findsthesun | Practice! With Wellard

Octavian tilts his head a little, considering the best answer.

"A country called Alera," he says finally. "On a world known as Carna. You wouldn't know the more... twisted details of my origins."

After a moment of deep thought, he holds out a hand. "I'm Tavi. You should order a drink--the first one's free."

Legolas leans forward and clasps his forearm. "We are well-met."

He laughs. "That is needed, perhaps, in such an unexpected place. What is it that this tavern stocks, Tavi?"

"Well-met indeed," Tavi says with a warm smile.

It's been too long since he had anyone besides the ones he already knew in the Bar who treat him as anything other than...

Well. Tavi also laughs a little. "I wouldn't know what you would wish for. I suggest you ask the Bar, and if she has it, she'll provide it. Bar, my regular, if you will? And some bread and oil." It quite conveniently appears.

Legolas watches this, curious, running a hand over the Bar as if to see if there are secret Dwarven devices in it; finding none, he smiles cheerfully down at the service.

"My lady Bar, would you be so kind as to provide me with Dorwinion? I am sure any vintage you choose would be more than sufficient." He pauses, slightly, a mischievious glint in his eye, "It would be a kindness to me beyond measure if you could provide a small wineskin of it; I have not had the pleasure of the king's wine cellar for weeks, and I am unlikely to until I return."

The Bar seems to pause, thoughtfully, and then provides the wineskin and drinking bowl--already full of deep red wine.

Legolas beams, at the latter--a fair strange thing it is to find it, outside of the Forest. "My many thanks!"

He turns to Tavi, placing the winekskin down with his quiver. "If you wish to try some, you need only ask."

Tavi watches the process with amusement, dipping his bread in the oil an beginning to eat as he does. One eyebrow goes up a little at the long request.

"Well now," he says after a moment with a grin, "if you have to go to the trouble of getting into the king's cellar for it, I don't think I can pass up the opportunity."

And then, as he pushes his flagon aside for the moment and an empty glass appears for him, he adds, "Besides, I have a friend who would never forgive me if I lost such an opportunity."

Up comes the wineskin, again, and Legolas opens it swiftly, pouring a full draught into the glass, before closing it again.

"It is potent," Legolas says, cheerfully, "but there is good reason why the king goes to great lengths to purchase it. There is no wine better in Middle-Earth."

If Legolas doesn't know from personal experience, he trusts Thranduil's. The king is pretty discerning about wine. He takes a sip from the drinking bowl, and seems to approve of the Bar's choice of vintage.

With the practised ease of someone with years of experience with fine wines, Tavi takes a moment to swirl the wine and sniff it, before giving Legolas an admiring glance. It's funny, too, because he looks like he's in his twenties.

And he sips his wine carefully, closing his eyes with an expression of quiet, appreciative bliss. "I can tell why he would," he says after a moment, with a smile. "Would you happen to know how they manage to grow the grapes? I'd like to see if maybe it would be possible in Acquitaine or Calderon Valley."

Subtle but there: a hint that he has a certain amount of power.

"I have never been to Dorwinion," Legolas replies, regretfully. "But it is a land to the north west of a large inland sea. It might be that which gives its soil such qualities."

He laughs. "But thank you, I now have a task I must set myself to. Perhaps he will give me leave to explore it someday--it lies along the Celduin, which runs through our forest. I can say that I aim to see if I might find him a lower price."

Tavi throws back his head and laughs richly. "That may just work," he says merrily. Truthfully, he hasn't had a chance to relax quite like this in a while--it's been a busy week.

"In my experience, anything which can cut back on spending tends to attract a ruler's attention almost immediately." He smiles wryly. "And if you can get a nice trip out of it, so much the better. May I ask what your kingdom is like?" He takes another sip. Politics is never far from Octavian's mind.

"You may," Legolas answers, mischievously, and take a drink of Dorwinion.

Tavi rolls his eyes, smiling a little.

"Remind me never to introduce you to Max. He'd start teaching you about 'sacred rights' and I'd never hear the end of it. What is your kingdom like?"

"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."

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.

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.

"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."

"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!"

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.

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."

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.

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?"

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."

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."

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."

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."

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.

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