faderift | [OPEN] - Conversations and Company

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[OPEN] - Conversations and Company

WHO: Galadriel and anyone!
WHAT: Galadriel has finally been released from jail and is (relatively) free to go about her business.
WHEN: Just slightly backdated. Set before the Illness event (so before 4/16-18), late Drakonis to early Cloudreach?
WHERE: Various - Skyhold
NOTES: No warnings just yet, but I will update accordingly.
(Relevant links, mostly for my personal reference, but hey, why not share? In loose chronological order...and probably only about half of the total relevant threads: Cassandra and Galadriel's Interrogation Fiasco, Galadriel in Jail, Gavin Fails To Save The Day But We Still Love Him, Obi-Wan Kenobi's 'This Is Not How You Do Law Enforcement' Network Post, and Thranduil and Legolas Arrive To Actually Save The Day. And Also: Faderift Civil War OOC Planning Post. )

1. Indoors, Open
Once she had been released, (for that was what it had been; she was not so naive that she would mistake it for being freed, not while the eyes of the Inquisition watched her so keenly,) Galadriel found the fortress far less hospitable than it had been. The stones themselves were not aware enough to influence the world about them, but the rumors that had spread while she was indisposed were, apparently, many and malicious. Where the men that worked and bustled through the keep had, previously, been content to stare at her and shuffle on, now they lingered in her periphery and, rather than pass her by, expended great effort to grant her a wide berth.

Galadriel was less troubled by this behavior than one might expect, she had considerable practice ignoring the slights and follies of mortal men. No, what truly taxed her patience were the guard who trailed after her every step. They were unsubtle in their duty, clad in full branded plate as they were, and their every rattle and footfall was a reminder of the slight Cassandra had paid her. The templars kept some distance from her, lingering in the threshold of rooms or the landing of stairs, but they were ever in sight.

She could not say what purpose they were meant to serve, stalking about in her wake, but whatever it was, they did so clumsily and without foresight. So, as she went to locate her belongings, she attempted to ignore the templars that watched her.

Her possessions, few as they were, had been disturbed from their resting place in the rotunda. Her notes, pages upon pages of tight tengwar script and scattered Theodosian letters, were missing from the table in the corner. Her cloak remained, as did the crimson jerkin and the thread she'd spun to embroider it, but the phial and her staff had yet to reappear alongside them. The books she had borrowed, somehow, had not been moved and beneath them, the most current page of her notes still rested. She had been interrupted from this task and, as she looked at the page, the boldfaced clatter of plate armor disturbed the stillness of the tower.

Had she any less restraint she might've sighed. As it was, she simply cast the human guard a long look and then took a seat at the table in the corner. Resuming her work was a simple thing and, if she refrained from wandering about she would not be forced to endure the noisy gait of her attendants.

(Feel free to have your character run into Galadriel (and company) as she transcribes historical texts into tengwar, as she returns her borrowed (and long overdue) books to the library, or as she sits at a desk and stares, dispassionately, at the awkward pair of templars in the corner.)

2. Outdoors, Open
It was early spring in Thedas and, while she had only been kept from the sunlight for a short time, she had longed to breath the bright spring air and stand beneath the vast blue sky. Galadriel relished the spring and, as she lingered in the garden she could nearly forget where she was. There was a certain ease that came over her in the crisp air of spring, some joy that made her lighter and, indeed, brighter for know it; it alarmed her minders but she paid them little attention as she strolled through the beds of the garden.

She supposed the scene might've been amusing, were it not so grievously offensive to her.

Galadriel seated herself on a bench in the sunshine, confident that she was removed from the comings and goings of those who worked in the gardens, and the pair of templars crowded behind her. They scowled into the sunshine and their expressions maintained as she settled the crimson jerkin in her lap and began embroidering. They regarded her work as one might regard a knife being sharpened and, to her intense amusement, were either unable to detect or too distracted to note the quiet enchantment she stitched into the swath of crimson silk.

(It's spring! It's also probably sometime close to the literal crack of dawn. Please join Galadriel as she embroiders while being closely watched.)

3. Shopping, Open
The merchants that frequented Skyhold had been, until recently, an understanding and agreeable sort. She had never had conflict with any one of them. They had always been gracious helpful in all her dealings, scattered as they were, but it seemed the rumors regarding her arrest had found their way to all corners of the Keep.

She was polite as she spoke to them but, one by one, they declined to trade with her. While nothing she offered or sought was particularly suspect, none of them, it seemed, wished to risk the conflict.

(What does an elf have to do to buy some wool around here? Apparently they have to manifest a friend to help them buy it. Or someone to tell her to move along. Feel free to join Galadriel as she attempts/fails to shop!)

4. Wildcard
(If none of the above appeal and you would still like to do something, please have at! Galadriel will be in Skyhold, here and there. If you have any questions, please hit me up

hikuswing or PM this account.)

