#imbricare: miranda

[paradisecost]

You take pain like a stone. / miranda @ flint : )

He’s lost count of the number of times he’s crawled ashore to her now, badly wounded and badly bandaged, his injuries secondary to his relief and need for sleep. He’s a child when she patches him up, some days--he winces and hisses and complains--but other days he barely seems to notice when she threads his skin back together.

Today is the latter. He’s somewhere else entirely.

“It looks worse than it is,” James says. He watches Miranda as he says it, thinking of--before. Thinking that he has already suffered the worst pain imaginable and all others pale in its shadow; that they are made blissful by comparison. Thinking that Miranda is thinner than she used to be, less alive, even though she is well-fed and safe here in the inland, even though half of the profits Flint makes goes back to her, and he makes a great deal.

He looks hard at her for a while, coming back to himself, and finally stills her hand when it reaches to bandage him.

“Is something wrong?”

[immobiliter]

@imbricare​ sent a meme: "let’s talk. fill me in with everything. every little detail.” / miranda @ flint

The previous night, the night he’d arrived back on Nassau with the Walrus and slipped into the darkness to seek out the interior, there were only two words that had needed to be said. He’s dead. Nothing else had needed to be shared, as James had known that those two words were enough to trump everything else, especially after he’d been away for weeks, months scouring the Atlantic in search of that one particular ship where this particular act of vengeance was to be carried out.

Killing Alfred Hamilton wouldn’t change anything: it wouldn’t return them to their lives in London, it wouldn’t reinstate James’ position within the Royal Navy, it wouldn’t reunite Miranda with the city’s social elite. It wouldn’t bring Thomas back. But when the information as to the man’s whereabouts had quite literally found its way into Miranda’s lap, they had both seen a chance to act. To do something and therefore make amends for their inaction in those crucial few days back in London, when they had prepared to flee the city instead of trying to break Thomas out of his newfound imprisonment.

They hadn’t managed to save him, but they could at least avenge the act by killing the man responsible.

With the concealing blanket of night, only confirmation of the act had been needed. Only now, by the harsh, unflinching light of the morning streaming through Miranda’s windows, were details asked for.

“ I can spare you them, if you’d prefer. ” James eyed her steadily as he drank from his cup, a few cuts and bruises all the evidence that remained of the bloody battle that had taken place nearly an ocean away. “ All that needs to be known is that your source was correct. She took some finding, though. ”

[chaotiicgoods]

@imbricare​ said: is there something i should know? / naomi @ miranda

Miranda nodded. She had never been really good at talking, and she doubted it would change someday. She was living dangerously; she could die at any moment, now that she was still her father and that she wasn’t working for Cerberus anymore. Anyway, they were trapped in a war with the Reapers. Everyone was in danger now.

“I used to work with the Commander Shepard.” She admitted, tilted her head as she crossed her arms. “We’re still friends, but I’m here to do a mission on my own. I need to deal with something before I officially join her against the Reapers.” She paused for a short moment. “I won’t talk about it though. It’s dangerous.”  And she didn’t trust the other, but she kept that thought for herself. 

SOFT ANGST STARTERS | NOT ACCEPTING

[paradisecost]

Folks pass by often enough. It is not often, however, that they meet her eye with a smile – so when it happens, Miranda usually knows what to expect. She smiles back. "Good morning, Esther." She shields her eyes against the merciless sun rising ever higher. "Already up and about? Will you rest your legs for a while and take some tea with me?"

“’Will I rest my legs’, she asks me,” Esther snorts, but her black eyes crinkle as she makes her way over, leaning lightly on a cane that--though few know it--quietly conceals a thin sword within. When you’ve lived most of your years as a pirate, you don’t take kindly to wandering about unarmed afterwards. “Of course I will. And I’ll settle for what you call ‘tea’, if you insist on it.” 

