faderift | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

WHO: Thranduil + closed prompts for Galadriel, Atticus, Ellana, Gwenaëlle, Myrobalan, + open!
WHAT: Thranduil's phase one afflictions are noticed by several and enable the behavior of others.
WHEN: Mid-Firstfall
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Hit me up for a starter on Plurk (

pr0ph3t) or make your own!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He waits—so much of their conversation is waiting, in one way or another. There is so much wool to be gathered in near on ten thousand years that taking a moment or two to sort through it can be excused.

“She begged for the assassin’s life,” he says, slowly. “And then for her father’s head, all in one breath. Galadriel, I cannot get the sound of it from my mind.”

And no one to share it with but Galadriel, who understands him in a way no one else does. He needn’t explain things to her, or account for differences. She knows him, in a way no one else can, no one but Celeborn, who lived through it too, and those of their generation. He looks down as they go, watching the steps as they come, sparing a though for his wife, and how well she sleeps through all of this.

“Yes. Wards on my doors like those of Mirkwood. No one enters or leaves that I do not know of, and allow in.” And strong ones, as strong as he can muster, even if it drains him to do so. More can be set, if all goes to plan, once he can make use of glyphs. “And a knife under my pillow. Sheathed.”

She inclines her head as he tallies his precautions, as though he needs her approval of anything he does, and continues up the steps alongside him. Her path is more well trod and she doesn't bother looking down as she runs. It is the best he can do and, at the moment, she can offer him little assistance. It is no wonder she runs as she does, that she strains and stresses and desperately claws for physical strength--she has lost a token that only Thranduil truly comprehends the scope of and neither of them will speak of it aloud.

Speaking cannot conjure the shadow to these lands, but it is still too near a threat to risk.

"It will haunt you, such things always do, but take solace that she lives and that the fool assassin didn't use poison that might've truly wounded her," she says and there is a note there, an explanation as to why she would have killed that man and spared her father that goes unspoken. Thranduil is no less severe than she, his own borders no more open than hers had been, and all for the same reasons. He understands without the words being uttered.

"Her strength is building rapidly. I think she resents me for making her undertake such things," Galadriel says and quietly changes the subject. "She is learning old military forms as...meditation more than for use, but they will serve her regardless."

“If she died,” he says, and leaves it at that. The Men have a custom wherein the non-ruling spouse—so often a queen—has the privilege and duty of begging for mercy for the condemned. Her death, if it had been a violent one, yet another poignant example of what a lack of elves did to this land—he would not be as merciful as he intends.

“She resents the sun for shining,” fondly, they are perfect companions, “but she needs the lessons. The old forms are useful—Noldorian, I assume, for that sort of sword, antesolarian—but she is small and fast. She will not take to the bow, but perhaps knives.”

He has the ones Legolas left behind still. Maybe she will like them.

“But you, cousin,” he switches. “Any luck with your search?”

"Noldorin?" she repeats and cocks a brow at him. "When have you seen me willingly use a sword?"

She continues jogging and pointedly ignores the question about her searching. It is not a topic to be spoken aloud, not here, not anywhere, and her mood shifts as she ponders it. She is silent a time and then shifts the conversation back.

"I shall teach her small blades, I am not unskilled with them," she offers. "But she will require your aid for sparring, I expect. Spearwork is too deeply ingrained in my combat and it would not do to teach her to counter that alone."

“I know you prefer to,” and he makes a little shooing gesture with his hand, illustrative enough, “—but surely your father had you trained with some matter of bladed stick or sharp object while still in the Blessed Realm?”

She ignores it, he does not press, keeping his teeth together as the go up, still. These stairs are a mannish excess. An elven architect would have done—better, even if he couldn’t consider how.

“Spears,” he says, exasperated. “I will spar with her, and lose affection with my dear love for it, but you are right—she needs it, and she is clever enough that my handicap will possibly give her some success at it.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only