faderift | get ready everybody 'cause here we go

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get ready everybody 'cause here we go

WHO: Saoirse, Herian & open.
WHAT: a combined birthday hangout.
WHEN: 30th Haring.
WHERE: The Hanged Man.
NOTES: Drink up now and turn up hungover to the Firstday feast. Open invitation over here, no need to reply to the network post or even have prior cr in order to attend. Please add any warnings to subject lines if they come up.

"Party" would be an extreme word for it; the more accurate word would be "casual gathering of people with liquor readily available." It is The Hanged Man, though, so who knows what shenanigans could unfold.

They've taken over a corner of the inn, and though there isn't much in the way of decorations - making sure the place could be easily accessed after all that snow was work enough - there are a couple of strings of bunting.

Don't get too wild; it'd be unfortunate if Herian had to interrupt her own (shared) birthday celebration in the sake of preserving the Inquisition's reputation. (Or do get wild, and simply shrug it off as The Hanged Man's influence. Whatever.)

Be sure of one thing, though - at least one round is one Herian. Maybe. If you're a close friend, or look particularly glum.

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~~He's sorry?~~

Elros sits quietly and is only slightly visibly anxious about whether it will suit, but he relaxes and grins brightly at her pleasure.

"I'm glad you like it! I had to ask Maedhros for help over the fine details, and it doesn't much look like the one we fought, but I thought it seemed fitting."

~~Yes this is definitely about her and not about his family sadness~~

"You made this?" She looks to him, surprised, but all the more pleased. "I have spoken with Maedhros, but only briefly. He was very kind to me." Kinder than she deserved, considering she lead two of his kinsmen into a dragon battle that did not go entirely to plan. "Is it more akin to the dragons in your own realm?"

"Well, I tried." He grins at her. "Maedhros did most of the work, I freely admit it. He's a far better carver than me. I can manage shapes - but details like scales and such are more his forte than mine."

He shrugs. "Maedhros looks scary, but he's a soft touch." He says knowingly. "Unless you get him mad, and then he's terrifying. But yeah, it is."

"I will make sure to thank him as well, then, unless you think he might prefer not." Some people were like that, she knew. "Enchanter Ceallach does not look scary by any means," because she looks like the gentlest and more endearing person that can be imagined, really, "but she can be fearsome when pressed. When we were very young, a boy made some... cruel remarks about my father, who had recently passed." Passed, a euphemism for was horribly murdered, which she will refrain from getting into when this is meant to be something of a happy occasion. "Her... response was such that the young man in question fled the next occasion he saw us, and he was both older and larger than she."

And here is their ale. She thanks the barkeep, and passes one of the drinks to Elros. "To your health, Elros, and to that of our fearsome friends."

"He might not - it can be hard to tell with him." Elros considers. "But I don't think it can do any harm to tell him so, but privately. He never did like making a fuss, which is hilarious, considering his technical position."

He frowns at her tale.

"That... I am sorry to hear that people were so cruel. Not surprised, sadly, but sorry for it all the same." He crooks a wry eyebrow at her. "But also... not entirely surprised that your lady sister er... responded in such a way. They do say to be wary of the quiet ones!"

Ooh ale. He toasts her with equal wry solemnity. "To yours, milady, may you have many more birthdays to add to this one!"

"There are times when being human in the alienage, even an elf-blooded one, was... very hard."
It could be the worst, actually, but that is not really an uplifting sort of topic, and she's hesitant to fling the details about recklessly. "Saoirse is my sister through spirit, rather than by blood, but she has only ever been kind to me. I'm very grateful we have found our way back to one another."

Still, his words have coaxed out a slight smile, and she gently knocks her tankard against his, before drinking to their toasts.

"Thank you. And... would it be impolite to ask what the technical position you reference is?" She tilts her head to the side, an acknowledgement of the flaws in her perfectionism, her need for manners: "I confess I am always reticent to name you each by given name. I much prefer to know the right and proper titles by which to refer to people, to be most respectful."

He nods thougtfully.

"We would say 'osellë' - sworn sister - I think." He offers. "One as dear to you - if not more - than your blood kin. I am glad you found each other here!"

