faderift | this town is only going to get worse.

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?"

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?"

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?"

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."

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."

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.

Oh, saying he didn't bring her here to shame her is all well and good, but what happens if she actually does it? Will he smirk, or huff, or turn around and tell her later about how he knew she was too young to properly control herself, he knew she couldn't be trusted with responsibility because she's useless —

How much of that is her inner monologue is not a question Adalia wants to spend too much time considering. She rocks forward on the balls of her feet again, very careful to keep her sparks inside, and then —

Her hands shoot forward, and a lightning bolt strikes the tree. No thunder follows, happily, because they would both of them be deaf if it did, but the smell that lingers after a lightning strike permeates the air, and adalia's shoulders immediately lower, the tension leaving them. Little flames lick at the blackened edges of the tree, and Adalia takes a deep breath, rolling her shoulders.

Rather than casting another lightning bolt, though, she instead casts telekinesis, and then a spark after it — the telekinesis should not be obvious, beyond being a different spell than she cast to spring forward the lightning bolt, and there's not much to differentiate its casting from that of the spark to someone who's unfamiliar with Toril's magic. If she can poke at Thranduil's clothes without him knowing, maybe she can see if he has the phylactery on him...

He's pleased to see her shoulder relaxed. It does none of the negotatiors any good to be tense, but he can count upon Araceli and Cosima and even Obi-Wan to find ways to clear their minds, but Adalia-- he worries for her, in a way that would have been far more pronounced had they been closer before now.

Thranduil feels the very errant flicker of something, but in the aftermath of the lightining he writes it off in the same way he would write off aftershocks.

He cocks his head, as if to say well? without wanting to say anything at all. Her body language has said enough, but he would hear it from her too.

Adalia is trying to do a fair few things at the same time, so it takes a moment for her to notice Thranduil's expectant expression — she needs to appear to be focused on the tree while also paying undetectable attention to Thranduil, trying to get a grasp on how to finely manipulate cloth with telekinesis, et cetera — but when she does look over, she merely raises an eyebrow in response. What should she be saying, honestly, it's a tree, it's exploding, it feels nice.

She turns her attention back to the tree and sends off another spark, then casts her attention back to Thranduil and her telekinesis. The spell only lasts for a few minutes before she has to cast it again, if she's going to do this it has to be soon — she gives a tentative poke at Thranduil's tunic —

Or where his tunic would be, if he were really where he appeared to be. For a moment Adalia is frozen, confused, poking telekinetically all around where Thranduil appears. After a moment it becomes clear what he's done, and she drops the spell, turning to him with consternation writ clear on her face.

"Really? An illusion? Did you think I'd take the opportunity to blow you up, or something?"

Back behind her by a few feet, he shrugs his shoulders, his hands clasped behind his back. He is not regretful in the least for glamouring his exact location away.

"I dislike fire. What were you trying? Forgive me my wounded trust."

He's old, and inclined to paranoia, even coming from a kingdom where no one played the political games of Mannish courts. When one lived so long and there were so few of your people, grudges rarely became more heated than the sort between Galadriel and Thranduil himself.

There was simply too much time.

"I was seeing if you had your phylactery with you, and if you did, I was going to destroy it."

Why lie, at this point? Without an element of surprise, she could never actually accomplish her goal — Adalia's never seen Thranduil do any magic, but she doesn't believe anyone could get to 7000 years old without learning something about it, or about how to counteract it. She reaches out with the spell, trying to poke out to see if she can find Thranduil without being able to actually see him.

"And I don't care about your wounded trust, what about Gwenaëlle's wounded trust? How could you do something like to her, without even asking? Did you even consider what your having a phylactery would mean for her, or did you decide that being a 7000 year old king means never having to say you're sorry?"

Adalia, being only twenty, can still hold a hell of a grudge.

"And then what?" he asks. "If Cassandra asks to see it after the negotiations concluded- she knows I have it in my possession. Do I tell her you destroyed it in a fit of anger? How does that reflect upon you, upon my ability to keep you in check, and do my job?"

His eyes narrow. "You will not lecture me about my wife."

He owes her no explanation on that account. Iorveth could, and he would allow it, and Gwenaëlle herself, but other than the two of them, the matters of his bedroom are just that, and he will guard that privacy zealously.

"Being a king-- holding any authority at all-- is to make difficult choices, and to bear the burden of them without complaint," he says. "We will not have everything we want out of this, and you will be crucified by those in Kirkwall who will demand more from you, will ask why you chose what you did, who will never be happy. Are you prepared for that? To be scapegoat and oppressor in one? And an elf, that too will factor into how they treat you."

"Sure, tell her whatever you need to. I'll lose anything and everything, every scrap of respect I have managed to claw out of these people for myself, if it means I can protect who needs protecting."

There's an element of bravado to the statement, but also a sincerity — she means it, entirely, would give up whatever she has to and be the bad guy if it meant protecting the rest of the rifters from Thranduil's lunacy. She's willing to burn herself to the ground in order to help, and no one in Thedas has seen that in action yet but Thranduil almost did.

