rowancrowned | fade rift ✧ inbox

If you tell me things I can help.

( that is not a small thing that he says to her, his plans—and it's very tempting, the thought of blights dealt with on a permanent basis, the thought of cutting out the troublesome middle-man of the wardens altogether. whether or not he can actually achieve it is a conversation for another day; if it had come up more naturally then she'd have holes to poke and things to worry at, and without a doubt those will come up, but it isn't the point of the conversation that they're having now.

the point is that even if it's a bad plan, if it's his plan then it's hers and she has no intention of twiddling her thumbs while he does as he pleases.

but: )

We haven't spent two and a half years arguing about elves for you to expect me to believe you're not up to anything there. If you get your stupid wedding, that's a setback—

( but thranduil plans centuries in advance. as amusing as she's found the idea of him losing his cultivated elven bonds to the chantry—it's in the 'pros' column for this clusterfuck—she's never imagined it would actually put an end to anything permanently. )

Will you keep my secrets? Even when you are displeased with someone or moved to heights of anger or annoyance with me, will you make sure they do not slip to anyone else?

[ she's made known that they were lovers and more a handful of times, and a handful more (though these more purposefully) since he offered wedding her as an option for their future and for the good of the inquisition, but as it stands now, he cannot risk the solas' secrets lest it come out to morrigan, to coupe, to anyone. ]

No, [ he says. ] It is not. The Dalish may think of me what they like, and the city elves too, but it is not their opinions that matter. I do not need their affection to help them.

The only person I don't keep any secrets from is you. And I kept plenty from you, before.

( it's not unfair, though, to note that she is a terrible liar. that some of those things she kept from him came out through her hand being forced; that while most of those she confided in about their relationship were purposeful, she was caught out at least once. she frowns past him, allows— )

I can understand, ( and dislike, immensely, ) if there are things it would be safer for me not to be able to be caught out about, but what I can't countenance is having to just take for granted that you're going to spend the rest of our marriage lying to me and leaving me in the dark and that's just how it has to be.

That isn't a marriage, that's something you play with when it suits you and set aside when it doesn't. You can't even tell me that you're doing something and I need to trust you? You'd rather just have me find out with every other idiot when you do something?

What am I supposed to do with it when I trusted— ( past tense ) —you and you're telling me you never trusted me?

Edited 2018-08-03 02:05 (UTC)

You continue to accuse me of wanting you for-- what, for use of your body? Why that, again and again?

[ he looks disgusted, he cannot help the curl of his lip, the near flinch. ]

You mistake me for the men who came before me.

[ calmer now, steady. ]

I told you when I had crafted the thing and not before because why trouble you with failed attempts? Why risk the sort of bleed that removed Petrana de Cedoux from her position? And when I did tell you-- how many others knew it from your lips? I am lucky that Adalia did not have her dragon with her when she attacked me, and she attacked me because you told her one had been crafted. You were angry with me enough to let that slip. If it had happening during the crafting process, what if she had come for Myrobalan? Mages enough here would want his head for what he had done.

[ he presses a hand to his head, shakes his head, struggles. ]

I have trusted you enough to bind my life to yours. We do not do this by half-measures, Gwenaelle, if it were not for the Veil, my fea would be yours as well. I speak openly of my opinions and trust you not to report me.

Because if you had troubled me with the failed attempts—if you had explained to me you were going to attempt it, on yourself, then I wouldn't have been so fucking angry with you utterly blindsiding me with it that I was prepared to do that!

That's why!

And maybe if you hadn't been perfectly happy to do exactly that to me at the tourney, I wouldn't make the comparison—

( they're not past that.

this would, maybe, have been easier if they were. but gwenaëlle was on such shaky ground already; it's so easy to see it crumbling around her, to look on it in the worst possible light. )

You are comparing this to, to-- my ineptitude?

[ he's speechless, a brief stuttering pause where he's fighting for a word that doesn't exist in trade, his syllables lyrical as he nearly switches back to sindarin to grasp for it. ]

How. [ he says. ] How are they the same.

Ineptitude!

( incredulity prompts the first motion away from the door, her hands coming up as if she's framing the word in mild disbelief— )

You're not inept. You ignored me.

( isolating, lonely, irrelevant—

how it made her feel. )

[ softly: ] I am sorry for ignoring you.

[ and that is sincere, not by rote. the hand falls. again, he hesitates before speaking. ]

You must understand-- must, because I can no more change this about myself than Yngvi could grow taller-- that I will never be able to behave like that. I am Quendi, there are consequences for such things that I would not impose upon Iorveth unless he wants them.

