Seven Thousand Steps

[laurenande]

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

Comments

[thunderproof]

Here Adalia's just settling in for a conversation, maybe offering to join Galadriel in her exercises if she wouldn't mind the company, and then the woman looks up and freezes. Being so used to her own child following her around, at first Adalia doesn't understand — but as soon as comprehension dawns she rushes forward, arms outstretched in placation.

"Don't worry! He's not a danger, he's from my home plane, he's not like dragons on Arda. Elros told me about them, dragons are evil there, right? This is not a dragon from Arda. He won't hurt anyone."

She turns to Charis and whistles, clear and bright, and he looks down at her but doesn't fly closer — there are a few different kinds of whistles she's been working on, each meaning a different thing between the two of them. She whistles again and Charis flies on, heading for the fifth floor of the former Mage Tower. Adalia turns back to Galadriel, arms still outstretched.

"...please don't freak out."

[laurenande]

"Evil?" She repeats and sounds incredulous. Elros, of all people, could nit have given so simple an explanation--but it is from her home? It obeys her and leaves when bidden?

It is so very small.

"Why do you have a...dragon?"

[thunderproof]

"Okay, he didn't say evil, in so many words, he said something about spells and mind control and I made the leap myself, but I think my point stands?"

Adalia sighs and drops her arm back to her side, watching Charis fly off into the distance with a wistful expression. She's gotten used, at this point, to people being afraid of Charis and thinking she's a fool for keeping him, but she'd hoped to make friends with Galadriel, and this setback... Well, it just sucks, honestly.

"My traveling companions and I came upon a clutch of eggs, shortly before I came through the rift. They were afraid of what the wyrmlings might be, and started destroying the eggs. I couldn't — they weren't even born yet. They had had no chance to decide what to be, or to do anything to deserve death. So I saved one of the eggs, and it came through the rift with me. It hatched into Charis.

"I have him because... because I think good and evil are choices, not innate traits, and I wanted him to have the opportunity to prove everyone who would have destroyed him wrong. I got lucky — his kind of dragon are considered innately good anyway. If we were home, I wouldn't have to worry so much."

[laurenande]

Galadriel stares at her with an expression torn between awe and horror. She is uncertain what to make of this but...this woman has raised that creature...and it is a creature. It is not a dragon, it is not one of the fell beasts, it is not being trained for bloodshed and war. It is...not evil.

But it is one of the creations of the enemy and Galadriel is torn as she turns to regard the window it flies into.

How fortunate that she lacks the power to slay a dragon, the temptation cannot even come upon her.

She turns back to Adalia and draws herself up to standing, her forms abandoned for the moment.

"Did he tell you of the great dragons?" she asks politely, without any desire to cause Adalia stress. She sounds mostly saddened by the topic, rather than angered.