Chel (ex_faramir486) wrote in nocturnes, @ 2008-01-30 13:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | ithildin |
Ithildin; Aredhel, Fingolfin, Fingon.
who: fingon and aredhel.
where: here, there. everywhere.
when: afternoon.
what: the remants of an old life. discussion.
--**--**--
Kneeling, sifting the fine dust through his fingers, Fingon gives his terrain a quick scan and rises. The afternoon sun beats steady, a heavy reminder of the unleashed wrath -- and a promise of what might be to come? He raises his voice, nonetheless. "I've been tracking you, Írissë. There is no one else here."
"The hunter being hunted? Hard not to take that as a minor defeat." The sun dazzles her eyes for a moment - painting the world with a pleasantly warm yellow and gold hum. Stepping around the thick tree trunk, she nods with a flickering smile. "Why are you here, Findekáno? I'm running with ambiguity - it is no place for you."
"A brother, concerned for his only sister. I can run just as fast, when you are concerned," he murmurs, flicking the shades of dirt from his fingers as he steps forward and stretches out his hand. "Don't make yourself uncatchable to me."
Taking his hand, she completely ignores the fact that she might be staining it with more dirt than he has just tried to shrug off. A step closer, she raises her other hand to his face, which lingers there briefly before she severs the touch entirely. "I am never too far from you. See? Believe."
He catches that hand, turning her fingers to brush softly against his cheek. "You know it's difficult for me. Seeing and believing. But for you, I try. I couldn't have found you now. And you're safe."
"Safe even with the wolves," she mutters quietly while trailing her thumb along his nose with barely any pressure at all - something edged with darkness in her tone before she stills and points to the tracks left by wolves in the now drying earth. "Old habit of mine, hmm? Tell me about Menegroth - how everybody fares. Has Nerwen celebrated her victory ball yet?"
"They've accepted you into their pack?" with an intrigued brow, he submits to her feather touches, stilling himself and holding his breath. "I don't care what she does, only that soon, she might feel the end of my daggers."
Slow spilling laughter - it even amuses herself. "Not really. They have just extended me the courtesy of not ripping me apart when I follow them." And what if it all seizes now? It doesn't. The moment stretches. "She lives on a precarious edge, but that is her fate and I feel no warmth for it. Breathe histories, Findekáno."
"Wise wolves," he mutters, almost peevish. But his pale eyes sparkle; seeing her sunkissed limbs, the soft tangle of her hair. Happiness? "My stories are untold, Írissë. Dreams are ashes. She skirts along a foolish path and it's taxing my patience. Honestly."
"Let the wind tell and the ground hear. You're the heart of this history." Almost dismissive in her tone, her eyes sell the secret easily as they fall to his feet before clashing with the sun directly. Defiance. "Yours should be the voice that is heard above all else. And that is that. Nerwen can get consumed by her own lust for all I care."
"...but she is. And I'm not here to whine pathetically at my sister's feet about a hazy, angry elf-woman. Far from it." Threading their arms swiftly, he begins to retrace her footsteps, walking deftly along the path. "Tell me something, Írissë. Something real."
"You're in my heart, never at my feet," she reprimands him in a soft tone, twisting his arm a little to further add to the impact of her words. "And what would you have me say, blood of my blood? We have known both the worlds here and there better than most - we have lived and learnt and loved. And I cannot say it for you but I have hated. And that is real."
"I would say that walking here, with my dust kicking up in the air is still so new -- so foreign that love and hate are sharp. Like blades in your hands. And it makes me smile when others aren't looking. You are my heart." He stops short as the ground dissapears beneath them, giving way to a steep, rockied precipice. With slow, deliberative steps, he walks to the edge and turns back toward her. "...if there was water, I would dive."
Following after him, standing as close to the edge as she possibly can without falling - she surveys the depth before holding his glance. "I've always wanted to know a mad one, Findekáno, and you're the best of them all." A lazy smirk turns her lips as she spreads out her arms for balance. "Why the sudden desire to fall in? There is no water for miles here."
"Perhaps it is a hope for water. And a memory." One hand hovers over the expanse of air, as if it were testing temperature or the ability to bear him up. Or drag him down.
"How many memories do you hold inside you, hmm?" No certain frontiers in her tone, she averts her eyes before he could see her giving in to the simplest of all things: feeling. And isn't it a curse [a blessing?] that still remains. "Try asking for it. Perhaps Ulmo would grant your wish here and now."
"Millions. As you do, I promise you." He steps back and, dropping to one knee, selects a rounded stone. "No edges," murmuring, holding it up for her inspection, "old. Ageless. Like us." And he lets it fall from his grasp, the descent echoing silence. "Ulmo is angry."
