#ofthegun

[gcnenineteen-blog]

     In the end, Vannay reflected, the essence of prophecy was standing upon the parapet of a tower that has already fallen, and by virtue of one’s fixed place in time being forced to pretend it is still there. Prophecy was looking out upon a city that has already crumbled, upon a people who have already died, and knowing that you must live among them, and never tell them how little their lives, their dreams, or their plans mattered. Buying pipeweed from the merchant by the dock every week, and smiling as though his child has not already died in the womb. Watching the farmer slave in the orchard as though disease has not already taken the trees. Fastening a collar of mourning that one has already been wearing for decades. Prophecy, in the end, was not wisdom, but despair. 

     For prophecy was not knowing what could be, but what must be. The appeal of foresight was the delusion that, if one knew the future, one might be able to change it to suit one’s fancy, and it was only the prophets who knew their gift for what it was: the act of burning alive years before it will happen, and either opening one’s arms wide to the comfort of madness, or living on with one’s skin aflame. 

     “Hile, Dinh-Gilead.” He would turn, had turned, was turning - past, present, and future converged, meeting blue bombardier’s eyes as he had been meeting them every moment for twenty-five years, long before this man had been a man, much less a king. Long even before he had known his name. And there too was the nature of prophecy: to have conversations one was already having, had already had, as if anything in this world could be new - as if it were possible to be human outside of time. “Long days and pleasant nights.”

[polupenthes]

@ofthegun:

Kit Johns, already with his hackles raised after a less-than-pleasant debate with his excuse of a brother, finds Williamson sitting by the campfire and sizes him up, eyes burning. "And what kinda clown are you?"

He doesn’t like gunslingers no more than he likes lawmen or covenant men or barons. He’s met a few of the first, too many of the second and third, and never one of the latter. 

Sitting beside him, Sean MacGuire snorts half a laugh he answers with a kick. Even Bill knows that the joke Kit Johns has just made was not made to be laughed at by the likes of them.

“The one who don’t take too kindly to being heckled by a stranger in his own camp. Sir.”

[westpromised]

i knew you had heart. [from bob to hosea]

“You knew that, didn’t you?” Hosea’s grin was all ease and suave, all a successful actor’s encore once he jumped off the boards of the stage. Then again, the Bard did say that all the world’s a stage, so there’s that. 

“Are you,” he eyed the tall feller with the charming smile up and down and up again, “a connoisseur of the fine arts, or mayhap a practitioner yourself? The name must be Allgood, of course.” Even if he hadn’t been alerted to the presence of the high and mighty at today’s performance, it would’ve been impossible to miss him. What gave him away? Apart from the height, the guns on his hips, his own body weight in golden jewelry? Or the fact that they played in Gilead and the gunslingers with their entourage were wont to show up? The man was stinking rich, of course, and looked it. And therefore a promising fish to hook, after a performance.

He was also, of course, Master of Dances. Hosea smacked his lips, closed his eyes. “Ah. Yes. Forgive me, sai, it slipped my mind. You’re all too familiar with the stage of course.”

[westpromised]

things happen…and we move on. [from one johns to another]

“Really? That’s mighty kind, comin from you. Why, I might just go buy myself a slice of forgiveness right here and now.” 

There’s something about Kit brings out the very worst in him: hackles raised and all. It’s him was named Arthur, that’s what he comes back to, over and over again: it’s him carries the name of the Eld, and a name like a word is a sigul. Blood is life but a name is power, and whatever blood he had to prove he proved a thousand times over to himself, here among the locusts and the coyotes, west of a land spoiled rotten with decadence. 

“Fuck you. Fuck your city. Fuck your father.” 

Your father like he ain’t the son of the same loins, like he doesn’t have the ghost of Johnny Johns sitting behind his eye like an evil waiting to be exorcised. Arthur thinks sometimes mayhap he’s gotten the brunt of him: what he’s done, what he’s been through, the grit of it all. Kit would never begin to understand. And here he sits, talking of moving on… Arthur spits to the side, hands to his knees, and comes to his feet. “I ain’t gotta move on to nowhere, I’m just fine where I am. And we both know you only move as far as your dinh calls. A dog’s always a dog soon as the whistle blows.” 