(Esther, it transpired long ago, likes only spiced teas: the rarest of rare kinds that are hard to come by even here, and extortionately priced when they do come. She thinks of regular teas as inferior and snorts at the idea of putting anything but a little honey in them. One has to wonder where she learned such tea-snobbery.)

She eases herself into the chair opposite Mrs Barlow, leaning her elbow on the table in the mannerless way of any pirate, and grins at her. She likes Miranda. She hadn’t at first, but it didn’t take long to change her mind: competence is an attractive trait. 

“One of these days, I’m going to get you out of this house and over to mine, for dinner. It’s no good to eat alone.”

[paradisecost]

❛ he wasn’t given a choice , you were ❜ / miranda @ flint, abt gates 8D

“And had he had his way, he’d have had you and I secreted away to Boston, and the Urca would be as good as gone - along with everything we’ve been building here for the past ten years,” Flint rasped, rounding on her. He was angry, yes- but beneath the anger, beneath the raised hackles and fury, there was fear. Fear of judgment; fear of the guilt that still threatened to swallow him whole in the night as he lay awake in his hammock, feeling Gates’ absence as surely as he once felt his presence. “His choice was no choice at all. You must see that.” 

Then, quieter, more desperate: 

“Surely you must see that.”

[paradisecost]

“Does he feel like home to you?” / miranda @ james

“You feel like home to me. No man out there could come close.”

[paradisecost]

“I’m not living in the past, I’m just trying to explain it.” / s2 miranda @ flint

James is angry in the way that only Miranda can make him: close to tears with it, grief choking him. He thinks he hates her in these moments, where she strips him of his pretenses and reminds him that she knows him; that she cannot un-know him; that they are two halves of the same thing, made twins by mutual grief. 

More than anything, he hates it when she talks of the past because she is so often right. Right about what happened. Right about him, and about Thomas, and about the mistakes they made. Right to think that Thomas would have stopped approving of the path Flint was taking a long, long time ago. Right to think he’s been ashamed all this time.

”I was there, Miranda.” It comes out less bitingly sarcastic and more tired. I know what happened, he doesn’t say.

I know it was our fault. 

[paradisecost]

❝ Are you afraid? ❞ / miranda @ james, before meeting his father to put forth the nassau plans

“He asked me to try and talk him out of it. I’ll leave you to guess how successful I was.”

Yes, James is afraid. Not for himself–not even for his career, though it itches a little at the back of his mind–but for Thomas, and the ire he is doubtless to invoke from his father when he puts his plans forth. He worries for Miranda, too, who will have to witness whatever happens and doubtless be ignored if she protests or argues: James has little doubt that Thomas’ father has no love for her. He must have heard the rumours.

In the next room, he can hear Thomas pacing back and forth, trying to prepare himself for his father’s arrival. James stays with Miranda, the two of them bolstering themselves for the coming storm.

There is a sharp knock at the front door, and he steps away from Miranda instinctively until the distance between them is respectable. Thomas is quick to emerge: he doesn’t look worried but determined, his jaw set in a way that makes James’ heart stutter with love and worry in equal measure. 

When the servants let the Earl in, James glances once at Miranda to say into the breach we go, and the end begins.

[paradisecost]

❛ Some things can’t be told. You live them or you don’t. ❜ / miranda @ silver

Silver’s eyes give nothing away: they are as darkly amused and guarded as ever. He knows nothing of Mrs. Barlow, and she nothing of him: they know of one another only that which Flint has told them, and that which they can now see for themselves. 

“Apparently so,” he says. And perhaps if she were someone else he would poke at that sentiment: he would ask is that true for you, then, as well as him? and read into the things she didn’t say. But he doesn’t. He just takes another sip of the tea she’d made for him (not kindness, he doesn’t think, but habit: tea is for guests, and he is a guest, however reluctantly) and follows her gaze to the window, where the sun shines bright and relentless. If he lets himself not think about it, the throbbing pain where his leg used to be seems to fade a little more.