If I could break that rule, then what next? Kinslaying? It does not mean I do not love you.

I don't know what you mean by 'like that'.

( her frustration is acute, and though the apology—the sincerity—blunts some of the sharpness, that lack of understanding between them is still cavernous enough that she can't quite feel reassured. she can't be sure she's even managed to explain what upset her; it didn't feel at the time as if she had, and it doesn't, now. )

We don't have to be intimate with him, you don't have to do anything that you can't do. But we weren't. There wasn't anything intimate or personal about what happened. I might as well have not been there for all it mattered that I was, and it was—

I was miserable. I don't know what it is you think I wanted except you. With me. To matter that I was there.

You matter, [ he says. ] You are everything.

[ in an unsent letter: 'perhaps I loved you from the moment on the balcony.' ]

It was too much without the promise of it being anything at all. I will not-- bind myself to him in that way without it binding him too. [ he drags his hand through his hair to bring it being his ear, too violent for such a simple movement. ]

That is what it would have been, with him there. I should have stopped it before that, but I did not. And I was raw, then, and all I wished to do was hold you, hold him, but as I was of no use to you, like you had no utility for any part of my but my prick, you left.

[ softer: ] Do not put me aside like one of your toys. You cannot.

That isn't what I-

( it's the same, she realises, abrupt. they had the exact same fucking problem from different angles and in spite of herself, she laughs, sudden and hard to precisely read the mood of.

of course. they've always, in some ways, shared more than they don't. the ways that tie them together. )

I can't do that, either, ( she says, more carefully. ) I can't...that felt so...

( her teeth press into her lip, and she says, ) It's the same. I don't want to just screw. And that's all it was, I just-

You weren't with me. At all. It's not about using your body, it's what's the fucking point if we don't feel together? I love you. I want him, but if it has to be like that, let's just not, all right? It made me feel...exactly like that. Exactly what you're talking about. And I understand what you mean, because that. I don't know how to make you understand that's how you made me feel, that it's -

It's not all right for me just because I'm fucking human. You can't treat me like that and then complain I didn't hold you nicely afterwards.

( a little more moderately, catching herself: ) I was trying to do the right thing. To not just bring that back to bed. I felt sordid and lonely. I didn't want to, I don't know, make those things something I felt with you. I didn't want to be held later and not be able to forget it making me feel unloved. I thought if I just swallowed it and was quiet it'd stop bothering me.

Edited 2018-08-04 23:30 (UTC)

No, [ he says. ] It only sits between us until it becomes this.

[ this being not talking to one another until the space between them felt like a rabid, angry thing. how often during the negotiations had his thoughts turned to her, and his hand reached for his crystal, only to pull it back as if burned. ]

We make a great deal of trouble for one another, Gwenaëlle.

[ he holds his hand out for her, as solicitous as a gentleman asking for a dance. she has not drawn all the way back from the door, but he thinks that maybe she could be persuaded to come away to him. ]

( her tense indecision holds, taut, teetering on an edge; she thinks, how much fucking time have I wasted already resisting what I want, makes the smallest noise of exasperated frustration with herself and relents, lets him have her hand and draws into his orbit. inevitably.

she says, into his chest, ) I didn't want to be angry with you.

( and it twisted into resentment, instead, insecurity poison that curdled everything after. )

[ he dips his head to kiss her hair, and the arm that encircles her waist enforces the likelihood that she's not going anywhere for awhile. ]

We both thought the other was being cruel.

[ and then they talked it out, like adults. ]

We are becoming better at this, [ he allows. his fingertips press into the small of her back, right before her skirts bloom out, as if he can just keep her close with so faint a touch. ] If not for our duties to the Inquisition, we would have spoken of this sooner.

( her exhalation breathes out the tension in her shoulders and under his hand, and she curls her fingers into his sleeve, crumpling it in a tight grip. )

You caught me completely off-guard, with the phylactery. I needed to be somewhere else, I didn't know how to speak to you yet.

( an offer: )

If you can't tell me all of something. At least that there is something. As much as you can tell me. That I'm braced, that I know we'll be able to talk about it eventually, so I can trust you. I know there'll be things, but - I don't have to be that ignorant.

( it self-evidently did not help. )

Edited 2018-08-05 01:35 (UTC)

Thank you, [ he says. ] for going elsewhere when you needed to.

