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wildestlogs2022-02-14 01:51 am
wildestmods) wrote in wildestlogs2022-02-14 01:51 am
IMLADRIS
IMLADRIS
The group is told to take a week of rest in the Last Homely House as the injured and sick among them heal. The Elves promise them that after the injured are healed, there will be a great Council, with representatives of several peoples in attendance. There Lord Elrond will meet and assist them with speaking with the Green.
Until then, they can wander the peaceful halls of Rivendell, which are filled with travelers from all over the Wilderlands who are making a rest stop while they travel through the lands of Middle-Earth.
There are many halls in Rivendell, but the most notable part of Rivendell is the Hall of Fire, a great feast hall where people can eat, drink, and be merry. Alongside chairs, cushions line the floors in much of the hall. This is the great social hall of Rivendell, where the Elves and their visitors share news of lands far beyond, tell stories, or perform music. The music here almost sounds divine, especially when the Elves sing and play instruments, but they're just as eager to hear songs from other lands, so if any of the squad decide to share, they'll be glad to listen.
Some of the hall's guests are a touch more lively than the others, like a party of dwarves staying at Rivendell. Their stories are a mite more adventurous and if you get in their good graces, they might be willing to share some of the beer they brought with them. Listening to their stories or their talk about their craftmanship is a way to get into their good graces. They have news of the lands beyond.
The Elves love learning, so there are libraries the group is allowed to browse, though they mostly only contain tales of Middle-Earth (for now), though the Elves seem to be collecting what books about other lands they can. These libraries often have viewing stations with telescopes pointing at the sky. Though concerned about what it portents, Elves have been almost delighted by the changing skies, enjoying the challenge of trying to understand how the sky has been knitting itself together with the addition of new worlds.
There are also beautiful balconies here, overlooking the gorge and the waters below, and terraced gardens filled with flowers, bushes, and flowering trees. Their rooms are open to the outdoors and have beds that seem grown into the shape of bed-frames instead of carved. The bathrooms actually have running water. The Elves have figured out how to direct the clean running waters of the gorge in primitive indoor plumbing. Water for hot baths has to be heated first in brass cauldrons over coal braziers before getting dumped into the bath, but are at least located right next to the tubs.
Different flowing slides and fountains can also be used as waterslides for the adventurous, though this will make the Elves tut in disapproval. (X cw: warning for mild nudity from a distance.)
It's time for the squad to rest, eat, and regroup. If a great Council is going to be called involving them, it might be a good idea to make sure they go into it as a united front, because the Green is clearly fine with trying to make decisions for them.
❧ Cursed Weapons/Powers: So they know about how they'll be treated: those with cursed weapons and dark powers will be tolerated by the Elves after entry. While they'll get the same general treatment, the Elves around them may at times seem uncomfortable. Those with cursed weapons will only be distrusted a little, as the weapons themselves will seem more suspicious than their bearers. Those with dark powers or some kind of dark nature (such as being a vampire, Necromancer mage, werewolf, etc.) will be treated with the greatest distrust. But they'll be allowed to wander freely.
❧ Communication: The Elves will make it clear a Council will be called when the injured have time enough to heal and that the group can stay in Rivendell until they're all healed and refreshed. They'll be told they'll be equipped with weapons, clothes, and supplies when they eventually leave. The characters can move freely and characters can stay at the bedside of injured friends.
❧ Injuries: Characters with morgul-blade wounds will be find that any areas or limbs where the shard was will no longer hurt but will be numb at first, with feeling returning over several days. They'll be physically weak for several days at well, winded when walking a short distance. Within a week or two, depending on their constitution and the severity of where the wound was, they'll be able to walk on their own and start to rebuild stamina. Other non-Morgul-blade injuries will heal fully within a few days of treatment.
❧ Clothes: The group will not yet be fully equipped for their travels (that will happen upon leaving) but everyone will at least be given new clothes in Elven styles since theirs are dirty or torn. These are in many different colors but most commonly colors found in nature, like green and blue. Characters without appropriate footwear will also be given light and sturdy boots that will somehow be in their size without their size being asked. They'll also be given basic toiletries like scissors that can be used to cut hair and beards. There are no razors, however, because the Elves don't need to shave so they don't keep them on hand.