Elros grins at that. "Careful! The problem with immortals, especially with the Noldor, who are notoriously terrible at this, is that they tend to gain names and titles as they age. You could be naming them for forever, if you don't watch out! But, if you want to talk about technical position, Maedhros, Maglor, and Fingon have all three of them, at one point or another, worn the crown of the High King of the Noldor in Exile, for they are the eldest sons of the eldest sons of the very first High King, Finwe. They're court raised and bred, although it's been some stupidly long time since Maedhros and Maglor have needed those court manners. Warrior-princes, the lot of them. But Maglor is the showman of the three - it's the bard in him. Maedhros would rather prefer everyone left him alone, and Fingon was always a better Hero than a King. Oh, all three of them can command, at need. I've heard it said that you go to Fingon, if you want to raise hope, and Maedhros, if you want to go on without it. But Maedhros especially, he hates the hue and cry and really would be quite happy to retire to a quiet patch of garden. If you actually addressed him by any of his noble titles, he'd probably beg you to stop. Maglor will tell you he is disinherited and doesn't deserve them, and Fingon will sigh and suggest hopefully that you can just call him Fingon.

But if it makes you feel more comfortable, just tack a 'Lord' in front of their names - they can fuss all they like, but that one title none of them have yet been able to shake, although Maglor has probably come the closest."

She repeats the word near silently to herself, osellë, mentally cataloguing it away.

His caution earns a quiet huff of laughter from her, although it could be missed easily enough by the unobservant. Elros' easy manner, the light playfulness with which he speaks of matters that could be weighed down and dull (or overblown and conceited) is very appreciated. She doesn't smile exactly, when she listens, but she does seem relaxed - a little less rigid in her shoulders and back, which is a fairly impressive achievement in and of itself.

It is a lot of information to process all at once: three High Kings, all displaced from home even in their own world, and then displaced again here. It seemed extraordinary - impossible, even. These were such strange times to live in.

"It sounds as though they have endured much," Herian says quietly, thinking back on what Maedhros told her. He had listened without judgment, even when she cautioned him against the Dalish, which truthfully was far more than she expected.

"If you believe it would discomfort them to be addressed with titles, I will not insist for the same of my own preferences. My interest is in paying proper respect, if it... caused them unhappiness then that would entirely undermine the intended respect. I simply..." she hesitates a moment, trying to wrangle her words. There was a time when casual conversation came to her a lot more easily, but that feels like lifetimes ago. It probably passed as barely the blink of an eye, to beings of such lifespans. "Rifters who come here have been robbed of their homelands and so much that is familiar. I feel that acknowledging the honours owing them is the very least that can be done."

"They have." Elros agrees. "I suppose one of the problems with being immortal is that you kinda do by default? But it's also true that Maedhros and Maglor, especially, brought a lot of it on their stupid selves" He says that with a great deal of fondness, as someone whose life has been directly impacted by said stupid.

"I think calling any of them king or prince would get flinches! Especially from Maglor. But Lord they cannot deny - that ability to lead and to govern is almost ingrained in them. Mind you, I am also the youngest cousin of that line, so I can get away with calling them pretty much anything I want, which has rather spoilt me!" Not that Elros doesn't take these things seriously, but more that he prefers not to stand on ceremony.

He smiles at her, bright and open and grateful.

"You know, I think that is the nicest thing anyone's ever said since I arrived here? Thank you for that. I don't think any of us expect to be honored, but it's nice to have someone recognise that we had a place before."

Herian is surprised. This is kind of a trend tonight, and perhaps a trend in terms of her interactions with some of Galadriel’s kin generally. She and Thranduil had something of a dramatic disagreement, and to find so many of his circle willing to speak with her and listen to her is strange for her. (Granted, to find anyone willing to speak with her is strange; she isn’t one whose views are terribly popular, and she’s not very good at socialising, not the way she used to be before the annulment of the White Spire.)

“One of the people dearest to me in all this world is a rifter.” Cosima isn’t here yet, because Elros is early, and Cosima is notoriously late. “I think… knowing her prompted me to consider the nature of what rifters endure more carefully, but…”

Her head tilts to the side very slightly. “Losing the Circles and the White Spire threw my life from the trajectory I had expected of it. My ambition had been to serve at the side of the Divine, one day. Compared to being taken from one’s world entirely… that loss would be comparatively small, and yet it has still changed everything beyond recognition.”

To be fair, Thranduil is Sindar, where everyone else is Noldor (except Elros, who is basically a mutt), and although the divisions between the elven kindred in Arda are in some ways less than they are here, they are, in some ways, much worse, exacerbated by long elven memory and some rather dramatic cultural differences. ~~And two kinslayings, can't forget that~~.

He nods, slowly. "Loosing your home and everything you once knew..." He says, and for a moment he doesn't look like the cheerful young man, but old and bitter, and there is the memory of fire in his eyes.

