there are tall elves and small elves, nice elves and... (introduction)

[mostcraftiest]

Damn fools. Fools, all of them! If they think they will last an hour under that fool Orodreth - well. A slight change in plans only. Though the desertion of his own son - that stung, a little. He should have been firmer with the boy. Spent more time with him here, perhaps, rather than leaving him to tinker in his smithy at whatever little projects

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[pandora_antioch]

Sometime after dark, Pandora can be found sitting in a couch, reading and making notes, in the corridor next to the rooms she shares with Celebrimbor.

She's still unable to use the Mind, Spell and Feather Gifts, and is trying to put her recuperating time to good use by brushing up on her Sindarin skills.

[mostcraftiest]

Sometime after dark, Curufin comes stalking inside, bad tempered and frustrated with his son, with his cousins (all of them!) and the world in general. How, he wants to know, will he fulfill the Oath from here?

He hardly even registers Pan, but she might register him. Finwean resemblance runs strong.

[pandora_antioch]

Unfortunately, Pandora is currently as close to a mortal in abilities as she's been in a long time. Still ridiculously strong and fast, but unable to read minds, it's the stride that disturbs her studies, really.

She looks up, tilts her head curiously at him, and stands before she addresses him. Golden as she is by her recent exposure, she probably looks close to human, despite the uncanny grace in her movements.

"Are you looking for some one in particular, Lord?"

[mostcraftiest]

He starts, slightly, then turns, stiffly, irritation, of course, obvious. "I suppose I might be, yes, though I would hardly know where to begin." A stiff bow. "Beg pardon for my brevity. I find myself - short-tempered this evening."

He seems to have calmed a little. Enough to recognize that he can't make everyone his enemy.

[pandora_antioch]

"You've new come," she replies, patiently, and it's not a question, the deduction is glaring at like Curufin's nose in the middle of his his face. "One can hardly fault you for being irritated with the disturbance of your plans, My Lord."

She gives him a polite curtsey, though it's really a bob more than anything else. Short as she is in front of all elves, Pandora nonetheless stands tall for a human, and is nobility in many ways - as an Ancient, as the daughter of a Roman Senator, she considers herself on par with her in-laws.

"Might I supply you with the direction you need, then, perhaps?"

[mostcraftiest]

Curufin doesn't consider anyone except possibly his brothers on a par with himself. And maybe some cousins. Maybe. If he's feeling generous. So her shallow curtsy makes his eyebrows rise. "I'm afraid the direction I need seems to be to a place I canot reach, by account I have heard thus far."

There has to be some way out, if there was a way in - it just must be difficult. Well, he can solve difficult puzzles.

[pandora_antioch]

"Ah, so you have just arrived," she says, understandingly. "I am sorry for whatever frustration this may bring about." A beat, but then she asks, still quite polite but also friendly, if reserved.... "Is it not a relief, however, that perhaps your family is here?"

She's so used to reading minds and making a show of it, that she's not quite thinking that this may be odd to him. Then again, Pandora is not quite herself, and not thinking about the books she read, or the knowledge Henry shared with her.

[mostcraftiest]

"On the-" He stops, though, frowns. Narrows his eyes. And is immediately on guard. "My family, here? Who of them, then?" Pleasantly surprised, or at least feigning it. So she seems harmless enough. What does that matter?

[pandora_antioch]

She smiles, a little. "You have the look of the Noldor about you, My Lord, and that only tells me that you have here cousins, siblings, perhaps, who are here."

She offers him a cold, marble-like hand. "I am Lydia, and have several friends amongst the Noldor."

And I sleep with your son, hehe.

[mostcraftiest]

He takes the hand, and his smile doesn't slip, though his wariness mounts quickly, bowing slightly over it. "Do you? It seems to me impossible that any of my kin might be in this place, when they were so recently in another..."

[pandora_antioch]

"So it seems, and yet, here they are," she replies, quietly as she takes her hand back. "Both Ambarussa, Celegorm, Caranthir, Celebrimbor, and again, Aredhel, Fingon, and Galadriel, Finrod, even." Finrod who is a dear friend, whom you killed, but she doesn't know that, not yet, or she doesn't remember, with her mind still healing from the fire's damage.

"Maedhros and Maglor were here but seem to have gone, and again, there also was Angrod, though you may not miss his presence."

And also Morgoth, but she's keeping that for herself, for now.

[mostcraftiest]

His eyes narrow more and more, not showing any sign of surprise, but mentally - what, okay, bad, problematic, bad, bad, BAD. And snerk.

What a charming fellow he is. His frown is severe, certainly. "Peculiar," he leaves it at. "And surprising." That no one's dead. My brothers are clearly forgetting what they are about.

There is a bruise, likely, rising on his cheekbone, lividly.

[pandora_antioch]

"And apparently not particularly reassuring," she completes with an intelligent headtilt. "Or are these names new to you, per chance?"

She's finding interesting that he's not wondering or bothering to ask how she knows, and more so that he hasn't paid attention to the fact that she's studying Sindarin, and not Quenya.

The bruise is noted and stored for later. He might have come from battle, after all.

[mostcraftiest]

He is currently pretending that this is all normal. And hasn't noticed the book. He's watching her face. Her eyes. A servant of His? Possibly. But not necessarily so sinister. There are plenty of things that are not directly of the Enemy and still dark enough.

"Merely surprising," he says, simply, "I did not expect...so many, perhaps. I see I will not, at least, lack for familiarity." Not that this is a good thing. Damn Finarfinians.

[pandora_antioch]

Right now, Pandora would kill to have the Mind Gift back. She wants to know who this fellow is. He looks like her Carus, but he's at the same time very different, at least in demeanor.

"But here we are, conversing, and we have not been introduced," she points out, very politely. She's keeping the fangs safely away.

[mostcraftiest]

Pandora would probably not like what she sees. At all. "My apologies," with a bare flicker of a smile. "Curufinwe." He expects that to be enough, likely, for identification.