❧ Food: Food and drink are plentiful. The food leans towards fruits and veggies but there's enough game for any meat-eaters, cooked well in unknown spices. Wine is abundant, some vintages more inebriating than others. The restorative cordial miruvor is available to help weary travelers get their energy up and revive their strength. It doesn't get characters drunk but helps them revive their strength. It has a light, pleasant floral taste and smell. Beer can also be provided, though that of the traveling dwarves is superior to what Rivendell has to offer.
❧ Weather/Atmosphere: Rivendell is open to the outside air but the temperature is always perfectly temperate and pleasant. The sun shines frequently and is only lost behind shimmering mist. Sunsets and sunrises paint the sky in sections of the valley in every color imaginable. The valley is safe to travel in as long as they don't go back past the Ford of Bruinen or through the gap in the mountains past Rivendell on the valley's opposite end. The air is filled with the smell of green things and delicate perfume of flowers.
❧ Archivist Spells: Around the valley, Archivists can bank up to (4) iterations of a water spells that blasts a brief torrent at an enemy, with the force of a fire hose.
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And some new LLCs would make a few millions shorting WE stocks and funneling it into numbered bank accounts, and the batarang budget for next year increases.
“He’d never let the family name be attached to something that preys on people, and I’d never let you be my fall guy, so you can rest easy. You’re safe. You have terrible vacation taste, but you’re safe from my schemes.”
He lets himself be led to the edge. He’s certainly not afraid of heights, but it seemed like the right call to avoid the railings until he was sure of his own feet. (He’s not. He’s sure Kon won’t let him stumble and go over the rail.)
With the anchoring arm around his shoulders, though, Tim will absolutely lean over the railing to get the best look he can at the valley and waterfalls. There’s a sense that, if he wasn’t injured, he wouldn’t even keep both feet on the balcony. “Do you think the waterfalls were here, or they terraformed just for the style of it?”
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Tim'd always been rabidly defensive of Bruce and it's only gotten more intense as time has gone on. Now that he's a Wayne, it's about the family honor now, too, he guesses.
"It was a joke, chill. I would never actually besmirch the Wayne name."
He gives his shoulder a little squeeze.
"And the water probably was here first. The Elves are all about living with nature, right? Seems more like they'd build around it in a spot they liked than try to shape it into what they want."
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Because then he doesn’t have to feel caught between family and friends. Bruce would judge; Tim would apologize. Everyone’s getting along right now, and he doesn’t like it when his boat gets rocked.
“Anyway, you have to admit that it looks like Roman aqueducts in places.” Tim points out arches here and there, where he thinks the comparison is most apt, and leaves the talk of home behind. “And the supports for some of these walk ways…”
Tim tips forward a little, but can’t get a good angle on the pillars that looks like stalagmites or a similar rock formation. If all of this is entirely natural, it’s on the same level of fortuitous that Wayne Major being built over the Batcave. Then again, the Cave has been molded into what was needed over the years. “And you can’t see them from here, but they’re meant to look natural. They’re so evenly spaced in all the concept art. If that’s real and natural, I’ll eat my cape.”
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It's cute how into this he is.
Like...in a friend way. Sometimes friends are cute about something.
"They definitely built into it, but it feels like they found a place where they could just redirect some of the streams and just let everything flow through it."
While Tim's head is slightly turned, he notices a little seed pod that's fluttered down to Tim's shoulder. He reaches over and plucks it off with his fingers.
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Tim was laughing.
Now he’s not.
He had turned to finish this old routine, the standard song-and-dance of ‘ha ha, Birdboy? More like Nerdboy.’ It’s always the same punchline, they’re both in on the gag, and it never fails to make Tim grumble and roll his eyes, but they both know that it’s part of why they get along so well. Tim kinda loves it, ‘cause it means Kon pays attention to his geekery. Normally.
