From the time he was a boy, he'd been raised with one thought in mind. Do not be selfish. Do not set yourself on the path of the undesirable. Make your heart not a fortress of greed. Ilúvatar had taken to those lessons because a knight was meant to be all of those things. He was meant to be a sacrifice to his people, a defender and champion of his people. His people were any of the innocents who shrank away from the defense of their lives. His people were the ones who had nothing. It was for them that he must live his life. And yet here he was, a goblet before him, staring at the sun-haired beauty as though he'd never seen someone so perfect in all of his life.

( He did not think that he had. )

He noticed almost immediately that the air felt strange around him. No. It did not feel strange. It smelled strange. Ilúvatar knew it well. It had begun, this familiarity, in the days of his father. When you were the sword of your house you were meant to know the stench of battle. Smoke and death were recognizable to you because it was your purpose and intent to cause them, in as much volume as you could, thus laying great waste to the enemies of your house. Here he was, now, the last male of his family. If he'd perished in battle yesterday the house would have gone with him. He was not one to think often on family honor - unless it were one of the more obvious obligations, such as caring for his mother, he found he had little use for them. Yet that thought lingered as he stared into the mirror.

( The last of a kind. )

Skandra did not stroll so much as strut. They were in the full grip of winter's fist, and with a coat buckled on it was all right to appear to have a great deal of bulk. The high, angled collar of his coat was raised to conceal his cheeks and his chin. Every clasp was worked up to the last, with the collar resting inside of the hood this time. No sense in taking chances, being recognized or whatnot. The only part of Skandra Tyullis' face that could be seen were his eyes. What malevolent eyes they were, staring hard at anyone who dared to meet them and challenging them to a fight. His belt was cinched on over his coat, riding somewhat high. Since the coat was split for riding it hung over left and right legs below the waist. On his belt were two swords - one, the cherry-grip sidesword he'd used for so long. The other was a late addition, with a basket hilt in the style of the latest schiavona the city had to offer. And then, inside of the coat, the weapons of alchemy were concealed in the bulky torso area.

( In other words, he was armed and ready for war. )

Maeglin's residence was a boiling sea of madness. Elves in heavy armor and pikes were scrambling into ten-deep formations before hustling off to points unknown. Well, in fariness, he knew. Baila had given him a detailed report of the arrangements for the defense. Ilúvatar was certain that he'd been listening intently. Their colors were strange bedfellows, indeed. Some of Maeglin's soldiers and some of Guyther's soldiers and some of Ilúvatar's own Thunderbolts. Their ranks were swelling every day. If you were able-bodied and had a mind to defend Terestai, you were enlisting in the Thunderbolts and taking your lumps among all of the other fresh recruits. Baila had established quite a system for funneling and testing recruits, so that by the time Ilúvatar was aware of them, their participation was almost certain. Truly irreplaceable, that Captain of his, and he would never be able to Baila so until one of them was certainly going to die.

( It would be a long wait, he hoped. )

Fiaethe spent what time she had outdoors. Perhaps she should have double checked her own work instead, or harassed someone for not doing their job fast enough, but while Lord Ilúvatar was in captivity she had not left the halls of Maeglin's residence. Not even for a brief visit to one of the gardens. If Fiaethe was going to be trapped in a siege with everyone else, she wanted to enjoy the sun for a day. And she wanted to do so without being followed.

This wish was far more challenging to fulfill than when she first arrived here. Back then, Fiaethe was less known and did not hold the kind regard of the staff. Now the household's eyes knew her and had concerned themselves with her safety. Fiaethe could not find it in her heart to spurn what worry was shown to her -- after all, no amount of inner steel disguised that if not for divine intervention, she would be dead. And while just Lord Ilúvatar's presence here made it infinitely safer to be out in the open, Fiaethe knew risk still walked wherever she did.

( ... )

It was, in many ways, the worst sort of homecoming.

( Not what he had expected. )

There was only so much of being in her room that Aeotha could take. She could not sleep here, at least, not the kind of sleep that she needed. She was as tired as all of them, she thought. Those eyes she saw in the hallway, missing their master, their lord, or whatever it was that they called him now. She missed him too. When she saw Baila there in the hall their brief exchange of words only left her with a heavier heart. Reminding her of better times, even hopeful times, that a naive Priestess had stood beside valiant knights who thought she belonged there. She never had belonged there. Instead she'd twisted them all into a despair. It was her fault Eibhear had not survived to take care of his son, his wife, his house.. She could pin it upon someone else, and it had been his hand that had acted, but it'd been her own pride that had kept her quiet.

