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

[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."

[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.

[student_of_impossibility]

Tavi takes a breath. "In my world, we have... we call if furycrafting, others would refer to it as elemental magic. Fire, wind, water, earth, metal, wood. It's... something like having a spirit partner associated with an element, and usually it takes some kind of manifest form."

"Knights Terra are the powerful furycrafters of earth. They can work with earth and stone itself, almost as a living creature, and it will do as they wish."

[findsthesun]

It will do as they wish.

"Magic in truth," Legolas says quietly, voice cool and expression unreadable. It is only that nothing feels 'off' about Tavi that keeps him from reacting with instant anger.

[student_of_impossibility]

Well now.

Tavi had felt the relaxed air, the openness between them--it getting all shut off is an instant warning sign to the diplomat in him, and not for the first time he pities his mother for the years he hid his emotions from her.

"We've never called it that. The Canes--who use... certain blood rights to create and control magic--and the Marat, who have none, call it sorcery. We never have. It's not... magic, to our minds. No spells, no ritual castings. It's crafting. There are spirits in the land--wind and earth and all the rest, and they work with us. It's the only way we survived and carved out what land we have."

He leans back, sipping his wine again. "Everyone--every human, every Aleran--is born with an affinity for one or more elements. The high houses have all of them, and in incredible amounts. The country way is the way I prefer, certainly. There are... distinct spirits, in many ways. Some even have personalities. They can be passed on, generation to generation, father to son, to help us survive." He smiles faintly. "Those are the average furies. The Great Furies--the great spirits of the land--go a little further. Kalus, the fury of the volcano Mount Kalus, was bound for many years, and my grandfather woke him once. It was easily one of the two hardest decisions he ever made.

"Furies tend to be well-matched to their humans. Angry, vicious people will have vicious and heartless furies, no matter what shape they take. On the other hand, one of my dearest friends, Max: he manifested a lion of water, but a gentler beast when not protecting something I've never known." He pauses then, not sure whether to reveal the secret of the strength of the House of Gaius to this man he barely knows. "The greatest of the furies, though..." he says at last, slowly, "they're independent. They don't just bond with humans on instinct. They grace us with their choice. They choose the house they live with, the ones they trust with their power, to care for the land."

He waves vaguely. "The Marat worship the One, and others I've known in this Bar revere different deities of all sorts. We don't worship the furies, although anyone with sense respects them. But we swear by the great furies, because they are the land--and the land kindly allowed us to survive. It is by its grace and goodwill that Alera is what it is today." His eyes are bleak. "The land itself arose to purge a race of devourers which nearly overran us, not so long ago."

He remembers Alera Imperia before its destruction. He remembers his grandfather.

And, quite suddenly, he grins. "Honestly, we don't understand it very well ourselves--it's just how life is. Especially in the country. The land helps us survive, and we revitalize and maintain the land. Perhaps we call it crafting because we take something raw and unbridled and try to fashion a living work of art from it."

He realizes, suddenly, that he's talked a lot--but he doesn't often go into such detail on such short notice about his home and his own furies. But he sensed that emotional void--and in his experience, Alera fills herself fills that.

"Maybe one day I'll introduce you to her. The one I work with, when I need the aid."

[findsthesun]

Legolas listens to this as he did before, except that this time he does not look away.

Only when Tavi finishes does he blink, and that slowly. He nods his head sideways in a slight acceptance.

"In Arda," he says, musical voice quieted like muffled bells, "there are many things that Men call magic. The healing some can do, our knowledge of the forests, the skill with which we craft weaponry, or the hate that our weapons have for yrch," and there is the first hint of emotion--a strong distaste with which he says the word, like he does not want it to linger in his mouth. "I rarely pay attention to it."

He takes a sip of the Dorwinion, slowly, to think. "What we call magic--the only thing we call magic--is that which is used to make things do what the maker wishes. It is against life, and growing things. It does not destroy to feed itself, it destroys to glut its undying hunger."