[mercysought]

@dcschain​​​ . @ofthegun​​​ : For people like us, power in this place is most effective when it is least perceived. [from rose to maxima, but while they're undercover somewhere?] from black sails season 2 ( accepting )

The bottom edge of the empty shot glass makes its second round over the table. Maxima’s legs are crossed under the table; heels replaced by worn travelling boots, the long flowing dress replaced by a worn deep red coat that kept her body warm, thick. Warm and filled with bad memories like the streets themselves; fitting. The heavily scented cherry smoke left slowly through her nostrils, green eyes are not on the woman sitting opposite to her but beyond her. Shadows dance in the thin space between the wooden floor and the warped door from behind the counter. The cigarette is kept between her indicator and middle finger, away from her body and away from the table, not unlike many of others within that parlour. She and Rosalie were but a few in the sea of many. The many that just became a sea of brown tattered clothes and dust. 

Oh, and how this was familiar. 

The hand keeps holding the cup, turning it once again. The long red nails are gone, clipped and bare. Red lips are gone, hidden behind a curtain of smoke. Dust, smoke and dirt; how was it to be back home around your own kind? Far away from the eyes of the court, from the smooth conversations, from the unspoken rules. It felt like being held bare behind an empty stage with an empty audience. The only eyes there, the only opinion, the only judgement her own.

   “For people like us, power in this place is most effective when it is least perceived.” her voice is audible beneath the murmurs that swiftly became roars in their own right. Enough to be heard, enough to be drowned by the offkey piano in the background. Green eyes move from the thin line of light to land on Rosalie’s.

A LOT OF SOULS HAVE GOTTA DIE TO KEEP THE RUST BELL ROLLING. How many do you think would dare to come up to me and put out my cigarette? To claim that it was unbecoming; it might be a word and a belief that rang loudly in their minds, but in a land where men and women held so little possessions or chances to enjoy such small pleasures, a sort of empathy was born from it. Do not take a cigarette from one’s hands unless you want a fight. Do not wake someone unless you want to die. 

Maxima and Rosalie’s eyes are not so different than the others. Tired and heavy, though their backs were far less bent. Maxima pauses the rolling of the cup and lets it rest against the surface of the grimy table. Even against the thick material of her coat, she could feel how it stuck to the harsher parts of the fabric.

Us. A sharp smile forms behind the cloud of smoke.

A LOT OF SPIRITS GOTTA BREAK TO MAKE THE UNDERWORLD GO ‘ROUND. The word keeps rolling and spinning and it has for days and now Maxima has heard it coming from Rosalie’s mouth she can no longer taste its meaning. It does not resonate in the way that she feels it should and instead holds the twang of something that she had once loved to swallow completely and yet didn’t hold water when compared to her memories. It felt sharp against the side of her tongue, even if she was not the one to have said it.

Maxima leans forward, legs uncrossing. The cigarette is snuffed out against the stained empty dish. Her hair is kept in a simple ponytail, the wavy hair wilder, left untamed and dull when against the light that poured from the outside. Those curls too, the way that they would lay against the top of her head in a halo, hidden beneath a brown rimmed hat.

   “Of course.” she pauses, waving the smoke away. As someone that had spent her whole life at court, she needed guidance. As someone that spent her whole life in luxury, within a safe little sphere, what did she know about these strange and dangerous people? My, the dangers that Rosalie James must be running with to take her to the field... Or perhaps she wasn’t quite so blind. Maxima’s eyes narrow as she smiles, leaning once again on the back of the chair. Perhaps she was. If the answer to such a question mattered, Maxima was still pondering over. Maxima winks “I will follow your lead.“

[mercysought]

@dcschain​ . @ofthegun​ : If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t considered killing you in months. [from rose] / black sails season 4 [ selectively accepting ]

For perhaps the first time, Maxima’s cup filled at the half with dark liquid is left atop her table. Forgotten, perhaps, but untouched all the same.

The conversation had been easier than in months, which was saying something when their conversations often bordered on the terse to the tense. At times landing right in the middle of both. Truth be told, the games that Maxima had enjoyed for years, the games that she still, theoretically, enjoyed had brought as much joy as before. More often than not she felt herself back as a small young girl in a word where nothing but dust rises, nothing but dust is allowed to grow. She felt it. Clammy, even dressed in finery, beneath the beating sun with dust all around her and a roaring stomach. Her stomach was now silent, having moved on from the hunger filled days to one of quiet anxiety and unease. 

