Hip braced against the desk, John catches hold of Flint's hand to interrupt it's trajectory where it might have returned to the arm of the chair.
"Only what I promised to return," John answers, as he draws the braided loop of grass from his pocket with one hand, Flint's hand still clasped in the other. Drier now than it had been, held lightly between John's fingers, but intact.
In the intervening hours since tying it to his wrist, it's become such a delicate thing. It looks like it might come unwound in the fingers if handled too long. Under close examination, he imagines it would be a simple thing to spot the fractures in the drying shoots and where the weaving - done absently, under hands with a lifetime of practice at tying knots but inattentive regardless - is ready to burst open given enough provocation. Its survival depends on being put in a drawer, or wrapped in a handkerchief and stored at the bottom of a chest. It's a thing that will come to hinge on the security of being treated tenderly enough to be forgotten.
In the circle of Silver's fingers, he turns his hand - touches his wrist, thumb to bone.
"Keep it," he says, looking up from the fragile loop. "I wanted you to have it."
To be given even this humble bracelet is different now, when the place it was harvested is destroyed beyond repair. Yes, it is only a small token of grass, woven from a dead woman's garden. It is not bright with magic. It maybe crumble to dust within the month, if John is not careful with it. But there is a weight to it. John has the sense that if Flint had passed over some vital organ the reception of it would strike John to be the same.
The bracelet is turned once, very carefully, between John's fingers before he pockets it.
"I'd thought it might bring you some comfort," John admits quietly. The echo of gratitude comes forward from the place where they'd stood in the dark on a road in Nascere, trading protections against all expected dangers. It writes itself across John's face as he looks down to the hands, Flint's bare wrist.
"It does." From the rough prickle in his voice, he means it in the way a cut drains pressure from a wound does - unglamorous and painful. "That's why."
What is that loop it if not a piece of a place that had already been hammered into a own kind of totem. Nascere was a home built over the image of some other other life. If that loop goes into a desk drawer or the bottom of his sea chest, then it becomes a grave. A relic whose relevance is only to him and the place in which it's been buried.
How exhausting it is to memorialize things. To put them in dark places on the hope that they won't fall apart rather than to live with them.
They are not so far removed from the past where John walked in to the raw, snapping mess of Captain Flint clutching the lifeless body of his quartermaster. John remembers the remove from which he'd considered the tableau, how his mind had spun first to possibility rather than the pain of the man in front of him. But now—
"I am more than content to hold it on your behalf," John tells him, eyes lifting from their clasped hands. The light pressure of Flint's thumb over his pulse occupies some fraction of John's attention, hyperaware even as he watches Flint's expression. "I can't say I'm entirely unconvinced it didn't save my life."
There is a story John could tell. It would even be a true one. But diversion would muddle what feels like the more pressing point between them.
"But I wouldn't want you to—"
John's voice breaks. It is difficult. It is difficult to find the right words when it matters that they are genuine, instead of smoke and distraction.
"I wouldn't want to rob you of something that could ease this."
The sound he makes on exhale is part laugh, part sigh, and part brittle edge crumbling under force.
"I don't think—" The line of his expression smooths then slides crooked again, untethered as if he's missed the hook he meant to hang it on. Trying again: "I don't know that it's a thing to be eased."
He would have been satisfied, he knows, if what had happened in Tevinter over a decade ago had taken a different shape altogether. If Nascere had been folded back under the wing of authority as it had been meant to according to Thomas' (to their) direction. He might even have been in part satisfied by disappearing back into the obscurity of the Imperium under the veil of Ashe's would-be pardon. He would have been a different person, and he wouldn't have known better.
What difference would the dirt those things had been built on matter then?
But it had— by a method of slashing every other part away, come like a limb to be significant. 'Tell me what it's like, being there,' had been the question, and he'd thought less of the blue harbor and more of Nascere's dark red earth. Digging his fingers into it. Planting things.
His grip on John is quiet, gentle even in the press of the thumb. Steady in the way his face isn't.
