Maybe Felassan could have done that, but he certainly wouldn't have made it look so easy, passage blooming like a flower that was only waiting for permission and connected in precisely the correct place to walk rather than jump or fall out. He would be impressed, but then he'd have to be impressed ten times on a slow day, and after so many years a man becomes immune from awe, exempt from repetitive praise, and aware of his duty to protect against anyone getting a big head.
He leaves his staff against the wall before going out onto the balcony, where he plants his hand and vaults his legs over to sit on the railing with the careless confidence of someone who does not have to worry that a fall might do him significant harm. He would have time to handle that on the way down.
"Armory, garden, smithy, somewhere for people to spread out," he ticks off on his fingers. An incomplete list. If things go as planned, if enough people see sense, even what they create now will need to be expanded upon later. Maybe it will be a city someday. "If you're removing vallalsin, we should have somewhere set aside for that. Something to make it feel a little momentous, not like they're tracking you down at breakfast for it. Ceremony matters." Not to him. But to other people. "And — " Opening negotiations, pretending to expect pushback. " — I'm allowed to grow ten trees for every building."
Solas is less loose with his body language, a bit less nonchalantly casual; both by inherent nature and by the figurehead they’ve been trying to shape him into, his own personality malleable, being moulded into Dread Wolf Fen’Harel the longer this war goes on. He steps forward and leans his elbows against the railing, propping himself against it beside Felassan as he looks out over their corner of the not-exactly-Fade. A safe place for elves. For spirits. For all who decide to flock to their banner.
He makes a faint disgruntled noise at the itemisation of everything they’ll need, but he doesn’t argue. He sees the sense in it.
“Ten trees for every building,” he muses aloud instead. It’s a large number, but: “At least there’s space. You could fit a few on the pathways here. And then make your own island for a copse.”
I.e., put your forest somewhere else Solas won’t keep tripping over it.
Fair. More than fair. The skeptical narrowing of Felassan's eyes as he surveys the landscape, evaluating walkways and potential copse-island locations, is purely recreational.
"To start. Where they spread from there — "
Over years, over decades. Hardly any time at all. Though in the absence of strong wind or pollinators, any time might not be long enough. Maybe he'll bring in some bees.
" — is up to them."
He looks down at Solas.
"That's my unimportant thing we have to have because it makes me happy," he says, now you prompt tucked silently into his drawling trail-off.
Solas keeps his gaze forward, looking out across that empty landscape, waiting for some spark of inspiration to answer the question. He sees—
He sees nothing. Felassan can imagine new buildings and landscapes, but when Solas reaches for a similar idea, all he feels that simmering anger and frustration of a long-stymied conflict. A library, he thinks first; but they already have that downstairs, and he knows it will eventually fill with arcane studies and texts and notes from the best and brightest their movement has to offer. Research searching for the right ritual and the right weapon, a silver-tipped arrow to lodge in the heart of the Evanuris.
That is still war. It’s not unimportant; there’s strategic value in it. It feels, sometimes, as if he has forgotten how to prioritise anything that doesn’t have pointed strategic value. And thinking of what one might want for oneself is still relatively new and unfamiliar — new words, new verbs, I, I want — but he considers.
“A music room,” he says, at last. “I would like to hear and play music, here, if we’re to stay here long-term.”
For the first half of that silence Felassan watches Solas. For the second half he is merciful enough to avert his gaze back to the waiting canvas before them, but not merciful enough to change the subject and withdraw the expectation that Solas muster up an answer.
He begins to arrange things in his thoughts, the flow of people from need to need, efficiency weighed against balance. To carry swords and arrowheads from the smithy to the armory, they should pass through a garden, or stained glass, or the twenty trees those two buildings allow him. They have been running and hiding and whispering for so long; now that they will have somewhere to stand in the open, the view should not be so much worse than the one from slavery. The people will need reminders that the cost of freedom will not be their joy, in the end, and the life that's waiting for them on the other side of this struggle will have its beauties, too. They'll need —
"Ten instruments for every building," he answers without hesitation when Solas's answer interrupts, only half hyperbole and entirely pleased. Felassan has long accepted the shadows that cross his old friend's face as a necessary cost. To try to free him from the burden of being the strongest among them, the cleverest, the first to say enough, the name that sparks any confidence at all — there would be no way forward.
But Felassan still believes in an end, and so he still believes in cupping his hands around sputtering flames to make sure they last that long.
"If we recruit enough musicians, you can have an orchestra."
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no subject
He leaves his staff against the wall before going out onto the balcony, where he plants his hand and vaults his legs over to sit on the railing with the careless confidence of someone who does not have to worry that a fall might do him significant harm. He would have time to handle that on the way down.
"Armory, garden, smithy, somewhere for people to spread out," he ticks off on his fingers. An incomplete list. If things go as planned, if enough people see sense, even what they create now will need to be expanded upon later. Maybe it will be a city someday. "If you're removing vallalsin, we should have somewhere set aside for that. Something to make it feel a little momentous, not like they're tracking you down at breakfast for it. Ceremony matters." Not to him. But to other people. "And — " Opening negotiations, pretending to expect pushback. " — I'm allowed to grow ten trees for every building."
no subject
He makes a faint disgruntled noise at the itemisation of everything they’ll need, but he doesn’t argue. He sees the sense in it.
“Ten trees for every building,” he muses aloud instead. It’s a large number, but: “At least there’s space. You could fit a few on the pathways here. And then make your own island for a copse.”
I.e., put your forest somewhere else Solas won’t keep tripping over it.
no subject
"To start. Where they spread from there — "
Over years, over decades. Hardly any time at all. Though in the absence of strong wind or pollinators, any time might not be long enough. Maybe he'll bring in some bees.
" — is up to them."
He looks down at Solas.
"That's my unimportant thing we have to have because it makes me happy," he says, now you prompt tucked silently into his drawling trail-off.
no subject
He sees nothing. Felassan can imagine new buildings and landscapes, but when Solas reaches for a similar idea, all he feels that simmering anger and frustration of a long-stymied conflict. A library, he thinks first; but they already have that downstairs, and he knows it will eventually fill with arcane studies and texts and notes from the best and brightest their movement has to offer. Research searching for the right ritual and the right weapon, a silver-tipped arrow to lodge in the heart of the Evanuris.
That is still war. It’s not unimportant; there’s strategic value in it. It feels, sometimes, as if he has forgotten how to prioritise anything that doesn’t have pointed strategic value. And thinking of what one might want for oneself is still relatively new and unfamiliar — new words, new verbs, I, I want — but he considers.
“A music room,” he says, at last. “I would like to hear and play music, here, if we’re to stay here long-term.”
sad awoo
He begins to arrange things in his thoughts, the flow of people from need to need, efficiency weighed against balance. To carry swords and arrowheads from the smithy to the armory, they should pass through a garden, or stained glass, or the twenty trees those two buildings allow him. They have been running and hiding and whispering for so long; now that they will have somewhere to stand in the open, the view should not be so much worse than the one from slavery. The people will need reminders that the cost of freedom will not be their joy, in the end, and the life that's waiting for them on the other side of this struggle will have its beauties, too. They'll need —
"Ten instruments for every building," he answers without hesitation when Solas's answer interrupts, only half hyperbole and entirely pleased. Felassan has long accepted the shadows that cross his old friend's face as a necessary cost. To try to free him from the burden of being the strongest among them, the cleverest, the first to say enough, the name that sparks any confidence at all — there would be no way forward.
But Felassan still believes in an end, and so he still believes in cupping his hands around sputtering flames to make sure they last that long.
"If we recruit enough musicians, you can have an orchestra."