She inspects the stone's plummet down to the very pit of the ravine with wryness as she states quietly, "what doom lies ahead of us now? Isn't it enough to have lived and died and then live again? There is a line that needs to be drawn around the valar and their anger. Or maybe if they handed out pamphlets before they ripped up the land, it'll help."
"...we would have laughed in their faces, joking about their elementary grasp of the language they sang into existence. Mm, pride fallacies. No more doom, my blood. We have chance on our side."
"Their vision gets narrower and staler with each passing day - their music, if it was shaped in the first place, is waning." Selecting a jagged stone from the ground beneath her feet, she balances it deftly on her palm and then at the back of her before sending it hurtling across the divide to hit a tree on the other side. "What to make of it? In this moment I am doing nothing but living without boundaries."
"And who is to say that is not the gentlest, most real form of rebellion? No. I want to erase all of your boundaries, Írissë, until there is nothing that could not be in your grasp. With everything to experience and all to love."
His words spread like quiet calm all over her, picking at memories here and there - stilling chaotic thoughts. For a moment she stares at him with the silent, cryptic eyes of an outsider before all the traces of life and hope and something greater than the tyranny of a blood bond could ever force to produce [love] make her utter a small sound, half of dismissal and half of acceptance. Stooping down she places a brief kiss on his forehead before walking back towards the thinning line of trees behind them.
"I'll be waiting" unfolding, "hoping for you," he promises, closing his eyes to emblazon the sensation of her presence across the inside of his eyelids.
*********************
who: fingon and fingolfin
where: archery field, menegroth
when: after fingon talks to aredhel
what: plotting ensues. bad little noldoli kings :DD
--++--++--
Boredom drives people to many things -- war, sex, murder, art. And anger. Senseless, blind rage that begins with trembling hands and ends with curled, afternoon lips that pour out whispered curses. So Fingon stands, bow in hand, as he traverses Menegroth's archery field and moves the targets backward some twenty feet. Jogging back and vaulting the barrier, he takes a breath to still himself (imagining Galadriel's heart as the target) and fires off one arrow.
Dispossession is an empty feeling, and worse, leaves far too much idle time. Elros' parade of councilors seem to be mere clones of each other, all weak-spined and nauseatingly pacifist -- and Fingolfin can only stomach one such brother as it is. Abandoning yet another pointless meeting in fit of barely bridled irritation, he pushes open the doors (leaving stunned and silent advisors huddled behind) and stalks through the dreary caves until he emerges into sunlight and can, for once, breathe freely again. The sound of wood splitting immediately draws his attention and he realizes he has inadvertently wandered into the training grounds. Curious as to see who actually has the balls to pick up a weapon around here, he silently makes his way around the field, keeping to the shadows, and is satisfied to catch a glimpse of a familiar profile.
"...a little wind, please?" he mutters, motioning to the sky with the feathered tip of one arrow as he nocks it and prepares to let it fly toward the target again until the crashing of doors echoes throughout the still, unnatural silence. He turns, relaxing the tension in his arms, scanning the treeline for moving shadows.
A smirk plays across his features as he watches his son wariness increase. Admittedly, it's probably not wise to play this silent treading game when one's opponent has a bow and arrow and can use them well -- and he was far less skilled in this than Írisse anyway. Wistfully, he parts from the shadows and steps forward. "With what has been happening of late, you should be more cautious with your words, lest the gods send winds strong enough to rip the trees from their beds."
Following that familiar voice with the end of his arrow, smirking for his father, he turns swiftly and watches another arrow speed next to the first. Quivering with the impact. "...when have we bothered with caution, Atar? I'm tired of hiding behind felled trees, the skirts of man-women and half elves."
"Since impulsiveness resulted in our deaths." He comes to a halt behind Fingon, coolly observing his progress. "Since there are far too many personalities in once concentrated area for my liking."
"...says the King who rode out to single combat with Melkor." Turning, offering his cheek a smooth kiss, he leans back on the barrier and runs the oiled string between thumb and forefinger. Amused and thoughtful of his own feelings as his father speaks, he lets a corner of his lip curl into a smile. "Disenchanted. What are your thoughts?"
A somewhat surprised and pleased smile crosses his lips at the token of affection. "Bored. Too much time for philosophic musings and we all know how dangerous those can be." Trite words. He presses a hand to the back of Fingon's neck tenderly for a moment before bending to select an arrow from the quiver.
And he offers his bow. "...and drowning in such, you must be. My Atar."