Normally, when they’re not shoulder-to-shoulder, with Tim’s arm and Kon’s, Kon’s -
Kon’s hand is touching his cheek.
And that’s not supposed to - that’s not a thing that they do. That’s not how this goes. That’s what you do when you’re going to pull someone in for a kiss.
(Wishful thinking, and Tim catches himself about to lick his lips thinking about it.)
He swallows, hard, and has to remind himself to breathe afterwards. The inhale sounds so loud because he’s mouth-breathing through the panic.
Because it’s been two whole seconds, and Tim doesn’t know what to do. At all. He’s got no idea what the move here is. It’s pulling away or staying still, and he is so completely compromised by bias that he can’t predict the most predictable person he knows.
His eyes are flicking around between forehead, ear, and nose, trying to find a safe place to look. And Tim, well, three seconds in and he simply looks… scared.
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Oh wait. He can't see what's in Kon's hand.
Kon holds the little seed pod more in Tim's line of sight, showing why his hand had been there.
"This. uh. Was on your tunic."
He'd just plucked it off on a whim and Tim turned at the wrong time and it turned into an accidental caress.
He flicks the seed pod away.
Kon's face suddenly feels hot and he's not sure why. Maybe it has to do with that little intake of breath, because it's like what he did had taken Tim's breath away somehow. Maybe he got a weird little tingle over that prospect.
For some reason.
But that was just surprise, right? Tim just had gotten surprised.
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Kon holds up the seed. It was innocuous, and he made it weird. Tim wants to hide under a cowl and never come out.
(He does have a mask, in his belt, but it’s cloth and doesn’t hide his eyes. Useless.)
Kon wasn’t touching Tim on purpose. Incidental contact only. Occam’s razor. Non sunt multiplicanda entia sine necessitate. He let himself overthink it to force the solution.
(He was only brushing away a seed. He wasn’t going to kiss you, and you know he’s straight.)
(He doesn’t want you.)
“Oh, that makes sense. I was wondering…”
Tim lets his arm drop from Kon’s back. (All ambiguous contact is forever banned.) He loses the motion a tight shrug that drops his head forward so his hair covers his ears. He can feel them turning pink. (Breathe. Just be normal. This is salvageable. Kon doesn’t know.)
Is Kon blushing?
(No. Ridiculous. He has no reason to be embarrassed.)
(He knows.)
Tim braces himself on the railing with both hands.
(How could he know?! Maybe Tim just creeping him out?)
(He knows.)
Tim has to get out of here -
“Aah-eeh-ah-eeh-aaaaaah-eeh-ah-eeh-aaaaah!”
But plans of escape flit out of his head as someone goes swinging off a nearby balcony, shouting the Tarzan yell. On a vine.
Someone with a solid core, to make a swing that big. Impeccable form. Gracefully pointed toes.
Tim tracks the full length of the swing with his eyes and just sighs. “Well… that happened.”
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All of a sudden he's withdrawing and embarrassed and clamming up -
Kon is temporarily distracted by person swinging, instantly figures out who it is, and he laughs.
"The scream was a nice touch."
He thinks about where Dick is landing. He can see the long trail leading up to Rivendell. He wants...
He isn't sure what he wants, but he wants whatever they had a few seconds ago, something warm and easy.
"Hey, um. I wanna show you something. But there's no way you'll be able to make it that far under your own power. I can carry you, though. I just...I want you to be able to see it."
It's deeply earnest. It's a strange response from someone Tim thinks is creeped out.
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Thank whatever gods for Dick Grayson being wilder than any manic pixie dream. Tim might survive after a distraction like that. Too bad he can’t ever really thank him.
What they had was gone, the interlude killed it, and Tim is reinstalling the norms for their own protection.
But is he? He would’ve thought Kon to back off and increase the distance between them. Puff himself up a bit. Steamroll any insecurities, and cover it all with confidence like asphalt. If he knew, if he was unnerved- he wouldn’t offer to carry Tim anywhere.
(He doesn’t know.)
