sixthiterationlogs | 001; as you climb up hillside, forest, and fen

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001; as you climb up hillside, forest, and fen

WHO: Tauriel
WHERE: Fountain/the surrounding forest
WHEN: backdated to Sept 25th
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: N/A
STATUS: Open

THE FOUNTAIN

Trudging through the Dead Marshes was certainly no pleasant task, but Tauriel had done it often enough that she felt confident she could survive the journey easily enough. Not to mention it was the most direct route to Osgiliath from the direction she had started out, and she was in something of a hurry, wanting to reach the city of Men before the autumn fell in earnest.

Picking her way between the dead was distressing. Losing her footing was even worse. Caught between one breath and the next, all Tauriel can do is seal her lips so she does not swallow any marsh water, her eyes closing just before impact—

She wakes up on hard stone.

For a moment, she is utterly disoriented. Had she fallen through the marsh into what lay beyond? What did lie beyond? Surely nothing, for she could see clearly the faces of the dead, lingering on as if they had just died a moment ago and not centuries past. Regardless of what the dead were doing, she was currently sitting on hard, dry stone. Her next thought was that she was in a dungeon. The hard stone walls would lend credence to that claim, but then why was there no door? No window for her to look out? No way for someone to come speak to her, if only to threaten her for...

There is a light, far above her. It looks like it could be sunlight, like perhaps she is in the bottom of...a well? Why is she in a well? How did she get here? Looking about, she realizes it is a somewhat shallow well, perhaps no deeper than two men standing one on top of each other, and the moment she stands herself, the light gets much closer. That is reassuring but... There is no rope or ladder or even steps carved into the stone to help her get out from the bottom of the well.

"Hello?" she calls, not entirely hopeful that she's going to get much of a response.

When she's proven correct, she sighs and looks down at her hands. Someone has dressed her in clothing not her own, but at least she still feels hale and hearty, and she's going to get out of this strange prison so that she can assess the situation. Taking a deep breath, she digs her fingers into the stone wall and starts to climb.

THE FOREST

It's easier for Tauriel to think under the shade of her beloved trees, even if these trees are...not quite right. She doesn't feel them the same way, but beggars can't be choosers, and she's too glad to be able to scale the great trees surrounding the strange town she found herself in. None of this place makes any sense to her. How did she get here? What is this place? How can she get home?

Sitting in the bough of a great big oak tree, she watches the town below, the people she sees every now and then milling in and out of doors, seemingly content to go about their lives here. Some of them wear the same, soft black clothes she wears, while others wear similar clothing but in different colors. She counts grey, red, dark blue... Everyone wears the same clothes, in a style she cannot recognize. The fashions of Men change faster than she can blink, but even this looks very strange to her.

Getting comfortable against the trunk of the tree, she settles in for a long wait.

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She's not the only person using the cover of the trees to observe what's happening in the village. In some ways, the meeting had made Finnick even more determined to watch their fellow tributes in this place. There had been so much that didn't make sense, so much that sounded like a trap. A trap, or something everything he's ever known says is impossible. (That does raise the uncomfortable question of how much of his Capitol-enforced education he can trust, but he doesn't want to think very hard about that.)

So he's crept back to the edges of the forest. He's not built for stealthy movement, with his muscular body, but he moves quietly for a strong man, and he's as well hidden as he can be when his pants are that stupid bright red and his shirt a dirt-stained white tank top. He has his backpack with him, stuffed with grass stalks far too long to be contained in it, so that he's had to leave the zip partly undone to allow them to stick out of the top. While he watches, he's decided, he may as well try to work on weaving some rope. He thinks he's seen it made out of grasses a bit like this one, during the Games, and the vines he's found here aren't strong enough to make durable fishing gear.

Now that the fish are back in the no-longer-contaminated river, he wants to make sure he can make some good, strong nets.

He doesn't notice that there's someone else in the tree he chooses when he starts to climb up into it. She's simply too well hidden in her spot. If she's looking, though, she'll see the strong young man hauling himself up into the lower branches of the oak tree.

The thing that catches her eye first is the flash of red beneath her, something that grabs her attention long before she even feels the vibrations of the tree that the young man creates as he climbs. He doesn't seem as nimble as she is, but that doesn't mean much; most Men are not as nimble as she, and she will not hold it against him.

