faderift | [closed] gimme all your lovin', you sharp dressed man

Entry tags:

[closed] gimme all your lovin', you sharp dressed man

WHO: Your Division Heads (Byerly, Flint, Thranduil, and Yseult) and Your Pirate Power Couple (Silver and Madi).
WHAT: Let's talk about retribution for war crimes.
WHEN: Eh.
WHERE: The Diplomacy office
NOTES: No set tag order! Tap in when it seems right.

So.

[ They're gathered in the Diplomacy offices. Everyone has been offered a glass of wine, or something stronger - this unpleasant discussion probably merits something stronger - and offered a place to sit.

By speaks to Silver and to Madi: ]

If you would: a brief précis of the situation in the town, and your proposal.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ There's a slight movement from John, straightening where he's sat. His gaze strays briefly to Madi, to Flint, but he speaks first regardless of it. He arrived prepared to be the one making the proposition, to soften the edges of the idea where his counterparts will not. ]

We've some concern about how things were left in Pérouges, [ He says, with a sideways look towards Madi. ] It was settled well enough for the moment, but I'd like to see the loose ends sewn up before someone starts tugging at them.

[ This, to John, seems the point worth highlighting. There is a liability. It should be addressed. ]

Edited 2020-10-28 22:04 (UTC)

( idle curiosity: ) 'Someone' in particular?

[ Yseult, barely-touched glass of wine perched on crossed knee, appears settled in for a long presentation. Her eyes roll from Thranduil back to Silver for the answer--a brow arched to add the weight of her curiosity to the provost's--and then to Madi, studying Silver's companion not for the first time since they entered. ]

[Flint, having taken the chair farthest from his two companions ('partners in crime,' being slightly too on the nose a descriptor) and promptly hooked his ankle across his knee, is the picture of a man who recognizes his irrelevance at this stage. Better to keep his mouth shut as much as is possible. Surely they all can guess his position on the subject.]

[ Madi addresses Thranduil's question first, far more coolly than she had addressed the same train of thought to Byerly himself. ]

It does not matter who tugs at the threads. It would not paint a flattering image of Riftwatch for anyone to look close enough at Pérouges and see that the slaughter and blood sacrifice of an entire Alienage was overlooked and the complicit parties allowed to simply continue as they were.

( 'thranduil is displeased by the destruction of an alienage' is so obvious of a statement he does not feel he needs to waste an expression of distaste on confirming it as madi says it, and so he gestures her along. )

Your proposal?

As the Ambassador can tell you, my initial proposal carried significant risk if not done properly.

[ Knowing full well Thranduil will be as reluctant to risk the Chantry's displeasure as Byerly, if not more so. ]

But my sense is that parting them from their source of financial comfort is our only option. We both doubt the local courts would take the issue seriously enough not to reflect poorly on us for leaving the matter in their hands.

And my sense is that using underhanded methods to desanctify a religious site will be seen, if it comes to light, as blasphemy.

[ Byerly taps a finger meditatively. This next part is delivered neutrally, neither endorsing nor condemning this possibility. ]

But there is one other option. I believe that Divine would be rather pleased to have a whole village of heretics who took part in blood-magic rituals to vent some rage upon. We could hand them over to her, and see vengeance wrought indeed - not for the elves, true, but vengeance would be wrought.

[ Yseult seems content to allow the conversation to progress further before offering any opinion. Instead she prompts, mildly: ]

I take it there were objections to that idea?

[ And, blandly in return: ]

There was some discomfort, yes.

For several reasons, not in the least because it would undermine our own authority, but because it would inevitably alienate the apostates among our company and damage our ability to intercede with the numbers of mages we already know to be dissatisfied with the Inquisition and looking northward to assess their prospects.

[ A significant loss. ]

[From his chair, Flint passes some flickering glance between Yseult and Byerly, and then away. He smooths the edge of his beard— and reserves whatever is waiting behind his teeth.]

It also begs the question of why Riftwatch even exists as a separate entity if it is going to defer to the Inquisition and the Divine on such matters.

