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libertineangel · 3 years

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"Some wine, Madach?" Viscount Hastien offered.

"I'd prefer tea, thank you," Captal Madach answered, waving his hand slightly, "I don't like to drink on business."

"Of course, best to keep the mind sharp on such occasions," Hastien replied with a thin smile. He retrieved a small bell from the underside of the great dining table they were sat at, rang it clearly and then spoke directly to it, requesting a pot of rose tea and two cups befitting the honoured guest's station. Noticing Madach's curiosity, he smiled again.

"Convenient, isn't it? A gift from a mage I gave some assistance to some months ago, its twin in the kitchen repeats anything said to it after it's rung."

A moment later, Delam arrived with a silver platter bearing a delicately-painted porcelain teapot and two matching teacups.

"Very good - hold, I didn't think we had any Dunmer among the serving staff. What's your name, when did you join here?" Hastien's eyes narrowed.

"Hlenil, sir," replied Delam, his voice quiet and his head low, "I've been kitchen staff for a month but the evening drinks server's absent tonight, I hear they came down with a fever."

"Very well, as long as you can pour without spilling. Don't keep the good Captal waiting, nor myself, and remain in the serving-space until you’re required.” Delam nodded, then set the two cups and filled them both before retreating to the small alcove in the wall behind the table.

“I hope it’s to your liking,” Hastien remarked after they’d both taken their first sips.

“Indeed, you run your kitchen well.”

“Thank you.” Hastien paused a moment, cleared his throat and took a slow, deep breath. “Now, returning to our previous discussion – I really would suggest you consider my offer a little more seriously. It’s in both our best interests, yours more than mine even, I’d wager, and I don’t see what harm it could do you.”

“You’ve made your case well, I assure you, but I’m afraid under the current terms my decision is final,” Madach replied, his voice still friendly enough but with a subtle edge. “I think you overestimate the likelihood of an alliance in Daenia, even a tenuous one, and to be frank I think you underestimate my ability to hold my own. I’ll concede that you have the greater numbers, the wealth too, but my land is better-situated than yours, and my marshal is a formidable commander.

“Oh, you don’t need to convince me of the strength of your land, I’m well aware of that, you’re likely the best-positioned in southern Urvaius, but even Tiber Septim couldn’t defend a mountain fort if he fought an army alone, and you said it yourself, you don’t have the soldiers.”

“Perhaps not if the Daenian lords really do align, but unless you’ve heard rumours the rest of us haven’t, I’m content to trust that their attention will stay in the southwest like it always has.” Madach felt impatience creep into his voice, so he paused a moment before continuing, “if anything, I’d be more concerned about a potential alliance to our north.”

“Oh really?” This worried Hastien, and he took a drink to try and distract from his blinking in surprise. “Well that’s certainly news to me, and I’d have thought word would reach me first, of the two of us.”

“Well, I do have a few good ears in the right places,” Madach said as he sat back a little and allowed himself a slight smile, thinking his gambit successful, taking a drink himself.

“Of course, you can’t expect me to propose a fresh agreement on that alone – after all, I think we’ve well-established these things aren’t to be signed on hearsay,” Hastien chuckled a little, but the tension in his voice undermined it.

“No, of course not,” Madach smiled a little more. “These things are determined by the hard facts, and as such I think you’ll find this one interesting,” and from his waistcoat he retrieved a small medallion, emblazoned on one side with a coat of arms, and placed it on the table before them. “A token from Marchioness Armene in Anticlere, we have an agreement already in place.” He drank some more, keenly observing the reaction.

“I see,” Hastien replied, keeping his voice carefully even. “I’m impressed, she’s far from easy to bargain with, especially for those of less well-off holdings.”

“I have my ways, Viscount, and I trust you understand a little better my self-confidence.”

This remark struck Hastien as somewhat arrogant, and his indignation shook off some of his concern.

“Perhaps, but unless your agreement with the Marchioness involves a loan of her army or the contents of her treasury I think you still have rather more faith than I would in your position. I never thought my proposal charity, Captal, but I think you’re in greater need of support than you realise.”

