three. (video.)

[reconnaissance]

( At least this time Ellie isn't in some random, ramshackle building, but enjoying the warmth of the kitchen and a giant cup of coffee. At least she looks marginally better rested than she has on previous occasions. )

So, with that whole swap thing, I've been thinking. ( A pause, and there's a note of self mockery in her voice: ) Because I don't think enough when weird stuff isn't happening. Or less-weird stuff, at any rate. ( Has she really digressed already and wandered off with her thoughts? She shakes her head at herself. )

I was thinking about anger. Or any emotion, I guess, when they get that intense that you feel like all your insides are writhing about like snakes, but anger's the one that stuck out for me. We're all in this war, and some of us have been in wars before and some haven't, and everyone handles it in these different ways.

( She trails off; articulating this isn't going so smoothly as she'd expected, but sometimes you just have to throw things at the wall and see what sticks. Homer used to throw pasta at the wall, a lot, and a bloody lot of that stuck. The memory makes her smile a little. )

I mean, just before I got here, Kev-- uh, this guy in our group, he wasn't doing so well with everything. ( See, Fi, she at least tried not to name and shame. Belatedly. ) Everyone tried different things to get him going, and it was this weird insight-- I guess it just said a bit about the kind of people we are, depending what tactic we used. ( Fi: sympathy. Lee: abuse. Homer: encouragement. )
I was all logic and common sense. ( A beat, before she continues, speaking a little more slowly as she grapples with her pride and tries to think it out. ) Sometimes I don't think that really shows the full picture, but.

( She could say that it definitely doesn't, not when you got anger that just bubbles up and blows being reasonable right out of the water. She could, but does not. )

Anyway, I was talking to this guy here, before, about anger. How you can use it, and that, make it work for you, and I just... I didn't know if that really worked for anyone. If anger's a weapon, or if you got an on/off switch for it, or what? 'Cause there's this quote in uh, this Shakespeare play - “wrath makes him deaf,” I think the Queen in Henry VI. ( She squints, trying to remember. ) And then there's another bit, about not coming between “the dragon and his rage,” in King Lear. I think Lear was already going crazy, though, by then, though. ( Quietly: ) It's been a while since I studied them. Trying to read that stuff and figure out all the language is hard, without those special high school study editions.

( Where was she even going with this? )

So I guess I just wondered what you lot thought about it. Anger and controlling anger and using it and whether it screws you up, or what.

( A beat, and she smiles crookedly. ) Or we could talk about dragons. We don't have any back home, but some of you have to have dragons, right?

Comments

They're just two angry red circles living in a fishbowl

[heirwithouthope]

[The funny thing was, Thorin could agree with that. He doesn't know what a terrorist is (or a drongo for that matter--were they just making up words now?). All he knows is back home, there were multiple parties that thought he was insane to try and take back the mountain from Smaug. Some would go so far as to try and stop him and his company from reaching Erebor if they had half the chance.

Though with all that said, Thorin wasn't in the business of relating his problems to others. Especially non-dwarves.]

But not always. [There were also goblins and orcs, though orcs could be deemed miserable creatures when one knows how they came to be. But they were also pure evil--even without a war or a master to blame it upon.]

You mean to be fair. [His tone is absent of derision here.] You wish to find a beam of light in all, even the darkest beasts, but doubt is a luxury one cannot afford when you are responsible for more than just yourself.

bonus points to us if there is some reason for them to hug, one day

[reconnaissance]

I know that. ( Frost crawls over her words. ) God, I know that. I've had my friends lives in my hands more times than you know, and in that second, you have to let go of everything else. But afterwards, thinking about whether I made the right call is about all I can do. You have to trust your gut, but--

( She runs out of words, voice rasping, exhausted by her own thoughts and emotions and everything else. ) It might be easier, with dragons, to know without a doubt that there's something ruthless that'd kill you in an instant. You never have to doubt yourself, when it's something so different from you.

( Flat, rather than calm. ) When you're killing other humans to try and save your own skin, though, everything else falls away. If you don't doubt yourself at some point along the way and you can take them down without ever wondering if what you're doing is right or wrong, you may as well be a devil, or a dragon, or whatever other terrible thing is waiting in the dark.

( This got away from her. Very softly: ) I've only ever fought other humans. ( Maybe she'd have been able to sleep better if it had been dragons.

Thorin might not be in the habit of relating his problems, but Ellie's issue has always been holding things back. Sometimes, everything just spills out and there's not way to hold back the tide. )

If I had any artistic skills at all, I'd draw that. XD

[heirwithouthope]

[As his jaw tightens again.] Does it matter what they were? You have not mentioned an ally falling from your actions. No death nor ruin coming to the ones in your protection.

If they all still live to this day, there is nothing to doubt. And to question yourself and your actions so blatantly is to trouble the hearts of those that look to you for guidance.

[Thorin was not human. And the species he does hail from inherently lacked altruism and warm, welcoming feelings towards outsiders. Dwarfish loyalty was hard-won through common burdens or mutual gain.

But he was also an heir, an almost-king, and that narrowed his focus even further than cultural quirks. He was not without uncertainty--in himself and his quest--but he would not allow that to stop him from claiming his birthright and leading his people home when no one else could. There was nothing more important than that.

That's why her words angers Thorin more than ever.] A man answering the needs of his people before all else, this is the behavior of a dragon to you?

[His tone is reduced to gravel.] Do not act like such a child.

HAHA we can dream... also wow these two

[reconnaissance]

( Just like that, he's managed to catch her in two of the most vulnerable points she has. )

And 'cause I didn't mention it to you, some bloke I've never spoken to before, obviously it never happened.

( So much for channeling her anger, focusing it, finding some worthy target. Thorin's all the target she needs, right now, for this, unless she's her own target. )

Eight man team, three of us are dead. I can't decide if I want to keep fighting or if I want it all to stop, half the time. Sure, killing so you can survive, so your people can survive, that's normal, but what-- what makes my life any more valuable than someone else's? What justifies me doing it, in the greater scheme of things? They value their life as much as I value mine, maybe more.

( Especially when she feels she could lose it, sometimes, and simply stop caring. It would be a relief. Their lives apparently aren't all that valued by the military; as soon as the Kiwis disappeared, any hope of their being picked up was gone.

And why was it adults always threw that in your face? Grow up, act your age, don't be a kid. She stopped being a child the day she saw people herded up in the Showground like cattle, when she took her first lives. They're fighting different wars, the two of them, and logically she can see it, but emotion overrides that. )

Questioning things is the act of a child, is it? Wouldn't that be justifying yourself so that you're always the good guy?