[paradisecost]

It's been weeks: James away, Pastor Lambrick and his bashful flock her only point of human contact, if not for Esther and her regular, albeit infrequent walks…so Miranda finds herself in a position where care and vigilance give way to a desire for connectivity, for talk and conversation and the simple, potent pleasure of company. So it is her who finds herself standing, somewhat awkward, at Esther's gate, waving at her.

Esther grins when she sees her, gesturing emphatically for her to come down the path that splits the front garden in two. The plants and flowers in it are a little unruly, a little overgrown, and weeds sprout all over the place- but the path at least is kept clear. The back garden is where the herbs and vegetables and fruits are grown, and is kept much neater, but from here all that can be seen are the wild things.

“There she is,” Esther laughs, “just as I was coming to see her! Ha - well, get down here! And close that gate behind you.” She points at it with her cane. She’s always expressive, but her excitement now is palpable, buzzing around her like summer heat; it’s been a long, long time since she liked anyone enough to want them on her doorstep. “Come on, mind the cracks in those pavestones, they’ll turn your ankles if you’re not careful. I was starting to worry I’d never get you over here.” 

She steps back to let her guest inside, closing the door neatly behind her. The inside of the house is best summarised as cosy; a little cluttered to those not living there, but everything in its proper place, and no real mess. 

“Everything alright? I assumed you came just because you’d missed me, but I’ve been wrong before, G-d forbid.”

[paradisecost]

“don’t do that. don’t shut me out.” / miranda @ flint

Here it is again: the endless push-and-pull, Miranda’s desire to keep Thomas in her memory against Flint’s need to pretend none of it ever happened. He can’t function, he doesn’t think, with London in his mind. He can’t play the part of Captain Flint if his mind is always called back to somewhere else whenever he comes home to this place.

Don’t shut me out, Miranda says, and it is somewhere between plea and exasperation, because they have had this conversation before and will continue to have it until the sea rises up and swallows this island whole.

Flint still turns away from her. He always does. He can’t imagine not doing it, can’t picture himself falling into her arms and apologising, or admitting that she is not the only one aching with loss and loneliness. 

“Leave me be,” he rasps, and closes the door behind him.

[paradisecost]

"Mr. Silver." James has never sent anyone but Hal to bring her fresh fish from the market, or straight from their last catch on sea, if luck would have it. For one, there aren't many whom he trusts to do so; for another, he knows how much she looks forward to the occasional conversation with his quartermaster. Miranda holds the door open for Silver to bring his buckets of fish inside, and frowns. "You are a surprise. Where is Mr. Gates?" And, like an afterthought: "And Captain Flint?"

He thumps the buckets down in the kitchen, out of breath as he straightens back up: the fish are heavy, more so than he’d thought they’d be. He almost feels for the poor mule that had carried them--and him--all the way here.

“Ah,” he says. “Well. Captain Flint is, I believe, attempting to negotiate with Miss Guthrie at the moment.” He folds his arms, leaning sideways against the counter as he looks back at Barlow. There’s little time to decide what to tell her, or how to do it: he has seen so little of this woman, he can’t possibly predict how she’ll respond. And where she is concerned, Flint is unpredictable- he can’t predict how he’ll respond, either, if he learns of this conversation. 

“As for Mr. Gates... The story on the beach is that his heart gave out at sea.” 

Does she know, he wonders, what Flint is capable of? She must, surely. Or she mustn’t, because surely no one in their right mind would let Flint within arm’s reach of them, knowing what he was, and Barlow seems entirely sound of mind to him. 

“The truth, I’m sorry to say, is a little less palatable than that. Sorry- I thought the Captain would have told you by now. Then again, I suppose he hasn’t had the time...”

[paradisecost]

“You’d think they were a couple, wouldn’t you?” / miranda @ james, WAY EARLY stage, discreetly pointing at two men

McGraw is careful in his response. He lets himself look towards the men in question, taking in the way they laugh and lean their heads close to one another as if conspiring, the two of them always with a hand on the other or standing so close their shoulders touch. When they move, they move together. 

