Practice! With Wellard

[findsthesun]

A young Elf*, dressed in sturdy green and brown cloth and soft leather shoes, walks into the bar.

It can, perhaps, be forgive if his first reaction is wariness and his hand flicks towards the white handled knife at his belt.

Then he laughs.

"A tavern of Men, in the middle of the forest? I have not heard tell of this."

*see (here) for description of Elves, and Legolas in particular.

Comments

[politestpirate.livejournal.com]

"I am one of the people who've made a home here. There are quite few, who stay here for one reason or another. There are rooms upstairs for rent, and the food here is better than a lot I've come across." Wellard takes his own seat, and starts stacking up the papers to make more room on the table.

"Usually its due to... some sort of complications in their own world, or if they can return to it or not. Others prefer this place, with both its benefits and dangers."

[findsthesun]

"Sacred rights?" He asks, suddenly curious.

"Well, I have travelled more than most of my kin but I do not know very many kingdoms to compare it to. We are a kingdom of the silvan folk, the tree-people, and its borders are those of the forest of Mirkwood. Our king is a great lord of the Sindar, and has lived to see ages of our world. We trade with a settlement of Men to the East, and we converse with our kin across the mountains to the West, and we do not but sparingly trade with the Dwarves in the North for their deception long ago, and to the South there is shadow."

[findsthesun]

"If their cellar," Legolas says with a smile, "has the wines of Dorwinion, I should expect their larder to be equally well stocked.

"How do you mean that some cannot return?" he asks, carefully. "While I might rest, I do have duties to my king I must carry through."

[politestpirate.livejournal.com]

Wellard bites his lip, thinking for a moment, before looking back up to Legolas.

"Some people find their way here, and the door locks behind them. Not for always, but for a time. Others, here- Well."

He taps his fingers on the table top.

"For them, the door to this place is found between life and... whatever afterlife they were headed to, be it heaven, hell, or any others that I've heard of from people here. They are just as alive as any can tell, but if and whenever they leave, the way out through the door continues on to where every they were headed, after they died."

[findsthesun]

The latter gets a look of sudden interest, but what he replies to is the first.

"Then what is to happen in the home they have left, while they are held captive by this most unexpected of taverns?"

[politestpirate.livejournal.com]

"Time moves differently between here and there." 'There' being Legolas' home, Wellard's home, and any other world to speak of.

He gestures at the front door. "Either time freezes out there while you're in here, so you return exactly when you left, or it moves so slowly as to make nearly no difference." A quiet chuckle, and Wellard flashes a grin.

"There are some people who come here to take advantage of it, even. To finish work or research when they wouldn't have time at home otherwise."

[student_of_impossibility]

Tavi's eyebrow goes up a little as he purses his lips thoughtfully, flipping through a mental card catalogue of other worlds. He can pick up a few things already, though, including the designation "elf". (He also picks up that they're in a distinctly uncomfortable position, and represses the urge to wrinkle his nose in sympathy.

"The sacred right of the soldier to complain to his commanding officer," he explains dryly. "Respectfully, of course."

My ass hurts.
My ass hurts, sir.
Sacred right, sir. Sacred right.

[findsthesun]

There's a long pause, and Legolas is looking exceptionally confused.

"That was at least 20 full years ago," he says, slowly, "I do think my father has already used them, as they would have soured before I was born."

[findsthesun]

Legolas breaks into laughter.

"At least it is respectful," he tells Tavi, comforting, once he has stopped laughing. It might work better if he didn't look set to go off again any moment.

[student_of_impossibility]

"Respectful when he's reminded to be so, yes," Tavi says drily.

He likes this man. He pushes the bread and oil over a little, in offering. After all, it's a snack. "He and I continue to have discussions on the subject."

[findsthesun]

Legolas laughs, quietly. "'Tis a pity I find myself lacking in paper work, then, and that is something I never thought I would say.

"What is it that you do here--Wellard?"

He is guessing, here. He thinks Wellard's name basically boils down to 'Wellard son of Henry son of Wellard,' as is a rare but existent naming convention among traders.

[findsthesun]

"Thank you," Legolas says, taking a piece of bread and dipping it lightly in oil as he has seen Tavi do. The movement seems natural, and it is only his clear curiousity which shows he has not actually eaten this before.

"I would say that having a good soldier under you who is not respectful," Legolas replies, after eating the piece of bread, "is better than having a respectful soldier who is not good. But that might encourage some who I work with, and I would find myself regretting it!"

[student_of_impossibility]

Tavi smiles a little wryly. "That's the attitude our officers and Lords with any sense take, certainly. There are all sorts of useful unofficial policy."

He sighs a little and shakes his head, taking another sip. "Although, admittedly, we've had our history with those who disagree." His face darkens for a moment before he regains his good humor. He has memories.

