You know, I don't think "big clock" is on the list, but we could always pitch it as a service to Kirkwall if we face it toward town.
Sometime in the week following the collapse of the mage tower and the assault on Kirkwall, Flint surfaces in whatever space has been set aside for Cosima's office in the interim of conducting repairs in the central tower.
It's late in the day, but that's can't be too significant an imposition. They have all been keeping irregular hours.]
Provost.
It's late in the day, but that's can't be too significant an imposition. They have all been keeping irregular hours.]
Provost.
[She looks tired, but no more than anyone else. She's been pitching in wherever she can, and when she's not needed, making notes about what to replace if it can't be salvaged and considering ways to do without what can't be replaced. She's working on the latter when he stops by, but looks up readily enough.]
...Commander. How can I help?
...Commander. How can I help?
[For his part, Flint shares in that air of overwork. Tired. Grit under the fingernails. Something slightly taut about the eyes that suggests he's spent the last ten hours squinting either against the sun or skeptically as someone.
Let's assume there's a door here wherever Cosima has posted up. He pulls it shut behind him, but doesn't move to make himself more comfortable than that. Evidently he intends this to be a brief, but private, conversation.]
It's something of a reverse case. I've made the decision to take the Walrus and its crew north to assist the rebels directly.
[Straight to the point.]
Obviously these are less than ideal circumstances to leave the Gallows in, but I cared to give my vote of confidence regarding Barrow and Roundtree directly. If there's something you need of Forces, the pair of them should prove reliable.
Let's assume there's a door here wherever Cosima has posted up. He pulls it shut behind him, but doesn't move to make himself more comfortable than that. Evidently he intends this to be a brief, but private, conversation.]
It's something of a reverse case. I've made the decision to take the Walrus and its crew north to assist the rebels directly.
[Straight to the point.]
Obviously these are less than ideal circumstances to leave the Gallows in, but I cared to give my vote of confidence regarding Barrow and Roundtree directly. If there's something you need of Forces, the pair of them should prove reliable.
[There's a small pause as she processes this information.]
...right. Jesus. Okay.
[If it were a standard field mission, he wouldn't be telling her this way. Wouldn't be earmarking who can help, either. It's not as if he has to fully paint a picture. For a moment, she almost is ready to leave it there; it's not as if she expects to change his mind. But on the other hand, if he's leaving:
Can I ask you something? Straight answer.
...right. Jesus. Okay.
[If it were a standard field mission, he wouldn't be telling her this way. Wouldn't be earmarking who can help, either. It's not as if he has to fully paint a picture. For a moment, she almost is ready to leave it there; it's not as if she expects to change his mind. But on the other hand, if he's leaving:
Can I ask you something? Straight answer.
Do you think we're done? Riftwatch. Not ... Look, I'm going to keep fighting Corypheus and the Venatori as long as I'm alive to fight them. I think that's true for a lot of the people here. But there's a lot of people fighting in a lot of places and in a lot of ways. Do you think Barrow and Rowntree can take care of what I need, or are you leaving because you think we can't do anything especially useful anymore and fuck it, the two of them are as good as anyone under those circumstances?
[Quiet. Focused.]
[Quiet. Focused.]
[It's as good a question as any. From the man's broadly unflinching bearing, it may even be the question he has been more or less anticipating. If not from Cosima, then certainly from any number of the rest of the company.
(It is why he will suggest, either to her or to one of the other Division Heads, that they make no great announcement of his leaving on anything but ordinary fieldwork until the position has been filled with a substitute. Under the current circumstances, it might cause a kind of needless anxiety.)]
What I think, [he says.] Is that Riftwatch is as relevant as it ever has been, but that it is rapidly approaching the point that it will need to make difficult decisions with respect to which of its friends it best wishes to please. I'm choosing to believe it will fall on the side of those who would see the cast offs of the Imperium treated with some dignity rather than trampled under the foot of the March.
Which is why I'm going now. It will mean more to the people there to make the effort when they're at their most vulnerable, and Kirkwall at its weakest.
(It is why he will suggest, either to her or to one of the other Division Heads, that they make no great announcement of his leaving on anything but ordinary fieldwork until the position has been filled with a substitute. Under the current circumstances, it might cause a kind of needless anxiety.)]
