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."
“Tassia,” he supplies, around a nut he’s partway through thumbing in behind his teeth.
Ronch ronch ronch, a swallow, a run of his tongue, and another sip all feel a little like delay of game while he considers the rest of his answer. There’s nothing slimy or shirking or deceptive to him taking his time, surely.
It’s just a lot to summarize.
“It’s more peaceful, at the surface. And more diverse,” he says, finally. The next nut he’s selected as a papery husk, which he is determined to peel away. “Humans are still the majority. Our world is also spiraling around a fast approaching apocalypse.”
Maybe he shouldn't have expected a man who introduced himself as Richard Dickerson, normal human, to be particularly eager to be forthcoming. But he can be patient; listen at whatever pace Silas wants to go, with whatever he's ready to tell. God knows Jim can count on one hand the number of people he's even alluded to the protomolecule about, even fewer every near-system ending crisis he's ever seen.
He drinks instead of snacking, himself, saying first "I've never understood that. Humans being the majority in a lot of people's worlds."
Area human man thinks that sucks, actually. And then,
"Seriously? You got pulled from one impending apocalypse to another?"
The rake and rustle of Silas’ blunt nails flaking bits of nut paper to the table pauses long enough for him to give Holden a measuring look across the table. He doesn’t understand it either. But it doesn’t take him more than a beat to remind himself of Holden’s scruffy face and the good-natured, world-weary weight about him to be certain of his initial diagnosis.
This is a human.
It’s an assessment Jim can see him making in real time. Then it’s back to snacking.
“We have the advantage of our gods not having fully forsaken us as they have here.” Never overloud, he is still sensible enough to lower his voice an extra notch or two before saying so, what with the muted green glow in his palm currently peppered with bits of black husk. “There are indications in historical texts that the attempted destruction is cyclical and so part of the natural order of our plane.”
The fact of humanity originating from the Sol system, now streaming onto the thousands of habitable planets the Ring gates have opened to them, is that it's impossible for any of them to hide the truth of their childhood. Gravity determines the shape of their bodies, delineating whether or not a person was born down a well, whether they grew up in a dome or under a blue sky.
All this to say: he's both unperturbed and fairly used to looks like the one Silas gives him now, save that the assessment usually concludes, Earther. In the meantime, he agrees to another round at the innkeeper's suggestion, brought and left at the table before Silas starts in on his answer.
And that's something he turns over in his mind, the idea of present gods. Existing gods. It's not a concept he would've been ready to believe when he'd first arrived in Thedas. Now, he thinks back to Silas calling himself a cleric, and what that might have meant for him.
"Attempted destruction," he repeats, also more softly. "So it's been stopped before?"
“It’s difficult to say. The integrity of divisive written history has a way of deteriorating over millennia, particularly with interested parties motivated to destroy or alter available texts.” He nods his approval to the addition of a fresh round. “In accordance with legend, the last party who intervened was destroyed in the process, and we’ve seen evidence of truth in that -- echoes of their spirits left behind in artifacts.”
Ghosts.
“Our primary opposition has suggested we’re disrupting a natural process. But they wear masks. And they don’t have faces beneath them.”
He arches a brow down at his old tankard before he polishes it off.
The pun drives his arched brow down into a furrow, disapproval blackened to his core for a brief but distinct silence. It only ends when he pushes the old tankard away to trade it for the new.
“The certainty of terminus via failure or success makes decisions easier to make, in a way. Here, there’s always the possibility that we might languish on for a while if we’re cautious, clinging to some pathetic semblance of freedom in hiding or filed away into prisons.”
It occurs to him after a moment that he did not bring Holden here to whinge about the world state. He nudges his pile of nuts closer with the back of his hand and shifts the bowl out of the way, granting Jimothy access to the good stuff he’s portioned out for himself. Here.
Success or oblivion sounds pretty fucking bleak, but it's not like he can't follow that logic. Much as he doesn't particularly love that allusion to the dream future, which — is also pretty fucking bleak.
(Good thing they're having this conversation over drinks x2)
But he does accept the peace offering(??) of The Good Nuts, taking a small handful to crunch on, himself. His answer comes at a delay, equal parts chewing and measuring out an answer.
