faderift | (no subject)

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(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!

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The Templar's close proximity is coincidence only, given the look of befuddled surprise that is sent to Thranduil. In contrast, Atticus looks up from the book that he reading, regarding Thranduil over the rims of his (still broken) reading glasses.

Looking at him, there is something off. Atticus closes his text and sets it aside, then rises to his feet. "As you wish," he says, steps around the table, and moves to follow Thranduil from the library.

Thranduil, his back already to the library, notices not. He is a man with a mission, and that mission now includes Atticus, who is behind him. He only glances back once, notices the state of his glasses—

“Has someone not offered to fix those,” irritated, he loathes sloppiness, Atticus being less useful due to (he assumes) a clumsy capture, ineptitude, at least some of his people have been productive today, and there are a heap of reports on his desk to be signed off on and filed away. Even Casimir seems lagging in comparison.

“Come,” he says, and holds open the door to his office for Atticus, gesturing him inside.

Ah. So it is to be this kind of meeting, then.

"Curiously, the maintenance of my material possessions does not appear to rank high on the list of your Inquisition's priorities." It's a mild reply, with a barb in it that isn't necessarily directed at Thranduil. After all, he wasn't the one who threatened to gouge Atticus' eye out in the dungeons, nor bashed his head against a cell wall.

(In Rufus' defence, Atticus did strangle him to death.)

Removing his glasses to consider them with some annoyance, he enters Thranduil's office and then turns to consider his host. It wouldn't be right to consider his demeanour cautious, per se, but some of his usual cheek is gone this time. The rifter elf, always a competent figure, seems to swing like a loose cannon now, and Atticus has no wish to be caught in range should his fuse be lit.

"I assume this is no social call."

“No,” he says, neatly ignoring the previous comment. Were he in his right mind, were Casimir here, there would have been a comment made that that ought to be addressed and Atticus would have found himself with a new pair within a reasonable time for the lenses to be ground. But—and Thranduil’s sudden realization that he has forgotten why he needed Atticus is proof of this—he is adrift. Lost.

“I need you to—” he states, or starts to, pauses, reorients. Displeasure creases his brow, he looks at the window. “—your help,” Thranduil says, and makes for his desk. He will remember when he sees it.

Atticus watches him. This is either a golden opportunity presented to him by chance and providence, or a gilded trap. He would be sure to know which it is, before proceeding.

"You do appear to be in some distress," he says, unmoving, and does not affect false concern he does not possess. Yet he does fix his eyes on Thranduil as drifts, listless as a ship without its anchor, without its mooring. He could be complicit in some deception, it is true, or he could be bait, compromised to lure Atticus into revealing his ulterior motive.

He gestures to the vacant chair. "Perhaps it would aid you if you sat down."

No one bids him to sit in his own office—that at least shakes clear some of the cobwebs and allows him the time to still himself, to look up slowly from the contents of his desk to Atticus proper. He doesn’t dignify that with a response before he turns his eye back towards the work, and ah, there, his salvation.

“Are you familiar with House Asgard of Marnus Pel?”

Loki has saved him, although he cannot know it. Perhaps this was the thing he needed Atticus for—yes, he decides. It was. Or, at the very least, it does not hurt for him to address it now, with him. It needed to be handled anyway.

"Are you familiar with House Asgard of Marnus Pel?"

That, more than the severe and kingly look that Thranduil turns upon him, elicits more of a reaction from Atticus. He raises his eyebrows and exhales.

"Yes," he replies, in the tone of voice one might adopt while discussing one's ill-favoured in-laws, "I have some passing familiarity with them."

A curious turn of his head. "Why do you ask?"

Atticus has not managed to show enthusiasm about anything, still the same plodding Tevene magister, nothing to recommend him-- perhaps Thranduil should take some delight in pulling this from him, even if it isn't much at all.

"The scion of the house and his younger brother have come to join us. The younger one immediately voiced that he thought you to be Venatori, and that your reason for joining us," Thranduil states, easily.

'I found him delightful, personally' he leaves off, it is irrelevant and he finds no joy in needling Atticus.

“Well,” comes Atticus’ mild reply, “I was. Yet it seems his information is a trifle dated.”

Which is to be expected, he supposes. The oily fop is from Marnas Pel, after all.

Atticus scrutinizes Thranduil coolly, considering his demeanour. A deeper frown creases his brow. “Forgive me for being blunt,” or don’t, he’ll endure regardless, “but you seem ill.”

He gives Atticus a long look, staring him down with a mixture of distain in the curl of his lip and the way his brows are posed to suggest 'are you stupid', and then goes back to his papers, shuffling them into piles which he then tucks away.

"How might he have known? Useless to us now, and an easy assumption given your," a gesture, "presence, and your disappearance from Tevene society, as small as shrinking a very small thing can be, have you yet written your family to assure them of your safety?"

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