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Who: Boromir and Ilde.
What: Boromir is on his way to a tavern for post-monster slaying ale, and ~~gets drive-by trolled~~ meets Ilde along the way.
Where: Somewhere by the Gross Tar!
When: Sukkardi (Saturday) evening.
Notes: None.
Warnings: None.

Boromir was restless. In less than a week he had been slain in battle, resurrected in the strangest city imaginable, attacked by even stranger creatures and resolutely he had battled on. But when he had finally gotten back to the Valhalla Inn on Sukkardi morning, washed and tried to get some rest, he found he could only manage a few hours. He wasn't used to a long night's sleep; he had been travelling for months on end, alert and ready at the slightest hint of danger. It was impossible to suddenly stop.

The answer was to find whatever tavern was still open and hope that a good, long drink of ale could bring him some respite.

Still unsure about his bearings, especially at night, he made his way towards the Gross Tar and followed the river.

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Mouthing 'fussy' at him - the techno doesn't bother her, relatedly, but then, she's reading the shape of his mouth more than she's listening to his voice in the first place - Ilde tastes her own drink, then takes a deeper sip, evidently satisfied.

(And a little flushed, almost immediately; alcohol hits a fairy hard and fast. If she were a more sensible creature, she wouldn't drink the way she does, but where's the fun in that?)

"See how you feel about it in the morning, if you're using it to get to sleep." He looks like he'd be funny, hungover. Men are babies.

Boromir is about as fun hungover as anyone can imagine, but it takes a lot to get him drunk (he's over six foot is used to drinking every day, you figure out his tolerance).

He continues drinking (it is, admittedly, good beer) and can't help but watch the other bar patrons with idle curiosity. When he turns back to Ilde, he asks, "Is this tavern like the ones in your world?"

She shrugs, one-shouldered, following his gaze briefly - there's a little dancing going on, but for the most part, people are mingling and drinking and it's almost low-key, as evenings they go. "Some of them, like they used to be - I used to go to a place just like this, at home, when I had a fake." ID, she means, and it turns out that she's a bit less taciturn and a little more animated when there's alcohol in her system; Ilde's a bit of a chatty drunk.

She's also baby-faced at twenty-one, so one can only imagine how she managed passing a fake ID for the short time she had one.

"When we still had bars," she adds, saluting him with her glass. "Tavern is archaic. You're archaic." Your face is archaic, Boromir- no, she's friendly, still, just tipsy and blunt.

He lowers his bottle from taking a drink and looks at Ilde. Really. She's not even finished one drink and he can already see the signs.

"Bars," he says, musing on the word. It does make sense; they do call the area where the drink is served 'the bar' and the people behind it are called 'the barkeep' or 'barmaid.' But they also served as a place to reside in for the night, in the countryside between cities and settlements. He wonders if that's changed.

"At least I can handle my drink," he jests in good fun.

Just wait until she stands up later and lists like a sailor.

...for the meanwhile, she kicks him under the table, which serves no purpose at all but to amuse her; her flipflops aren't exactly going to do him any damage, and she's not kicking very hard, laughing her gurgling little laugh into her glass. "I'm handling it," she says, with dignity. "I'm just handling it my way."

Which is 'not at all'. Accursed physiological differences.

It seems to Boromir as though people in this city are very familiar with one another very quickly; possibly as a result of everyone being in the same social position to begin with, possibly because his world is archaic by comparison. After a lifetime of decorum, it's a strange yet comfortable way of interacting.

"If you say so," he says, chuckling.

Ilde was always like this, or would've been, before Prometheus; the blithe new best friend, sliding into and out of conversations without seeming to have much of a care about what she was saying or doing. The awkwardness of finding her footing in the world now that everything is different (at home, in Baedal - she's different, broken in places that were only jagged before) is laid over the foundations of socialite-in-training, and dragging a stranger to a bar and telling him to man up and try the booze is, well, comfortably familiar.