“And why is that, Viscount? Do you know of a threat bearing down upon me, perhaps an assassin under my nose, a siege upon my keep while I’m here negotiating? I hope it’s not more simple rumours.”

“Of course not, it’s-” Hastien paused and took a breath, regretting his choice of words. “You are new to this game, Madach, and I am not. I can spot a tenuous position, and I see one in yours, and if I were you I would remain a little more humble.”

“I’m aware of your experience, Viscount, don’t think me so foolish as to dismiss it, but I came here for a negotiation, not a lesson in statecraft, and your attempts to scare me are futile. If my position is so tenuous, why not strike me yourself, be rid of a competitor and gain stronger ground?”

“I have my reasons,” Hastien replied curtly, “just as I have my reasons for the proposal I invited you here to discuss.” He took a drink before continuing. “I know you’re no fool, and I know you’re not helpless, were you either we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Let me then propose a revised set of terms, ones I think you’ll find more agreeable.”

Delam refilled the teacups, and listened intently.

#tesfest21 #delam farano #tes #the elder scrolls

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queen-of-bel · 4 years

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some semi-structured ramblings about kaz and paz, and why their dynamic is probably my favorite relationship of any media i’ve ever consumed

I really really love the dynamic that Paz and Kaz have with each other for so many reasons.

First off, it highlights two very important personality traits about Kaz during the Peace Walker era. It shows off how warm and friendly Kaz can be, but it also demonstrates how overconfident and reckless he is.

He takes what he considers to be “calculated risks”, vastly overestimating his own abilities to offset any negative consequences. He invited a Cipher agent to their own home turf, all for the sake of expanding MSF. It was risky as hell, and Kaz knew that, which is why he kept it a secret from Snake. In his mind, he had a plan to negate the risk of any damage that Cipher could do to them-- befriend Paz and have her switch allegiances.

Kaz knew exactly who she was– a spy only a few years younger than himself. He also knew what her objective was from the beginning. This is something that he admits to Snake at the end of Peace Walker. And yet, he still struck up a deal with Cipher and invited her and Zadornov to Colombia anyway.

It really is heartwarming to see how much effort Kaz put into reaching out to Paz.

After Zadornov was first captured, “Paz” had nowhere else to go, as Zadornov was paying for her room and board. I put “Paz” in quotes, because that was the situation that the character of “Paz Ortega Andrade” was in, not Pacifica Ocean.

Kaz knew this, and the risk of having Paz on mother base, but he was the one who really pushed for Paz to live there regardless. To quote Paz:

“I told the man that with no more money from the KGB, I could no longer afford school. …He bought my story, and when I said I would be willing to work, he took pity on me and let me stay. For some reason Miller really plead my case. That was helpful, but the man is still a fool…”

Now, you can chalk this up to him just going along with the business deal that he struck with Cipher, but his actions moving forward indicate otherwise.

It’s undeniable that Kaz really went out of his way to give Paz a comfortable and peaceful life while at MSF. Her diary tapes highlight all of the sweet interactions that they had:

“What I have got is just a common cold. The medical team said I’d need a few days’ rest, so I’ve been restricted to my room and put on bed rest… Miller told me to take it easy. “I will sing you a lullaby,” he said, then broke out a guitar and sang some incomprehensible song in Japanese. I did not need to understand the lyrics to know he’s an awful singer. Then he said, ‘You know what is good for a cold? Suppositories! Here, I’ll show you…’ He began to take off his pants, so I threw my tissue box at him to make him go away.”

“Every month, Mother Base throws a party for all the soldiers whose birthdays fall in that month… Miller seemed a little protective of me. ‘Hope they’re not being too crude,’ he said. ”

“‘C'mon, we even both have ‘peace’ in our names,’ said Miller. ‘And Zadornov - that old Russkie’s name has something to do with peace, too, right? Hey, as long as we’re having a day of peace, we ought to get an act together - The Three Peace Band!’ I thought he was joking. He then proceeded to share his idea without bothering to check with me, and now I am slated to sing. Apparently, he had heard me on deck one day and since then he’s wanted to form a band”

“With the lyrics finished, I was ready to show Miller. He does not often take things seriously, but all of a sudden he was saying ‘Paz, you have the soul of an enka songwriter.’”