What I think, [he says.] Is that Riftwatch is as relevant as it ever has been, but that it is rapidly approaching the point that it will need to make difficult decisions with respect to which of its friends it best wishes to please. I'm choosing to believe it will fall on the side of those who would see the cast offs of the Imperium treated with some dignity rather than trampled under the foot of the March.
Which is why I'm going now. It will mean more to the people there to make the effort when they're at their most vulnerable, and Kirkwall at its weakest.
backtagging after the official announcement like a rebel
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
youwonscience
2024-04-14 05:12 pm (UTC)(link)
[It's not a very satisfying answer, but it seems like an honest one. Not because she thinks Flint incapable of lying to her, but because she doesn't see any particular reason he needs to at present. It's not like she's going to stop him going, and he doesn't seem the kind to sugarcoat.]
Well, you've made your choice to remove yourself from what we do next. But thanks anyway, for an honest answer. I think everyone knows I've never been team Chantry, whatever happens next, but it's going to be...
[She breaks off. She's going to talk herself in circles, probably, if she starts picking at the threads he's left by ripping himself out of Riftwatch. That conversation probably does need to happen but it won't be with Flint himself. At least not productively. Instead, she asks:]
When are you leaving?
Well, you've made your choice to remove yourself from what we do next. But thanks anyway, for an honest answer. I think everyone knows I've never been team Chantry, whatever happens next, but it's going to be...
[She breaks off. She's going to talk herself in circles, probably, if she starts picking at the threads he's left by ripping himself out of Riftwatch. That conversation probably does need to happen but it won't be with Flint himself. At least not productively. Instead, she asks:]
When are you leaving?
As soon as the Walrus can be supplied and the crew recalled. A week, at most. Less than, if it can be managed.
[This too is a blunt arrangement of facts, though it allows for the opportunity to add—]
I recommend it be kept quiet to some degree until things settle here. If news of my going spreads, there will be people here who may see more sense in going with. I don't much care to rob Riftwatch's ranks.
[More than he is already, in any case.
(He doesn't say 'You're welcome,' but maybe it's implied in his bearing.)]
[This too is a blunt arrangement of facts, though it allows for the opportunity to add—]
I recommend it be kept quiet to some degree until things settle here. If news of my going spreads, there will be people here who may see more sense in going with. I don't much care to rob Riftwatch's ranks.
[More than he is already, in any case.
(He doesn't say 'You're welcome,' but maybe it's implied in his bearing.)]
Yeah. I assume you've talked with the Scoutmaster or you're going to.
[As much as he's presenting not taking even more of Riftwatch with him as a gift, Cosima can imagine how much Yseult won't see it that way. Not that Cosima plans to try to parse, now or ever, Flint and Yseult's working relationship.]
Look, I'm not going to pretend I'm thrilled. But you're going to do what you're going to do, and we'll figure it out. I appreciate you not just leaving without a word, I guess.
[As much as he's presenting not taking even more of Riftwatch with him as a gift, Cosima can imagine how much Yseult won't see it that way. Not that Cosima plans to try to parse, now or ever, Flint and Yseult's working relationship.]
Look, I'm not going to pretend I'm thrilled. But you're going to do what you're going to do, and we'll figure it out. I appreciate you not just leaving without a word, I guess.
action; also some reasonable amount of time after the attack
portalling
2024-04-29 09:33 pm (UTC)(link)
The work is frankly never-ending, and they were both busy even before the Gallows fell down around their heads.
And today has been a long day for Stephen Strange, tromping all around Kirkwall trying to barter more seeds for the infirmary with vanishingly low returns, feeling a knot of tension sinking into his spine and shoulders. There’s too much to do and not enough hands to do it, and he might have continued on this track, except that he was in town and looked contemplatively through the surviving window of a wine merchant, and some distant distracted thoughts finally clicked together and he made a decision.
Later that evening, the central tower having made it through mostly unscathed, he has a fairly good idea where to find the Provost. Unlike other times he’s swung by — more reports for Cosima’s desk, requests for supplies, rundowns of whatever injuries their local hired hands have tripped into while working on reconstruction — today he’s carrying a bottle of red wine.
“You need a break,” Stephen announces, without even waiting for an acknowledgment or a hello. “Also, because with everything happening— I realised we missed your birthday this year.”
