[OPEN] - Ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when.

[laurenande]

WHO: Galadriel and Various
WHAT: Galadriel before her arrest, for those who would like CR before this Civil War plot is underway, her being arrested, and Galadriel in the cells for anyone who wants to come visit her or attempt to break her out. This post is super, duper open to anyone who wants to tag in. Please, have at.
WHEN: Late Guardian to early Drakonis.
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: No warnings yet, but have a link to the IC thread that happens amid all this: Cassandra interrogates Galadriel.

Pre-Interrogation/Arrest Prompts.

The Emprise du Lion was a dreadful place, and spending more than a fortnight within its borders had taken a toll on Galadriel. She arrived back in Skyhold only a few days before her conversation with Seeker Pentaghast, and she spent them taking what rest she could find. Sleep did not come easily to her, even at the best of times, so it was hardly a surprise that she spent long hours in the peace of the garden, watching the horizon on the battlements, or embroidering in the Rotunda.

(OOC: The above is the State of Galadriel, it's mostly for those who want to do something I haven't included, but it applies to the below as well. If you'd like to use a prompt for a specific scene, there are several options below to choose from. If the prompts don't appeal, please feel free (and encouraged) to write up any scenario you'd like, anywhere around Skyhold.)



Garden -

The winter chill that crept through the fortress was not as biting nor as pervasive as the wind outside the walls. There was something dull about the cold in Skyhold, something muted and gentle, but it was a feeling too fleeting for her to place. The sun chased the cold away just after dawn. Though the air was not warmed by the sun, the plants in the garden stretched toward it, green and vibrant as spring itself.

She adored spring and lingered for long hours in the gardens, relishing the sunlight that crested over the mountains. She spent each morning in the garden, watching the distant rise of the sun before tending to the plants. There were others who trickled in, as dawn passed and the fortress awoke, and she would leave the plants to them as they began their tasks, but she enjoyed the peace and stillness while she could.

The Emprise had been a grating, awful place but new growth and tender green leaves made her glad. More than once she found herself singing as she worked, and the plants grew quickly under her care. In only a few days, the grass would be renewed and the first small buds would open. She was thousands of years old and yet, despite that, she could hardly wait.



Courtyard -

Galadriel had not taken stock of the yard after the rift had closed. At the time, there had been more pressing matters to attend to, and she hadn't the patience to wait and search for subtle things. Now, without anything to pull her attention elsewhere, she devoted time to examining where the rift had split the veil.

Skyhold was a place with many curious sights to behold. The Orlesian nobility who visited the fortress were bedecked in feathers and quills atop gilded silk and stiff, polished leather. There were dwarves who quietly skirted the sunlight whenever they darted out of the fortress to their carts; their relief as they dove back to the keep was palpable. There were even a few humans clad in mud and fur who insisted on carrying goats. Truly, she was not so strange a sight that she merited recognition, standing in the courtyard with her staff in hand, simply peering at a space in the air. That she stood in place for hours on end, without moving a hair, was barely worthy of note.

The crowd moved and bustled around her readily enough, as though she were simply a fixture of the fortress, and she was glad for their disregard. A few mages slowed as they passed her, but they did not stop to speak. They would regard her oddly (a few of them frowned) and then they hurried away to see to their tasks. They were gifted mages, Galadriel noted silently; the majority of people who walked past her could not sense the slow current of power that rose against the veil. Those who could feel the pull of magic seemed disoriented by it, particularly when she shifted it or allowed it to ebb, but her study did them no harm.

If it had, she would have refrained from such tests in Skyhold.


Rotunda -

Galadriel's notes were artful and fluid things; they were not terribly numerous, but her time in Thedas had generated a few dozen pages of them. She hid none of them when she left the fortress, though she tidied them and tucked them out of the way when they were not in use. When she was using her notes, as she was now, she spread them out over the table as one would spread a map.

The unfamiliar letters of the tengwar curled over the sheets of cast-off vellum and pages of pressed pulp; when they were set side by side they were more drawing than words. She added to them as she read, writing between the older lines of text with habitual ease. Occasionally, amid the layers of tengwar, a word in the trade tongue appeared, but they rarely gave much clarity to the text around them.

It was early afternoon when she took over the space in the rotunda again. She had gathered a few clean pages and carefully written out the whole of the tengwar. She had promised to teach Sina these letters, and she intended to extend that invitation to all the elves of Thedas, but teaching required patience and materials. It had been centuries since she had last instructed anyone in their letters, but the memories were so fond, so filled with delight, that she couldn't repress her smile as she sat and carefully created a chart.

