faderift | (no subject)

Why are there always so many fucking elves in the gardens.

The thought is more resignation than malice, a little weary despair; elves, elves, elves. Everywhere she turns, lately, unavoidable - well, not entirely. She has very successfully avoided Thranduil since returning from Orlais, so successfully she isn't sure he's noticed or particularly cares, which is something else to worry at and...no, she's angry with him, she doesn't wish to be in his company, so it doesn't matter. It's fine if he doesn't care. That's actually preferable.

(Does he not care, though?)

All of these things, the connection (she isn't sure the specifics but she knows there is one) between Thranduil and Galadriel, her own exhaustion with dealing with anyone outside of her own head, the grief that twists inside her and allows so little space for anything else - there is little to argue for pausing to see what it is that Galadriel is doing. But.

They don't know each other, really. Galadriel doesn't expect her to behave any particular way or be any particular thing, and she is, in spite of herself, curious. It's easier, sometimes, to be around people who don't know what you're like ordinarily -

"Are you doing magic?"

Gwenaëlle thinks it's a generous guess, in that she is not assuming the strange woman just sits around looking at dishes sometimes for no reason.

Passing interest is something Galadriel has rarely ever had to field; her demeanor and general appearance were often enough to dissuade interruptions. Today, it seems, they are insufficient and her peace, what little there is to cultivate here, is strained.

"It has been called that," she answers, just this side of distracted.

There is a pause and she glances up to find Gwenaëlle. She has little experience with this woman, save for her writings--she regards her silently a beat and then looks back to the water. In the hazy autumn sun the surface nearly flickers, distant fleeting images dart across the water and away like leaves tumbling through the air.

"Though I cannot say if the people of these lands would consider it so. Do you seek a mage?"

"No." The explanation for her presence circles around her skirts, a young dog who will be a big dog when he's quite grown into his paws, sitting down in front of Gwenaëlle - not irrelevantly putting himself between her and the stranger - when she doesn't move on. Hardie tilts his head up at his mistress, patient enough, and it seems to occur to her belatedly that it might help to have a rest-of-that-sentence, so-

"I wasn't looking for anyone," with a shrug. "I just wondered what you were doing. We're taking a walk."

Galadriel has developed some fondness for dogs, it is part of this place she imagines, and she glances up at the dog as it sits itself between them. It brings a small smile to her face and, with that smile, some of Galadriel's mild frustration ebbs.

"I see, the weather does beg such activities," she says and sits back, drawing herself out of the mild hunch she had settled into.

"I believe it is called scrying in these lands, or it is akin to it, but I am having issue seeing anything of note." She looks Gwenaëlle, her eye a little keener than it would have normally been. "I do not suppose you know the art of scrying well?"

Hardie rises when Gwenaëlle starts to shift - forward, drifting a bit closer, not quite joining Galadriel but certainly facilitating further conversation. He isn't unfriendly, but well trained enough - even in his tender years - to keep close to her and refrain from barking excitedly at a new person. Where is this restraint when he's trying to get better acquainted with the personal area of men of her acquaintance, she wonders.

"I don't know any magical arts very well," she says, unabashed in her own ignorance; it isn't unique or unusual. The few mages she'd ever encountered before Skyhold were circle mages (she wouldn't say she'd encountered Morrigan before here, not truly), and her experience of them limited. They weren't offering lectures on magical theory to noble girls with a curious bent. "I don't know many mages."

After a moment, thoughtfully, "My uncle was one." Is, maybe, but - she holds out fairly slim hope for Enchanter Vauquelin's survival of the White Spire. "And I know Morrigan. Scrying means looking for things, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it is what men call far-seeing, I believe," Galadriel answers and gesture with a nod to the bench beside her. If Gwenaëlle wishes to join her, she is welcome to.

"I do not search far, not intentionally, but the languages of men lack words to explain searching for what has been, or is yet to be."

Galadriel shifts the bowl in her hands and the surface of the water ripples, breaking the perfect reflection of the sky.

"Thus far I have found neither, but I hold out some hope."

The ripples catch her eye - nothing more complex than being drawn to movement, but she lingers on it, thoughtful. She'd be drawn to water if it didn't have magical potential, all told, both for its symbolism and for the fact she finds it soothing; there's been not enough soothing, lately, and she grasps at nearly anything for steadiness.

"Divining," she offers, after a moment. And then, wry, "I don't know magic, but I know words."

"Divining?" Galadriel repeats sounding mildly curious at the term. Her brows rise as she considers it and a thoughtful sort of frown settles across her features, briefly.

"I had not considered that it counted as divine, but associating it so is not so surprising," she says and motions her hand idly over the bowl of water. For a moment the motion seems to have little effect but the ripples still and, after a beat, the water is rendered utterly motionless. The surface is glassy and perfect once more.

"Despite my years I often find words, at least the words of Men, to be dreadfully confusing," Galadriel admits without much bashfulness. "Their meanings shift readily and often; in the span of only a few years entire dialects can arise and fall into disuse. It is terribly difficult to keep up."

"Language is a living thing," with a shrug that's - not dismissive, really. She's fascinated by the use of words, the small and subtle and even almost invisible ways that you can change the way someone responds to something by altering the wording. By being aware of the connotations. "For instance, I didn't mean that it's divine."

That would probably be some form of heresy, although the thought crosses her mind more analytically than out of concern. (She abides by the Chantry because it's necessary to do so and out of long habit, having been raised that way; not faith.)

"It's a word that, used in the right context, simply means what you described not having a word for. We do. You just didn't know it. Probably," lightly, "because of that whole 'moving so quickly' thing we do with everything." Words included, as Galadriel notes.