Galadriel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
laurenande) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2017-12-04 12:49 pm
laurenande) wrote in faderift2017-12-04 12:49 pm
Entry tags:
Put on your sunday cloak, we're gonna get lost in town.
WHO: Galadriel and You
WHAT: Catchall for December
WHEN: After the return from Nevarra
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Galadriel around Kirkwall and the Gallows, not generally obeying curfew because clearly that is for other people without magic cloaks.This can't possibly go awry.
WHAT: Catchall for December
WHEN: After the return from Nevarra
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Galadriel around Kirkwall and the Gallows, not generally obeying curfew because clearly that is for other people without magic cloaks.
Gallows - Early Morning
Galadriel rose with the sun.
She was given to watching the dawn and, despite her latent need for sleep, her body had become far too accustomed to the early hours to permit her excessive rest. When she ventured forth into the halls and through the courtyard of the Gallows, she found that Kirkwall could be a peaceful place, after a fashion. The sky was grey and dreary, the air was thick with the cold fog that only the ocean could provide, and everything was deathly still. The world was supressed by the night stillness and, all too gradually, the sun would burn the fog away and the day would be renewed.
She savored what she could of the early morning, but did not linger long in the open. This place made her uneasy and while she was not evasive, not truly, she did not tarry between tasks. Her first task was breakfast and she made her way to the silent kitchens that were free of staff. She expected they would also be free of any other occupants at this hour as well.
(If you want to catch Galadriel kicking around the Gallows at freaking-early-o-clock, please have at. She will be baking in the Mage Tower kitchen area, and then probably learning the layout of the building before she scrams. She will be leaving before nine a.m..)
Lowtown - Day
It was hard for Galadriel to truly gague the wealth and prosperity of mortal cities. They functioned so strangely and with such inconcistancy that identifying affluence was often a gamble. Halamshiral had been no challenge for her--the poor lived in startling poverty and the wealthy lived in opulence that was equal to the highest courts she had ever known. Here, the lines were not so exaggerated, but they were decidedly present.
Lowtown, then, between its name and the dilapidated state of it, must have been where the poorest lived. The streets and alleys were in disrepair, the buildings loomed with presence rather than height, and there was something--not desperate but not entirely unlike desperation--that wove its way through this section of the city.
Galadriel disliked this place, it was a stark reminder of the ways of Men, of how they worked the world in their short time, and is distressed her. Unfortunately, when compared to The Gallows, or even to Halamshiral, it was far preferrable. It was brown, void of most growing things, and filled with noise and chaos, but it was no darker than it pretended to be. There was no pretense here and, if only for that, she was thankful.
Hooded and cloaked, Galadriel traveled the maze of alleys and storefronts, past hovels and dark, silent windows that stared down like the eyes of a dreadful beast. She was ignored, by in large, and found few things of note until she stumbled upon the Alienage. There she found a painted tree, the Vhendahl, and she was so glad to see it she embraced it.
(Run into Galadriel shopping around, being suspicious in her full cloak and hood, getting hopelessly lost in alleys, or hugging a tree. Or maybe you could try to mug her, your call.)
Hightown - Afternoon
The climb up the steps was a telling journey. Galadriel had seen few cities with a feature so dramatic and each of those had been made to defend against a siege. Kirkwall had never been designed to withstand siege and, at first, the point of these stairs confused her. Then she recalled the statues that stood in the harbor, the chains they towed and the way they bent toward the waves, and she was far less confused.
Hightown was, by comparison, a beautiful city. The buildings rose above the streets and into the sunlight. The roads were clean and the stonework in good repair. Green things and decorations grew in small, decorative plots along the roadside and where the stairs plateaued. It was a place of ease and beauty, but it was still very much the same city as the one below.
Galadriel wandered a while and avoided the stationed guards as only someone with a gift for concealment could. She walked through the streets and the crisp air, and tried to decide if Kirkwall was tolerable. It was, perhaps, a bit much to ask from a stroll beneath decorative features, but it was one she asked all the same. Eventually she stumbled upon a plaza with a fountain and took a moment to wonder at it. In Orlais she could not enjoy them, too great was her disgust, but here she seated herself and watched the water a while.