(That last quote is technically from Phantom Paz, but nothing in PW states that Kaz himself was the one who wrote the lyrics for Love Deterrence, only the melody, so I’m going to go ahead and include this MSGV tape)

Of course, you could always make the argument that Kaz was just playing a role, that he was just going along with Cipher's lie and giving Paz special treatment because she's "just a teen", but let's compare his interactions with Paz versus his interactions with Chico, another youth at MSF.

Kaz's interactions with Chico were minimal at best. Not to say that he didn't like Chico, because he absolutely did. But there were never any special interactions between the two of them in the same way that he interacted with Paz.

In fact, Kaz never put that much effort into bonding with anyone else at mother base. Not Amanda, not Strangelove, not Huey, or even Cecile (or any other women at MSF that he would try to seduce). It’s clear that Kaz treated Paz differently than everyone else at MSF. Kaz is a very suave and charismatic person, and he’s used to charming his way into getting what he wants in life, with pretty minimal effort. Paz alludes to this in one of her diary tapes, scoffing at the fact that female MSF soldiers fall for his flirting "so easily".

Now, Kaz never tried to approach Paz romantically, but the success of his whole "let's get this Cipher agent to switch allegiances to MSF" plan rested on his overwhelming charm. Relying on his charisma has not failed him yet, and he had no reason to think that this situation with Paz would be any different. He thought that by reaching out to Paz, she would become loyal to MSF, effectively eliminating any threat that Cipher posed to MSF.

This is where his overconfidence comes in. He vastly underestimated Zero’s power, and how much of a grip Zero had on Paz. Paz absolutely despised Zero, but ultimately, she was terrified of betraying Cipher, calling the repercussions of that action “a fate far worse than death”.

Although, it's not as if Kaz’s efforts were completely wasted. Paz’s commitment to Cipher was wavering as time went on, and as she spent more time with MSF and everyone on mother base. However, it's important to note that Paz wasn't just grateful to the MSF staff as a whole. She was, but she particularly wanted to be close to Kaz.

In her diary tape when she was describing Kaz’s womanizing and his and Snake’s infamous sauna fight, she says something at the end that was really sad to me.

“But somehow I got the sense that for all his womanizing, Miller really only trusted one person, and that was Snake. There was no way I could ever come between the two of them. And at that thought I began to feel as if I had lost.”

We know that Paz had romantic feelings for Snake. She's suspiciously adamant in her third diary entry about her lack of interest in Snake, but her diary entries in the Phantom Pain were more honest about her feelings:

"[Snake] saved me, and I feel indebted to him, but I thought that was all he meant to me. Why does my heart flutter when I think of him?"

So going back to her diary entry in Peace Walker. When she says that she feels "lost", we know that this wasn’t her lamenting about Kaz’s womanizing habits, or what she calls his infatuation with Snake. What upsets her is her observation that Kaz only trusts Snake. She has this hopeless feeling that Kaz would never trust her in the same way.

Paz clearly wanted to be friends with Kaz. Not just friendly surface interactions, but she wanted to get to know Kaz more and bond with him on a deeper level. Unfortunately, it is this exact hopelessness that prevented Paz from expressing these feelings to him.

Of course, Kaz was blind to this inner conflict of hers. When you combine this with not only his underestimation of Zero's power, but his own overconfidence in his charisma, it's a bit of a recipe for disaster.

We see this testament to Kaz’s overconfidence after the ZEKE battle. He's actually shocked that Paz went through with Cipher's plan anyway. He really thought that his efforts to reach out to her worked, as he tells Snake:

“How could Paz… We were going to start a band together…”

At this point, Kaz has already come clean to Snake about knowing Paz's real identity. He no longer has to put up a front of "this is just a teenager". What this says to me is that these are Kaz's genuine feelings. He really was looking forward to starting a band with her, and performing with her on Peace Day.

I really like this moment because it shows that Kaz didn't just think of Paz as a way to expand MSF. He didn't spend all this time with Paz simply because it would benefit him. He felt a genuine desire to befriend and be close with her.

