this town is only going to get worse.

[rowancrowned]

WHO: Thranduil and Solas / Adalia / Finch / Loki
WHAT: Catch-all log for July.
WHEN: Current, slight backdating to pre-negotiations.
WHERE: Various locations among Kirkwall, Skyhold.
NOTES: None applicable.

Comments

Solas

[rowancrowned]

He will not have this conversation over the crystal. And he is ill at the thought of needing to have it at all. Whatever happened on the mission that Solas, Gwenaelle, and Iorveth found themselves on was clearly firmly in the realm of awful, but he will content himself with waiting for the report to reach his desk.

All of them are alive. It is, in the end, what matters most.

He lingers before he calls, rolling the crystal between his fingers while the sun sets outside his window. Once the room is dark- once he must either light candles or continue to brood like a particularly blonde fox in a burrow- he lifts it to his lips, speaks clearly Solas’ name, pauses, and says;

“Could I beg your company this evening, my friend?”

[dirth]

Solas has not been faring well, and that might yet be an understatement.

The events of the mission had been wearing down on him, even now, and it was a struggle to rationalise it all, to wrap his mind around the depths of the uncertainty and discomfort he had felt. To see all those things, to bear witness to the loss and the pain and the heartache... He cannot escape it, not even in his dreams, and he bears it all with the familiar mantle of one who has seen and endured more than he ought in one lifetime.

Thranduil's message doesn't surprise him in the sense that it happened, but only that he waited so long in the first place.

"Of course. Your office?"

[rowancrowned]

"Given the lack of something better suited for entertaining," he says. "Yes. Please."

He lights the candles, because to do otherwise would be to admit to his own sad state, but does not put out the wine. Solas dislikes tea, Thranduil dislikes ale, but he has drinking chocolate from what might have been a gift, and this he sets about making for a lack of other options and because hospitality binds him in the way that routine binds the ancient, like a wheel in a rut.

"Enter," he calls, when Solas knocks. "Lock the door after you."

The chairs are where they always are, but Thranduil is standing. Not pacing. He is too dignified to pace, but he is brittle, if only because he has not yet decided how to act yet, but is loaded with the potential to do so.

"What was it?"

[dirth]

It doesn't take Solas long to arrive at the office - it's a path he's walked enough that the routine and familiar makes it easy, even with his distracted state. He comes inside and locks the door as bid, but even a fool could see just how clearly out of sorts Thranduil is. Solas knows because he is much the same, even days later, with a weight pressing down on him and making him feel on edge.

There's something, he thinks, that needs to be discussed, but he is not sure what it is.

Walking over, he settles by his chair and not in it, watching his friend before he speaks. When he does there's a pause, Solas tilting his head, before he frowns just a little.

"What was what? You'll have to be a little more specific."

[rowancrowned]

"The temple," he says, and he focuses in on Solas, stepping over. "You went with Gwenaelle and Iorveth," and there were others, but his sphere of concern outside of being the Provost chiefly contains the three of them. "The report has not yet reached my desk, and I am disquieted by my ignorance."

And Solas' history makes him even more concerned for Solas himself. He cannot be everywhere, and it is not his duty to shield those he cares for from every harm, but occasionally his powerlessness in the face of Thedas' horrors strikes him.

"So- what happened?" He does not bother with assuming Solas' feelings. He can extrapolate them well enough.

[dirth]

It's impossible to draw his eyes away from Thranduil, intent and serious in the moment, with a heaviness to him that Solas can recognise. He's seen it himself enough to know that there's something under the surface; a mirror image of himself, or something close enough to it that there's an edge of uncertain discomfort borne inside him.

He frowns for a moment, staring, intense, before he makes his way to the chair and sits down, leaning back and closing his eyes. He hasn't even spoken about it at length with Galadriel, gladly distracted by her stories, but he fears there is no escaping this conversation nor it's direction.

"There were many coffins of the People, all dead and gone. Spirits attacked us."

[rowancrowned]

Solas is his mirror in a way the other elves are not and cannot be; is it any surprise that tension between them leads to first warry circling and then coming together?

"Bound by some other force, or of their own volition?" As much as spirits could. And since Solas has sat, and he'll seem a fool if he continues to prowl about, he brings the mugs over, and sets one down at Solas' right before taking his usual seat.