"It wasn't made for me." That place or the woven loop. What difference does it make. "Take it."
Edited 2020-10-30 00:55 (UTC)
after an embarrassing amount of time futzing around, at last, a paltry tag
Some urge to contradict the sentiment wrestles it's way through John's mind. But what comes to him is by turns too clumsy and too sleekly-crafted, and both are discarded. Neither are acceptable.
The pain here is familiar to John. He recognizes the way it writes itself across Flint's expression, suffusing each word he speaks. The agony of it is nearly a tangible thing, as present as the fever-warm heat of Flint's skin around the trio of claw marks in his side. John's hand lifts to cup Flint's cheek, palm against the bristle of his beard and fingertips settling along his jawline as John looks into his face.
It startles him. Or wrenches at last against something otherwise torn loose and untethered, the crooked lines or his expression flexing briefly as if for a moment, despite his fingers curved at Silver's wrist and every part of this otherwise, he had forgotten to be prepared for any intimate thing beyond being reliably within arm's length of one another. It carves down through the scattered haze of the preceding hours. Silver's fingertips are rough and warm and demand, for at least a split second, his full attention.
Being fixed to any single spot, he realizes, is exhausting.
With an ragged exhale, Flint gives into the curve of John's palm. Let's himself lean into it, winded.
There is nothing but that, for a moment. Conversation narrows to Flint's breathing, the stroke of John's thumb along his cheek, the warmth of Flint's fingers circling his wrist.
John has no platitudes to offer. He cannot promise that all will be well. He can promise Madi and Flint both that they will put this war back together, but that is a different sort of comfort. It falls short, spoken aloud when they're still trying to take stock of what's been lost to them. Whatever he says to the men is a wholly different matter, separate from what he's willing to offer the pair of them.
At a point, it seems as if John means to say something. (Unspoken: Let me ease this, tell me what to say that would staunch this wound. The instinctive certainty that there is something that can be said doesn't fade, despite knowing otherwise.) But he bends carefully, kisses first Flint's brow, and then his mouth.
Any admission even passing close to I don't know what to do is the relief of being gutted—the give of built pressure spilling out of him, all bitter and dark and helpless—, and there is something near to that divulged in how he leans into the shape of John's hand, in the slow and unmeasured quality of their kiss. It doesn't repair anything. It doesn't undo anything. But what a consolation and it is to bleed all of it out to him rather than alone to the dark - equal parts frustrated and wanting to.
For a moment, he breathes against him—the sharp tang of the cheap spirit loud in both their mouths. Then turns his face deeper into John's palm to press his lips to the lines scored (and healed over) there. Slides his fingers higher up his wrist to hook his thumb just under the battered coat cuff. It was just a place. It was just land. It was people and opportunity and the potential for security, but it isn't starting over even if it seems so.
There are other islands, but none of them would ever be Nascere. None of them would have Miranda (Barlow) Hamilton's little house, nor her garden, nor would they have the brothel he and Max gambled their fortunes in. None of them would have the soaked blood of so many pirates and otherwise to bind the land back to them.
John takes the measure of this loss in again and again, redefining it, circling to map out the jagged edges of a raw wound, note how far the pooling blood has spread. (He thinks of waking up to the aftermath of Howell's surgery, limb gone, pain thundering at the edges of his mind and the detached notion that everything he'd ever hoped for had been taken from me along with it.) Flint's mouth at his palm in tandem with the hitch of his fingers up along John's wrist is like a tug at the end of a line; John feels the pull of it in his chest.
I'm truly sorry, John doesn't say. What does that condolence come to?
"Is this better?" softer, some faint unsteady edge in John's voice. Unspoken also: You don't need to say it.
The line of his mouth and the press of his thumb doesn't gentle, but stills. From the palm of his hand, Flint looks at him - some vicious steel point buried in the offcast shale. The lopsided conflict of it must show in his face. No, and it won't be. Yes, because there is some sense of unburdening in the honesty of the thing.
With some sense of drawing disparate pieces together and holding them briefly in a clenched fist, he says—
"Right now," which is the most honest version of it.