And today has been a long day for Stephen Strange, tromping all around Kirkwall trying to barter more seeds for the infirmary with vanishingly low returns, feeling a knot of tension sinking into his spine and shoulders. There’s too much to do and not enough hands to do it, and he might have continued on this track, except that he was in town and looked contemplatively through the surviving window of a wine merchant, and some distant distracted thoughts finally clicked together and he made a decision.
Later that evening, the central tower having made it through mostly unscathed, he has a fairly good idea where to find the Provost. Unlike other times he’s swung by — more reports for Cosima’s desk, requests for supplies, rundowns of whatever injuries their local hired hands have tripped into while working on reconstruction — today he’s carrying a bottle of red wine.
“You need a break,” Stephen announces, without even waiting for an acknowledgment or a hello. “Also, because with everything happening— I realised we missed your birthday this year.”
It's clear when she first looks up, she's expecting him to need something. It's probably the way he looks up, most of the time, when people come to find him. But when she sees the wine and then registers what he says, her expression shifts to something surprised and maybe even a little bit touched.
"Oh wow, that's ... that's very cool of you, thanks. As long as you don't ask me how old I am, because with rift stuff I sincerely don't know how to answer that." She glances at the materials she'd been sorting through and, definitively, sets them aside. She and Stephen can steal an hour. They're neither of them going to do anyone much good fully burnt out, she reasons.
Opening a drawer, she fishes out the iPhone. "If we're going to unwind, I think it calls for a little randomly selected mood music." She taps it and a few odd sounds resolve into a guitar. "...not the most festive, but it'll do."
"Oh wow, that's ... that's very cool of you, thanks. As long as you don't ask me how old I am, because with rift stuff I sincerely don't know how to answer that." She glances at the materials she'd been sorting through and, definitively, sets them aside. She and Stephen can steal an hour. They're neither of them going to do anyone much good fully burnt out, she reasons.
Opening a drawer, she fishes out the iPhone. "If we're going to unwind, I think it calls for a little randomly selected mood music." She taps it and a few odd sounds resolve into a guitar. "...not the most festive, but it'll do."
“Join the club. It’s a logistical nightmare on Earth for all of us who came back: half of the planet with birthdates that don’t match their actual subjective age. High school kids whose best friends and girlfriends are now five years older than them and already graduated. The last I heard, they were thinking of amending drivers’ licenses and state IDs and passports to note if someone had been through the Blip, to explain that age discrepancy, but others were up in arms about the privacy issues and—”
And that’s an entire world away, and irrelevant here besides. Stephen has a tendency to go on forever if someone lets him, but he cuts himself off, pulling up a chair and setting down the bottle. “Anyway, point being, age is relative. Do you have any glasses?”
And that’s an entire world away, and irrelevant here besides. Stephen has a tendency to go on forever if someone lets him, but he cuts himself off, pulling up a chair and setting down the bottle. “Anyway, point being, age is relative. Do you have any glasses?”
"I have a couple of tea cups, if that won't offend your sensibilities?" She gets up to fetch the aforementioned, one from a shelf and the other from a window ledge. Both are clean; she'd meant to take them back down to the kitchens and forgot, but now it's paid off.
"God, that had to be wild for ... there's only a handful of us rifters, it's hard to imagine half the world." Sobering, to try. She admires that he's come out the other side of that plus Thedas so functional. "On the upside," to keep things from getting too heavy when he'd come explicitly to suggest they take a break, "I can just skip any sort of unanticipated existential crisis about turning 40, so that's a whole thing to not worry about anymore." Definitely a joke.
"God, that had to be wild for ... there's only a handful of us rifters, it's hard to imagine half the world." Sobering, to try. She admires that he's come out the other side of that plus Thedas so functional. "On the upside," to keep things from getting too heavy when he'd come explicitly to suggest they take a break, "I can just skip any sort of unanticipated existential crisis about turning 40, so that's a whole thing to not worry about anymore." Definitely a joke.
“I’d resigned myself to drinking out of the bottle like undergrads if we had to, so tea cups are fine,” Stephen says, prying open the wine bottle while she rummages.
