[Open: To the homeless, a haven.]

[thehiddenking]

WHO: Thingol & Open!
WHAT: He is coming to grips with his new situation and planning for the future.
WHEN: Guardian, 9:43 Dragon
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: You can reach me on Plurk @ tiger_eyes or through PM/DM for plotting. I am happy to write starters.

He had thought, initially, that he was dreaming. Death had surely fallen upon him - thus freeing his spirit from his body - but instead of him stepping into the Halls of Mandos, he encountered a vicious demon bent on not only annihilating him but all around him. Thingol wasn't a coward - despite what popular opinion might say of him on Middle Earth - and so he had drawn his blade and fought side by side with a few that showed nothing but bravery in the face of a monstrosity.

The entire experience had felt unreal to him - even as he cut into the beast - however the moment he was wounded, he had begun to realize that he was not dreaming. He was not even dead! His body had traveled with him - thanks to gods or a spell - and, by Eru, he was alive again. The shock had remained with him as he traveled to Skyhold and it lingered as he made himself acquainted with the Inquisition and their actions.

Once he had been a mighty King, proud and ready to face any and all who threatened his kingdom. The Dwarves, the Nauglímir and the Silmaril had broken him of his pride - a positive change some might say - though it left him at a loss as to what to do with his time or where it should be spent best. For now, he walked the full expanse of Skyhold, breathing in the mountain air and letting his spirit and body settle into this new way of life; a life where he was not a king or even a lord. A life where Elves were valued very little.

A small smile touched his lips as he paused, peering out over the lands to the north. The Elves deserved a fine leader; someone or someones who could unite them and give them back their worth. Oh yes, that would be a fine use of his time indeed.

For now, all who approached him would be met with a piercing, calculating stare. If you think this Elf will be dominated or belittled so easily, you have the wrong idea. Aranrúth was loyally sheathed at his hip and Thingol took full advantage of his six foot and eight inches of height.

Comments

[thehiddenking]

Ah and so there is the root of her anger; pain! He knows pain intimately. He knows loss. Amusingly enough - or at least ironically enough - he also knows her hot-headed, stubborn pride. It is a fine defense; a defense that lasted him centuries, but it cannot sustain her as it did him or she will suffer the same end.

He waits for her to find her words, his sharp gaze softening the slightest bit. Her manners are deplorable and if they speak after this, he will teach her, bit by bit, how a lady can present herself without using profanity. She would admire his queen and his daughter, he knows. It is a shame that she has encountered him and not them.

"How can you be so certain? What have you seen?" his voice is quiet, soothing, coaxing her to speak genuinely - from the heart - instead of biting and snarling. He is the inexperienced party in this world and thus, while he can teach her etiquette, she can teach him of history - more importantly, her history.

[elegiaque]

Gwenaëlle doesn't wish to be soothed, and so she isn't, too difficult, too prideful, too - lonely, mistrustful of hands reached out in kindness, too aware of the precariousness of her own position to trust them. The problem has never been that she lacks the knowledge of how to conduct herself, the problem has always been her ... selective application of the lessons of courtesy, how easily her temper gets the better of her determination to do as she's been told. She means to be what she's told she must, and tries, and - still, here she is, provoked and provoking.

"I've seen enough," she says, more coolly, her jaw set. "And I've yet to see anything that suggests the Inquisition would in any way benefit from yet another stupid factional dispute. You aren't Thedosian. The only people here that are yours are Thranduil and Galadriel and none of you have any right to expect anyone else to fall in line behind you because you toss your hair."

If she can't claim her blood, then these upstart foreigners don't get to waltz in and act as if they're owed something. It doesn't work like that, it cannot work like that, it's a slap in the face of the worst kind and the fact that the Dalish frolicking about Skyhold encourage it only deepens her resentment of the people she is quite happy to blame entirely for her mother's death. It would have been wrong to warn people of that clan, knowing that no Orlesian on the road would be at pains to differentiate between one tattooed knife-ear and another -

For just long enough, though, it might have been satisfying.