An answer they'd traded before, knowing the the measure of comfort or ease in any given moment isn't lasting. But maybe it will make the next day more bearable. (Had that not been so before?) John's fingers curl lightly against his cheek, marking the conflict in Flint's expression and what it gives way to.
"Alright."
Alright to the tune of So we'll make this last, so we'll stay here. Here with Flint's mouth hot against the fading scars of his palm, his thumb over the beat of blood in John's wrist, the bristle of his bread under John's fingers. Alright in the same breath as Whatever you need.
Wait. Just wait and be here like this. Here is an invitation to pause, to linger, to do nothing but breathe warm into the palm of John's hand and allow himself to be some tangled, difficult thing. It would be fine to be arranged this way for an hour or two. For at least a handful of minutes. He has been doing nothing at all for hours, and this is a better reason to continue in that vein than the numb scattering unfocus that has dragged behind him like an anchor since—
Instead, under the curl and scuff of fingers, he asks, "You're not concerned?"
Yes, John is concerned about what happens when they return to Kirkwall. Everything they'd discussed, all their plans, will need to be realigned. The shape of the future they'd wanted is irreversibly altered. The three of them will need to take stock and reconsider the way forward, without the foundation of Nascere to build upon.
But that is no different than the kind of questions he's held in his mind for years now. The parameters have changed. But as to the rest—
"I have no concerns as to our ability to put this back together," John answers softly. He thinks again of Madi lifting the maps from the floor, her face as she'd studied them. His hand drifts, thumb setting against the cut of Flint's jaw as his hand spans his neck.
From beyond the cabin comes the sound of the ship's bell to mark the hour. In another, says something too practiced to be quieted by anything, the watch will change.
He draws back then. It's a small thing—his thumb retreating from under the jacket cuff and the tilt of his face straightening from where he'd been leaning into the press of fingers. It's not a separation. Rather, he takes stock: of the points of contact between them, of John settled against the desk, of the cabin, and the ship's sounds.
After a beat, from out the shadow cast by John's shoulder— "We've been spread too thin."
In turn John's hand shifts further, falling to the bend of Flint's shoulder, thumb set at the line of his collarbone. The slight straightening doesn't take him far, but realigns some minor pressure in his shoulder.
"I know."
Striking the balance between Riftwatch's goals and their own has demanded more than either of them might have anticipated when they'd first arrived in Kirkwall. Taking higher positions hasn't eased that either.
"But going forward we can narrow our focus. And we won't be making our case alone any longer."
John is still of the opinion that Madi's presence will help them, that she'll be able to sway people neither of them will reach.
And what he'd discussed with Petrana will be of use to them, after they'd unspooled it accordingly. All the conversations where they'd considered how to rally people behind them has come to this point, where they've had a demonstration of how many people would follow them out into the world.
For a moment, it's as if he might lapse back into silence under the flat square of John's hand. His thumb is still there, careful across the bend of his wrist—
"We should tell them," is abrupt. "Julius and Averesch. Nell Voss. Rowntree. Put then in a room and clarify what exactly is at their fingertips."
Because he's right; there are two options available to them. They must either narrow the point of their attention, or make use of the numbers at their disposal.
It is abrupt, but John follows the leap in logic. He had been considering it, so it stands to reason Flint's reasoning would follow. They're all three of them considering assets, how best to use what's close at hand. There is a deep inhale, but there isn't a flinch.
He thinks of Petrana, her ash-soft voice in the garden, discussing those same names. He thinks of Flint's thumbs smoothing across his palm as John said, I can see no other purpose for it at this point than to put it to work.
"Madame de Cedoux offered to make introductions for me with Julius and Rowantree," John says, tone even, as his fingers nudge beneath the collar of Flint's shirt. "There's no reason to delay, but I'd like to pursue it with some delicacy."
Measuring that instinct against Petrana's and finding it to be a match, some shared recognition of the value of having some unseen advantage. At the very least, it would be a silent piece of leverage for Flint to wield going forward.