If she does not speak up, he might reach her branch relatively quickly, and that would be awkward. She has no weapons to defend herself with, and she does not feel like tumbling out of the tree to land on the forest floor below.

"Excuse me," she says eventually, watching him climb. "I believe this tree is already occupied."

He's not easy to startle, which is the reason Finnick doesn't start and jump or fall from the tree. What he does do, though, is still his climbing to peer up through the branches to see where the voice came from.

He'd thought he'd looked. He always looks, but somehow, he didn't see her. Maybe it was her dark clothes in the mottled light of the woods. It's unsettling, though, when he'd thought he'd been doing well at using the trees to his advantage.

"Sorry," he calls up. "Didn't see you there."

That's the point at which he slips back down the trunk a little until his feet are resting on the lowest branch.

In his defense, Tauriel has always been very good at blending in when she puts her mind to it. Even without her muted green and brown uniform, she is able to press herself into the shadows, her bright hair becoming muted without the sun to shine through it, allowing her to all but disappear when she puts her mind to it.

"That's alright," she replies, intrigued despite herself when he just turns around and starts to climb down.

"Are you new to this place as well?" It seems to her that those that have been here a while have settled into the buildings that dot the valley, making themselves comfortable in the houses provided by whatever force placed them here.

Jon felt comfortable in the forest. The forest was a place where the differences between his life in Westeros and his life here didn't seem quite so stark and things were more or less the same. The trees weren't the blood red of the weirwoods, no, but he'd grown familiar enough with them over the past several weeks. The game was the same as the game he'd hunted in Westeros, if slightly more plentiful. The bow in his hands was borrowed but it still had a decent draw.

He did not recognize the woman leaning against the tree. Her face, fair and lovely, was one that was new to him. He felt that a woman like this would have been noticed before now, especially considering how small their settlement was. Jon called out to her, not wanting to startle her.

"I'm sorry, I don't think we've met?"

In order to maintain a good sight-line of the town, Tauriel could not climb as high into the trees as she might like, which of course, would mean that she is more visible than perhaps she is comfortable with.

How she longs for her green and brown guardsman garb; this soft black fabric that she's wearing is highly impractical as far as camouflage is concerned, and it is also far too flimsy for her to feel comfortable fighting in it. She doesn't even have her vambraces. When she finds out who took her clothing, she will...

A voice distracts her, and she looks down sharply to see a man standing close to her tree, wearing the same black clothing that she wears.

"That would be logical, as I have only just crawled out of the well," she replies, making no move whatsoever to get out of her tree.

"And you headed directly to the forest?" Jon could not imagine that logic. Most people were driven to the village, driven in the search of other people. This woman had done the opposite and seemingly sought solitude in the woods.

"Most go to the inn, first, so that they can get something to eat and rest for a while. Did no one see you arrive?" Jon had tried to see arrivals but he had only ever managed to see someone come out of the fountain after the fact and had never seen them actually materialize before his eyes. It was strange, yes, but it wasn't the only strange thing about this place.

Her eyebrows lift when he questions her decisions, a brief stab of irritation lancing through her. What does this human know of her, to make such assumptions about her reasoning?

"Forgive my bluntness, but I am not so willing to put my wellbeing in the hands of complete strangers when I do not know where I am or how I got here." Considering that he's dressed the same way she is, chances are that he arrived under similar circumstances, but that does not dispel her annoyance. "Especially when I lack weapons with which to defend myself."

She eyes the bow in his hands, not overly impressed with its craftsmanship but nonetheless wishing she had its equal.

"None came to greet me, so I can only assume they did not. How came you by that bow?" The rudeness of the town residents is secondary to the acquisition of weapons, in her mind.

Jon clutched it a bit tighter and clenched his jaw. "It is part of a communal cache of weapons we have found and share among ourselves to aid in hunting. No one is going to harm you here," Jon said quietly.

"We have no reason to harm you." How could he tell her that it was this place that sought to harm them more than any of the individual residents? "We live together in one community. We share food and resources. I was hunting for our supper."

A communal cache seems suspicious, but if there aren't enough weapons to go around, perhaps it makes some measure of sense. After all, considering he said they found the weapons, that means that perhaps someone who is not skilled in their use might try and stake a claim on them, being the one to discover them. Keeping them communal would avoid any skirmishes over who gets to use the weapons when the time comes to use them.

