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[ The collected clatter of the little pieces dumped onto the table top prompts a near roll of her eyes. Yseult perches on the ironwood edge, ankles wound together to stop legs swinging in the air beneath. Her slim silver cigarette case is drawn from a pocket hidden along the seam of her skirt, lighter next, and she busies herself with this for a moment, with the sort of unnecessary focus on a rote task that has often presaged a long and deliberate withdrawal from the discussion.
She blows the first lungful of smoke up toward the ceiling and considers saying nothing, sitting here in petty silence as Flint plays with map markers. She knows she can wait him out; has before more than once in similar games of conversational chicken. She could wait, smoke, review the maps and reports spread around them for an hour, until at some point eventually the bickering resumes. It feels like a waste of time. I'd have thought you of all people would applaud their underhandedness would be a quicker route to the same end. A second lungful follows the first.
She stretches for an ashtray, flicks the cigarette against it twice, and then sits back up and returns it to her lips with a sort of obnoxiously feline ease. But there's no catty smugness in her tone. It sounds, instead, like a concession. ]
Of all the things they might have done behind our backs, this at least blends their goal with ours. The impulse to better mages by contributing more to the war effort instead of undermining or ignoring it seems like one we should encourage.
She blows the first lungful of smoke up toward the ceiling and considers saying nothing, sitting here in petty silence as Flint plays with map markers. She knows she can wait him out; has before more than once in similar games of conversational chicken. She could wait, smoke, review the maps and reports spread around them for an hour, until at some point eventually the bickering resumes. It feels like a waste of time. I'd have thought you of all people would applaud their underhandedness would be a quicker route to the same end. A second lungful follows the first.
She stretches for an ashtray, flicks the cigarette against it twice, and then sits back up and returns it to her lips with a sort of obnoxiously feline ease. But there's no catty smugness in her tone. It sounds, instead, like a concession. ]
Of all the things they might have done behind our backs, this at least blends their goal with ours. The impulse to better mages by contributing more to the war effort instead of undermining or ignoring it seems like one we should encourage.
[ At some point after things have died down, an appointment is made with Yseult by one Tertia, a mage from the North. And, at the appointed time, she comes and knocks on Yseult's door and enters. She's a small girl, an elf, with a timid, unremarkable demeanor that might have made her a decent spy under other circumstances. ]
Messere Scoutmaster? I thought I might introduce myself. You're not busy, are you?
Messere Scoutmaster? I thought I might introduce myself. You're not busy, are you?
No, [ Yseult's desk is stacked with evidence to the contrary, but just at the moment she's setting her pen aside and folding her hands atop the cleared blotter, gesturing Tertia to the chair before the desk with a polite smile. ] You made an appointment.
[ The very faintest lift on the last syllables makes it both statement and invitation to tell her why. ]
[ The very faintest lift on the last syllables makes it both statement and invitation to tell her why. ]
Yes, Messere.
[ Tertia visibly relaxes at the sight of that smile - whether it's genuine or simply polite, it's still a smile. She sits, feet crossed at the ankle, hands in her lap. ]
I am - Perhaps you already know. But I'm with the People of the Silent Plains. We're fighting for abolition, for freeing all the slaves of Tevinter. And I've come for an alliance, and to help you at the same time.
[ Tertia visibly relaxes at the sight of that smile - whether it's genuine or simply polite, it's still a smile. She sits, feet crossed at the ankle, hands in her lap. ]
I am - Perhaps you already know. But I'm with the People of the Silent Plains. We're fighting for abolition, for freeing all the slaves of Tevinter. And I've come for an alliance, and to help you at the same time.
I'll be sure to congratulate them on their forethought somewhere between throwing together routes to deliver the rebels to Vael and my last crossbow bolt.
[He is at the tail end of arranging his markers, having reference a few of the dozen reports scattered to the east of Starkhaven's position on the map to do so. While in the process of righting and placing a few last pieces—]
My point is that this would all have been accomplished in a more organized fashion had they said something before riding off to consult Fiona. That she agreed at all is a stroke of luck, given how little they had in their pockets to offer for the effort.
[He is at the tail end of arranging his markers, having reference a few of the dozen reports scattered to the east of Starkhaven's position on the map to do so. While in the process of righting and placing a few last pieces—]
My point is that this would all have been accomplished in a more organized fashion had they said something before riding off to consult Fiona. That she agreed at all is a stroke of luck, given how little they had in their pockets to offer for the effort.
Madame,
[politely,]
Is there anything in particular I ought look out for in the Mother's chamber?
[politely,]
Is there anything in particular I ought look out for in the Mother's chamber?