As for the coffins-- that's what coffins were generally for. But elven coffins, coffins for a race that did not experience death unless slain-- he is sure the sight was chilling.

[dirth]

"Another force, I should think." Solas doesn't like to think about the things he saw and read in that Temple; the last missives of a Priest laid to waste because of the veil, the coffins of the People who had been in their uthenera that will now never awaken... The spirit who had taken the form of Mythal before him, begging him to give up, to move close, to accept her fate in tune with his own.

He turns and looks at the two mugs, watching, for a moment, before he reaches out to take the one by him. Chocolate, it seems - sweet, and nothing that will keep him awake, which he appreciates. Thranduil knows that, at least.

Leaning back, he bows his head, feeling the weight of it all over again. He appreciates Thranduil's desire to learn more, to learn whatever he can about the mission, but it is a heavy thing for Solas to speak of. He doesn't want to discuss it all, he doesn't want to admit it, not when it weighs so heavily.

Adalia

[rowancrowned]

It is the second night, after the evening meal, with the sun still over the mountains that he comes to her room. He lived here for more than a handful of months, and Skyhold has not changed in his absence, nor, he suspects, in the thousands of years for which it has stood. Oh, the humans can build whatever they like, tear it down, and start again, but something about this place speaks to him, and puts him in a good humor despite their long day.

Thranduil knocks, waits, and when she opens says only, “I have something I would like to show you,” and, “Put something on to keep the wind off.”

He knows she dislikes him, but he has seen her expression on the face of young elves before and he does not begrudge her it. “Please,” he says, kinder. “It will help.”

[thunderproof]

Adalia would be enjoying this so much more if she weren't arguing for her freedom. And not just her freedom, either, all rifters' freedom, and isnt that just an assload of terrifying pressure. She's been trying so hard to bite her tongue, avoid angering anyone, think before she speaks — it's exhausting, and more than that it's frustrating that no one else has to try as hard as she does. Skyhold is an amazing place, beyond anything she'd imagined when she considered what kind of place she was going to... And she can't enjoy a moment of it.

When Thranduil approaches her door, it's all Adalia can do not to slam it in his face. All she's been doing all day has been gritting her teeth and smiling when what she wants is to fry the people in front of her to a crisp, she does not want to spend the scant amount of leisure time she has doing the same. It's only the thought of the phylactery, and using whatever this is to have an opportunity to try to destroy it, that keeps her from telling Thranduil to fuck off.

"Well, your highness, how could I resist an invitation from so venerable an elf. And you even said please this time!"

If he expected her to acquiesce without snark, he shouldn't have. Adalia gathers her cloak, hat, and mittens, and begins to fasten the cloak about her shoulders as she steps ohut of the room.

"Lead on, then, where are we going?"

[rowancrowned]

He waits until she has the cloak secure and the mittens more or less on before he turns his back on her and starts to work. He minds his steps to make sure that keeping up with him isn't difficult. They go into the gardens and from there down the steps, and to the gate. A nod to the guards- he's either cleared the trip or assumes that everyone will realize that he has too much at stake to run off with a fuming Adalia trailing behind him. Across the bridge then, and along the road for a perhaps ten minutes, until they clear the tree line, and then he goes off the path, onto muddy ground slick with pine needles.

"This way," he says, and down they go, through dense woods. They come to a stream, he offers her his hand to make the jump across easier.

Just beyond it- when they've been walking for three-quarters of an hour, they come to a great toppled pine. The roots tore up the ground that they grasped, and they ran deep. The result is altered terrain, and a small clearing. In several years, the wood will be completely ruined and the few remaining cones will take seed and grow upward in imitation of their parent, claiming the light and open space left in their wake, but for not, only nothing.

"I understand you are a mage," he says. "What sort of spell do you favor?"

[thunderproof]

It's a long walk to wherever Thranduil is leading her, made almost entirely in silence, and it briefly crosses Adalia's mind to worry about that, but — he needs her for the negotiations, at least. He's an asshole, but he hasn't seemed yet to be a murderous asshole. She doesn't need to be that paranoid.

Rather than worry about what he's leading her to, Adalia thinks instead on the chances that he has the phylactery with him now, and if he does where it might be, and what she could do to get it from him. She considers feigning a stumble and falling against him, but getting close to Thranduil is the last thing she wants to do — maybe casting the spell for telekinesis? She'd have to figure out where the phylactery is, if he even has it on his person, but if she can do that, if she can move fast enough...

