[ CLOSED ]

[aenseidhe]

WHO: Iorveth, Thranduil and Gwen
WHAT: Arguing, naked people
WHEN: Directly after this.
WHERE: The Gallows, Thranduil's office
NOTES: Bad words and life choices, also Gwen's boobs.

[ Thankfully, no Templars get in Iorveth's face on the way to Thranduil's office, and he makes it to the door with no blood on his hands. However, he's no less enraged, paranoid, and ready to bolt from this shithole of a city, possibly without a left hand, thanks, Casimir.

Or possibly with all the left hands of all the Rifters. He really shouldn't have mentioned that part.

Shoving the door open, Iorveth marches in looking entirely like the officer that carved vengeance out of men's bodies, claimed trophies from human officers, and burned men alive. There hasn't yet really been cause for him to get so up in arms, until another set of foreign negotiations made rules over his will. It compounds - the thoughts he'd had in wondering what the consequences to telling the Inquisition 'no' would be, how long the Inquisition's insignia will keep him from being cornered into an alienage as well, all the people standing still while things something disgusting occurs and calling it civility, or politics.

It makes his skin crawl. So here he is, because Thranduil called, and somehow he has the respect to obey that when very few else would win it, but today that's been pushed too. ]

What?

Comments

[elegiaque]

I am this elfblooded stupidity, ( a mild objection, nevermind that she's said worse about exactly that, at length and to him. it still stings, out of someone else's mouth; out of his. she ignores that he's also perhaps the only person who thinks that matters worth a damn, since it allows her to ignore that she objects whenever he says that, too,

it is exhausting being her. she leans her cheek against his temple, her robe fallen open again but exposing little when she's tucked so close; hidden by the bulk of her husband. )

If you aren't going, we don't need to keep any more secrets, ( after a moment's more thought, asiding to iorveth, ) My lord wanted me a duchess or something stupid. Well, now everyone knows he got me on his housekeeper, I won't even be the Comtesse, so what it all fucking matters I'm sure I don't know.

( she doesn't think thranduil's serious, but he oughtn't test his impulsive bride. )

And what business it is of the Dalish who you're fucking, either, for that matter.

( no, she knows. )

[aenseidhe]

[ wife, okay, that seems like it makes sense, with the sentimental pet names and the nudity. and the legitimate shared pet with people clothes. married people have those, right? what the fuck does iorveth know, the closest thing he's gotten to married is telling isengrim he'd follow him through every bloodbath he decides to traipse through.

there's some vague nodding besides, as he looks very pensive taking another puff of the weed pipe, and tries not to think about gwen's naked thigh being half on his chest now for how snuggly they're all sitting, or, in his case, lounging, together. ]

Has it been actually requested of you to breed back long-life? [ something Iorveth catches on, squinting, because that sounds creepy as all fuck, let alone the Dalish having any say on who a Rifter should wed, even if they're an important and well-respected Rifter. the trappings of nobility and political marriages have never meant anything to Iorveth, a child born in a slum, raised underfoot and hungry most days.

that said, he's struggling to keep up with all that Gwen goes into, eventually puzzling out that it has something to do with her father wanting to breed her to his advantage as well, and didn't appreciate the fact she's wed to the king of an ancient nation. welp. ]

You seem to have done much better than a duke or wealthy merchant. [ He tells Gwen, voice earnest and frank, because he's a horrible liar, and has never been good at giving filtered opinions besides. ] Your father should be groveling for the forgiveness of you both.

As for the Dalish, [ Thranduil, ] you aren't their whore, and they make themselves no different from the human nobles they despise by trying to shame you into being one. Announce your wife, and go to Arlathven, if for nothing more than my own amusement to see them turn away a seven-thousand year old elven king.

[ that sentence ended with some snickering, because it's hilariously likely to happen and people are so fucking stupid he can't handle it most days. by the way, you are not a quiet arguer. ]

[rowancrowned]

In fewer words, and meant with more kindness, [ but there were implications enough for him to suppose what would come next. but it is all very optimistic—it assumes they survive corypheus, that skyhold will take action on things they have yet dragged their heels on. but what does he know. he is only the head of a division in a position he is beginning to suppose was only used to placate this selection of rifters and natives. ]

[ he keeps gwenaëlle close, and rubs apologetic circles into the dip of her spine. the other hand—he rests it on iorveth’s arm. just because it’s there. ]

The Dalish are not asking it of me. It was only an errant comment from one or two, but my credibility will be much injured if I present myself with my Mannish wife and no children to prove the claims I will make. [ he is not, under any circumstances, going to bring up the breed them out of existence problem. ] No, [ and he shakes his head. ] I will not burn that bridge by pretending I am—worth their time by virtue of my claims. What proof have I of my age? What does the crown I held in Arda matter to the Dalish? Can they eat it? Can they use it to raise and command an army? Will it keep their children safe? No.

Arlathven does not matter. What matters now is preventing a slaughter of the Rifters, which will occur if they attempt to make phylacteries from those unwilling to allow it.

[ he gestures for the pipe and takes another drag. after giving it back— ]

Coupe heard through her door. I assume you did as well.