"Yes. That would rather give one a different perspective." He smiles at her, a little grimly, maybe. "Thank you for being able to use that loss to look out to others - and I don't think it's that small really. It might not have been a literal world that you lost, but still..."

The fire she recognises it. The fire is what she feels, near constantly, eating away at her even as it fuels her. She dreads that one day she will buckle with it, like a log followed out by flame, even as she knows it is what has helped drive her forward, on the days when nothing else seemed able to keep one foot moving before the other.

"A knight is no true knight if they cannot look to others with kindness and compassion." And perhaps that casts her worthiness into question, when her first instinct is always to look upon the Dalish with dread and disdain. Perhaps that is simply a sign that she is human, but it is a flaw better remedied than allowed to fester. She exhales, and sips her ale. "Have you been told much of the Circles? I— I will not lecture, if you've not desire to hear of them, but so much is said against them that I feel it would be remiss not to offer a counter to that perspective."

And, a little more gently: "We all of us need to learn our way in this world anew. I hope we can make it a kinder place for rifters, as well as for those born and bred here."

A smile and the old pain is banished - Elros doesn't like to dwell, doesn't want to dwell. One of the advantages of mortality is the blurring of memories, the further back they are. As far as he's concerned, that's all to the good.

"Well said! Many could stand to learn from you, milady!"

He shakes his head.

"Some. But the politics of this world are to me even worse than those of my own, and I have had to negotiate with folk who would start a inter-tribal war over a bride-price! I have had far too many folk disdain me for lack of knowledge that I cannot see how I could have known to have much wish to ask further. If you would teach me anything, my lady Herian, I would be in your debt."

That last he offers her formally.

"There is no debt," she assures, quietly. "I simply... I wish to offer more understanding."

She may seem cold, at times; removed, aloof, detached, unfeeling. She may seem a great many things, but what has always driven her was the wish to protect. Herian exhales slowly, weighing up where to start.

"The Chantry teaches us that magic is to serve, not to rule. As mages, we are dangerous in ways other people cannot be - we might set a house alight in our sleep, or lash out with our emotions. My magic was made public when, as a child, I was scared and accidentally struck a city guard with my magic. Though some mages do not struggle from this lack of control, and even have magic that is very minor by comparison, we can prove a risk, even against our own wishes. Or, there are those who use their magic maliciously, and there are people without magic who react to it with such fear that they would lash out at those even suspected of being mages. The Circles, at their best, provide a place for mages to learn where they will not endanger others, and where we are not in danger of being attacked by those afraid of us."

At their best, of course, leads to: "Of course, they... were not always their best. Though I greatly benefitted from being in the Circles, I have come to learn more and more of those who suffered terrible abuses, where the power of the Chantry was used not to protect, but to control and to punish mages simply for having the responsibility of magic thrust upon them. I dread to think what abuses I was blind to, in my devotion."

Herian shrugs, just a little. "I believe there was a great value in the Circles, and that there could be again, if they were better administrated."

"No debt but that between friends." He says gravely to her and nods, listening quietly.

"There are always two sides to every story." He says softly. "Or almost always, anyway. But in things of this world, remember, the shadow runs through all things, and it may taint even the best of intentions, so be kind, if you can." He quotes.

"That's what I was taught. I can see how they would be good places, to hone the skills you had, to make sure you knew enough not to accidentally hurt another. But equally, I can see how easy it would be to turn inward." He grimaces. "I have seen it in my own world."

"I am sorry."

Her jaw clenches and unclenches as she weighs how to proceed, if she should ask, if she should let the matter slide. She knows enough of herself to realise that she is not always... the best conversation partner, and perhaps not the best at articulating concern and empathy, no matter how strongly she feels it. For a moment, Herian seems almost to study the grain of the bar, rather than be paying attention to Elros, simply because staring at him as she thinks seems impolite.

"If— if it would help you to speak of it then please consider me an attentive ear, but I will not press you to speak of that which wounds you."

He shakes his head.

"Don't be! None of it directly impacts me except so far as every side of my family is in some way involved. How would you be expected to know? The tale is long and complicated in full - I suggest you seek out Maglor, if you want a full retelling. But very briefly....in my world, there is something of a history of hidden kingdoms who turned everyone away as a means of protection bringing their own doom into their gates. Galadriel could tell you of one that she lived through, Maglor the other."

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get ready everybody 'cause here we go

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sorry for the slow, I am so disorganised

<3 <3 <3 no rush !!!

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