"We don't need that. We've just put one stupid civil war to bed and Maker knows it's only a matter of time before it bubbles over again," especially with the concessions that Celene wrote into law for the newly ennobled Briala, concessions Gwenaëlle can't imagine being well-received or properly enforced, that the Empress is like as not to abandon once it's more expedient, once she's reinforced her power and doesn't need some elf's cooperation. "If you want to talk about unity then what we need is unified Thedas. Not elves. Everyone. The only person it helps to stand about squabbling over where to draw which lines in whose sand is Corypheus, because that's just more time we're not spending doing something productive--"

Gwenaëlle's heart is not a soft thing. She hasn't the luxury.

[thehiddenking]

"You are incorrect. Thranduil was once one of my people. Whether or not he chooses to adhere to that loyalty is his choice. Galadriel, however, is another matter. She was never part of Doriath." his nose wrinkles and he continues, voice forcefully calm, "So you would have the Elves stay silent and take the abuse without recompense?" it's clear he doesn't like the idea in the least, "I understand those the most like me. Why should I not start there and then branch out to the other races? Your presumptions are rash and dangerous."

Thingol has aided the other races on Arda and he does not mind doing so again for the good of all. But he will not watch people that are so like his kin pushed undertow without speaking out against it; without attempting to unite them and reminding them of their worth. There is strength in numbers and if those numbers are led by someone with a cool head, it remains a positive movement.

"Define productivity? Do you think diplomacy springs from the ground? It must be built and maintained. If a large percentage of those you wish to unite in your Thedas are unhappy and abused, what is keeping them from revolting?"

Frankly, he couldn't blame the Elves if they did revolt - as useless as that would be in the long run.

[elegiaque]

The more determinedly Thingol drags the conversation back to the subject of elves, the less sense it makes to continue it. She has no desire to debate the merits of dredging the elvhen corpse for what little value it might have left, and frankly no ability to do so in any sort of measured way. Her opinions, where elves are concerned, are -

complex

- but on the matter of the intersection of these foreigners and Thedas, much less. It isn't that Gwenaëlle is completely unable to see the value of elves committed to a purpose, though even if it were one she could more readily stomach she'd be reluctant to be heard making the admission, but that his purpose, his proposal of elves united beneath him, that is too abhorrent to be dignified.

"You ought to contribute your passion to the Inquisition's cause," she says, curtly, "where it might do some good. I don't claim to decide what good that might be, but it'll all be academic if Corypheus destroys everyone."

If it sounds as if she's giving him a pat reiteration of her previous arguments -

Well, she is, without a hint of shame, and it's all he'll get.

[thehiddenking]

"I shall consider it." his smile is thin and it does not reach his eyes. Her stubbornness must stem from somewhere deep; a wound perhaps that she does not wish to be touched. He has wounds of that same nature - only they were dealt to him by well-meaning (or not) Men. The first Man had captured his daughter's heart and cursed her with mortality; the second had been his foster-son and cursed him with a second tragedy where his children are concerned.

Also, what else is an Elven-King supposed to do but unite his people under him? Thingol has never been a commoner or even a simple noble! Eru created him and his brothers to be leaders.

"Were you born so stubborn? When the other children cried, did you refuse simply so you were different?"

[elegiaque]

"Yes."

It's a tart answer given without so much as turning a hair, but: a little girl with dark eyes sitting quietly at the bottom of a flight of stairs, holding a plush rabbit and her own knees, waiting patiently in front of a closed door that wouldn't open because no one was behind it.

A solemn little girl that stopped crying because people had stopped answering -

An angry young woman who thought, no, answer me and shouted at the world.

[thehiddenking]

"I think you will find me a breath of fresh air if you give me a chance." Thingol captures a leaf on the wind and holds it gently, carefully between his long fingers, "I mean you no harm; I mean this world no harm. If I can help it avoid its end, I will do so to the best of my ability. But -" he interjects, "I must follow a path that makes sense to me."

Elves are old creatures and changing habits is difficult, yet he has every reason to try.