[aenseidhe]

[ For the majority of Thranduil's speech, Iorveth is blinking down at the warm hand on his arm, bereft of the studded leather gloves he'd had on earlier, and at Gwen's aforementioned bare thigh. by the time Thranduil's speech is done, he's decided these things are good (and comfortable, and cozy, and personal, and enjoyable) and may be kept. he may possibly start inspecting the stitching on Thranduil's robe idly, because it's pretty and so is he.

But, when Thranduil hands him back the pipe, he's immediately pushing it back from whence it came, even trying to put the end of it back between his lips. ]

Nono. You need it more.

[ Until you stop talking about political bridges and hungry Dalish and slaughtered Rifters. Stop being a buzzkill. ]

[elegiaque]

( iorveth makes an excellent and compelling point, far more immediately interesting than further dissection of potential dissections; when thranduil breathes in smoke and lets go the pipe, gwenaëlle is there a moment later, lips pressed sweet and thieving to his. there's a pleasant shared burn, and the tang of coupe's probably acceptable alcohol on her breath from thranduil's mouth when she exhales a wreath of it for iorveth, the lean of her toward him pressing her knee in and bringing to her attention for the first time exactly how much of her thigh and weight he's been tolerating. )

Fuck the Arlathvhen, then, ( sedately. )

[aenseidhe]

[ that is. much more involved of an inhale than he was expecting to happen, but then again, he's hanging out blazed out of his mind with a couple married people, one of them very naked, and the other not seeming too concerned by that. his jaw might have gone a little slack while watching that exchange, feeling like he's caught with a hand in the cookie jar when gwenaëlle's attention turns back to him.

iorveth's head is too much in a blissful daze to feel any kind of awkward panic that might have come from thranduil's wife imparting another stream of smoke to him to do anything but inhale the remnants of it deeply.

that, and, feeling the balance of her perched half on thranduil and half her weight on his chest now, iorveth grabs quickly at her knee to steady her, making sure she doesn't go toppling over. a century worth of reflex training beats out stoner motor skills, heyooo.

it ends with him beaming a lazy grin up to the both of them, relaxing back and repeating her. ]

Fuck the Arlathvhen.

[rowancrowned]

[ he tips his head back and closes his eyes. gwenaëlle’s kiss? entirely expected, given her opportunistic ways, but considering how she shares it with iorveth, how iorveth responds, well—

gwenaëlle has made her point well enough. there will be no more ruminations on politics and consequences this evening. which is well enough—he is feeling pleasantly warm, and his lover is here, and both his doors are locked.

he waits until gwenaëlle looks at him to speak softly. ] We cannot offer to keep him until he knows what it means, [ he says. his own tendencies towards possessiveness, gwenaëlle’s vulnerabilities, their altered states. something about duty to make sure not to take advantage of him.

but thranduil wants him to stay, wants this odd arrangement of limbs and personalities. another pull from the pipe—and if he jostles gwenaëlle when he leans over to hook a finger in iorveth’s collar to drag him close enough to share the smoke with the other elf like gwenaëlle had done with him, he thinks he will hear no complaint from her about it. ]

[aenseidhe]

[ it's the aftermath when gwenaëlle leans back into her husband's arm that iorveth's sluggish mind starts to put pieces together and understand what's happened. typically he prides himself on being quicker on the uptake than most, enough to have kept his unit alive and well through the decades, but this is something very different from guerrilla warfare, and it's been a very difficult day thus far.

On the tail end of what he doesn't quite catch spoken between thranduil and his wife, Iorveth's lips are already parted, and the first half-second of sound that makes up 'I'm sorry' is half-way past them. Abruptly derailed with Thranduil dragging him upward, hand jerking to grasp his forearm to keep himself upright, but with absolutely no complaint for the brush of lips that siphons him another lungful of smoke.

everything feels surreal and slow around him, the shift of Thranduil's lips, the expanding of his own lungs, the beat of his heart in his ears, and the way his friend's face comes back into focus when he parts. his gaze holds with thranduil's for what seems like much longer than seconds, meaning sinking into his mind like cogs fitting together, and the step from there is a natural progress.

tilting his chin up and back, he leans for gwen, waiting for her to close the distance before exhaling to pass the smoke on again, the same exquisite slow of time and buzz all through his skin that he'd felt with thranduil repeated with her once more. Another few seconds of silence to watch her exhale, and he murmurs a question, soft and dazed. ]

I've never been married... but this doesn't usually happen, does it? [ just. to make sure there's not something glaringly obvious that's gone completely over his head for one hundred twenty-seven years. ]

[elegiaque]

( that is


a good point that he's making, reminding her of the conversation they had and the conversations that would need to happen before they acted on anything. if they want to, when they sober up. something like that needs to be looked at carefully, not fallen into in a fog of pipeweed, so easy and comfortable and intimate. so easy, breathing in smoke from iorveth's mouth and processing slowly, what thranduil says and he does,

oh,

well.

gwenaëlle doesn't complain of being jostled. she rolls down from thranduil's lap, tangling herself thoroughly in his robe and landing in the crook of iorveth's elbow, nestling in snug and hooking her (apparently very interesting) thigh over his knee where they drape at the end of the bed- )

No, ( she allows, and then, very seriously to them both, ) but we can just cuddle.

( she's very tactile. )

For now.