Individual Starters:
(Proofreading the lot of them at the moment, I will ping relevant parties as I update!.)

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Katniss tucked her thumbs into her leather jacket, giving Galadriel a more considering look, before she tilted her chin towards the rest of the tables. "I'll be glad to help, whatever way I can, Lady Galadriel. And ... if need be, there are two ways you can pay me back, for now and in the future."

She sucked in a breath, "You can answer some of my questions, if you would. And ... I'd ask you to make something pretty, for someone else. My adopted sister's birthday is coming up. I'd like her to have another gown."

"Very well," Galadriel agrees, though it is mixed with some measure of caution as well as curiosity. "I will do as I can."

She considers the woman and the courtyard around them and, after a pause, inclines her head.

"Ask what you would, Katniss, and I will answer if I am able.

Katniss nodded, before she gestured for Galadriel and her templar guards, to walk off towards the side, away from main traffic and away from prying ears. She did glance back at the templar guards, but Maker's Balls, if they didn't like what she had to ask, they could come up and tell her themselves.

So she looked up at the other woman, her voice grave, "What threat are you to my home? What were you going to do that was so terrible, that the Seeker had to lock you up?"

Edited 2016-04-28 17:58 (UTC)

Katniss leads her and, by extension, the templars to a more secluded location before she speaks. The guard become uneasy as they survey their destination and grow ever more so as Katniss speaks. As she listens to the questions Katniss has for her, the templar's intended purpose becomes clear to Galadriel. She is to have no privacy, of that she was already aware, but she had assumed their presence was petty, as Cassandra's questions had been.

But she was wrong, wasn't she? They are to mind her because, above all things, she presents to them a terrible threat.

The course of action she takes then, once Katniss has spoken and the guard move to intercede is, perhaps, unwise.

The silk in hand is abandoned as Galadriel lifts her ring hand and motions, in a nearly dismissive arc to the space around them. It is a small alcove, nondescript but for their presence tucked within it, and the templars still as their first advancing steps fall. They seem bleary and confused as they stare at the two women, the wall behind them, the ground at their feet. Their gaze is unseeing, distracted, and it becomes apparent that they lack the focus to recoil and move along. The effect is strong, perhaps too much so, but she had not tested this art in Thedas; at the moment, she could not risk it failing.

She was not usually wont to conceal herself with enemies so close at hand, and she feels the strain of it at once, but it is...tolerable. Galadriel has a moment of pity for the guard, for their disorientation, for how it will persist as she converses with Katniss, but it is only a moment.

When she turns her attention back to Katniss, there is a note of confusion and disappointment in her face. Her smile is replaced with a soft frown, but there is no worry in it. The templars clearly do not concern her.

"I refused to swear her an oath, for I do not swear oaths lightly," Galadriel answers, her brow dipping as she stares at Katniss. "I made no threats to your home."

It all happened so quickly that Katniss wasn't entirely certain what happened. Galadriel gave her a more focused look, and then the templars started to move forward. She turned on her heel to give them both a piece of her mind - she had a right to know! - when they both stopped and looked ... confused. As if their minds are muddled.

Her eyebrows raise together - she had never seen this kind of magic performed. She tilted her head, resisting the temptation to reach forward and poke them, when Galadriel begins to speak and she turns to the woman again.

She looks confused, and a little ... perturbed, which is damned surprising considering the fact she just whammied two templars, but still.

Her lips press together. "What kind of oath does a Seeker ask of you, that if you do not agree, she puts you in jail?" Suddenly, something clicks, and she looks over her shoulder at the templars, then back at her. "It has to deal with your magic, doesn't it?"

"Yes," Galadriel confirms after a beat. The contents of the oath had mattered little--they still matter little, but she pauses as she attempts to recall them.

"She demanded my accounts, accounts which she had already received," Galadriel explains slowly and tries not to let her anger rise as she ponders Cassandra's offenses. She is less than successful in reining the emotion in and, gradually, it colors her tone. "She leveled the first threat, demanded compliance lest I be left "to rot". I refused to assist her further, to answer her foolish questions, or to dictate what I may and may not do--"

Galadriel has to halt herself as she speaks. Her anger is a cold and biting thing, it rises in her tone as she goes and Katniss has done little to earn her ire. It is not an emotion she is fond of expressing, nor one she is often wont to indulge in, so she lets the sentiment pass as she falls into brief silence.

"I made no threats to your home," Galadriel says after her pause. "But I cannot abide being treated as a liar, nor as a traitor. I will not swear an oath to that woman, nor to any mortal army, regardless of what it demands of me."

Katniss folded her arms over her chest, because to her, oaths were sacred. If you made a promise, you kept it, no matter what. That was why Buttercup was with her, why she was with the Inquisition, and why she was still breathing. All promises she kept, every single day of her life. She could tell that Galadriel was angry, asking to make such a promise.

