first arrow ➴ video (seelie + unseelie)

[torc]

( In the days since Guinevere's arrival she has employed a careful tread - listening to the locket and learning its magic. It's in her nature to be swift and silent - the survival of the woads is in their stealth - and as little time as possible has been spent trapped between four walls. Her gown is gone, replaced with brown leathers and a sleeveless tunic featuring a cowl neck, and knotted belts criss-cross her hips to hold the sheaths for her long knives.

A little blue dye to pattern her skin and she'd be feeling much more like herself. )

The land is different here.

( She appears to be seated, her bow propped close, and is holding the locket between both hands. From the view of what's behind her it's clear that she isn't in Caer Glaem: dappled shadows slip across her face and a breeze twists itself through a canopy of leaves. Pausing, Guinevere glances off to the side for a moment like a fox with its ears pricked. She's still listening. The worms were nightmarish - she had never seen their like before - but she knows how to choose her battles as she knows when to disappear.

Presently, she speaks again. )

Do you feel it? Perhaps it is the magic of the so-called faerie folk, but it rests heavy between these trees. The weight of it is almost a comfort.

( Her eyes, although wry and amused, retain that depth of level and calm. Thus far she's ventured into the Great Greenwood surrounding Caer Glaem in an attempt to better understand the land, never wandering so far as to lose herself but rarely passing the same mark twice. Nature speaks to her and here its voice is warm and kind.

Guinevere's, on the other hand, is playful at scorn.)

I cannot imagine why any woman or man would prefer cold stone to a green shelter.

( Bloody hippies. Guinevere lifts an eyebrow, then tilts her head as though unsure of whether or not she wishes to continue.)

And Arthur - or perhaps Lancelot - if you have arrived in these strange lands ...

( A hand reaches to touch her bow as she lowers her lashes, smirking privately.)

Meet with me. Someone has to protect you from the brutes on the battlefield, after all.

Comments

Audio

[gordianknots]

[Waver's damn willing to be the King Arthur he's familiar with isn't the one that the person on the video is talking to - brute was definitely not a word he'd employ - but it's confirming some identities.]

Well, when you're raise in stone, you don't know any better. With a certain amount of expectation about available amenities, a preference for the outdoors would be equally baffling on the other end of things.

audio.

[torc]

( The same King Arthur in theory if not in practice! Not that Guinevere knows anything about Arthurian legend, nor the part she plays in it herself. )

We all know better. To be raised in stone is a cruelty.

( She lifts her chin a little, defiant. )

I have seen too many lives lost for the sake of men and their high stone walls - men who have forgotten that they fight for the land, not to own it.

( He says they don't know better? )

There can be no excuse for such ignorance.

[gordianknots]

[Definitely in theory. The one Waver met was definitely female, for starters, and fully aware of the whole of Arthuriana.]

But what if it's practicality? I think you can use this supposed, and let me be blunt, ridiculous war as an example: is it easier to set something on fire if it's made out of grass, or stone?

[torc]

Grass.

( She replies with certainty, untroubled by this 'practicality'. )

But answer me this: when boulders are flung and fires are lit and the whole world seems to burn, is it easier to rebuild the stone palaces of kings, or to turn to the grass of the land?

[gordianknots]

Fair point, well made, I'll give you that.

[torc]

Indeed. Impermanence is a lesson men of stone seem most unwilling to learn.

( But not the druids of the earth and sky - those who leave little footprint and give back what they can. )

[gordianknots]

I think you might find my future, where stone's given way to steel and glass, quite interesting then.

[torc]

Your future?

( He's some kind of seer? )

What do you mean by that?

[gordianknots]

I have a feeling we might be from roughly the same place, geographically, if your accent's an indication. [And that combination of names used.] But I'm from much later in time.

[torc]

( All right, have a raised eyebrow. )

The Romans call me a Briton, and my home the land of Britannia. You are familiar with it?

[gordianknots]

I'd hope so. I live there.