It's a funny thing, the tasks that have fallen onto his to-do list for later. He'd spoken to John of one — of many things, but about this in particular — matter of knives he'd bought from Orzammar. They'd served their purpose of building some goodwill and spending some coin amongst the dwarves, but he'd intended to give the bulk of them to the armory, to Scouting, and some part of him hadn't been willing to until they knew better what happened to Yseult. It wasn't until later that he'd been straightening up his collection of books and found his hands lighting on a copy of The Right of Order, felt the same superstition.
It's a funny thing, that they hardly speak often, but his thoughts kept glancing on the idea of Flint during the invasion. That saying about not noticing something or someone till it's gone, maybe; the Commander's presence had been such a given until it's not, and then impossible not to notice.
The knives are, by now, divided up between his personal possessions and the promised places to go. The book has stayed in his room; it's not such a pressing matter that it immediately comes to mind when he finds out of Flint's safe return.
(Truthfully — he thinks of John first. Every fear he'd spun for Holden in that balcony at Emlyn's, barriers that might have prevented Flint from seeing the Gallows again. He's grateful they could stay fears, and not reality.)
But there's an evening that comes sooner or later, the day hot and dry with a particular vengeance, where Holden knocks at the door of Flint's office, a familiar title in hand.
The man who calls him into the office with a brisk 'Enter,' seems at first glance remarkably unaltered given the length of his absence and the no doubt lurid rumors which must have been circulated during it. Commander Flint and Scoutmaster Yseult have been taken by the Venatori. They have been killed, or worse. Commander Flint, a known Tevene, has been an Imperium collaborator this whole time and has surrendered Yseult to his compatriots in exchange for—Money, land, status, the pleasure of serving his masters in the North? What are the usual reasons? Commander Flint and Scoutmaster Yseult were captured and then went missing. They escaped and are returning. They escaped and have run away together. They were never captured in the first place; this has all been elaborate cover for some secret Riftwatch mission.
And so on.
Yet here is the man sitting in one of the chairs before the office's hearth. He is working by lamplight, the temperature too stifling warm to permit the working of the fireplace. With one foot up on a stool at the other leg balancing a sheaf of papers across his thigh, he looks for all the world as if he simply walked forward through time from some point six-ish weeks prior and found no remarkable thing between this point and that one to be troubled by.
Upon Holden's entrance, he sets his pencil aside on the little side table. There is an open bottle there, a cup with a finger of liquor in it. The papers all resemble work. His eye falls promptly to the book in Holden's possession and then floats back up: expectant.
"Well?"
Well, what do you want? Well, what did you think of it?
what was he expecting to find here? There's a brief moment where he asks himself if he really expected Flint to be any different from any other time they've spoken, in appearance or manner. The answer comes quickly enough: no, he didn't.
So he lets himself in, stops some short distance from where Flint sits by the dark hearth. He says first, wryly,
"I didn't want you thinking I was planning on stealing your books while you were gone."
Because obviously whether or not Holden had any intention of returning something of his was a primary concern, while he was missing. It surely kept him up at night, et cetera. Without any obvious place to set it down, and Flint's hands full, he only gestures with the book still in hand.
"It was a good read," he adds, and, "they all have been. Though you could've mentioned Adamos is dry as fuck."
"I don't recall you asking specifically after light reading."
Flint's nod indicates the mantle above the unlit fireplace as a working bookshelf where the volume might safely set aside. Two other books are in attendance there already, languishing in positions that suggest they were thoughtlessly assigned those posts. A faint layer of dust indicates he must have set them down weeks prior; evidently catching up on an invasion's worth of paperwork has prohibited his return to either what looks to be a somber Steel Age military treatise or the slim volume of Nevarran poetry. Also at home on the mantle: a medium sized and highly average painting of a dark ship lurking in the Kirkwall harbor which resembles the one Commander Flint had allegedly sailed in on and lingers still—neither fully in Riftwatch's possession and neither anything else; an uncorked bottle of the same liquor that must currently be populating the glass in Flint's reach; an array of candles; a heavy brass dog holding down a stack of correspondence.
The papers on Flint's knee are shuffled into some semblance of order but given the lingering shape of his attention on Holden, it isn't in some not-so-subtle attempt to chase his guest off and return to their review. On the contrary; if he could find reason to not acquaint himself with some of the more minute details of the past weeks, he might take it. But given that it's painfully necessary?
A reprieve is better than nothing.