[ And extremely, extremely blandly: ]

So you consider yourself subservient to an organization if you make use of its resources and personnel to serve your own goals?

[ Duly noted, you three pirates/pirate-adjacent people in the room. ]

[ Anyway. ]

There is little value in our independence if we do not assert it from time to time. A declarative action to show without ambiguity the strength of our convictions.

Edited (html) 2020-11-09 18:14 (UTC)

[At the edge of this, Flint's hand falls away. He takes a drink from his cup, then—]

Rutyer is right.

[ At this fascinating development, Yseult skims a gaze around the room, and drinks. ]

[ The only reaction from John is a flicker of amusement. Whatever else might have crossed his mind doesn't make altar his expression. ]

A shame the Ambassador didn't have his crystal handy to capture that declaration.

It shall stay forever in my heart.

[ No look of shock or even mild surprise from Byerly - a testament to his control more than to his actual feelings about hearing those words. Instead, after that quip, to Flint: ]

It does not seem excessively brutal?

To report the corruption of a holy site's stewards to the Chantry? No.

[The point of Madi's attention is not unlike a spike being set in preparation for driving it somewhere unpleasant.]

But why stop there?

Edited 2020-11-09 20:51 (UTC)

[ Yseult gives it a moment but it seems Flint is, in fact, going to stop there. ]

Go on.

[Unsurprisingly, he needs little prompting. It's almost as if someone wrote this diatribe earlier and then cut it, thinking 'Shut up, Flint.']

We have the Mayor's confession. Send Bastien with an elf and a mage to serve copies to both the local magistrates and to the Chantry. Allow them to pressure one another into action. The devout can be outraged that the shrine was desecrated; Pérouges' neighbors will resent that Tevinter was allowed such a foothold. Celene - if she hears of this, and we should make certain she or the Marquise of the Dales does - can use the Chantry's actions as an endorsement of her own stance on the role elves should play in Orlais. All Riftwatch need do is make it clear that our responsibility is to the alienage. No one but the accused benefits by disputing our part in it, so even if the point is raised it won't travel far.

Rutyer is right, but their concerns aren't unfounded, [he says with a nod to John and Madi.] If the Chantry chooses to prosecute Pérogues based solely on their involvement with Tevinter mages, there will be people who understand that as a threat. And if we report this only to the Chantry, all anyone will see is that Riftwatch acts in deference to it. Whatever your opinion on the relationship between us, it benefits our work that we be seen as an ally to it rather than as an extension.

[ By tilts his head thoughtfully from side to side. ]

I had been thinking that we'd keep our name out of it - use agents, rather than make our part in this public. So that any backlash, if it came, wouldn't fall on us. And it's not as though we need more of a reputation for sympathy to elves. But if we were to do this openly, the Commander's proposal is a good one.

[ Madi's attention shifts from Flint to sweep over the others in the room, gauging the reception, then falls to John. ]

[ John holds her gaze for a long moment, but volunteers nothing else.

Yes, he had framed his ideas on the idea that Riftwatch stay out of it. But if they are to move openly—

That's a different maneuver altogether. He is not inherently opposed to it. ]

[ Flint's immediate lengthy answer results in a momentary flattening of Yseult's gaze into the middle distance. When he is finished, and Byerly's addendum as well, she nods. ]

Fine.

[He looks to her, eyebrows rising. It's sharp, unmitigated flicker of surprise before Flint settles all the way back into his chair. His attention slides around the room until it finds its way back to Silver and Madi: Fine, she says.]

Fine?

[ Whatever satisfaction Yseult may feel at having won that unguarded reaction from Flint, she offers no corresponding glimpse. She keeps him in her peripheral vision before turning at measured pace to Madi. ]

Yes.

[ Rather than ask a third time, which to John feels like betraying too much— ]

Mhavos then, to accompany Bastien? And Speaker Fabria, if he'll oblige us?

[ Messengers who can deliver sensationally devastating news without causing too much of a stir on their own. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[closed] gimme all your lovin', you sharp dressed man

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