"He sees like a good guy," is agreed, from what he knows of, has seen of, Loxley. And because he can't not respond to the comparison, "You aren't so bad, either, you know."
“I know.” There’s a bittersweet crimp at the corner of his mouth.
It’s unfortunate -- common decency is a real drain on his productivity and well-being. But if he was truly terrible, they wouldn’t be having this conversation. And he definitely wouldn’t be sharing his snacks.
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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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Ronch ronch ronch, a swallow, a run of his tongue, and another sip all feel a little like delay of game while he considers the rest of his answer. There’s nothing slimy or shirking or deceptive to him taking his time, surely.
It’s just a lot to summarize.
“It’s more peaceful, at the surface. And more diverse,” he says, finally. The next nut he’s selected as a papery husk, which he is determined to peel away. “Humans are still the majority. Our world is also spiraling around a fast approaching apocalypse.”
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Maybe he shouldn't have expected a man who introduced himself as Richard Dickerson, normal human, to be particularly eager to be forthcoming. But he can be patient; listen at whatever pace Silas wants to go, with whatever he's ready to tell. God knows Jim can count on one hand the number of people he's even alluded to the protomolecule about, even fewer every near-system ending crisis he's ever seen.
He drinks instead of snacking, himself, saying first "I've never understood that. Humans being the majority in a lot of people's worlds."
Area human man thinks that sucks, actually. And then,
"Seriously? You got pulled from one impending apocalypse to another?"
Yikes!
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This is a human.
It’s an assessment Jim can see him making in real time. Then it’s back to snacking.
“We have the advantage of our gods not having fully forsaken us as they have here.” Never overloud, he is still sensible enough to lower his voice an extra notch or two before saying so, what with the muted green glow in his palm currently peppered with bits of black husk. “There are indications in historical texts that the attempted destruction is cyclical and so part of the natural order of our plane.”
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All this to say: he's both unperturbed and fairly used to looks like the one Silas gives him now, save that the assessment usually concludes, Earther. In the meantime, he agrees to another round at the innkeeper's suggestion, brought and left at the table before Silas starts in on his answer.
And that's something he turns over in his mind, the idea of present gods. Existing gods. It's not a concept he would've been ready to believe when he'd first arrived in Thedas. Now, he thinks back to Silas calling himself a cleric, and what that might have meant for him.
"Attempted destruction," he repeats, also more softly. "So it's been stopped before?"
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Ghosts.
“Our primary opposition has suggested we’re disrupting a natural process. But they wear masks. And they don’t have faces beneath them.”
He arches a brow down at his old tankard before he polishes it off.
Even for a snake, there are red flags.
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"I'm trying to decide if that makes them more or less prepared for a face-off."
Badum-tish. But he goes on, more seriously,
"And that's how you know Loxley? Trying to save your world?"
Loxley with whom, admittedly, he's only passingly familiar.
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“Yes,” he says. “That is how I know Loxley.”
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"I'm sorry. That sounds pretty frightening to deal with."
Mostly — he isn't so buzzed that he isn't concerned about making Silas feel dismissed again.
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Silas drinks.
“The certainty of terminus via failure or success makes decisions easier to make, in a way. Here, there’s always the possibility that we might languish on for a while if we’re cautious, clinging to some pathetic semblance of freedom in hiding or filed away into prisons.”
It occurs to him after a moment that he did not bring Holden here to whinge about the world state. He nudges his pile of nuts closer with the back of his hand and shifts the bowl out of the way, granting Jimothy access to the good stuff he’s portioned out for himself. Here.
“Loxley is better-natured than I am.”
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(Good thing they're having this conversation over drinks x2)
But he does accept the peace offering(??) of The Good Nuts, taking a small handful to crunch on, himself. His answer comes at a delay, equal parts chewing and measuring out an answer.
"He sees like a good guy," is agreed, from what he knows of, has seen of, Loxley. And because he can't not respond to the comparison, "You aren't so bad, either, you know."
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It’s unfortunate -- common decency is a real drain on his productivity and well-being. But if he was truly terrible, they wouldn’t be having this conversation. And he definitely wouldn’t be sharing his snacks.
“I didn’t know you liked puns.”
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