faemused | Open To Anyone For Anything RP Post

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From:

grumpycatanthir

He's tired but not collapsing yet, fortunately!

"We have the usual rations, of course, and I sent those still able away to hunt." He nods. "But bread and wine will do well enough. You need to eat, after a battle." He ushers her back towards his tent, a flick of his hand sends his seneschal dashing off for provisions.

From:

takesnoshit

He is right, and they have matters to discuss, leader to leader. She follows, matching his much longer stride as best she can and showing none of the effort it takes on her face. It is fortunate he walks slowly, being tired.

Even so, she finds breath to snort. "We need to eat after days of surviving on tree bark and river water. Our rations ran out days ago, and there is little left to scavenge. Bread and wine will be more than enough. Your hunters will not find game for some distance, though there are yet fish in the river."

From:

grumpycatanthir

There's only one small camp chair, which he offers to her as he drops to sit on the bed and start at his boots.

"With the recent battle? No, of course not. But our horses rested overnight, so they will be able to go far enough afield to bring back decent game, although they like as not will not be back for several days yet." He agrees as their meal is brought. Simple rations are still rations, after all.

From:

takesnoshit

She sits on the chair, eyeing his bed. So it was his. She had assumed as much, but still it is...irksome, somehow, to know that she was in his bed. Even though she doubts not that it was a gesture of respect, or apology.

"They did seem most wondrous horses," she says reluctantly. They had, beautiful beyond measure, waterfalls of grace and strength in horse form. The sight of them rushing into the battle during that final, dark hour will stay with her all her days, the startled wonder the sight engendered. It had nothing at first to do with amazement at being rescued, merely awe at their beauty. "No doubt they will make good time. You intend to remain here some days, then."

She manages not to savage the bread or gulp the wine. It takes effort.

From:

grumpycatanthir

"We brought their ancestors with us from Valinor." He informs her, eating with the quick precise economy of someone long used to eating on a battlefield, wasting nothing, including time.

"My brothers, the Ambarussa and Maglor, breed them, as does our cousin Fingon in Hithlum."

He nods. "Aye. You have wounded still too ill to move, and your people are still weary. We will stay a while longer, and then escort you to safer lands."

From:

takesnoshit

She snorts, a sound of disbelief. "Are there safer lands? I wonder." She eats with the same efficiency. All her short life there has been battle. She does not believe in safety, it is clear. Only respite, and that always brief.

From:

grumpycatanthir

"Safer than this." He points out. "We're not more than a few days marches from the Enemy's lands, here. Your people need time to rest, and to rebuild. You won't get that here."

From:

takesnoshit

Her jaw clenches a little, but she nods. There is no choice, truly, but to accept this hospitality, however it frustrates her pride.

"Is this yours?" she asks abruptly, looking down at the shirt she's wearing. It's more a dress on her, given their different heights.

From:

grumpycatanthir

"It is, yes." He nods. "Sadly, most of your previous clothing was beyond salvagable, although I believe some of your own people took it to see what might be done with what they might save."

Blood stains do tend to set rather stubbornly, and orc blood is even worse, after all.

"Keep it, if you like. I am not so poor that I begrudge a spare shirt! Or we can find your own people after this meal, and see about getting you into your own things."

From:

takesnoshit

She frowns slightly, for she is so poor as to not have a shirt to spare, now. What belongings they had are scattered or destroyed, and even once they are new-settled it will be some time before they will be able to make cloth once more. Her people have lost nearly everything, save their own selves.

She must be content with that, with their lives. They will rebuild. They will, however impossible it seems now.

"I think I must continue to borrow it for a time," she says, instead of admitting this directly. "Though it's...more bright, than mine were."

She rubs the fabric between two fingers. It's a dark red color unlike any she's ever seen in fabric--how did they dye it? Reds are difficult colors to manage, second only to purple, which she's never even seen used in clothing. While this is a darker shade, it still stands out, particularly with the gold embroidery on the collar and cuffs and edge. She keeps having to pull the sleeves up, and finally moves to fold them so they stop draping over her hands. "I wouldn't want to wear it for hunting. Game would see me coming from miles away."