She turns around, trying to face Thranduil's voice, vicious,

"I will lecture you about my best friend. If you really mean to be her husband, you should listen to her. Include her. But you're so far up your own ass you think you can do anything you want and she'll just sit quietly behind you and — what? Let it happen? You're as delusional as you are arrogant, and Gwenaëlle deserves better."

There'so explanation that would suit, so it's fine that Thranduil feels no need to give her one. Whatever he could say would mean nothing said to her, anyway — if he has it in him to apologize, it should go to Gwenaëlle, not her.

"I'm prepared to do whatever I have to, to help. You think I don't know what I've gotten into? You think I have no concept of what it is to be perceived in a way contrary to your intentions? I've been in that position more than you would ever believe."

Less than a year. Less than a year of fear, and secrecy, and going behind her party's backs in order to try to outmaneuver Alacruun. Mere months, and yet it made such a mark on her, she has never even attempted to talk about it in Thedas. What would be the point? No one would care, or understand. She's just as alone here as she had ever been in Toril, and she's accepted that. But to be spoken to as though she has no idea what it is to sacrifice, to be judged, to have her intentions twisted into something ugly when all she wanted was to help —

It's insulting.

"Don't speak to me like I know nothing of burdens, like you know me. You've never bothered to make the attempt."

He is still. Preternaturally so.

"Burning yourself out," he says, "would be a waste. Please refrain. It is possible, contrary to popular belief and the actions of half the Rifters in Kirkwall, maintain your reputation whilst also pursuing your goals."

A year ago- months ago, even- he had the trust and confidence of every elf in Kirkwall, and before that, Skyhold. The period when he had the same for all the Rifters was smaller, but no less dear to him. Adalia intersects with so many of his goals, so many of his plans, but-

He is tired of seeing elves die.

"You know why, I assume. Gwenaëlle must have told you."

A waste. Viciously, with all the venom of a cobra, "I am not a resource. I am not kindling, or stone, or anything else one could waste. I'm a person."

She knows how she is perceived. Useful, to a point. Could be even more so if she would stop being so troublesome, if she would know her place, if she would stand in the background and observe instead of having opinions. Young, and foolish, and lacking the sense the gods gave a goat. She is painfully aware. There are people she is willing to be useful for. People whose good opinion she wants enough that she will swallow her own desires and hone herself into only that which will best serve.

Thranduil is not one of them.

"I said Gwenaëlle is my best friend. I said nothing about being hers."

Even if she hadn't royally pissed Gwen off, Gwen wouldn't have told her anything about why Thranduil would do something so monumentally moronic. She has other friends for such important talks, Adalia just... latched on and wouldn't let go.

"You are a child," he says, "with the whole of your long, long life in front of you, and it makes no sense to take what grace has granted you when it leaves others with so little and spend it upon suffering. Listen to me, please," suddenly soft, and pleading, genuine if measured in his expression to achieve it.

"You are your own. But it is lonely, and a cold, cold road to set yourself upon so soon. We," elves, which he counts her one of, has since she arrived here. Perhaps if he had but spoken to her sooner. "Are not meant to be alone. I love my wife, she honors me with her companionship, but she is not the rock to break yourself against in search of her love. That is not how you gain it. You deserve better."

He knows the rough shape of her upbringing. Something about a library; she's an orphan.

"Were you alone when you were but an elfling?" No wonder she's grafted onto unsuitable creatures.

This conversation has — turned. Become something Adalia doesn't know how to parse, seemingly genuine interest out of what she had seen as equally genuine distaste. It feels a trap, then, a snare being laid to catch her out when she lowers her guard and allows herself to relax. What does he know of what she deserves, who is he to tell her how to earn Gwenaëlle's affection —

her husband, and thus someone with a modicum of experience in how to go about it, presumably —

"What does it matter? No. Yes."

The first snappish, the second relenting, as she accepts that yes, it matters. It matters to her and always has, and she's not exactly made a secret of it, but giving Thranduil more ammunition to use to condescend to her feels dangerous. Feels like losing.

"I was raised from a babe communally, by the Avowed of Candlekeep. No one took especial responsibility for me."

Edited 2018-08-14 12:16 (UTC)

There are many ways to lose. Chiefest among them is ignorance of your opponent.

'Especially responsibility'. He would scoff, if he felt it would not send her running. Instead (calmly, evenly, despite the horror in his heart) he takes a step towards her, restores the distance he put between them before she cast her spell.

"And were there elves among their number?"

"Some. None who were particularly concerned with being very elf-y, and none who thought I needed any instruction in it. They were monks who had eschewed all ties except those of the library, their race only mattered insofar as it meant they would be there many hundreds of years longer than the other monks. My being only half an elf, they didn't see any need to pass anything along."