Maxima knew how to read the signs though. Like a palm-reader reads the lines on one’s skin she can read the world around her and know: her stomach would know hunger again, and the sun that she had enjoyed on her face wasn’t so much as a caress as it was it staring at her from outside. A quiet warning, a quiet threat that the day would come where no roof would cover her head again. 

Years had passed since she had hid food beneath her floorboards. The same way that she had moved to far loftier places to rest her head upon, so did her food. From empty floorboards to some drawers where some bread could be better kept. Grapes atop her bedside table. Fruit and freshly baked bread on baskets that were swiftly kept in far more appropriate places. Now Maxima felt the need once again, the call: the same way that her food didn’t want to return to such humbles starts, she felt that they must.

What else will it be sacrificed before it all ends?

   “If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t considered killing you in months.“

Maxima’s playing absently with a single small marble in the shape of an eye. Carved into the deep green gem. It had been a gift, one of many but the only one that she truly carried around with her. A small grin forms over her lips as her eyes move from the gem to Rosalie, watching her for a moment before her attention returns to the small object.

   “I am unsure what should worry me more:” her head tilts and the marble comes to a stop between her fingers as she finds its carved iris “the fact that you seem to be attempting to console me, or the fact that you seem to think that I’m in need of consolation.” 

Both were alarming in their own right though she felt that one was more of a positive change than the other. Positive, however, didn’t mean good. No, she was not playing the same games as before and because the eyes of the powers that be were now on her some questions would raise from it. Many would assume it was simple heartbreak but she doubted that Rosalie would consider it that. Maxima Aurum didn’t have much of a heart to speak of, much less one to break. Perhaps one could call the anger towards oneself but a symptom of it: either the breaking of a heart or the growing of one.

Maxima’s eyes are on the gem with the same smile.

If she was to leave her opinion on such matters she would say that it was likely closer to the killing of a small babe in its crib. If she was to be a romantic about it. She wasn’t, and as it stood she took it for what it was: a mistake, one that could have cost her life and livelihood if it hadn’t been for her past self good decision making. It was a mistake and she was alive to learn from it. She would not waste it.

Not thinking about what should have been, should have done, should have said. Not focusing on her anger — her own, towards Cuthbert, Rosalie. All of them. Green eyes rise to look into Rosalie’s. 

The whole lot.

How easily they toyed with the lives of the others. Her life. No time to focus on the sun, the hunger and the dust as it looms closer.   

   “What will I do now without the fear of death at your hands, I wonder?” her brows arch with a grin. The hand with the gem falls to the side of her chair “My life might just truly be devoid of all meaning now!”

[mercysought]

@ofthegun​ . @dcschain​​​​​ : You’re too clever for your own good. [from steven to maxima] from black sails season 1 ( accepting )  

The door clicks behind her. The room is large and Maxima wonders if it is half because only the two of them stood within it, or because of the fire that was now kept completely off. Only the dust clung to the worn stone, a reminder of the fire and warmth that had once been within, the warmth that it gave to those that stood there. 

Maxima doubts that even then she would feel warm. The clicking of her heels moving closer to the desk make her feel like he is walking deeper into a world of webs and darkness that she hadn’t quite known; had only caught glimpses of. Green eyes fall on the man, who doesn’t look back to her; he continues looking outside of the large window, down to Gilead. Many would consider his frame strong, like a man that held onto the chains that kept the city going. Shoulders surprisingly straight for a man that was meant to carry the world upon his shoulders. Many would see it and consider him struggling with grief, struggling with the weight of the crown on his head. Maxima wasn’t quite so sure. Not that those same thoughts couldn’t be true, but a man’s mind was never either, or. She saw chains yes. She saw fatigue. And she saw anger. The anger of a man that kept being pulled down into the depths by those same chains, unwilling to release of them. The vision of the world outside as his nose and mouth caught the edge of the water too blurry. 

There is a shudder that is kept between her ribs. She saw the end. And it was frightening. 

   “You’re too clever for your own good.” she blinks and his face still faces the city, but stark blue eyes are on her. Blue and cold like the room around them. 

