cool guys don't look at explosions

[rowancrowned]

WHO: thranduil + alistair
WHAT: somebody gets lost in halamshiral.
WHEN: august 19th
WHERE: halamshiral?? probably. they might have gotten very, very lost.
NOTES: n/a.

Halamshiral is—

a city on top of a city. Space in the High Quarter is at a premium, given that they cannot build out nor move their walls, but that does not mean the Low Quarter is somehow in better shape. It is still a slum, a wreck, a ruin, with no gridded streets or even streets, really, raw sewage puddled here and there.

Well, at least he’s not wearing anything fancy.

The inn he chose was not too far off the main roads, but he’s made a wrong turn somewhere, and ended up—he’s not too sure. His Orlesian is passable, and he’s about to make a go of it when silverite-and-navy catches his eye.

“You there,” he says, and then, “Ser Warden.”

Comments

[byblow]

"Me here," Alistair agrees.

He's currently on his toes. This still leaves him at least an inch shorter than the fellow he's turning to look at, but the idea had been, perhaps, that he would be able to see over the buildings and walls to locate the Winter Palace on its hill and have some sort of vague idea what side of the city he's managed to wind up on.

It takes him a moment to flattens his feet. The same moment it takes him to register that the improbably tall fellow is an elf, and therefore even more improbable, and probably a headache. He's had a bad time with improbably tall elves. Such a bad time he can't even be relieved that this one is (probably, what with the hand and nice hair, and also the fact that only the Inquisition has such tall elves) not going to rob him.

Because he was not graced with much of a filter, he adds, politely, "Ser Improbably Tall Elf."

[rowancrowned]

Really, ignoring the wrongness of the Wardens is easily if you try, he has no idea why Galadriel cannot stand to even be in the same room as one— perhaps the meter by which he measures evil by ounce has been thrown off by centuries of living in Mirkwood.

"'Thranduil' will do," he graciously allows, watching the warden bounce back on the balls of his feet.

"Does that work?" he asks, tucking his hands neatly behind him. A tilt of his head would complete the image, but he shows restraint and resists. He... really does not want trouble. At least he's found a Man to be lost with, on whom trouble might be blamed.

[byblow]

"Nnn—it might," Alistair says, please ignore that mid-syllable tactic switch, everything is fine, as evidenced by the entirely nonsuspicious smirky drawl—"if I were a couple inches taaaller."

He raises his eyebrows, invitingly. Go on, Ser Thranduil the Improbably Tall. Up on your toes.

But—

"Wait. Are you lost?" He glances up and down the street, half expecting to find some sort of retinue. There's no retinue. Only slums and normal-sized elves. "I didn't think people with hair like yours got lost."

[rowancrowned]

He fixes that notion with a stare, despite the fact that he may have considered it for a whole second. No, it- wouldn't work. Luckily, he's saved by the question Alistair asks, one that he has little trouble admitting to.

"Yes," and- "Thank you."

A compliment. He'll treat it like a compliment, with a polite incline of his head, and be utterly unphased otherwise. That's the best way to handle it.

"If we choose a direction and simply walk..." Thranduil stops, turns to look over his shoulder, then to Alistair. Hopefully, he has a better idea.

[byblow]

"Riiight," Alistair says, nodding. He curls a fist to put thoughtfully against his mouth while he considers the two directions this particular street runs in and then points to both of them with either hand. "Pickpocket Lane or Mugger Street?"

[rowancrowned]

"I do not suppose," and now he's free to give Alistair a good look over, judge the state of his clothing and the quality of any quick repairs, as well as the state of his nails and the quantity of dirt thereunder. "-that you have a coin we might flip?"

And besides, he doesn't want to be the one waving money about here. He's well aware of what sort of figure he cuts, even looking down the two alleys, and on a whim: "The right."

Considerably less suspicious puddles down that way.

[byblow]

"Pickpocket Lane," Alistair corrects, like: the street has a name, ser. Use it.