(That’s how little he thinks about it.)
(Lucky for you.)
Tim isn’t sure he should take the offer. If it’s in good conscience to take the offer. If it will make things worse again.
But Kon sounds genuine, and he has Tim over a barrel. Tim needs to be ‘normal’ and can’t get a grip on it. Normal didn’t include being carried. Normal has shifted, somehow, in the past minute or week, when Tim wasn’t looking, and no one’s clued Tim in on the new definition.
“Ook-ay,” Tim says, stretching the word into both a hesitation and a question. He’ll play along. It's probably a waterfall where the elf chicks party. If he has to get carried, the fliers carry him all the time. No big deal. It’s an opportunity to figure out the new normal.
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He scoops him up in a bridal carry like it's nothing.
He makes it so Tim's oriented so that if he opens his eyes he'll see the rock faces that were on one side of the trail as they walked up, not the view of the canyon.
And then he starts walking. It's clearly a downhill climb.
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(Almost anyone else would’ve been regarded with more suspicion- it would be easy to throw Tim off the side, and he probably wouldn’t have time to catch himself before he was too far into the void and gone. No grappling guns to save him here.)
He does peek a few times through dark lashes. Trust is one thing, but Tim’s curiosity is piqued by the setup and still really from the emotional confusion. “I thought we established that I could walk. Where are we going, and why are we doing trust exercises?”
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The path is definitely going downward.
"And there are too many steps. You can walk, not hike."
The steps suggest they're either going back to the trail the way they came in, or going forward past Rivendell.
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“If I didn’t know you better, I’d be worried you waited until Dick was confirmed out of the way and then kidnapped me,” Tim said to fill the space with conversation and take his mind off how close and warm it is, and where Kon’s hands are. “Taking advantage of my trust so you don’t have to blindfold me.”
It almost seems likely, but there’s no motive. Tim’s unconcerned with that. He is, however, pretty sure that he can feel the definition of Kon’s pec through their clothes, against his shoulder. “You even made sure I was off kilter.”
And still is. “If you try to drop me off a cliff like in The Lady in White, I’m taking you with me.”
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"Yep, I kidnapped you. Now the Bats will never get you back and eventually I'll take you to the farm and you'll suffer a terrible fate: eating Ma's home cooking and having to feed chickens. Dastardly, I know. Forget me signing Bat contracts, you'll have to work blue into your color scheme."
The idea of him kidnapping him over to the hayseed farm-grown Super side of things is funny.
They finally reach a good spot.
"We're here."
He puts Tim down, turns him to face the right direction and keeps one hand on his upper arm to keep him steady, the other briefly holds a hand over his eyes until he's facing the right direction.
"Okay, you can look now."
He takes his hand away.
It's Rivendell. The glorious view on the way in that Tim missed. He traced back their steps so he could see what he couldn't see when they came into the valley.
Now he can fully nerd over the view like he would've if he'd been un-stabbed and healthy when they'd walked in.
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Tim has to find his center of gravity when Kon puts him down. He’s determined to not lean on his friend again and holds a hand out to the side for ballast.
And then he’s finally allowed to look, and… it’s Rivendell. There in true scale, and a million times better than any concept art or daydreams. It’s breathtaking. “oh.“
Also unnecessary. Kon just gave himself a workout carrying an entire person out here to the bottom of the carved risers, stairs and paths that form the approach, and, yes, Tim thinks they all need to stay in shape, but the effort was for him, not for the gains.
(Don’t think about how there’s nothing to gain from this for Kon.)
“You didn’t have to do this.” Tim’s voice doesn’t really get much louder than the exclamation. “It’s not my birthday. You could’ve just coasted on helping me in the garden. I - thanks. I should just say thanks.”
It’s a pretty spectacular view. Makes Tim wish he had his old camera.
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He does sometimes get monofocused on whatever mission is in front of him.
Kon briefly looks at it. He'd been distracted on the way in, too, so now he can take in the view.
But mostly he looks at Tim's face, at the wonder on it. The little "oh" and the feelings it causes get filed away for Kon to examine later.