From:

grumpycatanthir

"You are welcome to it." He nods, and shrugs, a slight hint of red tinting his cheeks.

"It's the family color, that red. I use it in many of the clothes I make."

His own banners are sable, but Feanarians wear red, and he doesn't mind, when it's a nice rich crimson. Not too garish. Easy to pair with gold or silver or black. Not so easy with Maglor's green or Celegorm's yellow, but he has managed to make it work over the years.

He barks a short amused sound at that. "With all the embroidery weighing you down to boot? No, that one is in case I need to wear something vaguely nice, out here. I don't know why my seneschal keeps packing it, but it came in useful on this occasion, so I shall not complain too much."

From:

takesnoshit

Haleth frowns faintly at him. "Why are you blushing?" she asks, blunt, her head a little tilted to one side.

From:

grumpycatanthir

He flushes more at the realisation she noticed.

"Nothing! It's nothing. I just. Some people find it odd. That I make clothes."

From:

takesnoshit

Her frown changes, from confusion to different confusion. "How is that strange? Someone must. Do you not enjoy it?"

Though it is a little strange, she supposes. An elf lord who also acts as a surgeon and makes clothing is not what she would have expected. That sort of multitasking is more common in her own people, where there is so much that needs doing that all turn their hands to it, but surely with their greater resources and time the elves need not.

From:

grumpycatanthir

He nods, looking away.

"I do. But some people think it's... odd."

Damn his stupid skin and stupid stupid tendency to blush.

From:

takesnoshit

"Why?"

She hasn't moved her gaze away from him, and her eyes are cool but do not seem to judge, only to seek reasons.

From:

grumpycatanthir

He blinks, taken abck by her frankness, and visibly stops bristling, when it's clear she's only interested.

"I don't understand it either." He admits. "It's my grandmother's skill - father was very pleased to see it carried on. But here in Beleriand, apparently it's seen as unmanly, or something."

He thinks it's stupid, but he's gotten too many jeers.

From:

takesnoshit

She snorts, turning her attention back to her food. "Foolishness. Talents and skills should be used, by whoever possesses them. To waste such ability in the name of 'manliness' or 'womanliness' is nothing but vanity, and serves no purpose at all. I am good with a sword, not a lute; what use would there be in turning my hand to that which I cannot do well?"

From:

grumpycatanthir

He relaxes enough to smile at her for that, a genuine, if small thing that makes him look much younger.

"Even so. I enjoy it. I am good at it. And it has many useful applications - why should I not? I am glad we think alike in this."

From:

takesnoshit

Haleth notices the smile, but being answered is now more concerned with her meal. "To enjoy a thing or to do it well seems reason enough to me. If both are the case, it is wasteful not to. Many turn their hands to skills they have not, in hopes of thereby learning it, and that is fair enough. But to ignore a skill because others think you should not use it--"

She shrugs, tears off a piece of meat with her teeth and chews it, swallowing before she continues. "As well try to teach a fish to be a bird. You would make more progress. People do not become what they are not for wishing it so."

From:

grumpycatanthir

He snorts in amused agreement.

"That is so. Amongst my people, it is held that the joy of the doing is of much worth as the doing well, for the enrinchment of all."

He shrugs a little. "Wishes mean nothing without the actions to follow."

From:

takesnoshit

"Then next time some take you to task for your hobby and call you unmanly, I suggest you tie them up with your cloth and dangle them from a tree until they have learned wisdom, or at least better manners."

She says it casually, before taking a long drink from her winecup.

From:

grumpycatanthir

He throws his head back and laughs.

"Hah! I will remember that, for the next time. Thank you, milady."

From:

takesnoshit

The laugh surprises Haleth. She cannot remember hearing the like. Certainly there has been no laughter for the past few weeks--few lifetimes. "I am no lady,"she says, as an afterthought to this realization. "But you are welcome."