Video/Action; pretend this was posted at a normal hour

[inafadingcrown]

[The video feed flips on, focusing (after a few seconds of jostling around) on Galadriel, sitting on the steps of the Initiative Hold, her sheathed sword beside her. Having just finished training, she’s attired appropriately, wearing a simple dress and with her hair braided and wound about her head- displaying those pointed ears quite prominently for those who might have missed them before.]

I grow weary of the constant grey here. It is overlong since I have heard a running stream or seen the sunlight filtered through the forest canopy.

Tell me, those of you who have journeyed outside this city: does greenery yet remain in this world? It would do my heart well even to hear of it.

Comments

[toldyouso]

It's not something I gave much thought to until you mentioned it. Where I came from, there aren't really any trees--

[Wait.

This guy is on Pete's team.]

Well. I guess there's the one.

[inafadingcrown]

I dwell withing a forest; coming here was something of a shock. [Galadriel is Queen of Understatements.]

Only one?

[toldyouso]

Yeah, that must have been a shock. Back home, I live on a space station...

[Wait, she seems pretty fantasy-y.]

...uh. It's like a ship, but it sails high, high in the air.

[Oh flark, did that come off as patronizing? HE DIDN'T MEAN IT THAT WAY.]

So, uh, there isn't much call for gardening. The only reason we have a tree at all is because he's on my team.

[Pete has his mouth open to continue when he realizes this explanation has gotten completely away from him. He looks mildly chagrined and changes tacks.]

How much sense did I just make?

[inafadingcrown]

[At least she doesn't look offended at all. Actually, it looks rather suspiciously like she's holding back laughter.]

More than you might you think.

[toldyouso]

[He'll take laughter over the usual reaction he gets from important people.]

What, really?

[Because he will be the first to admit that was a terrible explanation.]

[inafadingcrown]

Neither ships which sail among the stars nor beings who bear the form of trees are wholly unfamiliar to me.

[toldyouso]

[Oh, thank Pama. Pete visibly relaxes, then scrubs at the back of his head.]

Sad to say, this place is actually nicer than where I was before.

[inafadingcrown]

It is difficult to imagine.

[Or it is for a person who has never lived a day in her ~8k years more than a few minutes walk from a meadow. Then again, with what she's seen of the future if Sauron wins...

Maybe it's not so difficult to imagine after all.]

Do you miss it?

[toldyouso]

[Pete blinks. What kind of question--oh yeah. Normal people tend to be attached to their homes.]

I came from a battle in the middle of pretty much the worst place imaginable. I don't miss that, but home?

[He shrugs one shoulder.]

Nah.

[It's mostly the truth. He misses some of the people, but he doesn't care about the places, even though the continuum teleportation from Knowhere is incredibly useful.]

[inafadingcrown]

Many of us come from times of war, it seems. [It's easier to comment on that than on not missing home. That is hard for her to understand.]

[toldyouso]

[Pete shrugs again.]

There's always a war somewhere.

[The Kree wage war for kicks.]

[inafadingcrown]

It is more true than I would like. And yet I remember a time when it was not so. [That's because you are older than the sun, Galadriel.]

[toldyouso]

[Pete looks...less skeptical than he would if it weren't Galadriel on the other end.]

Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but I find that hard to believe.

[inafadingcrown]

I do not blame you; it is beyond the memory of most, before the creation of Men and first risings of the sun and moon.

[...yep. She sure did just casually throw that out there.]

[toldyouso]

[Eh, he was there when Death herself vaporized an insane Avatar of Life. Also he has an artifact basically equivalent to the One Ring in his pocket. You get jaded.]

How long ago was that?

[inafadingcrown]

[Goddamn it, and the One Ring is here too. Initiative people what were you thinking?!]

Ages ago. [Come on, Galadriel, you can do the math.] Over seven thousand years, at the least.

[toldyouso]

Huh.

[He's trying to remember what was going on with Earth then. He knows it was the same old, same old with the Kree and the Skrull trying to exterminate each other in space.]

So your universe is pretty young, then?

[inafadingcrown]

I have little basis for comparison.

[toldyouso]

Mine's about 14 billion years old.

[They have it on good authority from a guy who was there when it was created.]

[inafadingcrown]

[A little pause]

Quite likely so, then, yes. Of course, I know not how long Arda existed before the creation of Elves.

[toldyouso]

You're an elf?

[He points at one of his rounded ears, clearly meaning to contrast it with the points on hers.]

[inafadingcrown]

[She smiles and absentmindedly runs her fingers over the tip of one of her ears.] I am. We have other names for ourselves, but I have found that is the term familiar to most.

[toldyouso]

We have stories, but before now, all of the people I knew with pointed ears were aliens.

[It's cool. Some of his best friends are aliens.]

[inafadingcrown]

It seems there are a great many places in which my kind are but the stuff of myth and legends. [But she doesn't seem bothered by it.]

We are all alien here, in a sense, are we not?

[toldyouso]

I'm actually the alien in my universe, too. At least in the parts of it where I spend all my time. I'm from a place nobody'd heard of until maybe 50 years ago.

[He snorts.]

You get used to the hick jokes after a while.