Felix gets this look in his eyes sometimes, bright and hard and happy, and Mildmay can't stand it because he can't deny it. When Felix says, oh, we're doing some hocus crap up at the tower, won't you watch out over in this corner here? Mildmay hops to it, good as you please.
He wakes up later, bleeding and bloody, and trees are all around him. Sleep takes him soon again, and his waking days become echoes of confusion. Strange words, none he knows, spoken over him, and often in song. He finds himself, slowly coming to the understanding of the world, in a nicer bed than he's ever been given to sleep in before. Feather pillows, all the like, for rich folk. The sun shines lightly through gilded windows, and the designs of lovely leaves all curl around in paintings on the walls. It's really quite fucking beautiful.
The first time Mildmay tries to leave, the strange people that live here-- thin but not wan, painfully beautiful with pointed ears and glimmering eyes-- try to stop him, speaking admonishments in their strange tongue. It's strange at first, though in the days to come, it grows less strange. He's always had a good enough skill with languages. He figures it quickly.
It seems they don't have a word for 'fuck'.
A few weeks-- he thinks, it's oddly hard for him to keep track of time, here-- he makes his escape. He appreciates the help of these weirdos, really, but there's gonna be a bill. When they ain't looking, he slides out the door and slides off a balcony, jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Hell on his leg, sure, but that's fucking life. He scrambles around until he finds a way out, limping heavily the whole way. His leg aches like it hasn't since he got here, once his feet his ground again. He doesn't have any shoes.
He comes across a lovely little dell with a brook bubbling through it, musical as shit. There's a woman, there, grey-eyed and beautiful like dawn flowers. She sees him, and there's fucking nothing for that. He sighs, and tries to speak a tongue more musical than his scarred lip allows. "You gotta let me go," he manages. "I ain't made for here."
There is no bill to consider--not in so many words. The man called Harrowgate now owes the elves of Rivendell a favour, and Arwen has no doubt that it will hang silently between them all for some time to come, but it will not come to anything so indelicate as direct payment. Healing the wizard and his companion was a trifle for them, regardless; while their sudden appearance in Rivendell was unexpected by all manner of reckoning, the injuries they'd sustained in their journey were minor.
It is a journey for which Arwen has no want of curiosity, but she means to leave them to their recovery as long as possible. There is little reason to rush them toward wellness when all around them have time beyond measure to wait for their stories. Beyond occasionally asking after them, she lets them be.
One afternoon, while she sits in the summer-green grass near the banks of a stream with a thick book, she hears the gait of some poor, limping creature coming down the slope toward her. One of the men, she realizes upon a glance in his direction, the scarred one who bears a passing resemblance to the halfling race. He freezes like a startled doe when he sees her, and she has to smother down an amused smile. He couldn't know he would find anyone here.
"I am not holding you captive," she answers lightly, folding her hands over the page, "and your companion may wonder if you run from him."
Mildmay hunches low, ready to bolt. Stupid fucking idea, but he will if he has to. But the lady turns, and smiles, all amused like a princess in a story.
Some of his trepidation eases, but not enough.
He looks up from where he realized he was staring dejectedly at the floor. "Felix? Felix is-" Shit, shit, speak in their stupid fucking language. "So na-..." It's all so goddamn lyrical, but he manages their tongue haltingly. "My brother's here? Where?"
Felix. That would, she presumes, be the other man. Arwen gestures this man closer, silently entreating him to sit before her.
"In his sickbed still. You were not badly hurt, but you needed rest." A strange fact, that they had each been well and yet slumbered on for some time. None could explain it, but it seems not to have caused this one harm. "Now that you have wakened, he soon may as well."
"Valto," Mildmay says. He's noticed all these people have names within names, meanings within meanings. Their word for Felix's name is valto, luck. "Valto nin i háno." Felix is my brother. Lucky is my brother. He feels like he's butchering the language, but he keeps halting on.
And what does that make him? "Nanyë Nécanásië." I am Mild-Maybe. He shakes his head, shamed in front of a woman who seems like someone out of a story he's told. The Princess of Keys. Umfindiel.
"Shit," he says in Marathat, before going back to these people's language. "Sorry. Won't leave without him. Pay how's I can. Swear it."
Valto, he says, and Nécanásië, and Arwen's slender brows draw slightly together. A translation, clearly, of the names the men use among themselves, and Valto seems clear enough. Mild-Maybe, however, has an odd, uncertain ring to it, somehow off-balance in the syllables of her people.
Felix,, she says again in her mind, and she finds herself wondering what Nécanásië sounds like where he comes from. Does it seem less like a strange mistake among his race of men?
"You have learnt our language." An observation, an attempt to move their conversation further from a subject so low as payment. Mild-Maybe sounds both earnest and worried, and he is only lately out of bed. "Was it difficult?"
Mildmay can tell when the conversation's being moved. He'll indulge her, because, well... His heart drops out of its chest when he looks at her. His eyes stay to her left or her right, and he thinks how fucking musical her voice is.
"Y'all talk a lot," he says with a shrug, not sure what else the truth is. "And when you ain't, there's singing. Ain't like I ain't butchering it, anyhow."
Arwen cannot help smiling at his pronouncements. "Do men not sing where you come from? I have heard them, when they have ventured to our lands."
