walk the same tale over and over

[rowancrowned]

WHO: Thranduil + Nuada
WHAT: First meetings.
WHEN: Post Rifter arrival
WHERE: Gallows infirmary
NOTES: None applicable.

He leaves Iorveth once the other elf has started to drift towards sleep. In the last few minutes, his voice was pitched too low to hear, and he had shifted nearer to the patient, as close as could be in sitting next to the other elf without ever outright touching him. Thranduil returns the chair to where he took it from when he arrived, and draws the curtain half about the bed, leaving space in the bed for the other elf to see the rest of the room when he wakes.

He sees Nuada—really sees him, which is to say, sees his ears, his hair, him—as he is leaving, and he pauses in the way the elven do, inhumanly still for a brief moment before the little movements come back online, the camouflage in the affliction of less-than-economical movement, and he inclines his head in greeting.

“Good evening,” he says, even though they’re in an infirmary, because he was raised in a court, and you acknowledge other large male elves when you meet them for the first time.