. Or at the very least considered, which is a level of awareness most of Riftwatch struggles to achieve.
He’s expecting it to end there, after a long break and a breath taken in to pave over any remaining gaps in understanding. But Holden speaks first and his eyes fix back on target, keen in the tavern light. A little surprised.
“The trick is to get a cadre of natives attached to you so they’re the only ones at risk of being affected by an unexpected disappearance.”
He adds (more sincerely) after a beat:
“I’m sorry.”
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"Shame I never thought of that," he agrees, finally returning to the matter of his own drink. A mark of that very considered decision-making on Silas's part, perhaps, to put them in easy access of alcohol during a conversation that'd make him want a drink. But he sobers as he sets the tankard back down, gives his head a shake.
"I wouldn't want any of them here with how dangerous things are getting," is likely an unsurprising thing for him to say with perfect sincerity. That aforementioned recurring martyr impulse, probably.
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“I’m certain you’re well on your way.”
A pretty face does help there, he salts in with a look.
“In spite of your determination to foil my efforts.” He’s already made some headway on his ale, and makes more now, drinking deep now that the hard part of their being here seems past. And, so as not to rule out further discussion: “Thedas is an unforgiving world.”
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"Maybe next time," he promises, one of those easy assurances from the assumption that there won't be one. Or at least that he's not stressed about the possibility. And he doesn't linger on that, particularly with the next thing that's said.
There's a lot that comes to mind, actually, at the thought: not least of which include Derrica's retelling of the Annulment at Dairsmuid and the atrocities that the recent hostilities bred, resurfaced fears from dream treachery-adjacent events. But his thoughts trip over not something he knows, but something he doesn't.
"I don't think I ever asked you what the place you come from is like. How much of an adjustment it's been for you."
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