She exhaled slowly, nodding, "I believe you. That you did not threat Thedas. I just ... your powers are great, Lady Galadriel. I have never seen magic like yours, and I can understand why people would be afraid." She searched the other woman's face, "But if you say you will not hurt innocents with it -- then I trust you."

Galadriel released, after a pause, a long and heavy sigh. For just a moment, her true age, the weight of tens of thousands of years, seemed to settle upon her. She shook her head, just slightly and, as quickly as it had manifested, the tangible sense of age vanished.

"Mortal men often fear what they do not understand and, in all lands it seems, they understand very little." Galadriel glanced down at the silk that lie in the mud beside them. She bent to retrieve it and, with careful fingers, brushed the damp earth off of it.

"I cannot swear to you that I will not hurt innocents, Katniss, for I have not looked to the threads that guide this world, and I know not what will come to pass. Nor can I promise that my power will not inspire fear, for great power often does," Galadriel continued with a soft note of remorse and mixed resignation. "Even in my own lands, Men deemed me a witch and told tales of how I broke their wills and bespelled their hearts to my bidding."

She folded the fabric again and rose, drawing herself to her full height save for the bend of her head. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders as she stared at Katniss and, for a moment, she looked as dangerous and tangible as distant looming clouds. There was the potential for great calamity in her, but an inherently harmless nature as well.

"I have never taken joy in causing harm, nor hastening deaths; I have seen too much war, too much destruction to know it for anything other than what it is. I value life, Katniss, above all things, and I have spent years untold and power beyond measure to prevent darkness and time from despoiling the lands and people I loved.

"Why, then, would I do any less in Thedas?" She paused and, with a breath that was almost tangibly shaky, said:

"This land is my home now; I have no other. I would spend all that I am to see it kept well, to see it restored and thriving. Freed of darkness. Freed of danger."

Katniss's lips pressed together, but she didn't judge and she didn't condemn. She paid attention to the meaning behind the words, and not just the words themselves. Words could be used for many things, she had learned. She searched the other woman's ancient face, her own lips puckering slightly in thought.

After a few moments of silence, she finally nodded her head. "I see." One corner of her mouth twisted wryly, "I think I also see why Seeker Penterghast was pitching a holy fit. You don't give your word lightly, do you, Lady Galadriel? And you never make a promise that you can't keep, because ... from what you've seen, you don't know the future, but you've learned from the past."

"I have, I hope," Galadriel replied simply, almost wearily, and she raised her hand to dispel the concealment she'd drawn across them. The muted sounds of the Keep filtered back in, sharp and bright as the morning light. A cool breeze cut through the still air around them and stirred it. The templars started, but they were disoriented and confused; it would be some time before they would be able to recall the sequence of things, to heed the world around them.

"When the Eldar swear an oath, we are bound to it," she explained, resigned and remorseful in equal parts. "This Inquisition will pass, this age of Thedas will end, mortal countries will fall to ruin and be forgotten. All who knew of my oath would die, their very names faded from all memory, but I would endure.

"I cannot swear oaths lightly, Katniss, for I will carry them with me always. Unto the very ending of the world."

Katniss stared at Galadriel for a long moment, her grey eyes widening as she considering the ages passing before Galadriel would die. She shook her head a little, as the templars slowly came back to themselves, whispering softly, "You truly are one of the Ancestors ... not of our kith and kin, but of our memories."

She paused, and sighed, "And ... probably of our dreams, and deepest desires." Who wouldn't want to see the centuries pass, as Galadriel did? To learn all there was to know, to experience life to the fullest.

Well, not Katniss, but she always knew she burned hotter and faster than anyone else.

"I cannot say what ancestry I have claim to, not in this land, but there are precious few elves who hold no relation to me," Galadriel replied, her tone a little lighter but no steadier than it had been. The toll of concealing their conversation was already catching her up.

"And in recent centuries, all Peredhil have become my kin as well."

Galadriel shifted the fabric in her arms, the bag in her grasp, and settled her free hand atop her arm to still both her limbs.

"I would not threaten Thedas, nor bring it harm. In the end, I will be here far longer than most."

Katniss nodded her head once, her gaze narrowing on the templars before she moved in front of Galadriel. Once they came out of their haze, she didn't want them going after the woman. Not when she had finally gotten her freedomb back.

However, that statement got her a curious look, then a quiet nod. "Thank you, for that. And ... what is a Peredhil?"

"It means half-elven, though it is rarer in Arda than here."

Now that the conversation had become somewhat more banal, Galadriel turned and with a quick and fleeting touch to Katniss's shoulder, ushered the girl back toward the open courtyard. The templars moved, hastily, to follow them and, as they walked, seemed at a loss aboit why they'd come over here at all.