(Hello, City Watch, there's a woman in a grey cloak outside staring intensely at my water feature and petting my roses. Please come take care of this.--Uh I mean run into Galadriel in High Town as she Judges It(tm).)
Docks - Dusk
In the end it was not surprising that she found her way to the docks. The sounds of the sea drift all across the city, but the sight of the water was another matter altogether. From Hightown it was too distant to truly enjoy, just a glimmer below, but Kirkwall has a number of docks and she managed to find her way to one of them. She was conflicted about the ocean, true, but standing on the waterside was something to be relished.
The setting sun was beautiful and, while the sounds of the docks were not exceptionally familiar, the overall din was nearly universal.
(Hey look a dock. Is she gonna get stabbed? Sing a lay to the ocean? Flip off the Valar? who knows?)
Gallows - Night
Returning to the Gallows was both a chore and a relief; the silence and relative quiet of them fell in sharp contrast to the rest of Kirkwall. Galadriel was unaccustomed to such constant dissonant noise and while the stones in the Gallows still sang, whispered the Old Song, that was faded and familiar. She lingered a time in the courtyard, beneath the stars and open sky, before finally traveling in.
(Run into Galadriel at night, or spy her glowing self when she ditches the hood to look at the sky. She's really terrible at hiding in the dark, just awful at it. Alternately, run into her in the halls, or getting dinner, or, if you're feeling saucy, in the baths late at night. She gotta scrub that Kirkwall off of her, afterall.)
Lowtown
Curious, he made to follow her - though he made no secret of the fact he was, his steps loud across the muck of Lowtown. "Galadirel?" he called, wondering if he had mistaken her. It had been awhile, after all.
Aaaaay!
She looked harried, moreso than he had ever seen her, but she shone almost twice as brightly as she had when he had known her first. She turned to face him and, without much pause, stepped toward him with her arms extended and open, as if she meant to embrace him.
"Ah! Mellon nin, mae g'ovannen!"
Re: Aaaaay!
Well, all right then.
The warmth with which she greeted him was a surprise. If he was honest, he still felt a slight twinge of discomfort around her, though hardly enough to keep him from engaging. Besides, he wanted to reason what had happened those many moons ago was a matter of necessity rather than cruelty. Best to let it lie now, especially with the state she seemed in - at once brilliant and tarnished.
While he did not understand a word she said, he believed he got the gist of it, holding his arms out in a mirroring gesture. "It is good to see you again too, Galadriel."
no subject
"I did not expect to find you here, that I admit I expect to find no one friendly in these streets. How have you fared, my friend?"
no subject
"Well enough," he gave her a warm smile for her efforts, stepping in and giving her the hug he thought she had been coming for initially - a quick thing, one step in and back. "I was teaching lessons to some of the children around here - math today. What of you? It's been awhile since we last spoke together, eh? Sorry about that."
no subject
Galadriel looked back the way she had come and, by extension, the way Kirk had traveled and her expression tipped slightly. That he had been teaching children was an odd consideration--she had nearly forgotten that there could be children in a place like this. She was silent a beat and then returned her gaze to him.
"I am learning this city but I find it is...not to my sensibilities. I am endeavoring to think of it more kindly than I am, but it is challenging. Tell me, have you found anything of...anything kind and lovely in this place?"
no subject
"Children," he said immediately to her question, a soft smile working across his face. "Always children. Their lives are hard for ones so young, but they have such curiosity, a willingness to learn, a hope for the future." He himself did not actually want children of his own, but he enjoyed fostering curious natures in other children and was happy to teach those who wanted it. "There's Samouel, but I suppose he's more of a personal bias for myself, along with Jaylah, Leonard, and Nikita The stables - there's a gentleness there, with the animals."
He tilted his head back towards the bustle of the people.
"In the small things everyone does for each other, the way they hold their heads even though their lives are hardly easy," he said, and he did have a respect for the people here. Their city had suffered a blow, and so had they, and yet they pushed on. Some better than others, of course, but there was a lovely resilience flowing beneath it all.