[findsthesun]

Legolas notes that, and does not ask.

He smiles over at Tavi, nodding to his sword. "When I was young, I wanted to learn the method of using one of those, but I am well past the age that I could learn without looking a fool."

[student_of_impossibility]

Tavi smiles a little self-deprecatingly.

"And the way you carry that bow, I dare say even with my woodcrafting I couldn't hope to be the kind of shot you are, or my uncle, or any of our Knights Terra. And I still have to train hard to stay in shape with this blade."

Something about the fond smile on his face indicates wistful reminiscence.

[findsthesun]

Legolas laughs, but not unkindly. "I do well enough," he says, after a moment, "but it means everyone expects me to go hunting whenever the king holds a feast! 'Tis lucky, that your sword cannot be so used."

He tilts his head "What is a Knight Terra?"

[student_of_impossibility]

Tavi sighs a little. "But a bow can provide food. Swords do very little beyond kill."

Tavi hesitates. "Ah. There is a short answer to that question, a long answer, and a much longer answer which may be mildly incomprehensible. It took me years, and I was one of the few who vaguely understood it when someone first shared it with me."

[findsthesun]

Legolas takes a sip of Dorwinion, watching Tavi.

"I have the time, if you do," he says, curious, "and I am certain I have heard explanations that make less sense."

[gondolin-noble.livejournal.com]

"Would they have indeed?" Glorfindel replies, studiously Not Laughing at the young prince.

Even when the rat returns, carefully balancing the flagon of wine on its head.

"Then I suppose I shall take this, and save you from having to drink it?"

What? Two flagons of very nice Dorwinion is twice as nice as one.

[findsthesun]

"It would be uncommonly rude of me to allow one of my elders to take such a risk on my account," Legolas informs Glorfindel swiftly, rounding the couch, and takes the flagon with a polite murmur of thanks to the rat.

He takes a sip, slow and thoughtful, and considers it. And then takes another, larger one. "It does not taste sour," he tells Glorfindel. "It is actually better than the 2718," he says, and then with a wry glance "Third Age."

[student_of_impossibility]

Tavi smiles a little and leans back. "Well then. Where to start." He sips his wine thoughtfully.

"We'll start out with the basics. I'm not from your Middle-earth. Our worlds--our whole universes, sets of stars and histories and rules and gods and magics--are almost entirely unrelated. This place, Milliways, it exists outside time and space. Sometimes people can be in the Bar from the same world and entirely different times--or even similar worlds, with the same history up to a point, and then history changes. An example: When I first entered, I met a legionare--a soldier--from my world and befriended him. I got locked out of the Bar for four years, and later discovered he was my best friend since we had been in school."

He pauses for a bite of bread. "Sometimes, you can get locked in the Bar, and no time will pass in your home. And sometimes you can, as I've mentioned, get locked out for years of your time and all of a day in the Bar. And people from... all different worlds, different versions of the same world, the same world in different times: they all gather here."

Running a hand through his dark hair, he sighs a little. "I could explain some of the theory of how it works, based on something a friend once told me," he offers, green eyes compassionate. "But I don't know how helpful it will be."

[findsthesun]

Legolas listens to this, soaking in the words with his attention trained on Tavi. Occasionally he remembers that humans are not always so fond of eye contact, and breaks it to take a sip of his wine.

"It is not necessary," he says once Tavi pauses, tilting his head, "my people are not given to deep philosophy, and I do not differ from them in that."

[student_of_impossibility]

Oddly, Tavi is one of the few humans who could sustain that kind of contact. Then again, when you can use unleashed volcanos, set fire to an army of thousands, and live for days on end without sleep (even if you end up sleeping for two days after trying any of it), you stop caring about some things.

And those were things he could do indirectly, even before he had his own magic.

Tavi raises his eyebrow a little, and then laughs again. "I envy you, I think. There are times I wish I could be anything other than given to it. Max and Kitai are always telling me I need to think less." He smiles wryly. "Unfortunately, circumstance and blood have dictated otherwise."

He wouldn't be Tavi if he weren't also Gaius Octavian, First Lord of Alera. He wants to pretend they're seperate people. They're not.

[findsthesun]

Legolas smiles, and shrugs slightly. He has never had the time and ease to develop the wont towards philosophy that the Noldor developed in Aman and found hard to give up. Truth, yes. Politics, surely. Abstract philosophy, not so much.

"And what has this to do with the Knights Terra?" he asks gently, not bothered by this seeming sidetrack but not caught up in it.

[politestpirate.livejournal.com]

"Thankfully I've always loved reading and learning, or else I do believe I would have found myself bored to tears many times, here." He chuckles quietly, then motions to the papers.

"I am planning out provisioning for a ship, though this is new. Before, I was learning on how to design and build a ship, which I then did, when it was summer outside and the weather cooperated."