( Her own pride that kept her here. )

She still felt worn, even if for a brief time she'd found sleep. But she'd done her best to tell Priestess Yorilan what it was she needed to know. To help Leironuoth once he was there, to know it was something she wanted. There were problems with Dream Walking, one of which was that not every dreamer retained anything let alone everything. But she'd made it as clear as Aeotha could. Manipulating that dream scape and painting Leironuoth into it. She was worn out, but had found the time to bathe and to change her clothes. A fresh dress seemed so strange now. It was a fine thing, not as fine as that dress Lady Fiaethe wore, but different all together from the once protective robes of a young Priestess. Aeotha no longer was forced to wear such things, though she often chose to. But the rank which was written in flowing script along such things was too much for hiding out in a home. This was more comfortable and less of a constant reminder of her title. Title. Life.

( She did not know where title ended and life began, or if they were one in the same now. )

When someone said 'map room', Skandra usually expected the thing to be full of maps. They were there - endless wooden tubes capped in bronze, which could be unscrewed to reveal the carefully waxed map inside. Yet there was only one map on display. A stretch of leather had been carefully inked with the whole of Astarii's borders visible to anyone that looked. Skandra's fingers were tracing this name, that name, all of it in the tongue of the High elves. Yet always his fingers found their way back to Ra Arato Sapsa. Always he was left with more questions than answers. It was just a name on a map. It couldn't tell him anything that he didn't already know. And if this, what he despised, was any indication... then his life was not about to become less complicated. It was about to become more complicated. And the most he could hope for in all of this madness was a little bit of luck and a lot of good will. Ramga had to be the one, didn't he? Only what To had explained didn't make any sense.

( There was very little that made any sense. )

To stared at him from across the way. They were both slouching against the sides of the grand stone archway, one of the few pieces of the structure that wasn't made of wood. The hot sun of the day was descending into its grave, replaced by orange light and relative shadow. Wind stirred the open face of his coat; for once, Baila did not concern himself with buttoning it. The rail-thin lieutenant had loose scarves hanging around his neck and the stench of the road pouring from him in waves. By now they were both accustomed to it. And though the climbing lattices of roses hid them from view, both knew this would be the last chance they had to speak to one another for some time. At least, in the way that they now spoke. Maeglin was a friend, but he was not their friend.

( And the news was not good. )

Terestai, once an outpost for the military and little else, had become a teeming center of everything grand in Elvish society. In Astarii's society. Now the streets were deserted. Now, at night, you walked alone no matter how many you numbered. They were only two. She in the finest that she could muster, and he in much the same. No cape. The lies he'd told his mother did him little good. A dinner affair, as before. The gossip of Terestai might have reached her. She still believed her son was a lord, and worthy of whatever finery she could manage to cram onto his body. She did not appreciate his lack of a cape. Ilúvatar managed to hide his weapons from her in Baila's care. Then they were off, he was armed to the teeth, and it was time to find out if he was too clever for his own good.

( The meeting was set. )

At the gates of the Magister's residence in Terestai stood two elves, waiting for permission to enter. They had been kept outside after handing a piece of parchment through the bars, but seemed in little rush. One elf stood with his hood off his head as he looked up at the iron bars with a curious light in his eyes. His brown, almost black, hair was cropped so short that it sat a top his head in sharp spikes. A gold spike ran from the top of his right ear through the lobe and beads were wrapped around the knuckles of his right hand. He wore a bow and quiver at his back, but did not stand as if he knew the weight of them. The elf occasionally smiled at the blank-eyed sentry through the bars.

The other elf was far more intimidating and at least three hands taller than his friend. He had not removed his hood and neglected to smile at the guards who watched them. He wore boots that covered his knee with a flap of leather, and black gloves. His cloak was older than the one of his friend, and not quite as fine, though in good condition. The embroidery at the edges was faded. There were a few places where the fabric was lighter than it should have been -- evidence of patching. He was the one who handed over the parchment.

( Parvum always preferred an official letter... )

An ebony box lay across her bed, which she had made herself not a half hour ago. Servants so often thought her observant eye was only capable of seeking points of criticism. She implied that she watched so that she might wring every drop of energy from the servants for her own room. Fiaethe never allowed anyone to think she was more an avid learner than a tyrant; the corners of her sheets were perfectly tucked. Her bed looked as if it were new. Fiaethe absently smoothed a wrinkle from the quilt before her fingers traced over the box and its platinum latches. She popped one latch, then the other, gently lifting the lid and bending over as she reached inside the blue velvet interior. Light danced across her wrists as she lifted the diadem, exposing the golden leaves, the curved silver branches, the citrine, peridot, the amber and ruby that hung in strands from the rim and wove themselves throughout the structure of the crown. Her fingers felt thin and tiny all of the sudden. Too many years had passed since she held this diadem.