He’s clearly crushed that his efforts to befriend her failed. After the ZEKE battle, he admits that there was only one thing on his mind:

“After Paz tried to steal ZEKE from us, and we watched her get pulled beneath the waves… There was one thing I kept asking myself. Which was the real Paz? And which was the lie?”

What's interesting to me is that he’s not concerned about any damage to MSF that Paz may have caused, despite the fact that she hijacked ZEKE. He’s not even angry that she betrayed MSF, attempting to launch a nuclear strike on the east coast of the USA under MSF's name. He’s just dumbfounded and shell-shocked. Now, this is just my personal speculation, but I think his self-confidence really took a blow in this moment. He's always prided himself on his charisma and business acumen. For Kaz, to think that he so horribly and completely misjudged Paz’s character was a harsh wake-up call for him.

As time goes on, he does become angry, though. It’s mostly (misplaced) anger at Paz, but underneath it all, I think he’s mostly angry with himself.

In GZ, he asks Snake to bring Paz back alive, saying to kill her only if “worse comes to worst”. He uses the excuse that he wants her alive only because he wants to interrogate her and that she knows too much, but there are a couple lines of his during that mission that betrays his feelings:

“Paz is our only link to Cipher. If she’s still alive… …We need her on our side. If not us, who else is gonna rescue that bitch?”

I like that last line a lot because it really shows how conflicted Kaz feels about her. Yes, Kaz wants information on Cipher. Yes, Kaz is angry at Paz. But Kaz also wants Paz to be saved, by somebody, anybody. He just feels that MSF is the only group qualified to do so.

Now, I definitely don’t think that Paz’s well-being was the only motivation for Kaz’s asking Snake to bring her back alive. It’s just that underneath all the anger, Kaz is still clearly emotionally attached to her. In fact, Kaz even says:

“When we get our hands on Paz, intel on Cipher isn’t the only thing I want out of her. Putting aside her mission, her past, that sense of loyalty they drilled into her… I want to know… what she really thought of us.”

Ever since the ZEKE battle, Kaz has clearly been tormented with this question. At this point in time, Kaz is fully aware of what Zero and Cipher are capable of, and why Paz was sent to him. However, he recognizes Paz as more than just a Cipher agent. He wants to look past all of that– the “Paz Ortega Andrade” that Cipher had built up. He has to know what “Pacifica Ocean” truly thought of him and MSF. Whether or not his efforts to reach out to her were successful or not.

What makes this even sadder is that after the attack on mother base, Kaz incorrectly thinks that it was Paz who sold out MSF. He feels utterly betrayed, and his temper reaches a breaking point, lashing out at Paz, calling her a “spying bitch” and even attempting to attack her (which I firmly believe he would have if the medic hadn’t been holding him back).

Thinking about this from Paz’s perspective is also horribly depressing. She suffered so much torture at the hands of Skull Face, but she remained loyal to MSF, asking Skull Face to kill Zero if it meant it would save Snake. When Skull Face told her that he was planning to kill Snake as well, she pleaded with him to change his mind. Obviously, Kaz's plan worked. She did switch allegiances, betraying Zero in order to save Snake and MSF.

And yet, this is something that Kaz didn’t know. He thought that her loyalty ultimately laid with Cipher, which is why he was so furious after the attack on MSF. Paz likely didn’t even know that MSF was attacked, as she came to after Morpho had flown everyone away from base. The last experience of her life was nothing but pure rage and hatred from the person that she wanted to be closest to on mother base.

I don’t know, I just really love these two characters and their relationship a lot. Thinking about the friendship that they could have had, and the misunderstandings and tragedies that prevented either of them from knowing the truth was just heart-wrenching to watch throughout PW to GZ.

#i typed up something similar to this a while ago but it was a lot shorter and messy and i didn't proof-read it AT ALL LMAO #it was really more of a draft than anything else #finally sat down and fleshed it out and added over 1k words whoops and actually proofread so that's exciting #kazuhira miller #paz ortega andrade #two peace #metal gear solid peace walker #mg #amelia rambles

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