Theirs have been voices more given to song than Mild-Maybe's seems to be, of course. The grievous scar that pulls at his cheek and lips seems to keep him from clear speech, while his queer accent sounds curiously flat to her ears. He speaks as though rough sounds have been his birthright.
"Your meaning is clear, Nécanásië; for one who began study so recently, that is not butchery." Damning with faint praise, perhaps, but she is pleased. What words Mild-Maybe has uttered that have not been her tongue have been unrecognizable. Shutting her book, she asks, "How is it that you came to Rivendell?"
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Date: 2018-06-10 12:03 am (UTC)He wakes up later, bleeding and bloody, and trees are all around him. Sleep takes him soon again, and his waking days become echoes of confusion. Strange words, none he knows, spoken over him, and often in song. He finds himself, slowly coming to the understanding of the world, in a nicer bed than he's ever been given to sleep in before. Feather pillows, all the like, for rich folk. The sun shines lightly through gilded windows, and the designs of lovely leaves all curl around in paintings on the walls. It's really quite fucking beautiful.
The first time Mildmay tries to leave, the strange people that live here-- thin but not wan, painfully beautiful with pointed ears and glimmering eyes-- try to stop him, speaking admonishments in their strange tongue. It's strange at first, though in the days to come, it grows less strange. He's always had a good enough skill with languages. He figures it quickly.
It seems they don't have a word for 'fuck'.
A few weeks-- he thinks, it's oddly hard for him to keep track of time, here-- he makes his escape. He appreciates the help of these weirdos, really, but there's gonna be a bill. When they ain't looking, he slides out the door and slides off a balcony, jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Hell on his leg, sure, but that's fucking life. He scrambles around until he finds a way out, limping heavily the whole way. His leg aches like it hasn't since he got here, once his feet his ground again. He doesn't have any shoes.
He comes across a lovely little dell with a brook bubbling through it, musical as shit. There's a woman, there, grey-eyed and beautiful like dawn flowers. She sees him, and there's fucking nothing for that. He sighs, and tries to speak a tongue more musical than his scarred lip allows. "You gotta let me go," he manages. "I ain't made for here."
no subject
Date: 2018-06-10 12:25 am (UTC)It is a journey for which Arwen has no want of curiosity, but she means to leave them to their recovery as long as possible. There is little reason to rush them toward wellness when all around them have time beyond measure to wait for their stories. Beyond occasionally asking after them, she lets them be.
One afternoon, while she sits in the summer-green grass near the banks of a stream with a thick book, she hears the gait of some poor, limping creature coming down the slope toward her. One of the men, she realizes upon a glance in his direction, the scarred one who bears a passing resemblance to the halfling race. He freezes like a startled doe when he sees her, and she has to smother down an amused smile. He couldn't know he would find anyone here.
"I am not holding you captive," she answers lightly, folding her hands over the page, "and your companion may wonder if you run from him."
no subject
Date: 2018-06-10 12:50 am (UTC)Some of his trepidation eases, but not enough.
He looks up from where he realized he was staring dejectedly at the floor. "Felix? Felix is-" Shit, shit, speak in their stupid fucking language. "So na-..." It's all so goddamn lyrical, but he manages their tongue haltingly. "My brother's here? Where?"
no subject
Date: 2018-06-10 01:02 am (UTC)"In his sickbed still. You were not badly hurt, but you needed rest." A strange fact, that they had each been well and yet slumbered on for some time. None could explain it, but it seems not to have caused this one harm. "Now that you have wakened, he soon may as well."
no subject
Date: 2018-06-10 01:54 am (UTC)And what does that make him? "Nanyë Nécanásië." I am Mild-Maybe. He shakes his head, shamed in front of a woman who seems like someone out of a story he's told. The Princess of Keys. Umfindiel.
"Shit," he says in Marathat, before going back to these people's language. "Sorry. Won't leave without him. Pay how's I can. Swear it."
no subject
Date: 2018-06-10 03:31 am (UTC)Felix,, she says again in her mind, and she finds herself wondering what Nécanásië sounds like where he comes from. Does it seem less like a strange mistake among his race of men?
"You have learnt our language." An observation, an attempt to move their conversation further from a subject so low as payment. Mild-Maybe sounds both earnest and worried, and he is only lately out of bed. "Was it difficult?"
no subject
Date: 2018-06-10 08:02 pm (UTC)"Y'all talk a lot," he says with a shrug, not sure what else the truth is. "And when you ain't, there's singing. Ain't like I ain't butchering it, anyhow."
no subject
Date: 2018-06-13 04:23 pm (UTC)Theirs have been voices more given to song than Mild-Maybe's seems to be, of course. The grievous scar that pulls at his cheek and lips seems to keep him from clear speech, while his queer accent sounds curiously flat to her ears. He speaks as though rough sounds have been his birthright.
"Your meaning is clear, Nécanásië; for one who began study so recently, that is not butchery." Damning with faint praise, perhaps, but she is pleased. What words Mild-Maybe has uttered that have not been her tongue have been unrecognizable. Shutting her book, she asks, "How is it that you came to Rivendell?"
no subject
Date: 2018-06-15 11:28 pm (UTC)A quiet moment, and then. "How bad is he?"