there ain't language for the things i've seen

[alankazam]

WHO: Alan + Kain, Medicine Seller, Thingol, Bruce, Jaime + OTA
WHAT: Gotta catch 'em all
WHEN: Post-Winter Palace
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: N/A

Starters in comments. If we agreed to do something and I missed you, just let me know on Plurk or Discord (oeste #8807). :)

If you'd like a specific starter, or if anything needs altering, please feel free to hit me up. If we have a Winter Palace Pt. II thread going, I'd like to finish those off first!

Comments

[alankazam]

"Perhaps they were important to someone," He offers. They are, if not for their own sake. "Books are where they keep everything important."

Like calls to like. Alan descends slow and one-handed, to stow the bucket of nails safely on a nearby desk (alright, so it's a little precarious atop the stack of abandoned dishes someone's left —).

"A sort of physical memory, aren't they? Set out where everyone can see them."

Or at least the ones that know to look. Alan's eyes drift from Thingol's, to the pearls, and back again. The mistakes are written in the pictures; the victories in the prize.

[thehiddenking]

"Tomes should be deemed precious. Without knowledge, all other treasure loses meaning." Thingol toys with the pearls, sliding them over his fingers so that he may enjoy the smooth texture. Only a creature who calls the water home can make something so individual and yet so perfect.

"You seem to know much of their thinking." his gaze intensifies on Alan, "Are these perhaps yours?"

[alankazam]

"No," And it's not a lie, really, no matter how guiltily he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "They belonged to the river."

Freshwater. But there's no sense to tossing them back, not now that they've been transmuted. They're as soaked in fire and dirt as the stream. He perches on the edge of the desk, ignores the way it sets the nails to wobbling. There's open curiousity in his gaze now, unguarded, almost eager. It's younger than his years.

"What do you feel in them?" Knowledge isn't stored solely in words and tongues — as little as he expects the Empress Celene and her vaults would agree.

[thehiddenking]

He doesn't look convinced until he hears Alan's reasoning. Amusement shines from his eyes and he hums thoughtfully:

"Indeed. It took a drove of little creatures many, many days to create such beauty." and he clearly admires their handiwork, unwilling to relinquish the pearls quite yet. He is a lover of treasure - no matter how small. Natural works of art in particular catch his eye, though works of the Forge - those things crafted through extreme heat - are equally - if not more - prized.

"I feel cool, clean water rushing over my hand. I can hear a river flowing gently with green plants dancing just under the surface. Fish dart about, seeking sustenance and mates; yet none of that can reach inside of a hard shell. These pearls witnessed the world through a small slit as they grew and grew." he had such rivers in Doriath and he recalls them fondly.

[alankazam]

"Like what the Fade must have seen, through the Rift."

A small cut in the fabric of things, more real than any little dreaming window. Whether that makes their Rifters the grit in the shell...

It hasn't escaped his notice that the large, shiny elves aren't exactly homegrown. He's prodding a little now, as indirectly as he ever manages. Alan isn't a creature of subtlety.

"Or what we see, of the worlds beyond."

[thehiddenking]

"It is possible." he cannot say much for the Fade or for Rifts for that matter. The power behind such is strange and he wishes he could converse with Lord Námo about them.

"All I have ever known is one world; Arda. There are levels to my world, you could say, like the rings of a tree. When a life ends, the fëa - or soul - passes into the realm of Lord Námo. I do not know much of what occurs to it after that point." he has watched others perish, but he has never allowed himself to think beyond the sorrow of their passing, "Many Elves never make such a journey. We, instead, travel back to Aman. That is the land I first knew. There, we walk side by side with the Valar."

[alankazam]

Alan nods, eyes wide. He understands about one word in four, but that hardly matters.

"The valar?" The words sound vaguely Tevene. The rest of it, more peculiar, more like his grandmother's people. "Our souls return to us, if they are strong enough to make the journey. Few pass through such distance."

[thehiddenking]

One word in four is an accomplishment! Elves of Thingol's race are mysterious for many reasons, but the largest reason is due to their inability to connect with those much younger and much less knowledgeable than themselves.

"The Valar shape Arda under Eru's guidance." so Eru is basically God while the Valar are like Angels, "How do they return? What shape do they take?"

[alankazam]

He might as well be telling him that Robert shapes the Fiddlyfunk under the Humdinger. But the Maker — well — made the world. It sounds as though Thingol suggests these Valar to be His servants.

Eru. Another name for Him, certainly; it's yet to cross Alan's mind that the Maker wouldn't be known in those lands outside Thedas.

"In life anew. Some as children, of all race and kind — else as spirits and guardians of the righteous." Thingol is not precisely getting the mainstream view, here. "They rise from the Maker's side to guide His children."

[thehiddenking]

The sad part of it was that Thingol knew others would likely not understand the names he used, but he used them anyway and expected them to catch on. Old Elves needed their games.

"They adopt the role that was meant for myself and my brothers." he quirked a brow, smiling, "We were meant to travel to Middle Earth, gather the Elves there and sail back to Aman where the King of the Valar lives."