"I do," she insists, accordingly, self-satisfied and pink in the cheeks, crossing her ankles under the table and seeming awfully catlike in her I meant to do all of that attitude. "It's only because I'm-" she makes a little gesture, twirling her finger in the air and trying to indicate 'fairy' rather than 'insane'. (Both are arguably true.)

That does not help matters at all, Ilde, and it only makes him laugh more (although not unkindly) at the unfortunate gesture. "I know what you mean. I've spent time in the company of races other than Man, and their tolerance levels differ greatly."

He seems a little bit wistful for a moment, but pushes it aside. Now isn't the time to dwell on such things.

That catches her attention and her curiosity, and it's probably a happy accident that she doesn't miss the table when she rests her elbow there to lean forward, chin in her hand. "Have you? Such as?"

Perhaps his experience with xenians will spare him any surprise that it's those other than human who seem to interest her the most, though in Ilde's case it's often a matter of how quickly she's trying to catch up with worlds a part of her own that she didn't know existed for so long. 'Naiad' she can swear to, and not mermaid - she knows she needs fresh water - but there are so many stories and so many possibilities and in some ways she's searching for familiarity.

He seems -not uncomfortable, nor stiff, but perhaps for a moment he seems a little bit more tense, more guarded. It's a slight shift in his body language and tone, before easing back again. "I had the honour of travelling with an elf, dwarf and four Halflings for a long journey."

'Honour' is a very specific choice in words, and it's wholeheartedly meant. He held his friends in great regard -still does- but right now he cannot allow himself to think about them or how he left them. Not now. He tries a smile before asking, "Have you heard of their kind before?"

Even drunk - and she's definitely drunk, delicate little monster that she is - Ilde has well-trained herself to catch such subtleties of manner, and in the depths of her pleasant giddiness, she catches herself to make a concerted effort to tread with a litle more care here. It's partly habit; she likes to be liked, and she used to spend a lot of time tailoring her behaviour to at least give herself better odds.

"I've heard of elves and dwarves," she says, holding up a finger, "but not 'Halflings'. What is a Halfling."

...well, under the circumstances 'resisting the impulse to ask what that was about' will have to suffice.

Edited 2011-06-09 19:06 (UTC)

How best to describe a Halfling? Gandalf had once said you can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you.

"Incredible," he says, smiling fondly. "They're also known as Hobbits to some, but in my part of the world they're known as Halflings. I travelled with four of them, and two of them had not yet come of age. They look very much like Men, but range between two and four feet in height. Although they have slightly pointed ears and, of course, there's their feet -covered in hair, so they don't don't wear shoes. They let their soles become thick and leather like."

"As for their nature... Friendly. Very friendly. And funny, too. They describe themselves as peaceful, not much concerned with the goings on outside their own borders. They prefer a simple life." By this point he's much more relaxed again. The conversation is distant enough from his worries to let him reminisce about more pleasant memories. "They're hardy as well, and not to be underestimated. There's something inherently good about them. If you think I'm virtuous, then hobbits are ten times over. But it is not a weakness."

Last but not least, "And if you'd let them, they'd eat eleven meals a day. It reminds me of the two youngest; their names were Merry and Pippin. They ate two lembas each, a type of elven waybread, when one bite was enough to fill a grown man's stomach."

The more or less accurate image that this conjures up is more than a little entertaining, but it's not 'til he says hobbits are yet more virtuous than he is that she bursts into gurgling laughter, giggling through the rest of his description.

"I think I prefer my feet optional," she says, wriggling her toes in her flipflops.

Boromir cannot help but noticed your well placed giggle fit, madam. He makes a dismissive little 'hush, you' gesture and drinks his beer. "All the better to kick men of Gondor, I presume."

Obligingly, as if that were a request, Ilde kicks him in the knee again. (Or, well, she tries - it's more of a 'gently grazing his knee with the underside of her foot as she almost completely misses him'.)

The expression that follows that is almost comically put out.

