Chel (ex_faramir486) wrote in nocturnes, @ 2008-01-30 13:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | ithildin |
Ithildin: Fingolfin & Nienor.
Who: Fingolfin and Nienor.
Where: Nienor's outdoor festivities yard? Yeah.
When: Before Nienor takes over the throne of Doriath.
What: A tea party without tea.
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Paying no heed to the distant rumbling of clouds, Nienor sits leisurely on a moss-covered stone, holding court with the much smaller yet much important [to her, in any case] dwellers of Doriath. A snail, some lady birds, a half tamed pair of hares and some ominous looking squirrels that are eyeing the miscellany of berries that lie wrapped in a handkerchief beside her. Many festivities are to ensue.
Crunching leaves underfoot in slow and steady paces, Fingolfin comes to a break in the forest and pauses upon sensing another. He observes the display from a measured distance, somewhat perplexed and amused at the court of creatures surrounding the human girl.
She looks up from tending to the incredibly slow snail, which has by now acquired a name and studies her surrounding, wondering who approaches before her eyes settle on the dignified looking elf. Pursing her lips, she solemnly gestures with a finger for him to approach her.
After a moment of quiet reflection, he steps forward to her bidding, coming to a halt before her throne and meeting her eyes in an unwavering gaze. Then, with meditative slowness, he falls to one knee and inclines his head respectfully.
"You will rise as a knight from the grace of this court, Sir," she declares in serious tones before she inclines her head, paying respect where it is so apparently due. "...now I wonder if you can rid us of those pests. The squirrels."
Raising his head upon her words, he arches a brow. "...As my lady wishes." He stands and turns towards the squirrels with a darkening look as if he were setting out to battle Melkor himself. "Leave, you foul little beasts." And with that, he steps forward towards them menacingly with a fierce look promising crushed little rodent spines and squirrel fur-lined gloves this season.
She scrambles up to her feet and picks up a hare which is half blind most probably due to old age and witnesses the proceedings with observant eyes, silently taking delight in the furry rodents shivering in their skin. "Yes, go back to the dark abyss from where you originate." She raises her voice, ineffectual as it is in its tenor. And watches the squirrels flee before the might of the combined forces.
He smirks triumphantly and clasps his hands behind his back, giving her an appraising look. "They shall bother you no more."
Clutching the hare under one arm, she sweeps him a grand curtsy and asks with a minute smile, "Now what do you wish to receive as your reward, m'lord?"
A moment of decision flickers in his eyes as he finally parts his lips to speak, nodding his head towards the circle of friends around the stone. "May I join your celebrations?"
"But of course," she exclaims politely after scooping up the hopeless little snail from the ground who appears to be going nowhere and gestures towards the high boulder. "You can even sit on the...well, it is not exactly a throne, but we revise terminology for our own enjoyment here."
"And who makes up 'we'?" he asks, moving towards the high throne and careful not to step on any of the creatures there. With athletic precision, he pulls himself atop the boulder and sits, legs curled up to his chin and the bottoms of his boots pressed against the craggly rock.
"Well, let me introduce you to..." she stands in the middle of the haphazard collection of petrified looking small creatures bound to her by the small portions of food she offers them and the free rides within the circles of her arms and starts naming everything in sight. From the largest hare to the smallest ladybird that is just there because it is too petrified by autumn to make any sudden moves. She sets down the hare before valiantly presenting the one true champion, the knight-errant...the laziest thing in all of creation. "And this is Snail."
He follows her flitting movements, noting the poor creatures' terrified expressions and trembling little bodies. "Ah, Snail," -- who might be the only animal who seems at ease, though he may have been inching away swifter than usual. His gaze refocuses upon her. "...and you?"
Without announcing her next move, she bits the corner of her lower lip in extreme concentration and takes one of his hands before gently placing Snail on his palm for further acquaintance. "Well, my mother named me what she thought my father would've wished to name me," she informs him in a casual whisper before meeting his gaze and a nod. "Nienor."
The snail in his hand leaves a wet trail in his palm and he brings his hand up to eye level for heavy scrutinizing. "The Lady Nienor," he whispers to Snail as if passing on covert information.
"And what are you named, my lord?" She questions as she steps away from the 'throne' after making sure Snail is being treated with the amount of respect he deserves. Picking up a roughly sewn sack, she ponders upon the menu of the feast that is to follow shortly.
"Nolofinwë." Lowering his hand, he cradles Snail to his chest rests his other over a knee.
Her hands still inside the sack as she raises her head and flicks back a strand of gold colored hair from her forehead. "I have heard your name several times," she states as she studies his face more closely now, knowing that she hasn't ever beheld his visage before but searching his pale eyes just the same. And for the lack of better words, she inquires as she keeps looking at him with unblinking eyes. "You are Nolofinwë Nolofinwë?"
"I know no other name," he answers her, meeting her intent study simply. "Were these times of scorn?"
She sits back on the ground, crossing her legs in front of her as she drags the sack beside her and drums thin fingers on one knee in thought. "Not particularly." She raises her voice after a moment, removed from any pretentiousness. "Once a vagabond tried to make a snide comment about your name, denouncing all of your kin so my mother skewered his hand with a dagger. That is all. But it could also be because he smelt really bad, stole our chickens and was getting on her nerves."
"Fair enough." He places Snail in a seat of honor next to him on the rock before brushing his hands together. "...are you originally from here?"
She shakes her head in negative before extracting some apples from the sack and places them neatly on the handkerchief that already lies near her. "Not really, but Doriath became home and later…several different places. And you're originally from a place where no man could ever go, correct?" A thought and a smile. "...well, except my Tuor since he is so delightful."