But right it is. Right he goes—ahead of Thranduil, first, by virtue of where they were standing, but he does some dance-like meandering and twist-stepping until they're even. He does have coins, for the record, but any jingling they might do is lost under the creaking leather and sliding scales and clinking metal of his boots and armor. In case he isn't a noisy enough walker already, he also drums his fingertips on his tassets for a few strides, then looks sideways at Thranduil with interest reinvigorated by a hatred for awkward silences. Awkward conversations are much better.

"I don't suppose you're related to Galadriel," he says, which is to say he isn't sure if he supposes that or not, and perhaps it is offensive of him to think that all tall blonde elven rifters are related. "If she's said anything about me, it isn't true."

[rowancrowned]

The fussy sort of movement is endearing in its own way- at the very least it draws his eyes; more interesting to look at than the smoke-marked bricks. The conversation helps still further- if the street deserves its name, it apparently isn't the time they're up and about, the two of them having a good few meters before another person.

"What," he asks, tone edging towards amusement. "- because she and I are both so terribly tall and both of us elves, we must be kin?"

Thranduil sighs, exhales all that pretension and prickliness, and gestures shortly. "We are. Her mother was the daughter of my grandfather's brother, and my Lady's husband my cousin."

(He'll draw the family tree if you ask nicely.)

He watches Alistair eck out a tune against his armor for a spare moment before looking to the road. "No. We have spoken of Wardens, but not of you by name. I assume the griffons are not for show?"

He doubts Alistair has stolen the clothes he wears- and if he didn't have that, he'd have the wrongness of the feel of him. The discordance.

[byblow]

"Nope," Alistair says, thumping a fist against said griffons. "Bona fide servant of the darkness."

Or whatever it was Galadriel called them. It's all a blur now. A frightening blur. He tries not to dwell, lest the nightmares return. (This is an exaggeration. He gave her a considerable amount of lip and deserved every ancient and icy glare she volleyed back. No one died. He didn't even cry. It was fine.) And in the interest of not offending this one too horribly, either, he looks sideways and provides a more thorough explanation:

"You're both tall, terribly blonde, and terribly not from around here. You don't have vallaslin or look like you've ever been kicked in the head for no good reason. And:" He lefts his left hand and wiggles his fingers to draw attention to it. His hand does not glow. He's not that special.

Or he is that special, but not in that specific way.

How many different worlds can there be, though, is his point, and how many of those worlds could possibly be worlds where everything is topsy-turvy and elves are not only tall, but regal? His guess is one. One world. The world in which Thranduil and Galadriel are related to one another in excessively complex ways. He does not want a family tree, thank you.

Ahead of them on Pickpocket Lane, a woman with a cart of scrap cloth and rope glances between them--"Hello, do you--" Alistair manages to squeeze in--and makes an abrupt turn down an alley to avoid them.

[rowancrowned]

His brows raise. "You jest so lightly about something so dire." It's- well, it's not a joke he might have heard in Middle-earth. No one would be quite so blase about something so serious. It's very bold. Is that boldness tempered by sense and reason?

He clenches his left hand into an almost-fist, then relaxes. It does not hurt, but it would be impossible to be unaware of it, singing a contrary tune, part of his flesh. It's terrible unsubtle if he goes and tucks it away in his pocket, as impulse tells him, but instead he holds it out as he might to admire a new ring, turning it to look at the palm and then the back.

"You know, you might yet obtain one of your own." Like Gwenaëlle, he doesn't say, rather wisely. He returns his hand to his side, does his best to ignore it so that he might carry himself normally. "And you are tall, for a Man, and blonde. Look, we have things in common. How fortuitous. Perhaps I might find enough kindness in my heart to overlook what my cousin could not."

But the woman scurries away, and his monologue- which he might have milked for a few sentences longer- ends. He closes his eyes for a moment and lets out a slow exhale. "I do not suppose, in your opinion, that she fled for no good reason at all?"

It could be that she simply wanted to avoid them. Or it could be that they were marked since they had admitted out loud they were lost, stained with the reputation of easy marks for theft or worse.