So caught up in her own thoughts and machinations, she doesn't even notice Thranduil's proferred hand once they reach the stream, hiking up her skirts and cloak and making the jump on her own. It's only once she's made it across that she notices her own rudeness, but she makes no comment on it.

When they come to the felled tree, Adalia blinks at it in confusion for a moment, looking between Thranduil and the pine with a raised eyebrow.

"I am a sorcerer." There may be no difference here, but it matters to her. "Why do you want to know?"

[rowancrowned]

Ah, the sweet bloom of youth. Very patiently, Thranduil waves a hand towards the pine, then settles both his hands behind his back.

"As you wish to turn me or several of those we spoke with today into mulch and cannot, I sought to provide you with an outlet. The tree is down already; in a few years it will be rotting wood and not much more. Hastening the progress will do no harm, and so: do no harm."

It's not quite the normal sort of stress ball, but it is a stress ball. He smiles, no teeth.

"I ask only to know how far away I ought to be. Mind you do not harm any of the living trees."

[thunderproof]

It's very difficult to decide between taking this as a grave insult or a thoughtful gesture. While it's true that Adalia has happily fantasized about being able to turn all of the chantry and templars into smoldering ashes, she is still an adult with restraint and morality, fantasizing is not doing. To be considered so juvenile as to need a destructive outlet in order to keep her cool is insulting.

But she'd really, really like to break something.

Torn between the two extremes, Adalia does nothing, staring at Thranduil with conflict clearly writ all over her face. In the end, she fidgets, shifting slightly forward and scuffing her foot on the ground.

"I can control myself. I'm not in danger of blowing up at any of you just because the Chantry and Templars are evil and you're... you."

[rowancrowned]

She fusses like an elfling and Thranduil, somewhere, hesitates, though his expression does not change and neither does his posture. He only raises his hand to indicate the fallen tree once more.

"It will be mulch by your hand or time's," he says. "Speeding it along will do the forest no harm. I did not bring you here to shame you, but only to offer comfort."

And if nothing comes of it, then at least they took a nice walk, and he no longer feels half so trapped in that room.

Finch

[rowancrowned]

They are to leave in the morning and Thranduil has no one to wish him well on his journey or waiting for him, so he comes down to the stable to think and steal a few minutes of quiet before he returns to his rooms and retires for the evening. He has his saddlebags packed and these he leaves at the entrance to the stables before going to the stall where he had settled the elk in after coaxing him off Sundermount and to the boat to the Gallows.

The bull is massive- they have him in the stall that Thranduil suspects is normally reserved for mother and foal, but he is passive enough about it, laying down, his front legs neatly folded under him and his massive rack taking up most of the space in the stall; Thranduil will be glad to get him out of the city and into the woods.

He is not very surprised to see someone in the stall alongside the elk, who chews contentedly. The bull is able to defend himself, so clearly the intruder is not that, but the food bribery may have helped sway him.

“Good evening,” he says to the child.

[justnice]

He doesn’t startle (the pad of footsteps; Thranduil isn’t a small man), but caution slips past his eyes all the same, worn as the way he shifts from the edge of the stall to earth below.

A fluid motion, familiar — at sudden odds with the awkwardness of standing, of stubby limbs still too grown too long. A child, perhaps. Or that strange space between.

"Provost," He doesn’t clean those offices, but he listens enough. A glance catches up — and up — and down again as abruptly, the elk’s antlers suddenly remembered beside its bulk. Finch presses against the edge of the stall, and slips the pipes back into his pockets. "You need, uh,"

Uh.

"A horse?"

Possibly in more than the immediate sense.

[rowancrowned]

"I am not leaving until the morning," he says. "And I will not need a horse."

The elk, he thinks, would be terribly offended by that. Nearly as offended as it is by the commotion. Sundermount is likely much less loud than Kirkwall, if only because Morrigan and her presumable mayorhood as giantest spider has made it so.

"I came to the stables to check on him." Him, the giant elk, the one rolling his eyes to look at Finch, then Thranduil, then exhaling through his nose.

"And you are?"

Despite the rumors and his own best efforts, he does not know all the elves in the Inquisition. Just most of them.

