faderift | [open] many meetings

WHO: Samwise Gamgee and YOU
WHAT: Sam is back in Skyhold and never leaving again, he means it for real this time, like no seriously guys that's it
WHEN: Post-Weisshaupt (Justinian) through Solace, whenever you want it to be
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Macrinus was mean to him :( also warning for cruelty to nugs (sorry Leliana)

i. at the sign of the prancing pony

"Now, come along, Bill," Sam says patiently. He gives the pony's reins a tug, fixing him with a chastising look. "You know you won't get no oats til you go on down to the stables."

But Bill only tosses his head and whinnies loudly, stamping his foot. Sam sighs, looking down the long stone staircase leading down to the gardens, and eventually on across Skyhold to the stables below. "I just don't understand it," he says, half to himself, half to the pony. "You've always wanted your breakfast before." He looks back at Bill, now with a frown of disappointment. "Don't tell me you're ascared of these old stairs now. They can't hurt you, not with me there to keep you from falling."

ii. of herbs and stewed...rabbit?

Sam looks doubtfully down at the creatures hopping peacefully along the ground in front of him. "I don't know about this," he muttered. "I do wish there were a nice brace of coneys around - or even some pork, if wishes it is! Well there's not, and that's all there is to it." He sighs, bending down, and suddenly he goes very still. Clad in his Elven-cloak as he is, he seems almost to disappear from view, and even those who had known he was there might be hard pressed to keep sight of him.

One of the creatures - something not unlike a rabbit in fact, but bald and pink of skin, hops closer, blissfully unaware of Sam's presence. Quick as a whip the hobbit's hand darts out, and he snags it by the neck, yanking it off the ground. A sharp crack and the nug goes limp, head lolling.

Sam gets to his feet, still studying the creature skeptically. "Leastways there's no chance of fur getting into the stew," he muses optimistically, and heads for the kitchens, his spoils in tow.

iii. a knife in the dark (closed to thranduil)

He still dreams of it, sometimes - Weisshaupt Fortress. The fortress itself hadn't been a bad place, if a little hard and cold for Sam's taste, but a stone castle isn't something to cause nightmares, even a dark and dank one. No, what's stuck with him are the demons, and the pain in his hand.

He wakes with a cry, sitting bolt upright in bed and looking down to find his left hand cradled in his right, the thumb rubbing rhythmically up and down the glowing green mark. Sam studies it, swallowing hard. He's never tried to use the mark to close rifts, nor to do anything else; in fact he'd done his best to ignore it as much as possible ever since his arrival. But it's impossible to ignore now, not when he can remember Macrinus yanking hard at his wrist, sending searing pain through his hand and manipulating the mark to do...something.

Something that had hurt people.

iv. wildcard

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The hobbit absorbs this for a moment, sitting quietly as he thinks. At one point he might have guessed that he'd jump and dance at such a pronouncement - friends with an Elf! - but now that it's here, he doesn't feel the need. He's happy, still, near bursting with it, but it's a quiet, peaceful kind of happy, perhaps influenced by Thranduil himself and his serene, stately presence.

He looks up, eyes shining with awe as he dares to meet Thranduil's gaze.

"Me?" he manages to say. "Oh, yes, sir! Why I can't think of anything that would make me happier - anything in the world!" Now the emotion hits, and his lip trembles as he tries valiantly to hold back tears - of happiness this time. "That - that is, at least nothing in Thedas," he adds, looking down at his lap, at his closed fist and everything its green shard represents. They are strangers here, the both of them, and home is a long way away.

"No," he agrees, settling into a more comfortable seat, legs crossed. "Nothing in Thedas." What Samwise deserves is a Hobbit-dwelling somewhere warm, and a large garden beside it. A lady Hobbit- they must have those, for surely they cannot be lost alongside the Entwives- and plenty of Hobbitlings, and nothing more troublesome than a tomato blight.

Instead, they have- this. And while it motivates Thranduil, leaves him determined with his teeth grit and hackles raised, Samwise is so small he must be lost in the rush.

"What troubles you, Samwise? I would remind you that we are both from Arda. Unburden yourself; I am a sympathetic ear."

A Hobbit in tears rises an odd empathy and near-on protectiveness from him. Sam in tears moreso, he thinks, because he can, at least, listen. Galadriel, on the other hand, he suspects to be- too bright and worldly to do something like this, kind as she is.

Sam sighs, long and weary, and slowly opens his fist to reveal the shard. Thranduil, King though he is, and every bit as magnificent as the Lady Galadriel herself (in Sam's opinion), and nearly as beautiful, is, somehow, more approachable. Still greater than any Hobbit could ever be, and yet Sam believes him, when he calls him friend; believes that he is truly concerned, eager to listen to his troubles and offer help if he can.

"It's only this old shard," he admits, downplaying it all the same. "It's just been hurting a bit, since that Macrinus grabbed at it - but I'm sure it's nothing," he adds hastily. "It aches a bit is all; but it's nothing I can't stand. A few days and it'll be as well as it ever was, I'll wager." Which isn't saying much - none of them quite understand how the shards work, after all, and certainly they were never meant to be in the hand of a Hobbit.

He gently takes Samwise's shard hand, places it palm-up in his own, and studies the shard. He notices nothing odd, but it is as much use in the end as asking him how to build a ship. But perhaps- perhaps he is focusing on the wrong thing? He releases Sam's hand, and drops his own back into his lap.

"Who is Macrinus?" The name sounds Tevene, and that has him concerned already. It comes to him that simply because Sam was not in the Fade that he had been in Skyhold. He has failed to simply pay attention, and Sam is the sort to hide away his hurts.

Sam looks surprised at the question, having assumed that Thranduil would naturally know everything about anything without having to ask. But then, he had not been at Weisshaupt, and so it falls to the hobbit to explain as best he can.

"He's a Warden," he begins, "or was; but he weren't one of those like we have here in Skyhold, what fight the Darkspawn - that's their Orcs here, as near as I can tell. This was a warden gone bad, and gone very bad indeed! Why even Warden Clarel turned against him in the end; working with demons as he was and all." He shakes his head soberly.

"And he... touched you? Used your shard?" It's more complicated than that, of course, but if he gently downplays the situation, he feels it is more likely that Samwise will hold the conversation.

He'll pull a more detailed account later, from someone else. He has questions about Wardens and darkspawn, but sleep is such a heavy necessity that it will wait for after solving this, after settling Samwise back to bed and comforting him.

"Yessir," Sam mumbles, suddenly ashamed. He looks down. "I tried to fight him off, but he was too big, and too strong." He clenches his hand a little tighter. "But he grabbed my wrist, and - he made it go, somehow, made it light up and hurt everybody. I never meant for it to happen - I never meant to hurt nobody!"

"No, Samwise." Thranduil's eyes soften, empathize. "You never would hurt anyone."

He has met only one hobbit- and spend the last few years between settling everything in Laketown searching for more information on them and their little insular community- but he knows few of them to be ill-natured, and the ones that are of that sort are ill-natured in hobbity ways- gruff or stubborn, but never cruel.

"I hope," Thranduil says, "that he was brought to justice?" A death in battle might be excused, but if the Man was still running about, adding his capture and trial by the Inquisition to Thranduil's list of things-to-do was easy. Doubtless, he would be encountered again.

"I don't know about justice," Sam says quietly. "But Mr. Merrick sorted him out." He shakes his head, expression grim - far too grim for a little hobbit from the Shire, one whose greatest anxiety should have been nothing more than the prospect of weevils in the garden.

"He won't be bothering nobody, never again."

[open] many meetings

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this was such an ??? tag

i'm so sorry

laughweeps

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