In the throng of people that have gathered to hear Thomas speak (because that is the true intention of everyone here; not the politics, not the philosophy, but Thomas), they look... normal. The friends they have come with look at them only with affection.

“They do seem fond of one another,” says McGraw, his expression unchanged. He replays Lady Hamilton’s words in his mind, trying to determine whether there was judgment in her tone or not; whether she was joking at their expense, or only making an observation. “Though I believe Mr. Jacobs did come here with his wife.” He nods towards one of the young woman with them, and leaves it at that.

[paradisecost]

“There must be something you fear.” / miranda @ thomas, possibly at the beginning of the Big Nassau Plan before shit hits the fan

“Fear is only another obstacle to be overcome, Miranda,” says Thomas, sounding annoyed. “It should not keep us from action.” 

It isn’t her he’s frustrated with: he knows his father will be here tomorrow evening, and he knows that neither he, nor Miranda, nor James will like what Thomas has to say. But he doesn’t need them to like it. He only needs them to support it, and he is confident that he might convince his father--the most stubborn man he has ever known, short of himself--to see things his way, finally. He might finally prove that he is not what his father believes him to be: that assigning this project to him was not a waste of time and resources.

If nothing else, he has to try.

Thomas sighs, looking at his empty wine glass. He is not even a little drunk, though he somewhat wishes he was. 

“If I am afraid of anything, it is that if my father disapproves of this plan, he will express his disapproval not by punishing me, but those closest to me. I can protect you,” he says softly, and holds out his hand for her to take. “As your husband. But James... He has much more to lose than either of us, I should think. I wonder sometimes if he entirely...”

But he trails off, his lips pressing into a thin line as if he has stepped back from a boundary he is not yet willing to cross, and stares hard at his wine glass again. He squeezes Miranda’s hand, gently.

“But I don’t believe that any of that should keep me from informing my father of this plan. I just need James to go over it with me, so that I might prepare myself for any argument my father might make...”

[paradisecost]

[ s3 miranda @ flint ;A; ] I stayed as long as I could. Now look at the moon.

in the awful, bloody space between waking up and sleeping again these visions of her are the only tether he has. they are the only thing worth pushing himself through the endless days for now that even rage has become hollow to him. 

“please stay,” james whispers, and around them the longboat shivers. but miranda reaches out with her cold, gentle hands and she tilts his chin up, towards the endless black skies and a moon that shimmers too big and bright. james obeys: he looks. he looks at the moon and he thinks of thomas, and of being without them both, and the grief in his belly opens up and swallows him. he can’t do this. he can’t. not without her, and when her touch withdraws james pulls his gaze from the moon and reaches for her--

“miranda?”

the water around him is still. the longboat empty. when he wakes to find himself alone in his cabin and her name on his lips, the only thing he can do is weep.

[paradisecost]

“How much death have you seen?” miranda @ lieutenant mcgraw, possibly first, more likely second meeting / dinner at the hamilton estate

McGraw blinks at her, glancing automatically to Lord Hamilton as though expecting some sort of reproval from him, but Thomas’ eyes are on his wife in what James thinks might be silent approval or amusement. He hasn’t learned to read either of them yet, and it is made all the more difficult by their strange, eccentric ways. Lady Hamilton’s question is one of many that have given him pause for thought tonight.

“More than enough, ma’am,” he says, after a moment. But that feels like too easy and simplistic an answer; he feels both she and her husband’s gazes on him and looks down at his plate, lowering his cutlery. 

(He has been eating in small, contained bites, like a man afraid of what might happen if he is left unrestrained.)

“In my experience, ma’am, most deaths take place outside of battle, not in it,” he says, and only then does he raise his eyes to theirs again. “Seafaring life itself is of greater threat to a sailor than any Spanish sword.”