She could have stopped after writing them out, she supposed, but drawing the pictures that accompanied the letters was half of the entertainment of it. Sina was too old to need tales of lamps and ships and golden treasure to learn letters, and Galadriel did not need them to teach this lesson, but needing and wanting were very different things. In this instance, she wanted them and there was no reason to refrain.





Galadriel being escorted to the cells.


Courtyard - Under Arrest.

Galadriel rarely used her height to intimidate - it was cruel and largely ineffective - but she had drawn herself to her full height as she stared down Cassandra. The guards had not offended her so direly, but as they took her by her arms and lead her down the stairs and into the courtyard, she gave them no quarter. They were wary of her, as well they should have been, and she towered over them like a great looming shadow.

Her expression was rigid and thunderous, filled to the brim with deep, consuming fury masked only by the cold veneer of disdain. She walked with sweeping grace, despite the indignity of her situation, and the guards that led her avoided her gaze as they opened the door to the cells. They had made a spectacle of her and it was another slight she would not forget.





In the cells.


Day -

The cells were barred, with heavy iron gates and thick, artless locks. The stone of the chamber was crumbling, despite the efforts to reinforce the mortar and the floor. Half of the cells were unusable, collapsed or filled with rubble, and the other half were bare things, small and littered with chunks of rock and dried hay. The only objects that had been placed intentionally within the cells were a threadbare, unclean bedroll and a wooden bucket.

The chill that moved through the fortress was keenest here. Wind cut beneath the far door and the torchlight twisted wildly in the drafts. The single fire that burned in the middle of the room was barely sufficient to heat it; the brazier that held the fire was large, but it was unshielded and not well fitted to its current use. The two guards who had accompanied her devoted the majority of their attention to keeping the brazier lit. Between the bare nature of her cell and the build of the room, it became very clear how the people of Thedas dealt with captives.

Galadriel rarely lauded Mirkwood for its splendor, but her current trappings made even Thranduil's deepest, darkest cells seem kingly.


Night -

Twilight was an ordeal in these cells, one that dragged on for far longer than it had any right to. The cells that had collapsed and were open to the sky leaked grey light for hours; when they finally darkened, the far door lit the room in much the same way. Eventually, when the sun finally dropped away, a deep darkness settled over the room. The guards were attentive, but the night was cold and she unnerved them in the dark. They stood farther from her, behind the pillars that lined the walkway, and spoke only in hushed tones.

The fire required less attention at night, but without the wind threatening to extinguish it, the guards stoked it far less frequently. It burned low, dancing red and orange in the darkness, and Galadriel was left with the option to watch it or sleep. She chose to watch.

Comments

Cells, day

[harthad_uluithiad]

He didn't believe the rumors at first. He couldn't believe that the Lady Galadriel, of all people, of all Elves, could have possibly been arrested. Arrested! The idea itself was impossible.

But she was not to be found in the courtyard, nor in what he had come to consider her room in the fortress itself. Her notes and papers were neatly tidied and bundled away, but there was no sign of her staff, nor of the Lady of Light herself, no matter how desperately he searched and called for her.

Still hoping against hope that there had been some mistake, Sam made his way down the long, long stairs to the cells. He'd never been down so deep into Skyhold, nor known that such a horrid place existed, and his fear and trepidation grew with every step. But he carried on, staunchly, until he reached the bottom at last and pushed open the heavy door to the dungeon itself.

Galadriel was not hard to find. Hers was the only cell occupied, and it was easy enough to slip silently past the guards and place himself directly in front of the bars.

The hobbit looked up at her, and promptly burst into tears.

"So it is true," he sobbed. "I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to believe such a horrid, awful thing."

[laurenande]

It was a testament to the quality of her cloaks, that she had not noticed the young hobbit until he stood before her cell and broke into tears at the sight of her. It took some effort to conceal the both of them but, as she realized while she stared down at Samwise Gamgee, she had no choice. He would not bear the weight of imprisonment well, and if he carried anything of note, she would not see it taken from him and placed in less innocent hands.

"It is a dreadful offense," Galadriel agreed, after a fashion, and attempted to sound less bothered by events than she was. She had no idea what he had been told of her imprisonment or, indeed, what had been said at large. Her pride bristled under the weight of her ignorance, but her mild expression maintained.

"But do not despair young Master Gamgee, I have done no wrong."

[harthad_uluithiad]

Sam looked stricken.

"Well of course you haven't!" he declared, aghast. "The very idea!" It had never even occurred to him that the Lady Galadriel would, that she could do anything wrong. Anything she might chose to do was practically by definition something right, just by virtue of her having done it.