There are circumstances where that is a question with a sharper point; but in these, it's an assessment - re-familiarizing himself with the weight of a tool when forced to hold it in his offhand.
There's no answer for a few moments. John doesn't attempt to school his features into neutrality as he thinks his way through his answer. Flint's skin is warm beneath his palm, pulse steady under the light pressure of John's thumb.
"In the course of my conversation with Madame de Cedoux, we'd considered the benefit of having my capabilities up your sleeve and relatively secret."
And Petrana's agreement had been something of great value to John. It is hard to let go of old habit. Her validation of that instinct had dispelled some uncertainties, steadied. If she recommended Rowantree and Julius, then their discretion can be counted upon. Nell and the surly Averesch, John has less of a read on them.
"Do you believe each of those four capable of holding this information in reserve?"
"I believe that de Cedoux is equally capable when it comes to impressing the importance of secrecy as she is with determining who would warrant having the information in first place."
If she thinks Rowntree is trustworthy enough for the one, then why not the other? And if there is a scraping doubt lurking low in his chest—over giving some part of this away, over the prospect of surrendering total control of the thing and parceling it out—then he forces himself to set it somewhere else for the time being. Full control over something of this magnitude is a luxury which requires more strength than they have.
His pulse is study under John's thumb; his touch at his wrist gentle and meditative either as if he has forgotten its there (and the soft shift if his fingers is by habit) or like he might at some some point look to draw Silver elsewhere.
"What we need is all of them—whichever mages can be trusted with the idea which Van Markham represents—in a room together so they can be encouraged to work out exactly how it serves them best. If we're viewed as little more than messengers by most of the room, it does us no harm. We wouldn't need your part in this to be known to everyone. Not at this stage."
In another room, after another type of disaster, Flint's thumbs had swept along John's palm as he'd cautioned I would only advise that you use this only to the degree that is bearable.
What degree is bearable? To what extent can that be indulged knowing how few cards they have left to play? He recalls Petrana's voice as she spoke of her world, of the embrace of her nature, sets it against what Flint is describing.
The names he's centered on are the same that John had considered inevitable and valuable. Is the urge to stall by degrees a matter of caution, or of a last ditch attempt at self-preservation?
"When we return, let me speak to Rowantree and Julius first," John says slowly, as if working through the steps of an equation, as if easing down steps in the dark, wary of one giving beneath him. "Then we gather the four of them together, assuming the first conversation goes well."
Alongside Petrana, John doesn't see how could it go otherwise. It would serve them better to have a certainty of support from two of the four going in, nevermind that even John would benefit from hearing some specific conversation on what Southern mages desired.
Some minor, restless movement of his fingers at Flint's neck accompanies that train of thought. John looks at him and lets the contact steady him, dispel the uneasy misgivings this course of action sparks. Broaching any aspect of this secret will always feel like a risk. There is no escape from that.
Somewhere low in the lines of him, something near to impatience flickers. But it's folded up, tucked away, and pinned tightly under some heavier thing so that it won't come unexpectedly unreeled.
Instead, after the moment required to manage it, he says, "I expect you'll need to clarify your position to Isaac as well." And, disconnected— "Fabria will need to know what has changed as well. Leander."
Saying it all out loud has a strange way of enforcing how uncontrolled it looks. A sprawling sort of risk, and for what?
He attention fixes suddenly sharper.
"Without a force on Nascere, there is nothing being reinforced by allying with southern mages. We would be doing it just to see it done."
If this business has always been about striking an accord between mages a burgeoning settlement (uprising) in the north, what is its purpose when the latter has been so reduced?
They would arrive at this question one way or another. To pluck at the disparate pieces of their plans, trying to fit them back together, would inevitably require considering what accomplishment they are attempting to bolster.
John's aware of his own short-sightedness. Yes, the support of the southern mages would be a boon for Flint. There is no mage among the division heads, and to channel their support would give Flint some latitude, some ease with which to determine the direction of Riftwatch's efforts. But what lies beyond that?
