pockets full of stones

[rowancrowned]

FORM: Sending crystal!
SENDER: Thranduil
RECIPIENT: All the Rifters. (Just the Rifters.)
WHAT: Now that the Tourney's done... 
WHEN: The day after everyone returns for the tourney. 
WHERE: Kirkwall!
NOTES: The stunning next step to the Rifter Phylactery p...lot?

I hope we are all somewhat recovered from the Tournament. We should all be very pleased with our efforts. The very warm farewell before the matter of the Anders incursion was a result of your hard work-- all of you. 

And now we find ourselves returned to Kirkwall. I begged patience from many of you, and I thank you for it. Skyhold wishes for us to come and speak with a delegation from the Chantry and the Templars much as the mages did. I will be attending, as will Obi-Wan Kenobi and Araceli Bonaventura. Both are known well to the leadership of Skyhold and very familiar with Thedas itself.

However, we need a fourth for our party, and this I leave to you. Any Rifter is eligible for nomination. I would suggest that you choose carefully. Ideally, our fourth would be familiar with Thedas and settled into the Inquisition, as well as accustomed to dealing with pressure with grace. 

There will be a box outside my office with slips for nominations nearby. Please record your name and the name of your nominee below it. I would appreciate responses turned in with all haste.

Comments

[utulien_aure]

[In Quenya, but presumably the shock and horror evident in his tone makes this immediately translateable.]

What did you just say?

[castintoflames]

(His shift into Quenya is laced with slight uncertainty, but it doesn't last.)

You could do it. You could set so many of these silly disagreements to rest.

[utulien_aure]

[Your faith in him is endearing, Mae, but highly unwarranted.]

Or I could lose my temper and start trying to knock heads together. In the literal sense of the phrase. One is as likely as the other.

[castintoflames]

(Nope. It's highly warranted and he is ready to explain all the details if he must.)

No, that's my job. Don't take me out of work!

[utulien_aure]

Maitimo, beloved, my father was good at diplomacy.

[When he wanted to be, anyway]

Ingo and Uncle Ara were good at diplomacy.

I am merely better than all the people in this family who are atrocious at it. That and “being good” at it are not the same thing.

[castintoflames]

Comparing yourself to others will only ever leave you feeling incompetent, Finno. You have a way about you and you know right from wrong. That knowledge is not as well known as it should be and your wisdom could inspire others to either take up arms or put them down.

(He worked well with Fingolfin - shockingly - but Fingolfin had charged off after Morgoth in much the same way he had. Fingon had not.)

[utulien_aure]

It is not a matter of inadequacy. I know my talents and what I enjoy, and I know what I do only because the more qualified people are unavailable. Diplomacy falls firmly in the second category.

If there are people who are more qualified and who’s words would carry more weight with the people of Thedas, I would rather they take the position.

[castintoflames]

I cannot say those people exist and it worries me. The very idea that the phylacteries were discussed at all bothers me. The answer should have been obvious.

Thedas - and this world in general - need voices of honest truth and minds that will not shy from making necessary decisions - even if they are not popular.

[utulien_aure]

Of course it should have. But these people have spent the past thousand years poisoning themselves, and by now they are used to thinking their bane sweet. It will take more than honest talk to set them straight, though that will probably be required as well.

Besides, unless Cousin Ingo should fall through a Rift to win them over on charm alone, it may be best to limit the delegation to one tall, terrible elf of Arda.

[castintoflames]

Thranduil is not anywhere near my height. (If...he was the height he had been on Arda.) You know I have been shortened. Does that make me any less terrible?

(He has an image to maintain - even if said image is horrible.)

I voted for you, but I doubt much will come of it. Are you angry?

[utulien_aure]

He certainly is not. But I would be surprised if anyone in Skyhold is bothering to make distinctions on that account.

[Stop being self-loathing, Mae, it doesn’t look good on you.]

That nothing will come of if? Little could make me happier. That you would trust me with securing your safety in these lands, if it came to it? That would be amongst the little.

[castintoflames]

They would if I were my natural height. I used to make quite the fuss without saying a word. (Does he miss it? Sometimes, but nearly enough that he is thinking of stretching himself out on a rack.)

I do trust you. I know you hate leading - so do I - but I also hate seeing suffering. The nobles - the politicians - those with their heads so far up their own -

(Nope, nope, breathing.)

I don't care about them. It's the poor and those terribly underrepresented that move me.

[utulien_aure]

Are you volunteering to go along and play the muscle?

[Teasing, don’t worry.

He considers saying “Its less leading I hate than politics,” but there’s a lot of the latter in the former, isn’t there?]

And they need people who are willing to help them as well. Concentrate on that, and leave this to those more suited to it.

[castintoflames]

If I must.

(He has a lot of muscle! Surely he can do something with it?

Yes. They sort of roll into one until there is no telling where one begins and the other ends.)

I know pitifully little about Thranduil and all the rest. Perhaps that is a place to start.

[utulien_aure]

I would find that amusing, at any rate.

[It’s an option they should all keep in mind for next time, then.

Yes. Give him soldiers over bureaucrats any day, though, their politics is much simpler to handle

(Or so Fingon has convinced himself)]

We’ve neglected the world inside the Gallows, I think. More than may have been wise.

I am asking, a bit. You are welcome to listen in, if you wish.

[castintoflames]

What better use of Fëanorian strength?

(At least that doesn't include madness. Forceful justice is much better. Though that too can go too far.)

I don't like focusing on a place called the Gallows. Oh it is where I belong, strung up to rot on some pole! But it is not where I feel I can breathe with ease.

I shall.