[ open ] pardon me for my lack of excitement

[rowancrowned]

WHO: Thranduil & you!
WHAT: Three prompts following Thranduil's arrival in Skyhold.
WHEN: Within three-four days of the newest group of rifters' arrival at Skyhold.
WHERE: Library, Ramparts, Great Hall.
NOTES: No warnings. All in prose, but a switch to brackets is possible.

i. LIBRARY
His lips did not move as he worked over a page. At his right hand sat an inkwell and quill; the paper beneath covered with small, tight tengwar characters. The book before him was a well-loved copy of The Seer’s Yarn, the page open to something entitled ‘Pain and Bane’, and Thranduil had carefully copied out the verses on his paper.

The letters were well-formed, but not fluid. They were an exact duplicate of the page of the children’s book. A few of the words had something in those odd-seeming letters below them- an attempt at a translation, when he could borrow someone to read out the poem to him or translate specific words.

It was a shame to be surrounded by all these books, some of them doubtlessly containing the answers to his questions and to be unable to read them. Clearly, he intended to remedy that as soon as possible.

ii. RAMPARTS
Elves did not sleep. It was not in their biology, they were not designed to need it, and since his arrival, he had managed thus far to avoid it. Three nights without sleep had not affected his looks. Indeed, there were no bags under his eyes, his skin yet flawless and fair. But, as he looked over the beautiful vista, the fur of his hooded cloak shivering in the wind, Thranduil somehow yawned.

And promptly grimaced, his hands tightening on the stone of the ramparts. The sun was below the horizon, the pale light of sunset yet lighting enough of the sky that the torches were not yet. Legolas was safe in their room. He had found sleep by running himself to exhaustion. Thranduil was not inclined to go the same way.

The door to the rooms at the closest tower shut, and his gaze moved from the mountains in the distance to the new arrival. He did not speak—rather, he watched.

iii. GREAT HALL
The plate before the tall elf was not interesting for the amount of food on it. It was full, yes, but not with more than a bite or two of everything on offer for the soldiers, diplomats, and various other people fed here. Thranduil had assembled more of a sampling than a meal, and was working methodically through what was on offer to determine what tasted good—so far, two types of jam and a cheese—and what did not—everything else.

He picked at everything, keeping the distaste to himself when it came upon him. Any irritation was present in how his fingers moved, how they flicked or paused before taking a new item.

When he had arrived, the table had been bare. Now, as the time dragged on, it began to fill. He was not too surprised when someone took the seat across from him, and began their own meal.

 

Comments

[rowancrowned]

Thranduil looked up, and offered a small smiled, nodding once. Only when he looked over the mess of papers he had assembled did he truly realize how far he had spread, and how much he needed to call everything to center.

It was little work to shuffle the papers together, and then pull his seat away from the desk. They were in a library; obviously the other elf wanted access to the shelf of books. The ink was capped as a final thought, and in a sweep of silk and brocade, Thranduil stepped away, his focus on Zevran and how he moved rather than on his papers. He looked old, in a way that elves should not, but that was not the sort of question one began conversations with.

[ombranera]

"Grazie." Zevran offered a quick dip of his head before slipping past and leaning up on his toes to fetch the book in question. The cover was innocuous enough, at least until one looked close at the shapes the curls of embossed gold ivy twined about on the leather created. Not quite so blatant as the printed images within but more than enough to be suggestive.

Merrill would adore it.

Smiling over the thought did cause the crinkles at the corner of his visible eye, the other safely hidden behind a leather patch, deepen all the more. "You would think someone would not want these books found, how they get shelved about."

[rowancrowned]

“They match no system of organization I have seen,” he agreed, eyes still done on his paper. He looked up, saw the suggestive and rather phallic nature of some of the plant life adorning the cover, and paused.

“… or perhaps they only wished to keep such a book out of the hands of elflings?” The tranquil unnerved him in a way he could not put to words with their wrongness, their stillness. They did not even need to be elves to disturb him with their hollow gazes.

i swear i can html x-x

[ombranera]

"Elfling-" He frowned a moment and snorted. "Ah, you mean children. We do not have so many in the keep that would wander the library. Aside from the mages it is not often they even know how to read."

Such was life in Thedas for an elf. Well. One of the usual elves. These new, taller ones were a mystery unto themselves. "I think, perhaps, it is due to there being so many with strong opinions on how things ought to be done and none of them agreeing. Much like the state of the world but with less bloodshed."

happens to the best of us

[rowancrowned]

“Elflings,” he asked, “or children?” One meant young elves, and the other, the children of Men. He himself was illiterate in the common tongue of Thedas, though by the spread of his papers he clearly intended to learn. Having knowledge of the spoken language only meant he needed to decipher letters into sounds. It was proving both more difficult and yet easier than he expected.

“And you?” He cocked his head, still seated, staring up at Zevran. “What are your 'strong opinions'? Or do you exclude yourself from the many.”

[ombranera]

"A child is a child is a child, be they human, dwarven, qunari, or elven. Perhaps the Dalish have a word for their young in particular but in the Common? Child does as well as any in any tongue of Thedas. Bambino, enfant, niño, kinder, infans. Well. I think the last might be correct but I have not ever taken it upon myself to learn Tevene." That would require living there or knowing Vints that could bear the equal company of elves. Which...tended to be a rare thing, no matter the nationality.

Zevran tucked the book under his arm, brow quirked. "Me? Ah, they are simple enough things. Wine ought to be Antivan, women ought to be lovely, men ought to be handsome. People ought to mind their own business and meddle a little less. Were that so this likely would not have happened- or perhaps it might have happened with less bloodshed."

[rowancrowned]

“But you speak the other four? And Common beside?” He closed the book he had been examining, folding his hands on top of the cover, where the bear slumbered with the child. Wholly unrealistic in this world, especially considering what he had run into whilst in the Hinterlands.

“Antivan wine? Perhaps I will have the chance to sample it sometime soon. ‘Tis not that the vintages have been lacking, but—“ He gestured. “They are not extraordinary.”

But he was also not purchasing wine for an entire kingdom. On the subject of meddling: “And the Inquisition, does it meddle? Or does it aid, and restore order?”

[ombranera]

"Antivan fluently, Orlesian conversational, Rivaini Fluently, A few words of Ander I do know some Elvhan but not much, I have never spent a great deal of time about the Dalish." Zevran peered at the cover of the book on the table, momentarily puzzled. But when he recalled the difficulty Galadriel seemed to have with learning their written word, well. He cannot continue to be quite so confused.

"Getting a proper bottle this far south will take some doing. As for the Inquisition, well. It is taking action where most have been content to let the world burn down about their ears."