[ rather than keep both of them here, or her sitting here, stewing in her confinement. the fresh air was good for her, even if it was less 'fresh air' and more 'air filled with rotting elven corpses and also a blood lake'.

because then this fight may well have been worse, and while they will not break- he will not allow it- they may have been apart for longer.

this he allows next, the words a hesitation, as he says what she ought to know. ]

There are things in motion. Things that, should Galadriel falter, would allow our plans to continue.

The Veil is the problem, you think.

( even if galadriel doesn't falter - the fade is the fade and rifters, whether she acknowledges the precariousness of her own family or not, are rifters. she has faded back into it before. she could again. is power trapped, or were they simply shaped without it?

she'll voice that thought, eventually. she isn't sure now is the moment. so maybe she shouldn't push too hard at him, either, she might allow. )

In what way would they allow that?

( testing the edges. )

I know. For both the Elvhen and for the Quendi. The Magistered breached the Golden City, the Elvhen Empire fell, the Blight fell upon this world. You have forgotten your history, but I cannot help but assume they are all linked. Something foul spread across this world, and the Veil is at the center of it.

[ and no explanation given for that, thank you.

he smiles, shows a sliver of his teeth. ]

A unity of purpose. We were unoriginal in our plans.

Edited (unfinished thought) 2018-08-05 02:23 (UTC)

Allies.

( there are really only so many things a statement like that, as vague as it is, can actually mean and still make any sense. )

And you don't want me to be able to tell anyone who they are.

( is she keeping up so far. )

Yes.

[ to both. because she is a remarkably clever girl when she needs to be (which is always) but she was never suited for the game, and he will not entangle her in this one any more than she already is. ]

Meet me halfway, ( quietly, turning and twisting her fingers in fabric. ) We can't be doing everything completely separately, or we'll just—

I don't know, the best case for that is we turn around one day and discover we live different lives and might as well go on doing that. And the worst is I can still screw everything up for you if I don't know anything about what you're doing.

How? [ he asks, with his fingers curled around hers. ] There are things I will not risk telling you, for reasons you well know, names I cannot name, but ask whatever you wish of me and you shall have it as best as I can give it.

[ he kisses her forehead, lips resting there after- ]

I will not be separated from you, [ and then, ] I do not believe all the Elvhen are dead.

If you keep me apart from the things that you do, then the only thing separating us is you choosing to keep us separate. If you were waiting centuries to do anything and living your life present with me now, that would be one thing, but you aren't or there wouldn't be any fucking secrets to keep in the first place.

( the words are sharp, but the voice is tired; she has turned this over and over and over in her hands for weeks now and it's no less frustrating, because it's no easier to solve. he's right, that there are things she shouldn't know; she's right, that if it's everything then they've given up before they begin.

'how'. she wants to have a solution ready, but she'd have reached out sooner if she did. )

Like, for instance, I have no idea what you're talking about. Obviously all elves aren't dead. I walked past seven on the way here.

( the glibness very thinly veils that frustration, and not in any way intended to actually disguise it. )

I want...

I want to actually have a life together. Is it too much to ask of you that we make plans for our future together? You need to tell me if I can't expect you to be a husband to me.

( this is calmer than before. they're discussing it, now; he is listening, and so is she. )

[ he breathes laughter against her hair, and pulls away to coax her to sitting on the bed, half in his lap with her back against his chest, his arm a belt about her waist. ]

No, [ he says. ] Elvhen, [ so she cannot miss it. ] The sons and daughters of Arlathtan.

[ he does not know how to make it plainer for her. ]

I want a home with you. I want to raise our children in peace. I cannot have any of these things without playing these games. I would stay with the Inquisition as long as they would have me, past Corypheus if they will give me the coin for it, for I know not who else might have me.

Edited 2018-08-06 02:12 (UTC)

( her hands are softer than she is by nature, when she tilts back—touches her fingertips to the edges of his jaw and tilts her to him, to meet her gaze properly. )

That's the future, Thranduil. I would like that future.

( it's patient. he knows how hard she tries, to be patient. )

I need you to stop forgetting that I am here in the present, and we have a life right now. And I'm not, any more than you are, sitting on my hands and waiting around for peace. So we need to be on the same page about what that looks like.

I don't mind if the work we do is different. I mind that it feels more and more that we work at cross-purposes entirely. I'm not delicate. Any more. I'm not going to sit here where you can see me be safe and do nothing and wait for you to build a house around me.

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cue the rihanna

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