faderift | Seven Thousand Steps

WHO: Galadriel and You
WHAT: Galadriel is getting bit stir crazy with all this winter and has decided to work in the library when she's not getting pumped. Open Wintermarch post/catch all.
WHEN: Throughout Wintermarch
WHERE: Kirkwall, The Gallows
NOTES: There will be a gunshow.

I Library

The Library at the Gallows was considerably larger than Skyhold's; it is not a feat to be overly proud of, considering the remote nature of the other fortress, but it is worthy of note. She crosses into the room and spares a moment of wonder for the rows of books, the tall shelves and the tables that litter the place, and then sets about her work.

Today she is not cloaked, not as she has been wont during the rest of her time in Kirkwall, and wears a dark brown dress of Orlesian brocade. Her brooch with its shining emerald is pinned at the lowest point of the modest neckline and it glitters as she passes through the shafts of light that the windows provide. She carries a stack of parchment and a small box, all of which she abandons on a table before she moves toward the stacks.

Galadriel spends some time wandering the books, plucking familiar tomes from the heavy laden shelves. None of them are exceptionally rare, nor are they of any real interest--histories, Chantry tomes, books on the places and peoples of Thedas. She stacks them on her table and moves out to locate more. Once she has amassed nearly a dozen, she finally takes her seat and begins her translations anew.

II Training (Stairs)

The stairs of Kirkwall are a remarkable feature, if somewhat depressing by their nature, and Galadriel is drawn to them. For so many thousands of years she has had ready, constant access to stairs and the steep climbs to lofty heights--without the trees of Lorien to demand it of her, she is beginning to grow soft. It is a luxury she cannot abide, not while she rests powerless in this human city, so she has decided to train.

She has not trained, not truly, since the days of dawn and the sudden rigor of her old routines catches her up quickly. Still, she is not a woman of idle resolve and she takes the stairs with speed and determination. It does gall her to be seen, to stand in the open so very plainly and without concealment, but she will tolerate it, if it will return to her some semblance of power.

Galadriel begins ere the sun has risen, in the frigid cold of the early morning, and starts down the steps. Icy and snow-laden, they are a struggle and one that mounts quickly and with great satisfaction. Then, once she has reached the foot of them, she takes them again, and again, and again. Six full trips is her goal so she runs.

Her acquired clothes are similar to what she wore when she first arrived in Thedas, in a winter years ago, and they fit her in the loosest sense of the term. The pants are short, the shirt is long in the body and the shoulder but short in the sleeve and tight across her chest. She looks very odd, with her hair bound back dressed in such a fashion, running up and down stairs, but no one has halted her progress yet and she can spare little thought for appearances.

III Training (Courtyard, yes, on the ice.)

a. ~~Tai chi~~
It is mid-afternoon by the time she finishes taking the stairs and, to ease her heart back down from the stress of that, she falls into an ancient rhythm. The forms are familiar to her, but they lack something without a weapon in hand. They are worth the effort, even bare handed, and she does them as she was taught. She moves slowly, almost excruciatingly so, and loses both herself and the time to the meditative nature of the activity.

b. Pushups and strength training

After running, Galadriel finds a corner of the courtyard, a place where the sky still hangs above but that is outside the area where ice-skating still occupies the time of those that live in the Gallows. The cold is bracing but she is not hesitant to drop to her hands and toes and push herself up from the ground. She does this with an almost worrying dedication before shifting to her back and curling up over her bent knees.

When her skin is cold enough that it has begun to pink from the bite of ice, she rises and gathers up bundles of the firewood that are kept outside the quartermaster's office. She hoists them over her shoulders and holds them just above them. Her arms strain at the strangeness of the angle, but hold fast as she moves them from one side of the yard to the other and then back again.

Wildcard~!

Anything else. :D

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Gwenaëlle doesn't spend enough time with the Inquisition.

From a lot of different angles, this is true, but today—Gwenaëlle has always been particular about the company that she keeps. In Skyhold, there had been more opportunity to stumble into Maker only knew who doing Andraste only knew what, but in Kirkwall she's been largely cloistered from the rank and file in her ivory Hightown tower; the crystals still act as more of an equalizing force, but it's rarer to cross paths casually. Lately, given recent events, her closest companions have been rather particular...

And it's this that's responsible for the brief, mildly despairing thought: is everyone but her suddenly inexhaustible?

Pride says of course I wish to run, but sleepless nights and aches that Galadriel would frankly rather not know about say—“Honestly, I don't know that I'm going to be much good to you, this morning.”

"That, perhaps, is not the case," Galadriel says at length and looks carefully at Gwenaelle.

She is sveldte, a light woman who carries herself with inner strength. Surely she could not weigh much more than the firewood that Galadriel has already been hoisting. She could tote Gwenaelle up the stairs and back and the runs would be that much more taxing.

"I am no longer feeling the strain of these stairs--tell me, gwanur nin , would you object to being carried?"

Of the many directions this conversation might have gone, Gwenaëlle hadn't predicted that one, and pauses—considers. Well, it doesn't sound very...dignified...but neither was sprawling across the ice, and they survived that. And the wonderful thing about being carried is that it doesn't involve the slightest bit of effort on her own part...

She regards Galadriel with a very easy to read expression: estimating how comfortable that hold is probably going to be (they're all angles, the both of them) and how secure she imagines feeling.

Well—

for her cousin.

“I don't think so,” she says, finally. “If you've got something in mind.”

Galadriel moves alongside the smaller woman and, after a short pause, bends to scoop her up, hooking her arms beneath Gwenaelle's legs and under her arms. She holds her in the style of mortal brides for just a moment before adjusting her to sit a bit higher, held almost across her chest.

It would be a terrible strain on her foreaems and biceps to carry her this way and Galadriel cannot wait to begin.

"If this does not suit, You can drape yourself across my back. My stride is even, by the standards of elves and mortal men alike; neither should be uncomfortable."

Gwenaëlle's life, she sometimes reflects, has taken her to places she'd never have imagined.

Sometimes, that's more true than others.

“Just don't drop me,” she says, wry, terribly conscious all of a sudden precisely how tall Galadriel is and how far down the ground seems from across her cousin's bosom. The stairs, particularly, which she'd really rather not go tumbling down. Her limbs are yet fragile, and she's very protective of them.

Seven Thousand Steps

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Umlauts are super hard on a phone I am sorry.

true story i've rewritten whole sentences to avoid using her name while phonetagging

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