There's a large flat rock the two of them can sit on and he guides Tim gently to it and sits down next to him.
"We've been to places like other planets, other dimensions. I even wound up on Dinosaur Island the one time. But this whole fantasy world thing is a new one. We're definitely not in Kansas anymore."
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Until he can get himself back in order - which isn’t going to happen with Kon around to keep feeding Tim false signals- it’s so much safer to focus on the home of Lord Elrond. He can drink it all in. Tim lets himself be settled on the rock and just sits and stares, like he’s on a beach soaking in the view of the water. He could stay here all day, really.
“We really aren’t, Toto. I mean, you were never going spend your life in Kansas. I was supposed to be done by now,” Tim notes quietly. He frowns, and his eyebrows knit together. “This is first time in awhile I’ve been glad I’m not because I thought something was cool. It hits different than doing a good job.”
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Even if it comes with ugliness like the monsters.
"Done being a superhero?"
A long time ago, on that night around the campfire, he'd said he wished someday he could stop, because it meant the world had gotten better.
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He doesn’t have to say how stupid he thinks he was in hindsight; his tone is saturated with it. How utterly naive. That sort of thinking was several lifetimes ago. “You’re all stuck with me. Especially Gotham.“
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A pause.
"Not that we'd ever stop being friends if you stopped. I'd be outside your window Peter pan style if I had to be to still get you to hang out."
Admittedly, Kon had fallen out of touch a little with some of his other friends that'd quit. But now that he's back from the dead, he's planning on doing something about it. New lease on life and all.
And with Tim...it's different.
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Someone has to steer the boat. Although sometimes it feels more like a hollowed out giant pumpkin that they all agreed was boat-ish enough, because desperate measures.
But the offer of Peter Pan makes Tim give Kon a Look - jaw tucked, one eyebrow up, playful glare. “Are you kidding me? I retire, and you drag me into everything Peter Pan did Wendy? Do you remember how many times he almost got her killed because he realized that he needed a responsible lost boys and responsible ones don’t get lost? Do you think I’m going to be able to stay home and play Parcheesi with you flying out the window to fight pirates? If I retire and you Peter Pan me through the balcony, I’m throwing the thimble at your head.”
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He'd hunted him down the first time he retired, though, with full intent to try to nag him out of retirement and full intent to keep bothering him even if he never started being Robin again. And he'd keep hunting him down as often as he had to.
"My point: if you ever quit just start calling me 'Bad Penny' as a nickname because you'll never get rid of me. I'll just start professionally annoying Bats by raiding your fridge and being the 'doesn't he have food at home?' friend. Or at least share the role with Bart."
They both ate a lot.
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Retirement doesn’t have to mean not keeping tabs on his friends. He’ll just be the ghost in the system. Systems, because he’ll probably stay linked into the Titans and Batcomputer. Oracle’s network would be harder to pierce.
“Fridge full of Tostino’s and Toaster Strudel. You want Alfred’s cooking; you’re going to have to make friends with Damian. Tim Drake can’t cook, and he’ll be ordering bulk grocery deliveries for life.”
Tim nudges Kon with his elbow. “You can’t use Penny: the Penny Plunderer will get confused. Looks like plain old Conner Kent has to use the front door.”
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The grin is wide. Kon likes thinking about how hard it'll be for all of them to get rid of each other.
And he likes thinking about the future as friends they all almost didn't have. However it goes, as long as they're all alive, it'll be good.
It's just the "alive" part that isn't set in stone.
That thought is a sobering one, so the smile fades a little.
He doesn't like that Tim had such a close call.
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He doesn’t flex about money. This still isn’t flexing about money; it’s about how all the Robins eat more garbage than pigeons. (Except Damian). Cereal for dinner, chili dogs at 2 AM, poptarts are any anytime meal if you vacuum the keyboard. “What makes you think I don’t make nightmare lasagna already?
Come on, Kon. Don’t look at him like that. Tim’s fine. He’s not going anywhere except on a diet. Yuck yuk?
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