[student_of_impossibility]

Tavi nods slowly. "I... can see why it would carry some troubling connotations, then." He purses his lips.

"That's far closer to the Canim's blood rituals, I think, although it isn't exclusively that. But... yes. Our crafting is just that: crafting. For creating things--enduring works of stone to live in and protect ourselves with, blades which don't lose their edge, for shooting with unparalleled accuracy, for creating heat in the dead of winter, for healing..." And he smiles a little. "For flying, even."

Sighing, he admits, "It can be... misused. Horribly so, and has been. But that isn't about the power, but the user. Fundamentally, the land protecs us, and we give it... companionship, perhaps, in return."

And then, after a pause: "...Yrch?"

[findsthesun]

Legolas laughs slightly.

"Not a pleasant topic of conversation, Tavi," he says, grin still on his face. "It is enough to know that they are many, and foul."

[student_of_impossibility]

Tavi makes a face.

"I know the type. We had that, disgusting, bug-like creatures called the Vord. They produced this... wax, croach. Nearly destroyed three or four races all at once before we stopped the queen."

Or rather, before he stopped the queen. But he'd never take credit for it.

[findsthesun]

Legolas's smile stiffens.

"As I said," he replies, "not a pleasant topic of conversation."

[student_of_impossibility]

Tavi gets the point, and changes the topic. He is a diplomat.

"You've mentioned the forest several times now. What is it like to live there? I have to admit the only forest near my childhood home was..." He pauses. Covered in croach, to be exact, but he won't bring that up again. "...Untraversable. And I haven't had particular occasion to spend time in the forests of other regions of Alera."

After a moment's thought, Tavi decides he really ought to fix that. His next vacation, maybe.

[findsthesun]

"'Tis mostly a beech wood," he says, "though there are large stands of oak trees. I should say it is much like living elsewhere. We have homes on the ground and in the trees, except the palace which is below the ground. We live in peace, except when that peace is invaded. We have feasts and dancing at times."

He shrugs, slightly. "We trade along the river with the Men of Dorwinion and Lake Town and other places." Then, a quiet laugh. "There is a reason Men call it Mirkwood, and the Elves of Rivendell call it Taur e-Ndaedelos. 'Tis not an easy place to navigate, if you do not know the way of it."

Then: "Has Alera many forests?"

[student_of_impossibility]

Tavi can't help but laugh. "Much like living elsewhere? Homes in trees and underground--most Alerans would gape and scoff at the notion. We live in cities, or in small farming groups called holts. And most of those cities, at heart, are really forts of some kind, with Legions stationed near by."

"I've never been much of a woodsman, myself," Tavi admits with a rueful smile. "To my uncle's dismay. I can find my way well enough, and track sheep if I have to, but I'm more suited to the Legions and the city."

Closing his eyes briefly, Tavi draws up a mental map of Alera. "A few. None that are too extensive, and honestly with our earthcrafters it's more expedient to use earth than wood, so we haven't gone out of our way to either utilize or cultivate them. But there are a few, here and there. Mostly in sections of Alera I haven't visited extensively, I'm sorry to say. The south, mainly--near Kalare and Attica and Forcia. Though those are... badly damaged. The Kalaran forests especially might come back more, since the war."

[findsthesun]

Legolas, quite seriously, says "I must confess I have not learned the manner of tracking sheep."

His straight face doesn't hold for very long.

[student_of_impossibility]

"It's more complicated than you might think," Tavi says with mock offense, grinning, although there's an undertone of seriousness.

"Granted, it is harder when there are wind furies trying to peel your skin off."

[findsthesun]

"Yes," he says, I imagine that would be a difficulty."

He tils his head at Tavi. "You were a shepherd, once?"

[student_of_impossibility]

Tavi smiles a little, wryly. "More than half my life." He isn't quite thirty yet.

"You'd be surprised how many useful things you pick up--like how to introduce a new and potentially dangerous creature to a herd." It works just as well on people.