"Though I am surprised that you've had the time to commit to any of it."
They've all been very busy in his and Yuselt's absence.
He nods in turn, something of an okay, fair enough, that doubles as agreement to set the book down on the mantle. He heads over and does so but lingers, intrigued equally by the painting, particularly, and the other titles.
"I've had reason to make time for it."
His fingers slide from the volume by Ventura to linger, briefly, on the spine of the poetry.
And then he turns back towards Flint, adding, "I don't know how much you know about it, but we've got a lot of refugees at our gates from Hasmal and Tantervale, plenty of them originally from Tevinter."
Or maybe Flint's seen, amidst his catching up, certain pamphlets floating around.
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flint.
It's a funny thing, that they hardly speak often, but his thoughts kept glancing on the idea of Flint during the invasion. That saying about not noticing something or someone till it's gone, maybe; the Commander's presence had been such a given until it's not, and then impossible not to notice.
The knives are, by now, divided up between his personal possessions and the promised places to go. The book has stayed in his room; it's not such a pressing matter that it immediately comes to mind when he finds out of Flint's safe return.
(Truthfully — he thinks of John first. Every fear he'd spun for Holden in that balcony at Emlyn's, barriers that might have prevented Flint from seeing the Gallows again. He's grateful they could stay fears, and not reality.)
But there's an evening that comes sooner or later, the day hot and dry with a particular vengeance, where Holden knocks at the door of Flint's office, a familiar title in hand.
no subject
And so on.
Yet here is the man sitting in one of the chairs before the office's hearth. He is working by lamplight, the temperature too stifling warm to permit the working of the fireplace. With one foot up on a stool at the other leg balancing a sheaf of papers across his thigh, he looks for all the world as if he simply walked forward through time from some point six-ish weeks prior and found no remarkable thing between this point and that one to be troubled by.
Upon Holden's entrance, he sets his pencil aside on the little side table. There is an open bottle there, a cup with a finger of liquor in it. The papers all resemble work. His eye falls promptly to the book in Holden's possession and then floats back up: expectant.
"Well?"
Well, what do you want? Well, what did you think of it?
no subject
what was he expecting to find here? There's a brief moment where he asks himself if he really expected Flint to be any different from any other time they've spoken, in appearance or manner. The answer comes quickly enough: no, he didn't.
So he lets himself in, stops some short distance from where Flint sits by the dark hearth. He says first, wryly,
"I didn't want you thinking I was planning on stealing your books while you were gone."
Because obviously whether or not Holden had any intention of returning something of his was a primary concern, while he was missing. It surely kept him up at night, et cetera. Without any obvious place to set it down, and Flint's hands full, he only gestures with the book still in hand.
"It was a good read," he adds, and, "they all have been. Though you could've mentioned Adamos is dry as fuck."
no subject
Flint's nod indicates the mantle above the unlit fireplace as a working bookshelf where the volume might safely set aside. Two other books are in attendance there already, languishing in positions that suggest they were thoughtlessly assigned those posts. A faint layer of dust indicates he must have set them down weeks prior; evidently catching up on an invasion's worth of paperwork has prohibited his return to either what looks to be a somber Steel Age military treatise or the slim volume of Nevarran poetry. Also at home on the mantle: a medium sized and highly average painting of a dark ship lurking in the Kirkwall harbor which resembles the one Commander Flint had allegedly sailed in on and lingers still—neither fully in Riftwatch's possession and neither anything else; an uncorked bottle of the same liquor that must currently be populating the glass in Flint's reach; an array of candles; a heavy brass dog holding down a stack of correspondence.
The papers on Flint's knee are shuffled into some semblance of order but given the lingering shape of his attention on Holden, it isn't in some not-so-subtle attempt to chase his guest off and return to their review. On the contrary; if he could find reason to not acquaint himself with some of the more minute details of the past weeks, he might take it. But given that it's painfully necessary?
A reprieve is better than nothing.
"Though I am surprised that you've had the time to commit to any of it."
They've all been very busy in his and Yuselt's absence.
covers up timestamps ashamedly
"I've had reason to make time for it."
His fingers slide from the volume by Ventura to linger, briefly, on the spine of the poetry.
And then he turns back towards Flint, adding, "I don't know how much you know about it, but we've got a lot of refugees at our gates from Hasmal and Tantervale, plenty of them originally from Tevinter."
Or maybe Flint's seen, amidst his catching up, certain pamphlets floating around.