Her father had said those same words to her before. He had been on his deathbed, called to her by name, away from the court and her work and for the first time in months she did. Even as his skin sunk to his bones, as life threatened to leave his eyes, those same guns remained at his side. In death, I can see things more clearly. he had said, hands folding held over her own, bringing them closer. Squeezing them. There is a snarl at the base of her throat that is kept silenced, chewed out before it reaches her lips, her green eyes so like his and yet so unlike anyone else’s from this family. I should have put you to train when you were younger. I should have pushed through my doubts. I fear... he speaks through a weak smile and in that moment she can see that he imagines it. That he replays the life in a way that she would have been dragged from the streets that she grew up in, not to his home but straight into gallows, straight into her death. 

He fears that she will forget his face, that the remainder of his name will be nothing but dust with no one to carry his irons.

Her jaw tenses. She sits now beside the edge of his bed, her body held frozen into place as her hand that moves to cover his. His rings cover her hands, much like they did once in the past. She smiles, looking up to his face And have me deal with the mess at court with so much power at my fingertips? Where would be the fun in that? The challenge? his lips curl and the laugh turns into a cough. She mirrors the smile, held together by the tension. A badly timed breath and her molars would take the brunt of the pressure.

You’re too clever for your own good. 

She still holds her breath, both hands held in front of her chest, green eyes holding the gaze of the Lord of light. 

   “From my understanding,” she moves slowly across the floor. Her eyes moving from him to the desk, taking note of the papers there and focusing on the ones at its centre in specific. Familiar handwriting upon it. Understand now, where the words, the calling to his office, had come from “those in my line of business who do not fit that bill often end up dead rather quickly.” 

A late start was still a start. A small plan, a single thought to start reparations and attempt to pull those who lived outside of the walls, sway them to look more kindly to those that lived safely in Gilead. Not in so many words. The suggestion, the advice was simple. A crack and a weak point had been identified. Names of those that could be used. Symbols. And, finally, places where forces should be sent to turn the tide on the public opinion’s court. In a way, only colours were enough to distinguish between two sides. In a battlefield, even those became blurry, did they not? John Farson’s power was that he could pull at the people’s heartstrings. It was clear that Steven Deschain could not, or would not do the same. 

Maxima moves closer to the desk, though does not touch it. Her hands, her father’s rings covering thin and lithe fingers, kept in front of her body. If the King was unwilling and if they could not pull assets from The Good Man’s army then others under their name should. Green eyes return to Steven Deschain, chin raised with a small curl of a smile “I would say that I am clever enough.” 

[mercysought]

@dcschain​ / @ofthegun​​ ​: kiss on the cheek. (from maxima to rose) from spots to kiss ( accepting )

Her fingers brush against the side of her face though her eyes are not on the woman; they are on the man standing just a couple of steps before her. It is but a second, a glimpse but that was all that was needed; to linger more was to doubt in her own abilities and there wasn’t a moment, especially not when in this company, where such things were allowed. She knew the story and how romantic it was. How could someone not love such beautiful love stories? Maxima’s thumb rests on Rosalie’s chin, and her eyes are back towards the woman. A gossamer touch, just like the brushing of her lips over sun touched skin. The light hint of perfume and warm breath against skin. 

The question would likely be posed, if not know then after a few days of digesting. Or perhaps not at all, perhaps she was wrong but the passionate kind were often too proud to let something like this go even if it was just a glimpse. Useful, and yet so easily twisted. But she did not know Josiah Paine well enough beyond what she had first found out through basic research. 

The question moves then to the next most interesting theme: what did she think to achieve with this? Rosalie’s interest? That much she had already in spades; after all how many of them could say that they had death threats handed to her in such a manner? Maxima had what she wanted already, and yes perhaps this too was a way of teetering along a line that wasn’t quite clear yet, but it would define it further. The question was not what she wanted with Rosalie, beautiful as she was Maxima knew that her interests didn’t linger on someone like her.

The goal was then to understand how deeply she could poke her fingers; she was not fearful of having the edge of them cut, it happened in such a line of work. Were they anyone else she would have had someone else do it, someone else run the risk; but these were special and so required special attention by themselves. How would this ripple across? One could only test if one’s calculations of a bridge stability were correct if they attempted to cross it. On the planning stage, one could attempt to shake it too. Maxima would seek how deeply, how quickly they could be unnerved.

Had she not had to prove her salt? Why should she risk giving them her information, live with Rosalie’s lovely stares, if they themselves remained untested? Simply because they followed the crown? Maxima’s lips move away, as does her hand and it is almost like the music all around them returns, colour slamming once again all around the patio. Mutual loyalties was reassuring, but self interest was a far stronger bond.