Loki

[rowancrowned]

In the interest of not accruing too much work in his absence, he’s arranged for several meetings to take place before he leaves for Skyhold. Loki falls onto that list if for only being Loki; he has far too much wit and money to not be growing bored with the life of a dilettante; the shine of foreignerhood wearing off in a city accustomed to shocks.

So he has a note delivered by runner, it reads in the usual sort of formal way to request his presence for a private dinner, and a post-script follows: ’Have you run out of idle entertainments yet?’.

He thinks it decent bait.

[hwaaaitsme]

It is true, Loki has grown a bit bored with the idle nature of his current existence. Lingering in the shadow of an organization that wishes to make no use of him? That is..if not uncommon, then at least something he had already found ways around. His usual workarounds do not apply in Kirkwall, however, and he is truly at an impasse.

His only major distraction, apart from the Grand Tourney some time ago, has been the Lady de la Fontaine. He could really do with some variety.

He returns the note with a rote acceptance, his Valet delivers it in person, and the post script is an easy and noncommital: 'There is no end to idle entertainments, only to being entertained.'

He arrives for dinner dressed nicely, perhaps moreso than is directly called for, but he has little else to occupy him apart from fashion. He might as well make the best of it.

[rowancrowned]

Thranduil cannot set the sort of table he once could, but there is some Orlesian dish with fresh fish and an excess of butter, and enough wine to drown Loki's valet in. The table, for lack of a better option, is his desk, and it is to that desk and the chairs there that Thranduil gestures to once Loki is at his door in all his splendor (Thranduil taking notes) and inclining his head in greeting.

"Tell me, did I steal you away from some matron's fête?" This isn't Orlais; no one plays the Game here, and he thinks that very little beyond that would begin to compare with how society functions in Tevinter. Wandering towards the table, he pulls out Loki's chair, and then steps behind the desk to take his own. They have a few hours left of sunlight, but there are candles on the table, unlit, and beeswax rather than tallow.

[hwaaaitsme]

The arrangement is reserved but only in direct comparison to the excess Loki is wont to indulge in. More than anything, however, it is a change. This is markedly different than his usual affairs and that, if nothing else, has him fully engaged in the proceedings.

"I expect high society shall get along without me," Loki replies with a dismissive wave as he takes the seat Thranduil has drawn out for him.

"At least for one night. Tell me, how fares business within the ranks?"

[rowancrowned]

Minimalism- less to focus upon. Thranduil smiles, giving Loki first and full access to the food, the wine, and the choice of conversation, with the easy grace of a practiced host, though he cannot fault what Loki settles upon.

"Well enough, considering that I have had only three years to learn the tides of politics here. The matter of the phylacteries," and a pause for a look that expects to find a twin in Loki's face, all ah, those uneducated fools, and distaste, though they come from two completely separate cultures, "-will be settled soon enough. I leave for Skyhold the day after tomorrow," he takes the bottle from Loki and pours himself a glass, "-and soon there will be no more fuss after that."

He looks over and out the window, then takes up his knife and fork to cut his food. "Tell me," he says. "Are there phylacteries for anyone in Tevinter?"

[hwaaaitsme]

Loki, despite himself, snorts into his wine. He takes a drink and lets the dismissive nature of his laugh linger between them before he lowers it and replies properly. The food on his plate is appealing, but less so than the company. He refrains from eating just yet.

"No, not even in a token form," Loki replies. "It would be rather like having guillotine's or stocks set up in the city square. It's far too barbaric a practice for our tastes."

Now that the smug superiority is out of the way:

"Besides, it would make advancement too easy. No country run by mages would entertain the idea of something that might help entrap them. The templars there are not our keepers they are symbols of the Chantry. They are non-mages who receive a considerable boost in social status and, in return, we refrain from poisoning them with their weight in lyrium each year.

"Honestly, I expect they find it a rather equitable arrangement."

[rowancrowned]

Phylacteries work only upon mages; at least the slaves are spared that much but there may be horrors unseen and unimagined by him that they face alongside those he can.

"And the Black Divine?" Thranduil asks. "The Southern Chantry has made her views on the Rifters quite clear, but Thedas is as varied as my own home. Is your family especially pious and prone to insight on his thoughts?"

That Chantry took them from the ranks of their Enchanters, if Thranduil trusted his memory (he did), which meant Loki may have possessed a connection. The Archon was not the only power in Tevinter.