"Only my grandchildren and their father hold the title in our lands, but it exists all the same."

"Peredhil ... I like that a great deal more than elf-blooded."

Katniss let herself be led, as the templars didn't seem to know what precisely was happening at all. Why clue them in? Not a damned reason in the world.

"So, they are the only three half-bloods in your entire kingdom?" Maker's Breath, and all the Creators combined.

"Four," Galadriel corrected as they ambled into the courtyard, "I have a granddaughter and twin grandsons. Though my granddaughter spent many years in Lórien, they reside in their father's lands.

"His kingdom is its own."

It would have required quite some time to explain to Katniss about the state of nobility in Middle-earth, or even the houses of the Noldor and how the High Kingship passed. Implying Elrond was a King was a lie, but only of omission, and she let it stand. Even with its inaccuracies, it was a far better explanation than a precise account could hope to be.

"There may be a few that I do not know, but it is not terribly common. The Eldar rarely love more than once, and while time cannot slay us, grief is all too capable of it. To take a mortal love is..."

Galadriel drew a long breath and sounded somewhat distant as she finished that thought.

"...to resign yourself to fading."

"...You mean, half-bloods rule where you live?" Well apparently Katniss was simply in the wrong world altogether. She couldn't believe a thing possible like that here in Thedas. Not when things were still like they were now.

She looked grave at that, before she sighed herself. "Yes, that is what the Dalish think of the half-bloods. That we taint the line, we are going to slowly kill out elvhen altogether."

"Taint the line?" Galadriel repeated blankly and, for a moment, seemed as though she couldn't conjure how Katniss had made a leap from her statement to that one. It took some thought and, indeed, what she knew of Thedas to follow Katniss's logic and, once she had, her expression flashed with surprise and then fell to something more contained and (somewhat) grim.

"No, I did not mean--" Galadriel began but, in her haste, found her own words wanting. It was exceedingly rare for the elven woman to halt once she had begun, she spoke with great care and aforethought, but here she stopped herself. The fading of the Eldar was not important, not to Katniss, nor to Thedas, and explaining it was worth very little. Her correction would be put to far better use as an assurance.

"Do not lament love, nor the products of it," Galadriel urged her quietly. "Love is often our grandest achievement, whether we live for all the ages of the earth or far less, and no line, nor house, nor kingdom of men or elves has ever been weaker for embracing it."

She paused, in the sunshine, and offered Katniss a sad sort of smile.

"My granddaughter...she has bound herself to a mortal love. While I grieve for her death, I cannot refuse her such joy. Her children, should she bear any, will be no less my kin than she, whether they linger on or live swift lives."

Katniss looked at Galadriel for a long moment, her grey eyes troubled, and equally sad. Too often she had heard that what she was an abomination - either to humans or to elves. Neither one of them were something she specifically wanted to focus on, but here they were.

Galadriel's words, however, were the right balm for an old wound. If an elf like Galadriel could see no curse in being a half-born, then truly, what the full bloods said on either side of the line? Was a load of malarky.

"My father never did - but I know that my mother must have. I wish she and her kin were as enlightened as the elves from your world, Galadriel." It is a sincere thought, right to the core of her.

"Enlightened?" Galadriel asked, almost surprised by the word itself. It was...apt, but not in a way that Katniss would understand.

"I cannot imagine there is such difference, but you would know better than I the state of elves in these lands," Galadriel said. "One day, the world will change. It does, inevitably, and if I can see it bettered...in cases as this, I would."

The templars behind her had regained their faculties during their conversation and, as Galadriel reached to set a hand on Katniss's shoulder, one of them made a short, warning sound. Had she not just strained their minds so badly, she would have taken exception to the limitation. As it was, Galadriel relented and inclined her head to the woman instead.

"A dress, you asked for? If you have her measurements, send them to me and I shall see it made."

"Yes, enlightened. Having a more ... open and fluid mind, about what makes someone an elf, and what does not." She smiled, a little, before she nodded her head more soberly, "One day. I just hope I will be alive to see it."

The look she shoots the templars is pure ice, grey and flat, a look that even templars have to take a moment to regain their stoic expressions. Then she looks back up at Galadriel, tipping her head.

"Of course. I'll messenger them over to you, right away. And please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you, my lady."

"I shall," she replied gently and dipped at the waist into a shallow bow. "Savo 'lass a lalaith, until we meet again."

Galadriel stood upright a moment later and cast her guard a dry but vaguely bemused look. Their attention was on her, fitful as it was, and she encouraged it as she retrieved her bag of wool and led them back toward the Keep.

"Until we meet again." Katniss intoned, watching her walk away with her two guards in tow. She folded her hands into her pockets, her gaze thoughtful as she moved away in the other direction.

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[OPEN] - Conversations and Company

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