"There is some benefit in their support," John says slowly. Yes, he is thinking of the risk. Dividing up a well-kept secret among people he knows little of and trusts less weighs on him. But the potential—
"To my mind, extending a hand to Tevene slaves and rebels goes easier when we have the support of the nearest southern equivalent."
No, there was nothing to reinforce. Not anymore. But there may someday be some foothold they would need to hold. They may as well gather who they can in the meantime to set against that. His hand shifts as he speaks, fingers settling at the nape of his neck, thumb slipping along Flint's throat.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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"Only what I promised to return," John answers, as he draws the braided loop of grass from his pocket with one hand, Flint's hand still clasped in the other. Drier now than it had been, held lightly between John's fingers, but intact.
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In the circle of Silver's fingers, he turns his hand - touches his wrist, thumb to bone.
"Keep it," he says, looking up from the fragile loop. "I wanted you to have it."
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The bracelet is turned once, very carefully, between John's fingers before he pockets it.
"I'd thought it might bring you some comfort," John admits quietly. The echo of gratitude comes forward from the place where they'd stood in the dark on a road in Nascere, trading protections against all expected dangers. It writes itself across John's face as he looks down to the hands, Flint's bare wrist.
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What is that loop it if not a piece of a place that had already been hammered into a own kind of totem. Nascere was a home built over the image of some other other life. If that loop goes into a desk drawer or the bottom of his sea chest, then it becomes a grave. A relic whose relevance is only to him and the place in which it's been buried.
How exhausting it is to memorialize things. To put them in dark places on the hope that they won't fall apart rather than to live with them.
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"I am more than content to hold it on your behalf," John tells him, eyes lifting from their clasped hands. The light pressure of Flint's thumb over his pulse occupies some fraction of John's attention, hyperaware even as he watches Flint's expression. "I can't say I'm entirely unconvinced it didn't save my life."
There is a story John could tell. It would even be a true one. But diversion would muddle what feels like the more pressing point between them.
"But I wouldn't want you to—"
John's voice breaks. It is difficult. It is difficult to find the right words when it matters that they are genuine, instead of smoke and distraction.
"I wouldn't want to rob you of something that could ease this."
no subject
"I don't think—" The line of his expression smooths then slides crooked again, untethered as if he's missed the hook he meant to hang it on. Trying again: "I don't know that it's a thing to be eased."
He would have been satisfied, he knows, if what had happened in Tevinter over a decade ago had taken a different shape altogether. If Nascere had been folded back under the wing of authority as it had been meant to according to Thomas' (to their) direction. He might even have been in part satisfied by disappearing back into the obscurity of the Imperium under the veil of Ashe's would-be pardon. He would have been a different person, and he wouldn't have known better.
What difference would the dirt those things had been built on matter then?
But it had— by a method of slashing every other part away, come like a limb to be significant. 'Tell me what it's like, being there,' had been the question, and he'd thought less of the blue harbor and more of Nascere's dark red earth. Digging his fingers into it. Planting things.
His grip on John is quiet, gentle even in the press of the thumb. Steady in the way his face isn't.
"It wasn't made for me." That place or the woven loop. What difference does it make. "Take it."
after an embarrassing amount of time futzing around, at last, a paltry tag
The pain here is familiar to John. He recognizes the way it writes itself across Flint's expression, suffusing each word he speaks. The agony of it is nearly a tangible thing, as present as the fever-warm heat of Flint's skin around the trio of claw marks in his side. John's hand lifts to cup Flint's cheek, palm against the bristle of his beard and fingertips settling along his jawline as John looks into his face.
it's gr8 10/10
Being fixed to any single spot, he realizes, is exhausting.
With an ragged exhale, Flint gives into the curve of John's palm. Let's himself lean into it, winded.
no subject
John has no platitudes to offer. He cannot promise that all will be well. He can promise Madi and Flint both that they will put this war back together, but that is a different sort of comfort. It falls short, spoken aloud when they're still trying to take stock of what's been lost to them. Whatever he says to the men is a wholly different matter, separate from what he's willing to offer the pair of them.