It did not go exactly as planned considering Thingol lived and died on Middle Earth instead of returning.

[alankazam]

"I see."

He doesn't. Alan nods, sagely, folds his hands into his lap. Middle Earth. Has to be Dwarven — not above, or under it, right? But more importantly:

"You're dead, then,"

He wouldn't be the only Rifter to be more properly a spirit. An appraising look over Thingol. It explains the shininess, at least.

[thehiddenking]

"On Arda, I am." Thingol did not blink nor shy away from the fact. Oh and his shininess would be there whether he was alive or dead. Said Light came from his time standing in the radiance of the Two Trees on Aman (which basically became the Sun and the Moon).

"I never thought I would experience it, but I think I longed for it."

[alankazam]

It's not an unfamiliar sentiment. Alan's young, but there are times he's thought of it. Impossible not to; to be human (or elven, or else besides) in this world and not, at times, hope for something better.

But all things come in time. It is against the Maker's hand to take such matters into one's own.

"Have you found peace of it?"

[thehiddenking]

"Yes and no." he laid the pearls back in their hiding place, closing his eyes, "I now know what my children experienced, but I am here. My family is lost to me unless I return and am reincarnated."

One might be likely; two? No. Thingol knew better than to ask for too much.

[alankazam]

"They are not lost," A small comment. He folds his hands, regards them a moment before continuing. There's a new solemnity to his words, however faint. "Not even here."

Far from home, he's learned, you carry your home within you.

"Perhaps you were sent here to purpose. That you might know, when you do return."

[thehiddenking]

"How can you know?" or was this Man speaking metaphorically? His expression darkened and he gave his head a sharp shake. "You must understand that the fate of Elves upon their death is different from the fate that awaits Men or any other race on Arda."

But know what? Thingol opened his mouth to ask, yet he closed it suddenly, eyes sharp.

"I will return to the Halls of Mandos, where I will be but one soul under Lord Námo's protection and guidance. My only hope of seeing those I left behind is...as I said...through reincarnation." unless...

His heart leapt.

"Could they come here?"

[alankazam]

His head inclines slightly, tipped to the side as a sparrow's.

"You came here, didn't you?"

There are many things that Alan doesn't know. Against the backdrop of devotion, it can be difficult to guess which doubts he embraces, and which he takes for fact.

But if he has conviction, sharp and unshaken, it is in this: All things are possible in the Maker. Their present days inspire yawning questions, great spaces between understanding and grey. They're as much a part of creation as the solid ground.

It's by those cracks he knows his god.

[thehiddenking]

"By chance. I have not seen much deeper reason for me to have been called." he looked momentarily conflicted, sensing Alan's conviction and finding very little in his own faith to hold onto. All of his tethers remained on Arda; he had been ripped from every single one.

"I would not wish this confusion on them..." yet he would do almost anything to behold their faces again.

[alankazam]

"It's not for us to knows the ways of fate."

Even those that have once walked at the Maker's side cannot truly know His will. The oyster, again.

"We see the waters before us. We know the waters behind us. We can guess at the shape of the stream — but to know it?" A small, sad smile. "What do you believe they would wish? For you to be here alone?"

He shakes his head.

"You carry their care, even set apart as you are."

[thehiddenking]

"Do you speak of fate or Eru?" Thingol wondered, stomach sinking, whether Eru's power extended this far. Surely it did. To think otherwise was...wrong; it went against his core beliefs.

"I cannot say they forgive me for what I have done. Without that forgiveness, they would not wish to be in my company." he pressed his lips together to keep his breathing steady.

[alankazam]

"Is it so different?"

Names are material; essence eternal. Whatever Thingol calls it by, the river flows on.

"By suffering we divide ourselves from others," He picks at the bandage about his fingers, considers. "Whether we cause it, or it's caused of us. But suffering is ours to end. To make our peace with."

"It would not hurt them, did they not still bear love for you."

[thehiddenking]

"Eru determines fate, yes." but was he here? Thingol tensed, gritting his teeth. The forest called to him; it was his sanctuary - his place of peace. Or it used to be. She wouldn't be there, however, and that made all the difference.

"Suffering cannot be controlled in that manner. It must be felt for a time and then released." he tilted his head, "Are you injured?"

No, he could not think of being loved and forgiven. It made his heart warm and vulnerable.

[alankazam]

Swallowing hurt, shoving it down and locking the door, it’s the only way he knows to be. You move on, or the world moves on without you.

But Thingol’s tense, and he’s changing the subject, and Alan hasn’t lost all his instincts for self-preservation; for empathy. When you strike a nerve, it's not always a sign to keep digging.

"It’s alright," The only two words he ever answers an inquiry like that with. Reflex — you don't show weakness of the pack — though for once it’s as much fact. Alan lifts it to display his palm, wrapped tight. "I’m just supposed to rest it."

Which. Climbing about in the library probably doesn’t qualify, but he’s always taken a rather loose interpretation of these matters. When it hurts, he doesn't use it so much. Problem solved.