What use would it have done her? She'd always be marked as different, no matter what she knew of elven culture or practices — and no one particularly expected her to leave the library ever anyway. No one paid enough attention to expect it. The monks, elven, dwarven, human, and all others alike, were never particularly unkind to Adalia. She was fed and clothed, and no one allowed more harm to come to her than could be expected of any child. But she was only a child to them, not their child, and where she didn't lack for care she lacked affection, lacked context.

"Why, do you plan on teaching me the proper way to be an elf?" The scoff that follows that question should say more than enough how she feels about that idea.

"They instructed you," Thranduil corrects. "No teaching is a very specific sort of instruction."

And another thing: "We both know that Thedas is an abnormal. You are peredhel. What space is there for you around the short lived? What sanity in living around those who will leave you in a moment?"

None. Only pain, and then the callous of indifference, which he counted as worse. Elves felt as men did, if differently in scope, and the depression of being alone transferred across species lines. It would be like making a man live among mayflies. Eventually, the urge to empathize would wear off.

He shakes his head.

"I would not have you be alone."

That startles a laugh out of Adalia, though it's more spiteful than truly amused. She can feel her anger as though it is a seeping, boiling thing inside her, bubbling up her throat and dripping down her teeth.

"You don't want me to be alone! You, who snapped at me when I asked you questions, who used me afterward, who froze me out of everything important and made me feel like an infant, only worth your time so long as you had something for me to do. You care so much about how alone I am, how adrift I am," she spits, calling back to their conversation when Iorveth had suggested she speak to Thranduil and Thranduil gave her nothing, "so very much indeed! Woe am I, that I never had elves like you to teach me how to elf in Toril!"

She's so angry now, feels like she's angry all the time — like all she needs is the slightest provocation and her rage will begin to eat her up, dissolve her from the inside and leave a black dragon in its wake.

Sometimes, Adalia wants nothing more than to tear Thedas down to its foundations, and to fry everyone who has ever made her feel small and worthless and wrong on the ruins of the land they love so much. It's terrifying, how angry she can get, but what other option is there? If she was ever anything but angry, she would collapse in on herself and never move again. There's too much to do for her to allow herself to feel anything else.

The air around her and Thranduil feels sharp, tingling — suffused with electricity, though no sparks have popped off yet.

"I will never allow you to make me feel like a tool again. I am not yours to keep and I am not yours to teach."

The static catches the very ends of his hair, leaves it hovering, nearly comical, but he is aware of the tension in her besides that, would have caught it just from her voice.

(It is so much easier for him to speak with her when the dragon is not nearby, a constant threat.)

He needs a moment to recall the exact scenario she is speaking of, and then a moment to close his eyes, to mind the switch of his tone, to take some of the saccharine (though genuine) concern out of it.

"Thank you," he says, "for your help with Jang. You did well." And with anyone else it may well have worked, but Jang had Kitty's stubbornness and the mirror opposite of Araceli's ability to blend in.

"You are not mine," he agrees. Really, the only ones he would call his are Gwenaelle and Iorveth, and Iorveth only when he thought the other elf likely to allow it. "Your heartstrings are drawn across your chest, Adalia. That makes them easy to pluck."

Which he has refrained from. He has refrained from her, really.

"Thank you weeks after the fact is not sufficient," she spits in return, seething to cover up the flush of pride in her cheeks, the way her shoulders draw back straighter. Her craving for praise must be as obvious as anything else about her, but she needn't give away just how desperately she wants approval. It's followed up by admonition again, anyway, and that pride curdles, turns to shame in an instant. She's not subtle at all, nowhere near quiet enough, wears her heart on her sleeve and her spleen in her fists. She would have been dead a million times over if she'd been born in Thedas. She knows.

Her anger burns through her like a wildfire, eating up all the fuel she's accumulated since she left Candlekeep. Whatever it claims disappears, leaves her hollow, and the wildfire races for some core she's forgotten, or buried, or abandoned — she can't be with Thranduil when the fire reaches that core. That core is where those heartstrings strung across her chest nest, and when her anger burns all the fuel around them it will die, and leave her with the truth at the end of all of them, and she cannot be standing in front of Thranduil when that happens.

But they're in the middle of the mountains, and Adalia has never been any kind of tracker. Even with their footprints in the snow to guide her, she could never hope to reach Skyhold without Thranduil's help.

"I'm done with this," she says, voice trembling, "take me back to Skyhold, or show me the way and I'll go myself."

"Come along," he says, not unkindly, turning his back on her, trusting that she will follow, offering her his exposed back (he will not try the same trick twice) and making back for the path.

His original outreach to her was faulty. He should have arranged to meet her without her dragon earlier, should have known the things he knows now within weeks of her arrival. Still, the damage can be undone (slowly) and he has always had a head for this sort of thing. She is young; they have time.

He does her the kindness of not looking back. Her misery does not need him as a witness. Let him not harm her further.

this town is only going to get worse.

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HI SORRY I MOVED TO EUROPE

rude tbh

sorry I can't hear you over the sound of all this delicious cheese

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