( This was only the second time in her existence that Fiaethe had lifted it herself from the box... )

After every tour of the premises, he felt he knew something he had not before. Baila was not a creature of habit any more than he was a creature of poetry and verse, but coming to know this manor waas in some ways the same as coming to know Maeglin for a second time. How each sword was within easy reach. How a shield from every age lined the wall, and no adornments to suggest that they were the shields of his ancestors. Sylvan were not known for such things, of course, but here and there Baila had learned a great deal about them. When you found yourself thoroughly outnumbered as a child it was best simply to adopt the ways of the people you were with. And there was no doubt that each and every one of those shields bore the scars of use, rather than the signs of false attempts to make a thing look 'antique'.

( Those were disgusting to citizens of any race. )

The corridors were empty save the footsteps of servants, rushing to complete one task or another. They'd appeared in preparation for Maeglin's arrival. Word had come to them before it had come to Ilúvatar because they were the ones who organized the house. They were the ones who ruled this place, with its rules and its standards. He was nothing but a guest at the pleasure of their true master. And that meant whatever changes he'd requested, whatever demands he'd placed on them - though most of those were likely requests of his mother - were being undone so that Maeglin would find his home precisely as he left it. It amused Ilúvatar to think that they would have a list, somewhere, of every painting that had been removed and precisely how it sat on the wall. It amused him because there was nothing else to do but be amused. And drink.

( He'd indulged in his fair share of both. )

House Usol had a strange sort of honor to it. Not the sort of honor that Ilúvatar would have chosen for himself if he'd another choice. The manor house was one of the finest in the city - with high stone walls built from the white rock that was taken from a quarry to the north, iron gates that somehow managed to retain a polish, and well-carved stone lion caps that graced the wall itself every thirty feet or so. Ilúvatar thought the entire affair was too ostentatious, approaching the work one might see in a palace, but that was a decision for every lord to make himself. Likely the Lord Usol had simply wanted his residence to stand out. Knowing what he knew about the fellow made it difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt. When you worked with Eiron'aith you were proclaiming your intentions in a way that no one would hear, but everyone would feel. More and more he was beginning to suspect that Flaithriaoh had been real, in whatever way a Champion could be real to his people, and Eiron'aith was the one who had deceived.

( He needed proof, not nebulous connections. )

It was not uncommon for someone to decline Ilúvatar's dinner invitations. Of course, normally their decline of his offer was in the form of a politely-worded note on heavy parchment. Expressing not only their love for him personally but their remembrance of his service to the king. As though any of that mattered. They would go on to protest that many things demanded their immediate attention, and might even list some of them in the style of a gossiping girl, hoping that he would pass on these carefully constructed lies at some other dinner to enemies of theirs. This was most often the case with ladies, whether attached or otherwise, working on behalf of a brother or a husband or a ... it hardly mattered. He remembered once that Eibhear had sent him a similar note - then come to dinner in any case, expressing mock outrage that Ilúvatar would invite a guest for such a lackluster feast. It was an odd memory to come up in this way. Especially since Eibhear was long since dead. For a moment, he supposed he just missed his friend.

( A strange time to do so. )

Ilúvatar would have opposed something so grand as the new temple of Lorien, had he been in Terestai when such a thing was decided. They must have begun work almost immediately after the Breaking for it to be so near completion. There were statues that had not yet been mounted. Sections of the white exterior were incomplete, revealing the gray stone underneath that shouldered the majority of the load. Even the loading bays used for receiving cargo, cleverly hidden in a half-underground area accessed by ramp, still had unfinished docks. It would be a marvel of construction when it was finished. If it was finished. Ilúvatar had heard they were soliciting donations to continue working on it. Knowing how much they received in tithes, he could not believe that they could not afford to finish. But several priests would have to ligthen their purses to see it done. Such was their dedication to their goddess. He wanted to spit. Somehow he restrained himself.

( He was still a lord. )

How long could he afford to put them off? So far, with the soldiers on the street to enforce the law and the riots suppressed without a death on either side, he'd managed to keep the damage of the performance hall from spreading even further. There were questions that no one was asking. Why Drow? Why there, and now? Were there more Drow in the city? How had these come into Terestai without being observed? There were enough questions to keep ten thousand men awake at night wondering why. Yet those were not the questions that the former Council members would ask. The priestess of the temple, left to direct the temple's works with the absence of the High Priestess, would want to know what was being done to ensure the continued safety of the refugees. The lords and ladies of the land would want to know when they would stop receiving additional tithe requests from the temple. It was their right, in times of great strife or war, and the lords - experts on the laws they themselves had helped the fashion - were picking through the old scrolls and demanding that Ilúvatar support their interpretation.

( It was his dispute to resolve, but his mind could think of only one thing. )