And the corner of his mouth twitches into a smile as Cosima sets down the cups and he starts to pour. “So, hypothetically, you could just choose ‘thirty-something’ and stick with it indefinitely. A good enough approach. I wound up semi-arbitrarily deciding on a number just because I hate not knowing. Guess we’re lucky enough that the Thedosian calendar even lines up right with twelve months.”
There’s a small beat, thinking it over before he decides to offer this piece of himself, small enough as it is. The former Provost had it and he should probably learn to be less cagey overall, so: “Mine’s November-slash-Firstfall 18th, by the way. I expect a gift card.”
Just kidding.
And the corner of his mouth twitches into a smile as Cosima sets down the cups and he starts to pour. “So, hypothetically, you could just choose ‘thirty-something’ and stick with it indefinitely. A good enough approach. I wound up semi-arbitrarily deciding on a number just because I hate not knowing. Guess we’re lucky enough that the Thedosian calendar even lines up right with twelve months.”
There’s a small beat, thinking it over before he decides to offer this piece of himself, small enough as it is. The former Provost had it and he should probably learn to be less cagey overall, so: “Mine’s November-slash-Firstfall 18th, by the way. I expect a gift card.”
Just kidding.
"Ah, a Scorpio," is delivered archly enough to definitely be a joke, even before she adds: "You know, I've never met a rifter sincerely into astrology, at least who's brought it up. I wonder if they'd argue that the signs map to the corresponding months in Thedas, or if they'd have to come up with an entirely new world view to account for anyone not born on an Earth. Thanks." She takes her cup of wine when he finishes pouring.
"Horoscopes aside, maybe I should collect all the Research birthdays. Introduce my native world concept of awkward forced socializing with the people you work with over cake." It's thoughtful enough it sounds like she might do it. (At least the collecting birthdays part, 50-50 on the cake.)
"Horoscopes aside, maybe I should collect all the Research birthdays. Introduce my native world concept of awkward forced socializing with the people you work with over cake." It's thoughtful enough it sounds like she might do it. (At least the collecting birthdays part, 50-50 on the cake.)
“I asked Tony once if there were other corresponding signs in Thedas, like if Scorpio is translated into being the Golden Nug or something, but he didn’t know. We’ll presumably have to ask around.”
Stephen clinks his cup against Cosima’s, taking a sip of the wine; it’s not eye-wateringly expensive but it’s good enough, his own finicky standards preventing him from settling for the cheap stuff. He considers the idea of collecting everyone’s birthdays; even he wants their approximate ages, at the least, for the infirmary’s medical records.
“I can’t tell if keeping track would make you a beloved division head and get you a Best Boss mug,” he adds, “or if it’d piss everyone off. Recordkeeping, familial literacy, adoptions… it might be a sore point if they don’t know their birthday.”
He remembers how cagey Gwenaëlle had been about it, and how he still doesn’t know hers. (And that sparks another faint thought in the back of his mind, but it needs a little time to percolate.)
Stephen clinks his cup against Cosima’s, taking a sip of the wine; it’s not eye-wateringly expensive but it’s good enough, his own finicky standards preventing him from settling for the cheap stuff. He considers the idea of collecting everyone’s birthdays; even he wants their approximate ages, at the least, for the infirmary’s medical records.
“I can’t tell if keeping track would make you a beloved division head and get you a Best Boss mug,” he adds, “or if it’d piss everyone off. Recordkeeping, familial literacy, adoptions… it might be a sore point if they don’t know their birthday.”
He remembers how cagey Gwenaëlle had been about it, and how he still doesn’t know hers. (And that sparks another faint thought in the back of his mind, but it needs a little time to percolate.)
"Good point. Maybe make it opt in. Cake on your birthday if you want it, and then we just pick some random day in the gaps to be the joint party for everyone who doesn't want or have a specific day." She smiles a bit, and adds, "Somebody... I think it was Bastien? Suggested rifters should celebrate their 'rift day.' Anniversary of when they came through to Thedas. But I'd still be a mess because I have two."
She takes another (appreciative) sip.
"Anyway. How have you been hanging in? We've all had a hell of a few weeks, but I feel like you got hit more than most in the weeks leading up."
She takes another (appreciative) sip.
"Anyway. How have you been hanging in? We've all had a hell of a few weeks, but I feel like you got hit more than most in the weeks leading up."
