faemused | Open To Anyone For Anything RP Post

She nods, opening her palms to the air. "I propose we travel alongside with you for some little ways, for you will be moving towards safer ground. When we find a suitable place to stop, there we will remain for a season before choosing our next course." It is early spring now; they may delay a season in strengthening themselves before beginning a longer trek. "You may thus also continue your watch on your patients for a little longer, and young Linneth may continue to learn what she may."

Linneth is their only surviving healer, far too young but taking her responsibility seriously. Haleth has been teaching the girl some plant and herblore herself; she is no healer, but Linneth has much to learn in little time and is anxious to gather as much knowledge as she may, from any source.

"We will slow you down," she continues. "But not overly much, for many of your horses are still recovering from the pace you set to get here in time, and you could not move with great haste in any event. It seems little cost to benefit all."

"That is wisdom."

He agrees, and walks over to his saddlebags to filch a map.

"Here. We will be headed back to Amon Ereb, here. Likely, we will take this path. There should be grazing and good hunting... here, I think. And here, also."

He taps the map as he speaks.

"My own outriders will be reaching us soon with fresh supplies, as well. That will give us carts, which will make it easier to carry those of your wounded who cannot yet ride or walk."

She smiles as she joins him and looks down at the map. Her smiles are almost as rare as her laughter, and make her look younger than her years, briefly erasing a few of those lines of grim responsibility etched into her brow.

"That will do very well," she says, nodding to approve this plan, relaxing just a little. "Yes. Let us wait for your outriders, and move on then, with all well-supplied and as many carried as may be."

There is the faintest hint of a grin as she looks at him. "I would ask again what repayment we might make you for such assistance. But if your only wish is that we live to defy the Enemy, it is clearly in your advantage for as many of us to survive as possible." By Haleth's standards, this is a joke.

He's struck momentarily dumb when she smiles - it lights up her whole face, and he flushes, looking away.

"Yes." He's very grateful that he doesn't stutter. He manages to smile back at her at the joke.

"Indeed so. And I... would like it. If you lived." He adds and wonders if that was too forward.

Haleth tilts her head, birdlike, looking at him with open curiosity. "You are blushing again," she says. "Why is that?"

Last time it was embarassment over admitting he made clothing. She cannot fathom what in this conversation would cause it.

"I... " he looks away and clears his throat.

"It was only. I thought. You looked. Very. pretty Just now."

"I?"

This sight is rarer even than her smiles: Haleth looks abruptly, completely astonished. By the word, by it being applied to her, by it being applied to her by an elf, by it being applied by Caranthir...there is nothing about his answer that does not amaze her.

He's bright red.

"Yes. Well. I apologise. I was too forward."

Haleth shakes her head. "You know I prefer forward speaking. It saves time." The gesture and the sentence are both automatic. He has heard her say much the same thing several times in their brief acquaintance.

Even so, she is nearly as red as he is now, still wide-eyed and astonished. She opens her mouth to ask if this is but courtesy among elves, or commonplace--then shuts it, for obviously it is not, or else he would not have apologized for being forward. He would not look as he does now, awkward as a boy and avoiding her gaze.

"I..." She stops, swallows. Her face is burning. What does she do in this circumstance? Thank him? Tell him he is mistaken? Why would an elf, grace and beauty made manifest, consider a human, much less her, to be pretty? She is not. She is strong, practical, she has many virtues, but she is not pretty. Yet Caranthir is blushing so fiercely, and she knows him to be truthful.

Haleth swallows again. "I...will think on this." The same words she has used at the end of nearly every discussion they have had, every time he has given answers to her questions, but this time they feel...very different, and when she turns to leave the tent it is even more brisk than usual, almost to the point of a run.

"Of course." He manages to her back as she (doesn't run, Haleth would never) exits in a hurry, and then drops his head to the table and curses.

STUPID he hisses at himself. Is he a boy, to stammer out compliments? He should know better. The Oath has him by the throat anyway, he should not be dallying.

(It isn't a dalliance, won't ever be, he already knows that)

And she's leaving, anyway. She has her people to think about.

STUPID.

For once, Haleth is mistaken: she is too struck dumb to think on it. She tries, but all her pragmatism abandons her so that she's left with nothing but confusion and a racing heartbeat and ears that burn.

It does not make sense. She cannot make it make sense.

Fortunately Caranthir's outriders arrive the next morning, and the entire camp--Eldar ihuman leaders definitely included-- are too busy to attend to anything else. There are supplies to distribute, plans to make, wagons to load with the wounded, an endless list of tasks. Haleth welcomes it all with relief, shoving other concerns into the back of her mind and handling things with her usual methodical precision.

They all break camp on the second morning. The humans move at a slow, steady pace, sitting in the wagons or walking alongside them. Haleth moves from wagon to wagon, keeping an eye on all, not least her scamp of a nephew.

She stays very busy. This is deliberate as much as necessary.

They stop for the night early, for some of the wounded are not handling the journey as well as hoped. From a distance Haleth watches Linneth and Caranthir tending them, her face blank. The elf lord's long fall of hair glistens in the light of the sunset, the black tinged red.