"I won't burden you to be my counsel." Taking it and fitting the arrow to its string, his eyes narrow upon the target. After a moment of concentration, he draws the string back and lets the arrow loose. "But I think by the end of this, I will have either killed a certain one of your cousins or have been driven into insanity."
"Target. If you don't burden me, I will find some other sordid way to understand. I was King after you." A weak gust of wind buffets the three arrows and his forehead, picking up heavy locks of hair and tangling them further. "...and maybe it is an overactive sense of cynicism. But dare you be speaking of dear Artanis?"
"I underestimated your nosiness," he replies, but softened eyes bely his words. "...who else?"
"She could be done away with. Easily. Kinslaying isn't something that turns my stomach, anymore."
"Easier said then done, now. She has quite the advantage, having outlived us all." He frowns at his results. He'd never be as skilled with the bow as others. "Too many powerful allies. And, as ever, it is the love for my brother that still ultimately stays my hand, though Artanis is testing those limits. To think such as her ilk comes from that house."
"I'm not concerned," insistant, he walks behind and plucks at his father's hands, holding the bow in posistion. "One more reason, Atar. One more misstep and I won't stay my hand. Now, shoot."
He only stares at Fingon a moment, then takes up the bow once more, eyes focusing upon the target. Another arrow flies from his hands. "How is your son?" he asks, watching the arrow sluice the air critically. No -- he needs to think differently about this. "My grandson?"
Disenchanted. "...it's difficult to say. When he would rather have counsel from her than words from his father. I left, though. And that is all he sees." Pausing for breath and thought, he motions toward the target. "...there. You can best anyone, Atar, with the sword."
He hates weaknesses anyway, and only mutters a soft, "Hmm," before offering Fingon back the bow. "Perhaps some of the fault is mine. I wonder if I am going about this all wrong. It's obvious that Círdan has given him a rather different upbringing than what I gave you and your siblings. A gentler hand." He doesn't even know if he's capable of such.
"He's not a child who needs coddling. He's a King..." wearing your crown. Smirk. "Perhaps Artanis needs to die."
"We've come to an agreement of sorts." More like extortion, he thinks bitterly. "But she will betray me, no doubt." A considering look, and then a quiet deadliness enters his steely eyes. "If we are to do this thing, it has to be done right."
"...explain. What are you agreeing with her about? She would betray her own child, if her means was justified by the end she desired." Passing scarred limbs across the archer's barrier, he walks over and jerks their arrows from the target, replacing them carefully in the quiver. Stony, he smiles. "We shall do so. And perhaps, none would come looking. I plan to speak to Maitimo about it, as well. If it is retribution the Valar are looking for, perhaps we can give it."
"She wants my aid in her quest to have the throne of Doriath." Leaning an arm against a supporting pillar of the overhang, he frowns at hearing the mention of Maitimo. "Hold. Lórien is not a realm to be underestimated. But if we sweep all her supporting ties from beneath her, then and only then can she be cleanly disposed of."
"...delicacy is your sphere," he murmurs, letting his arms fold over his chest. "And I will do as you say, as ever. We should start, first, with Celeborn."
"There's already much to work with." A malevolent smile curls the corners of his mouth, thoughts already forming themselves into a semblance of a plan. "Perhaps I could enlist your aunt in pushing this towards its conclusion. The two of them seemed rather cozy the other day." A hardness underlines these words. "In the meantime, I need to strengthen my ties to Ereinion. Coddle him, if I have to. Anything to get him out of Artanis' sphere of influence."
"And it is you, possibly, not I, who will do that. He wants to be loved so desperately." And with his brows arched, he leans forward and shakes his head. "Stultifying. But she will do as you ask."
"I know she will," he affirms, a certain kind of unapologetic knowledge shining from his eyes. He is not above taking advantage of opportunities -- even from family -- and he certainly won't try and dress it up as anything but. "That takes care of her realm and Ereinion."
Quiet, icy, he rolls his fingers over his leatherclad forearms and nods. "Her family, then. What of Celebrían? Does Artanis have friends?"
"Elrond? He doesn't have to hear of it, he's so far away. Elros would hardly attempt to ally himself with someone who wouldn't mind seeing him dead or deposed, unless I'm giving him far too much credit, which is possible. I'll try and strengthen our ties. Celebrían is hardly a threat..." he pauses, touching a finger to his lips, "but could be useful."
His gaze slides to the cloudy sky, heaving with impending moisture as the wind, indeed, picks up heavily. "So be it."
A warm hand descends upon his father's cheek, pulling him to meet his own gaze. "So be it," he repeats, affirming the words with a soft kiss on his cheek.