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

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

[rowancrowned]

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.

[thunderproof]

"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."

[rowancrowned]

"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.