“All of that sounds like a good compromise. Me, I rifted in at the beginning of Harvestmere. I keep track,” because of course he does. “I always found it funny that August here is still August. It’s fascinating how the multiverse lines up sometimes, those synchronicities existing.”
But before Stephen can let himself get distracted by that multiversal line of thought, Cosima says you got hit more than most and he sends her a wry look, an arched eyebrow. “Me? No, it’s fine. Nothing more than I signed on for as Head Healer. We have more hands in the infirmary now, too.”
It had in fact been a lot — months of quiet, until suddenly Julius’ poisoning, four patients recovering from abduction, the attack on the Gallows, everything hitting too close to home — but. That’s everyone. They’ve all been affected here, and others more than him. All those names, the list of the dead he barely knew. There’s that squirming guilt, at knowing he had come out so relatively unscathed.
“I could be saying the very same to you, Provost. Do you have a personal assistant yet? No one’s you, but…”
But before Stephen can let himself get distracted by that multiversal line of thought, Cosima says you got hit more than most and he sends her a wry look, an arched eyebrow. “Me? No, it’s fine. Nothing more than I signed on for as Head Healer. We have more hands in the infirmary now, too.”
It had in fact been a lot — months of quiet, until suddenly Julius’ poisoning, four patients recovering from abduction, the attack on the Gallows, everything hitting too close to home — but. That’s everyone. They’ve all been affected here, and others more than him. All those names, the list of the dead he barely knew. There’s that squirming guilt, at knowing he had come out so relatively unscathed.
“I could be saying the very same to you, Provost. Do you have a personal assistant yet? No one’s you, but…”
She sees him dodge, but it takes one to know one, and she has to weigh how much she wants to press him on it's fine under the circumstances. While she thinks about it, she answers his question.
"I've had a volunteer, but I plead guilty to not using him much yet. I'd just gotten through the former provosts' systems and was starting to think what he could take on when..." A gesture at the office, workable but still not entirely reconstructed. "Plus, you know, being down two division heads. Wild how much brainpower it takes to delegate."
"I've had a volunteer, but I plead guilty to not using him much yet. I'd just gotten through the former provosts' systems and was starting to think what he could take on when..." A gesture at the office, workable but still not entirely reconstructed. "Plus, you know, being down two division heads. Wild how much brainpower it takes to delegate."
“’If you want something done right, do it yourself’. The eternal struggle of the control freak. I know the feeling.” Stephen scoots his chair, readjusting so he can prop a boot against a nearby box full of relocated books; the wine and the conversation is doing its job, slowly chipping away at him. They might ostensibly be talking about work, but there’s something more casual in his demeanour, more human and a bit less aloof for once.
“And wait, who volunteered?”
He’s trying to picture who might’ve offered. Viktor and Jayce were busy with their own projects, presumably not them; maybe it was Mobius, he was always trying to be helpful—
“And wait, who volunteered?”
He’s trying to picture who might’ve offered. Viktor and Jayce were busy with their own projects, presumably not them; maybe it was Mobius, he was always trying to be helpful—
"Loki," she says. "You can hate it, if you hate it. Tony would have."
Then again, if Tony Stark wanted to veto Loki getting closer to Cosima, he shouldn't have dissolved back into the Fade, in her very professional opinion.
"I don't know exactly what went down, back where you're from. But Loki volunteered that Tony told him to stay away from Research the first time he was here, without my asking. Probably why I only knew him a little; he was in Diplomacy before. Said the animosity was one-sided but that he'd respect it if I didn't want him because of Tony. I asked Loki why Research this time and he said," ticking off her fingers, "he knows some theoretical physics, he likes keeping busy, and he knows Mobius. I've had worse resumes."
Then again, if Tony Stark wanted to veto Loki getting closer to Cosima, he shouldn't have dissolved back into the Fade, in her very professional opinion.
"I don't know exactly what went down, back where you're from. But Loki volunteered that Tony told him to stay away from Research the first time he was here, without my asking. Probably why I only knew him a little; he was in Diplomacy before. Said the animosity was one-sided but that he'd respect it if I didn't want him because of Tony. I asked Loki why Research this time and he said," ticking off her fingers, "he knows some theoretical physics, he likes keeping busy, and he knows Mobius. I've had worse resumes."
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