[If there is some small chance of confidence snuffed out by that, it's held tight enough not for the disappointment not to be visible. He rights the last of the wooden markers.]
If they can't convince you or I that they won't simply make whatever decisions serve their immediate interests without a thought for anyone else's say in the thing, I don't know how they plan to convince anyone outside of this tower that they're distinct from what is coming from the North.
[Is unfairly broad, and has little to do with their little mage cabal here and this decision. But also isn't, and does. It has little to do with the map they are standing over, either, except for how here are Tevinter's forces massed about Starkhaven.]
If they can't convince you or I that they won't simply make whatever decisions serve their immediate interests without a thought for anyone else's say in the thing, I don't know how they plan to convince anyone outside of this tower that they're distinct from what is coming from the North.
[Is unfairly broad, and has little to do with their little mage cabal here and this decision. But also isn't, and does. It has little to do with the map they are standing over, either, except for how here are Tevinter's forces massed about Starkhaven.]
[ There is surprise in the slow tilt of Yseult's head, the study of something encountered unexpectedly and, perhaps, not entirely trusted for it. For once, she does not point out the hypocrisy of this complaint from him of all people. Instead, she lets a moment settle. ]
I've seen nothing to suggest they believe any such convincing necessary. [ is slower than her average cadence, like she's still churning through something ] They think more of their oppression than their power.
I've seen nothing to suggest they believe any such convincing necessary. [ is slower than her average cadence, like she's still churning through something ] They think more of their oppression than their power.
[It's possible, focused as he is on the study of the pieces he's arranged about Starkhaven, that he doesn't catch the exact subtleties of that slow head tilt. James Flint is an observant man right up until the point that he isn't.]
No, that would require some measure of foresight beyond 'See whether Sebastian Vael will agree to throw every battlemage in the Inquisition on a pyre to defend his city when he has been provided no other options,' [is sharp.
And then, as if he has heard himself or has at least tired of chewing on the bone that is Starkhaven, he blows out a bullish exhale of a breath. When he speaks again, there is more moderation in the thing and some tenor that suggests he's as much thinking aloud as anything while his attention shifts to sorting the reports scattered across the table. Here are the field notes from the western approach, here are the ones from the south—]
Which follows. Outside their war, the breaking of the Circles—violence easily legitimized—we are speaking to the men and women who have been shielded from that reality. What does someone taken from their home as a child and placed inside a tower know of it? They know the cruelties inflicted on them, and that they didn't deserve them. They have been kept, most of them exceedingly poorly, but they have been kept. The rest of the world is just a story, and if you asked them today, I would be shocked if they had more than three months of wages saved between them.
No, that would require some measure of foresight beyond 'See whether Sebastian Vael will agree to throw every battlemage in the Inquisition on a pyre to defend his city when he has been provided no other options,' [is sharp.
And then, as if he has heard himself or has at least tired of chewing on the bone that is Starkhaven, he blows out a bullish exhale of a breath. When he speaks again, there is more moderation in the thing and some tenor that suggests he's as much thinking aloud as anything while his attention shifts to sorting the reports scattered across the table. Here are the field notes from the western approach, here are the ones from the south—]
Which follows. Outside their war, the breaking of the Circles—violence easily legitimized—we are speaking to the men and women who have been shielded from that reality. What does someone taken from their home as a child and placed inside a tower know of it? They know the cruelties inflicted on them, and that they didn't deserve them. They have been kept, most of them exceedingly poorly, but they have been kept. The rest of the world is just a story, and if you asked them today, I would be shocked if they had more than three months of wages saved between them.
And they're too accustomed to being surrounded by those few immune to their power to understand its effect on everyone else.
[ A key point, she thinks, but she sees the one he's making, too. ]
They've never been too hungry for principles. At least not without knowing who was starving them.
[ A key point, she thinks, but she sees the one he's making, too. ]
They've never been too hungry for principles. At least not without knowing who was starving them.
Who isn't? [is his point, made off the cuff as if ignorant to that pause. Maybe he is. There's a lot of paper to sort, some of it apparently nonessential or old enough to be stacked back into the tray it'd originally been hauled up in.]
Even if we were to be generous—say that everyone understands the destructive powers of being mage-blooded. Then everyone understands the utility of that in the field already. [A flick of the fingers toward Starkhaven.] They've been holding that line since the Breach split, and it seems to have made them few friends they didn't have already.
Even if we were to be generous—say that everyone understands the destructive powers of being mage-blooded. Then everyone understands the utility of that in the field already. [A flick of the fingers toward Starkhaven.] They've been holding that line since the Breach split, and it seems to have made them few friends they didn't have already.
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