She still thinks it's foolish, though.

"How many are you?" she asks, still suspicious and making no move to shimmy out of her tree. "One man hunting to feed an entire settlement doesn't seem to be very wise..."

"There isn't only one of us who hunts," Jon said, narrowing his eyes at her a bit. "Just because one does doesn't mean I'm the only one. There's about two dozen in the village, if you'd like to come see. If you'd prefer to stay in the tree, though, you're welcome to that."

He understood being wary. He had been wary when he first arrived, too, but it had helped that there were others from Westeros.

"There's some who gather, some who fish."

Edited 2016-10-03 00:39 (UTC)

It was the same custom each day for Margaery. Once her animals were fed, she would take her bag and retreat to the woods to collect fruits and mushrooms. Since the quake, her enthusiasm had lessened, but the space granted her the chance to think and breathe. So many seemed eager to stick to the village or didn't venture out on their own. The town meeting had raised everyone's paranoia, including her own.

Needing a bit of air and the monotony of this chore, Margaery headed to the woods. She had seen a woman ahead, leaning against one of the trunks. Her face was unfamiliar and her rather calm appearance indicated that she was someone new. There had to be new ways to determine those that just arrived. No longer did they emerge wet from a full fountain. Now, they simply appeared.

Still, in an attempt not to be rude, Margaery nodded her head kindly at Tauriel. "Hello?"

Tauriel had not emerged from the fountain soaking wet, no. She had eventually crawled out by herself, dry except for the sweat beading along her brow, cursing as her fingers ached from the hard stone, and quickly slipped away to the safety of the trees. It was much easier to climb those than the stone walls of the fountain.

She spots the woman heading towards the forest long before she herself is spotted, but considering the bag in her hands and the lack of weapons on her person, Tauriel doesn't deem her much of a threat, which is why she doesn't try to climb higher in the tree to avoid detection. She also doesn't climb down to the ground, of course, because she knows better than to tempt fate. It would be just her luck that this seemingly-harmless woman would turn out to be far more dangerous than she looks.

"Hello," she replies, watching her placidly from safety of her branch.

Most needed assistance getting out of the dry fountain, so it spoke well about Tauriel's abilities, as well as her tenacity to help herself. It was enough to impress Margaery as she gazed up at the strange woman in the trees.

She could be dangerous, but not in the way that many were used to. There was little need to worry about unfamiliar people. So far, there had been no troubles in the village. No one was fighting, there was no violence, save for the actions of nature. It was why she openly greeted Tauriel without any fear.

"Did you just arrive?"

"Perhaps an hour or so ago," Tauriel allows, eying the woman.

She seems healthy, and clean, and relatively well-fed. That speaks well for the tenacity of the town's settlers, although Tauriel of course has a rather limited understanding of how things work around here. At least the citizens seem to be more or less well cared-for, and certainly friendly enough to spark up conversation with a complete stranger.

Then again, Men have always been surprisingly willing to cultivate conversation when silence would also serve. Perhaps it is their short lives that lends such urgency to their every move.

"Where do you go this morning?"

She was at least dry and not nearly as disoriented as others were when they first arrived. It was concern as well as curiosity that prompted Margaery to speak with Tauriel. That she was composed after such a shock was enough to impress Margaery. She had not been so collected when she first arrived, but had been in a daze for most of the day.

There was something soothing about Tauriel as a whole. She seemed like she belonged in the woods, as though she were a spirit or one of the Children of the Forest from legends. It seemed odd to feel that way about someone that she only just met, but it was a feeling that she couldn't shake.

"To gather for the village. There are wild berries and mushrooms a bit further in."

Jo's in the inn main room a lot, since it's become sort of something like her war room against this place, built for her and everyone, with as much information as they can all come up with. But her second book. The one about the plants and animals, sends her into the forest, too. She doesn't actually know much more than books have taught her, and those book were honestly seventy percent more about the monsters who liked to live in forests and slink into towns to tear apart happy, oblivious people.

But she's out there anyway. Staring at the ground and walking this way and that, with no pattern or goal that can be easily seen.
It's not even entirely like she knows where she's starting. But she's out there getting an idea of the scope of her insane idea.

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001; as you climb up hillside, forest, and fen

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The Forest

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