At a point, it seems as if John means to say something. (Unspoken: Let me ease this, tell me what to say that would staunch this wound. The instinctive certainty that there is something that can be said doesn't fade, despite knowing otherwise.) But he bends carefully, kisses first Flint's brow, and then his mouth.
no subject
For a moment, he breathes against him—the sharp tang of the cheap spirit loud in both their mouths. Then turns his face deeper into John's palm to press his lips to the lines scored (and healed over) there. Slides his fingers higher up his wrist to hook his thumb just under the battered coat cuff. It was just a place. It was just land. It was people and opportunity and the potential for security, but it isn't starting over even if it seems so.
(It doesn't undo anything.)
no subject
John takes the measure of this loss in again and again, redefining it, circling to map out the jagged edges of a raw wound, note how far the pooling blood has spread. (He thinks of waking up to the aftermath of Howell's surgery, limb gone, pain thundering at the edges of his mind and the detached notion that everything he'd ever hoped for had been taken from me along with it.) Flint's mouth at his palm in tandem with the hitch of his fingers up along John's wrist is like a tug at the end of a line; John feels the pull of it in his chest.
I'm truly sorry, John doesn't say. What does that condolence come to?
"Is this better?" softer, some faint unsteady edge in John's voice. Unspoken also: You don't need to say it.
no subject
With some sense of drawing disparate pieces together and holding them briefly in a clenched fist, he says—
"Right now," which is the most honest version of it.
no subject
"Alright."
Alright to the tune of So we'll make this last, so we'll stay here. Here with Flint's mouth hot against the fading scars of his palm, his thumb over the beat of blood in John's wrist, the bristle of his bread under John's fingers. Alright in the same breath as Whatever you need.
no subject
Instead, under the curl and scuff of fingers, he asks, "You're not concerned?"
no subject
Yes, John is concerned about what happens when they return to Kirkwall. Everything they'd discussed, all their plans, will need to be realigned. The shape of the future they'd wanted is irreversibly altered. The three of them will need to take stock and reconsider the way forward, without the foundation of Nascere to build upon.
But that is no different than the kind of questions he's held in his mind for years now. The parameters have changed. But as to the rest—
"I have no concerns as to our ability to put this back together," John answers softly. He thinks again of Madi lifting the maps from the floor, her face as she'd studied them. His hand drifts, thumb setting against the cut of Flint's jaw as his hand spans his neck.
no subject
He draws back then. It's a small thing—his thumb retreating from under the jacket cuff and the tilt of his face straightening from where he'd been leaning into the press of fingers. It's not a separation. Rather, he takes stock: of the points of contact between them, of John settled against the desk, of the cabin, and the ship's sounds.
After a beat, from out the shadow cast by John's shoulder— "We've been spread too thin."
no subject
"I know."
Striking the balance between Riftwatch's goals and their own has demanded more than either of them might have anticipated when they'd first arrived in Kirkwall. Taking higher positions hasn't eased that either.
"But going forward we can narrow our focus. And we won't be making our case alone any longer."
John is still of the opinion that Madi's presence will help them, that she'll be able to sway people neither of them will reach.
And what he'd discussed with Petrana will be of use to them, after they'd unspooled it accordingly. All the conversations where they'd considered how to rally people behind them has come to this point, where they've had a demonstration of how many people would follow them out into the world.
no subject
"We should tell them," is abrupt. "Julius and Averesch. Nell Voss. Rowntree. Put then in a room and clarify what exactly is at their fingertips."
Because he's right; there are two options available to them. They must either narrow the point of their attention, or make use of the numbers at their disposal.
no subject
He thinks of Petrana, her ash-soft voice in the garden, discussing those same names. He thinks of Flint's thumbs smoothing across his palm as John said, I can see no other purpose for it at this point than to put it to work.
"Madame de Cedoux offered to make introductions for me with Julius and Rowantree," John says, tone even, as his fingers nudge beneath the collar of Flint's shirt. "There's no reason to delay, but I'd like to pursue it with some delicacy."