"Originally," he echoes in confirmation, gaze darkening upon hearing that name again. Pressing the toe of his boot into the soil at the base of the rock, he imprints a shallow hole. "Your Tuor is my grand-daughter's husband, I believe."
"I do think he was my cousin first, Sir, but I may be at fault" she nods in agreement, arranging some wild fruits with the apples. "It gets tedious to keep track of dates when there is so much more to see." Her stream of words halts suddenly. "Do you miss it?"
"Dates? Time? Hísilómë?" he asks mildly with a raised brow. As recollection, vague and distant, drifts through his mind, he flicks his fingers through the air as if to erase the insubstantial images. "We were magnificent. We made this land our own." It's not a direct answer to her question, but such answers do not fill neat spaces of breath. "And now there is nothing."
"I haven't seen but a quarter of what you must've experienced." Curve a thought into words, string it with a mouthful of air and spread it out to disperse with the oblivious wind. Such a simple yet taxing task, she can feel the weight as he speaks. "Still there are ruins to spark the memory. I think it is the instance of existence we should've been warned about. Apple?" And swiftly she's on her feet, standing before him with a selection of fruits.
Selecting the red apple from the array of fruits, he tosses it up in the air and catches it easily before polishing it on his sash. The whimsical actions draw his attention to simpler things, seep away the impact of indescribable emotions. "Had you the choice, would you have come back?"
Smiling briefly at the flight of the apple and then its final surrender to gravity and his vigilant hands, she settles down on the ground with her back to the boulder and starts to break up what appears to be a wild equivalent of a carrot to feed the patient hares. "Yes, because then ending it would've been my justified right too, without any stigma attached to the act."
"Mmm. Some would say challenging Melkor to a one-on-one duel is suicide," he muses, masking a grin by biting into the apple. Breaking off a piece of fruit, he tosses it to the attentive birds, who immediately begin to stab at it with their beaks. "Which was either seen as courageous...or immensely stupid, depending on who you ask. I wouldn't be so quick to judge someone who makes that decision. There are always reasons."
"But your immediate intent wasn't to get yourself killed when you placed out that challenge now was it?" The amused spark in her eyes is immediate, wrested from some memory of her mother's words - a remembered tale she was told of Fingolfin's combat with Morgoth. "From where I see it, you wanted victory at some conscious or unconscious level. You wanted life as opposed to death so that spells out courage." And just as swiftly the birds amassing around him claim her concentration as they peck greedily at the morsels he is offering them. "If you keep feeding them, they'll keep eating and nothing will be left for you. Bad birds."
Surrounded by a seemingly algorithemically increasing flock of birds, he belatedly tries to shoo them away. Only, now seeing him as friend and feeder, they grow bold, perching on his arms and head, eyeing the apple hungrily. "So I see," he mutters.
Depositing the broken pieces of the carrot for the hares to feed upon, she dusts her hands before doing a double take over her shoulder to see the miscellany of birds using Fingolfin as their perch. Placing a hand along her cheek in thought, she states in a solemn whisper, "Beware. Their digestive system works really fast."
Giving her a mildly alarmed look, he renews his efforts to shake away the birds more forcefully.
Now only enjoying the spectacle as the birds cling onto him, she raises her eyebrows and suggests gravely, "Try growling."
"...I'm not going to growl," he states firmly, tone ringing with too much pride for that. A bird he has managed to successfully release himself from flutters back to his arm. He glares at it.
"Your statement is marked with shards of pride, m'lord," she smothers her smile as well as her words behind the palm of her hand so that they come out some gross distortion of the original cadence, as if issued from a choked throat. "I don't think feathered creatures understand what that is, they just have two basic fears - hunger and cold. Every other fear is learned along the way. Try to put some fear in them, really."
"I could kill one of them," he ponders rather amorally. "And set an example for its brethren. Or kill all of them."
The laughter that is about to spill from her lips makes a hasty retreat down to the very pit of her stomach as her eyes go wide. She shuffles up to her feet and closes the distance between them after rolling up the worn sleeves of her gown. Placing an admonishing finger on her lips to tell him to keep silent, she starts to pluck off the persistent birds from his shoulders, arms and his head.
When free of the last avian creature, he exhales the breath he'd been holding and assuages skin where talons pierced too bitingly. "That works too. My gratitude."
"My gratitude, for not slaying them all," she asserts in return and takes a step back to survey the extent of damage caused by the flying creatures to his clothes. She spits on her handkerchief and rubs off a stinky little gift left by a raven on the front of his tunic while scrunching up her nose. "There. No...mmm, little harm done."
Deciding that he HATES birds forever and ever, perhaps slightly less than how much he hates Fëanor, Melkor, and snow -- in that order -- he makes a mental note to repackage the tunic (unwashed, naturally) and give it as a gift to Thingol. "...it's not like I do that killing rage thing all the time."
"I wouldn't know unless I was stalking you or was one of the Valar which are, I think, divine stalkers in the sense that they are supposedly watching us all the time," she muses under her breath unaware of the revulsion for birds welling inside him and pulls back her arm to fling the used handkerchief as far away as she possibly can. "You should wash your hands. And your face. And your arms as well."
Stifling a wince, and steadfastly refusing to see how much damage has been done, he slowly rises, "Thank you, Nienor, for letting me partake in your festivities. They were most...enlightening," he nods gravely, and, mustering as much dignity as he can given the situation...which is very limited, sadly...he sets off in search of the nearest stream.
Pursing her lips, she waves a farewell at his back before she locates Snail crammed between a crack in the boulder and picks him up. Gathering the remnants of her festivities and her followers she heads off in the other direction towards the nearest waterhole.