But here she was all the same, and Sam shuffled closer, looking mournfully past her at the cold hard cell, the dirty floor and the thin bedroll. His shock had been enough to stop the tears, for a moment, but now they returned, his eyes brimming anew. To see the Lady of Light in such a dank, awful place! He could hardly bear it.

"It's wrong, all wrong," he lamented. "You shouldn't be here - you of all people. It must be a mistake, an awful horrible mistake." He looked up at her, suddenly hopeful. "Can't you explain it to them? Can't you make them see? They can't really want you here, Lady Galadriel. They can't really think you would ever - would ever hurt anybody, or be a danger."

[laurenande]

It was difficult to look upon the round face of Samwise Gamgee and refrain from speaking more candidly than she should. The hobbit was gentle and kind, he required a measure of delicacy that Galadriel strained to employ. This place, the bite of cold and the dank darkness, did little to assist her.

"The hearts of men are fickle, Master Gamgee, even the Wisest cannot predict what the viscous or frightened will do." Though she tried to keep it from her tone, a sort of gravity weighed down her words. She was not angry, not expressly, only dreadfully certain. "They would not listen to me if I spoke to them, nor to reason, and I do not force men to bend to my will, even if their decisions are truly ruinous."

[harthad_uluithiad]

Sam began shaking his head even before she finished speaking, stubbornly refusing to accept what she was telling him. It couldn't be true, it just couldn't. This was the Lady Galadriel! How could anyone not listen to her? How could anyone look at her and not see how wise and good she was?

"The shems can't all be like that," he sniffled, wiping away tears. "They can't all be!" He looked up at her, blinking wet eyelashes, and hesitated before suggesting uncertainly. "Per...perhaps you could bend one of them just a little?"

[laurenande]

She might've laughed, had the situation been less arduous and his tears been fewer. The smile she granted him was fond, but there was a hint of confusion on her face. Sam often said less than he spoke, but with so little, it was strange that so important a word was unfamiliar.

"Shems?" she asked. "I beg your pardon, Master Gamgee, but I do not know this word? I wonder, where did you hear it? Though, regardless of the source, I may guess to whom you refer."

She bent slightly to draw nearer to him and her long golden hair tumbled over her shoulders. Were it not for the bars, it would have helped to shield him from view.

"I would not risk such things, even just a little. To bend the hearts and minds of men to my own is a dangerous path, one from which there is little hope of recovery. It is a method of the enemy and it is fraught with great peril and the darkest of shadows."

[harthad_uluithiad]

Sam blushed, his tears briefly forgotten as he ducked his head. "It's...it's an Elvish word," he admitted, feeling suddenly foolish. What had he been thinking, trying to use such words, and in front of Galadriel too? He was no Elf and never would be. "Leastways it is here; I suppose you'd use a different word, back home. But it's their word for humans - for Men. Shemlen's the proper form of it."

He leaned close to the bars as she did, hardly daring to breathe as he gazed unhappily at her hair and her shining white dress. He still didn't see what was so bad about Galadriel just...just nudging things a little, just helping people to understand...but then she mentioned the Enemy, and he shivered.

"Like using the Ring," he said, quiet, barely audible even to himself. He glanced up at her, somber now. "You can't do it, even once."

[laurenande]

An icy sensation of dread lanced through the heart of her as Samwise spoke. His words held a terrible weight and rang out in the darkness of the dungeon. Galadriel froze, her expression caught between surprise and some reserved shade of fear. Her eyes lingered on the Hobbit's sober face and, for just a moment, her yearning warred with her fear.

"Yes," Galadriel confirmed, her voice airy, almost distant, but certain. She gathered her wits and her hands settled against one another. She could not reach out; she could not take the ring.

"Like using the ring. It is not safe...not even once."

She stared a moment and, before she could do something she should not, she continued.

"But you must not speak of it, Samwise Gamgee, even in these lands," Galadriel told him quietly, urgently. "Perhaps especially in these lands, for we know not what shadows lie over it. I would not see you placed in danger."

[harthad_uluithiad]

Sam swallowed, gazing up at her, and nodded seriously.

"I won't," he promised. "I haven't - not to anyone." Well. He'd stopped himself before he could quite say it, to anyone, and that was enough, wasn't it? "I've kept it secret, just like Gandalf said." Never mind that the Ring was back in Middle-earth, and no one in Thedas could ever touch it; he'd felt certain he was still meant not to speak of it, even here.

Gandalf. Just saying the name made his expression crumple, and he bowed his head, tears threatening to fall yet again. He felt tired, suddenly, and endlessly sad and afraid. If even the Lady Galadriel could be locked up, locked up in so horrible a place, what hope did the rest of them have?

"First Gandalf, and now you," he said, mournfully, and shook his head. "Won't it ever end?"