Measuring that instinct against Petrana's and finding it to be a match, some shared recognition of the value of having some unseen advantage. At the very least, it would be a silent piece of leverage for Flint to wield going forward.
no subject
There are circumstances where that is a question with a sharper point; but in these, it's an assessment - re-familiarizing himself with the weight of a tool when forced to hold it in his offhand.
(Or while under the scuff of fingertips.)
no subject
"In the course of my conversation with Madame de Cedoux, we'd considered the benefit of having my capabilities up your sleeve and relatively secret."
And Petrana's agreement had been something of great value to John. It is hard to let go of old habit. Her validation of that instinct had dispelled some uncertainties, steadied. If she recommended Rowantree and Julius, then their discretion can be counted upon. Nell and the surly Averesch, John has less of a read on them.
"Do you believe each of those four capable of holding this information in reserve?"
no subject
If she thinks Rowntree is trustworthy enough for the one, then why not the other? And if there is a scraping doubt lurking low in his chest—over giving some part of this away, over the prospect of surrendering total control of the thing and parceling it out—then he forces himself to set it somewhere else for the time being. Full control over something of this magnitude is a luxury which requires more strength than they have.
His pulse is study under John's thumb; his touch at his wrist gentle and meditative either as if he has forgotten its there (and the soft shift if his fingers is by habit) or like he might at some some point look to draw Silver elsewhere.
"What we need is all of them—whichever mages can be trusted with the idea which Van Markham represents—in a room together so they can be encouraged to work out exactly how it serves them best. If we're viewed as little more than messengers by most of the room, it does us no harm. We wouldn't need your part in this to be known to everyone. Not at this stage."
no subject
What degree is bearable? To what extent can that be indulged knowing how few cards they have left to play? He recalls Petrana's voice as she spoke of her world, of the embrace of her nature, sets it against what Flint is describing.
The names he's centered on are the same that John had considered inevitable and valuable. Is the urge to stall by degrees a matter of caution, or of a last ditch attempt at self-preservation?
"When we return, let me speak to Rowantree and Julius first," John says slowly, as if working through the steps of an equation, as if easing down steps in the dark, wary of one giving beneath him. "Then we gather the four of them together, assuming the first conversation goes well."
Alongside Petrana, John doesn't see how could it go otherwise. It would serve them better to have a certainty of support from two of the four going in, nevermind that even John would benefit from hearing some specific conversation on what Southern mages desired.
Some minor, restless movement of his fingers at Flint's neck accompanies that train of thought. John looks at him and lets the contact steady him, dispel the uneasy misgivings this course of action sparks. Broaching any aspect of this secret will always feel like a risk. There is no escape from that.
no subject
Instead, after the moment required to manage it, he says, "I expect you'll need to clarify your position to Isaac as well." And, disconnected— "Fabria will need to know what has changed as well. Leander."
Saying it all out loud has a strange way of enforcing how uncontrolled it looks. A sprawling sort of risk, and for what?
He attention fixes suddenly sharper.
"Without a force on Nascere, there is nothing being reinforced by allying with southern mages. We would be doing it just to see it done."
If this business has always been about striking an accord between mages a burgeoning settlement (uprising) in the north, what is its purpose when the latter has been so reduced?
no subject
John's aware of his own short-sightedness. Yes, the support of the southern mages would be a boon for Flint. There is no mage among the division heads, and to channel their support would give Flint some latitude, some ease with which to determine the direction of Riftwatch's efforts. But what lies beyond that?
"There is some benefit in their support," John says slowly. Yes, he is thinking of the risk. Dividing up a well-kept secret among people he knows little of and trusts less weighs on him. But the potential—
"To my mind, extending a hand to Tevene slaves and rebels goes easier when we have the support of the nearest southern equivalent."
No, there was nothing to reinforce. Not anymore. But there may someday be some foothold they would need to hold. They may as well gather who they can in the meantime to set against that. His hand shifts as he speaks, fingers settling at the nape of his neck, thumb slipping along Flint's throat.
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