ataraxionlogs | ( open ) i am not made of porcelain pleasantries; you will find that these things are my armor

CHARACTERS: Severus Snape, Princess Nuala, and you.
LOCATION: The Oxygen Gardens; the flets.
WARNINGS: Updates if necessary.
SUMMARY: Nuala has arranged for Severus to ward the women's flet against certain Dark Lords. Magic ensues.
NOTES: If you have no reason to get at the flet itself, feel free to find Nuala working on her sewing at the bottom of the tree; she will probably be down there to head Nuada off at the pass if he gets the wrong idea about a human male in the ladies' household.

The request is made in person, rather than through the network; she doesn't entirely trust it, particularly as something she's so unfamiliar with, and when the matter is one of safety...she had rather be prudent, all told. More than that, she'd rather be able to tell Nuada that she was so prudent, when (if) he takes issue with her actions.

Specifically, inviting Severus Snape to apply his warding prowess to the flet in which the ladies of their small community live. They've heard little stir of Morgoth or his ilk, but the weight of years and fear in her own brother's eyes haunts her and while she mightn't presume upon how he goes about protecting his king - would Thranduil tolerate such protection?she doesn't know, but she has a suspicion that Nuada might not like it terribly much - she doesn't see any harm in drawing on her own resources to look after those women she shares her new home with. Galadriel, Tauriel, Luthien-- Elizabeth, who is most breakable among them, and whose mortality she is acutely aware of. They weren't so far from mortals, then. She's not so unaware of the girl she's taken charge of.

Sitting in the grass with her ever-present sewing in her lap, at the bottom of the tree while they plot out ideas, she makes a face suddenly-- "Perhaps it wouldn't be entirely unwise to include some protection against fire."

Her brother, the diplomat.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Well, maybe it'll make Nuada feel better to scare the absolute shit out of somebody.

Severus can't work on warding all the time or his brain will figuratively melt out of his ears (normal exertion and being aggravated at the ship's meddling playing equal parts), and after several hours at it, he takes a break. It's nothing noteworthy; he vanishes (literally) from the gardens, gets something to eat, checks his messages, then heads back down - he walks from the garden entrance to the flets instead of Apparating, and it's mostly out of respect instead of anything as practical as stretching his legs.

At first, he's not sure what he's looking at. There's a half-second that seems to be suspended in time during which his brain tries to find a way to reconcile the sight of Nuala sitting peacefully besides a massive wolf and a massive wolf. His subconscious checks off that she's fine and, utterly unhelpfully, lets his kneejerk reaction of complete terror take over. Suddenly he's sixteen in an underground hallway and a shadow is about to devour him and-- Severus takes a step backwards, not realizing he'd stopped walking. His foot hits a rock and for the second bloody time he finds himself toppled over in an embarrassing display of tragic human graces in front of elven royalty. At least he's a little further away this time? Merlin. ]

( it doesn't-- nuala doesn't understand, at first. or, in fact, as it's happening and indeed afterwards, but there is a moment where she leans forward, puzzled, and then a moment later he's on his back and could be hurt and she's moving, fists hitching her skirts clear off the grass to hurry over without entirely thinking it through.

she has, by the time she reaches him (it doesn't take long), been able to put the obvious together enough to realize that he is extremely unlikely to have had such a bad reaction to her needlepoint. )

Please, Nuada, for me?

( --the slightly harried request that he throw off the glamour probably doesn't need to be fully stated to be clear, in context. )

Have you hurt yourself? I wish you'd sit up, let me look--

( ... fussing. )

[ He watches the boy draw near, then skitter like a rabbit. A growl threatens from the back of a wolfish throat, but then at Nuala's request the Glamour dissipates like a black fog, leaving Nuada seated on the grass with an arm draped over a bent knee. ]

Leave him be, he is no babe to be coddled.

I'm not hurt, just stupid. [ - is gritted out in a remarkably un-Severus-like way, more embarrassed that Nuala's rushed over to him than he is over tripping in the first place. He sits up under his own power though he isn't so rude as to brush the princess away (mindless of her bare hands on his). ]

Sorry.

[ It sounds even more flat and deeply uncool out loud than it did in his head, where it already sounded pretty lame. (Oh god his subconscious is being taken over by the 80s slang of his students, kill it with fire.)

Of course it was a glamour, he can see the seam of it in his mind's eye now in retrospect. Had he not startled he'd have seen it in realtime. Good going, professor of magic. He reminds himself of every iron moment stood before Greyback, unflinching and cold.

It doesn't really help. He's still sitting on the grass next to a fairy princess who's worried he might have sprained his damn ankle. ]

( without so much as glancing back at her brother-- ) He is a friend, Nuada, I know you to be at least passing familiar with the concept.

( they're an affectionate pair, these two. usually she just pushes his head in the dirt, but that would require taking her attention away from the peculiar nothing that is all she finds within severus when he fails to divest himself of her fussing.

she wants to ask. this is not, however, the moment to do so-- that isn't a conversation she wishes to have with her brother as its audience. he's difficult enough about the company she keeps without deciding that the limitations of her gifts here justify reopening negotiations on how and where she spends her time, so it will keep. but her head tilts, and her expression is more measuring than it was before. )

You needn't apologise; my brother is a nuisance, and he surely won't.

( open ) i am not made of porcelain pleasantries; you will find that these things are my armor

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