She turns and walks away, thoughtful.

An hour later finds her kneeling by one of the many campfires, crushing herbs into a stew and stirring it, smelling the results. She looks more relaxed as she performs this task, and a faint hint of a smile plays on her face.

Caranthir both curses and blesses the arrival of his outriders - the bustle of moving and distributing keeps them both busy, although he cannot help sneaking glances at her in the work.

(It also brings a proper healer along, much to his relief - he does his best, but this is not what he was trained to do, and to have another here to go over his work and take the hard cases off his hands, to properly teach Linneth, is a great weight off his shoulders)

He comes to find her when the work is done, only to pause and stare, looking at the smile as she works for her people.

His heart aches. This is where she belongs, where she is happy. How can he think to taint that?

His eyes are a dark glitter from where he stands and he cannot quite bring himself to turn away, nor to approach closer.

She feels his eyes on her now and then all through the day, though she ignores it and does not look back. They have brief speech when needed, but no opportunity for further talk.

She takes a turn at cooking to clear her mind, and it helps. The familiar rituals of cutting vegetables, balancing meat and liquid, seasoning...Haleth's people long ago learned that the best time to approach her is after cooking. Not during, but after.

Her stew is nearly finished now, and she looks directly up at where Caranthir waits (having given no sign previously that she knew he was there). "Come and taste this."

It's soothing and painful both at once to watch her work, and he starts visibly when she turns to address him, hesitating before coming over.

"I apologise for making you uncomfortable."

He says gruffly.

She considers him for a moment, and finally answers, "You need not," before turning her attention back to the stew. She pours a ladleful into a bowl and offers it to him. "But I have questions."

That, at least, is hardly new. She always has questions.

"Even so." He says gruffly, and Eru DAMN his bloody tendency to flush at the drop of a hat.

"Ask, and I will do my best to answer."

She shrugs and lets it be. If he wishes to feel embarrassed there is little she can do to stop him.

Haleth serves herself a bowl of the stew and sits back, blowing on it before she takes a sip, which also gives him time to begin eating his if he wishes. It's turned out well, she notes with some pride, despite the limited ingredients and tools to hand. Nothing is over or undercooked and it all balances.

She takes a few more thoughtful bites. "Tell me more of your people. Particularly as regards interactions between men and women."

He'd been about to swallow, but the question makes him freeze.

"Uh..."

He stammers before gathering himself.

"What... were you curious about?"

"Mating," she says, as though discussing nothing more awkward than the weather. She does not seem to notice the stammering, or how red he is. "Courtship, marriage, dalliance, all those things. I do not know what your customs are."

He sputters, the blush deepening even further.

"Aaahhh..."

Dear Eru why.

"Well... we... we marry for love, and... but the once, unless you are my grandfather, and ... that did not end well." Not that he minds his half cousins, but if grandfather had been content with one kid things might have not been quite this bad a disaster.

"We... we have but the one spouse, for we are bound in fea. We do not... lie with another outside of those bounds."

She wears the same sort of expression she wears when learning anything new, an intense, focused attention. "That is interesting. So there are no more casual relations among you? How do you know that you have been thus bound, that there is no mistake of judgement? Your stew is getting cold," she adds, because that would be a pity.

He, on the other hand, is discovering new shades of red.

"No. The... the act of... relations is the act of matrimony itself. And ... we can tell. It is in the eyes, you see. You can tell that someone isn't alone any longer."

He looks down at his stew - he had completely forgotten.

"Ah..." he mumbles and obediently goes to take some.

"I see." But she frowns, as though this only raises more questions. Caranthir is free to eat a few bites in silence as she thinks.

"But do you then know beforehand?" she asks finally, still frowning. "It is obvious when a couple has thus been bound, you say, but is that only after the...the physical act of binding...has taken place? It would seem a hard thing to me to make such a choice only to have it last for centuries, when you may be mistaken, and then not free to bind yourself to any other. And yet to know beforehand seems to be having the choice taken from you, and that idea I little like either. It all sounds cumbersome."

Someone clearly does not have much experience of being in love, by any standards.

"No." He says slowly, taking the chance given to eat - the soup really is very good.

"But that is why we are encouraged to be careful about our choices. Yet the heart will do as the heart will do. My family is known for being... percipitous, in our choices. And stubborn."

She raises an eyebrow at him. "That does not sound like you. With my people and me you have been both sensible and patient, as well as considerate. Though I may grant you the stubborn description." High compliments, from Haleth, despite the disclaimer. "Perhaps you are the exception in your family?"

She has heard a little of his brothers, a basic overview of their temperaments, during their sessions as she learned the area and something of the politics of dealing with the Firstborn. She has not formed very high opinions of them so far, in truth. At least, not in comparison to her opinion of Caranthir.

She's not at all but has some prejudices and assumptions in the way. About herself as well as him!

aww

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I love this so damn much now.

lol welcome to my world

really should have picked a more safe for work username though ;)

XD possibly XD

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