"Careful with that aim," he says, which is only the slightest bit reproachful, before pushing her ankle gently off his lap. "I would ask if you wanted more but I'm afraid you might end up marinated."

Ilde's foot hits the ground with a thud as she grimaces at him for the 'marinated' remark. "Pleasantly," she stresses, taking a sip from her cocktail glass. "Pleasantly ... tipsy."

"My apologies. Pleasantly tipsy and both pleasant and tipsy." He looks suitably chastened. Please don't be cross with him, little river-maid.

Edited 2011-06-10 06:02 (UTC)

On the contrary, she beams at him at his obliging correction; people who are willing to go along with her casual rewriting of reality are her favourite sort of people. The world is sometimes a more pleasant place with just a little bit of temporary realignment of perceptions, a philosophy she's had far more practise implementing than anyone really should. "Yes, that's right. And you are..." That gesture doesn't mean anything, Ilde. "Tall."

Yes. He's tall.

Tall. That makes him laugh again. "Such is the way of Númenórean descendents. We tend to grow tall and, in peaceful times, live long."

"You're from a war, too," she notes, the alcohol messing with her usual filter - people living in peacetime don't, she's relatively certain, feel the need to make that qualification. They'd say we live long, because that's where their life is at; he needs to clarify, she reasons, because that isn't.

(She says 'too', as if she's a little glad there are other people here who might be finding this place a mood whiplash.)

"Yes. Although I suspect it is...different." Whatever levity was in his mood before starts to slip away. "Do you remember what I spoke of before, by the river? Of Valar and Maiar? Well, not all of them are good. Our legends tell of one named Morgoth, who was defeated long ago, and only the elves have memory of him. But we are still engaged in war against his servant, Sauron." That last word is spoken with a great deal of vehemence, and it drags up memories of his last moments in Middle Earth.

He looks as though he's struggling a great deal to contain something within himself. Things he's been holding in since he came to Baedel. Then, "Might we talk about something else?"

The silence that follows is awkward because Ilde isn't equipped to make it not awkward; she doesn't know his war, but she knows what is to be wrecked by something so much larger than herself, and there is a moment where she thinks someone else might know what to say.

(Understanding people doesn't, always, mean knowing how to apply the understanding. Understanding someone else doesn't mean she wants to say I know and be understood in turn.)

Out of no where, she says, "When I was small, my father used to have these house parties, and once when they were drinking I got to ride on a baby grand piano that his friends were carrying out to the deck, I don't know why, though you know there were a lot of them because pianos are extremely heavy, especially when they've got a child sitting on them, and anyway I about got seasick because it kept tipping-" there are illustrative gestures, at this point, "-and then I rolled off and Daddy caught me and I knocked him on his arse and he had to get seven stitches in the back of his head, but he kept giggling about it." Which is what he gets for asking her to change the subject without giving her a direction to go in.

Edited 2011-06-11 08:29 (UTC)

In amongst all the mixed emotions, the pictures in his mind, floats the image of a tiny Ilde falling off a piano. It does the trick, and he seems less severe once more. In fact, he breaks out of his mood with a story of his own.

"That reminds me of the time my brother got his first pony. He was...seven? I think, yes. He was so nervous, and I stood there the entire time to encourage him. And just when he was starting to feel confident, and the stable-master let go of the lead, the pony moved too sharply and Faramir ended up falling out of the saddle with his boot still caught in the stirrup. Of course the pony just kept trotting along, so there's me, the stable-master and stable lad running after the poor thing, trying to catch a hold of both." His fondness for his younger sibling shows and his face softens once more.

Ilde has a number of fond memories of learning to ride with her uncle (he wasn't really her uncle - but he was family, anyway, so it doesn't matter), and the way she brightens has the air of familiarity, accordingly. Horse-related shenanigans were a bit different, in her case, but even so. And it's nice to sit here and remember these things that are far enough way to rarely touch her any more; to indulge that, this once.

"Did you catch him quick?"