[OPEN] I just want to play on my pan-pipes

[aenseidhe]

Characters: Iorveth and YOOOU
Date: 2/12
Location: Outskirts of the Wood sector
Situation: Elf sits in tree doing typical elf shit like having pointy ears and playing his manly elf flute and leaving traps that will set you on fire.
Warnings/Rating: Nothing really? He won't let anyone actually step on the traps :| Unless anyone is Dean Winchester.



[ A suitable tree hadn't been hard to find, nor had been setting out the sturdy enough, thick enough branches and wooden planks over a couple level enough arms of the tree, nor the subsequently lashing them down with rope to make a makeshift sort of lofted platform with room enough for him and his pack alone. Setting the traps had been more of the difficult part. It wasn't that making and setting them were particularly hard - the crafting second nature to him after so many years - but it was more trying to find materials for the last few, after he exhausted the ones he had with them. That, and, listening to a bunch of humans telling him how horrible he is for wanting to put up fortifications where he sleeps. It's been laughable how absurd it is, and he almost wishes another Scoia'tael, or Geralt were around just to hear it. The day he sleeps without a bow in hand and something around to wake him if another approaches is the day he finds himself in a free Elven state, far out of Nordling or Nilfgaardian lands. He wouldn't even had mentioned it if he wasn't concerned a Kedan might wander by.

Despite the fact he'd sarcastically told someone he would set up a warning sign, there is no sign at all, as that would completely defeat the purpose of traps, but the elf seated high up on his lofted landing in the tree, partly camouflaged in the branches and leaves, is keeping an eye down at the area below. Just in case some idiot actually comes wandering out here. As much as he'd love to let them right into the trap that will ignite and light them up like a bonfire, A.) he doesn't want to waste the trap on an unobservant simpleton and B.) he doesn't want to have to evade guards without knowing the land well enough to hide somewhere and/or be wanted for murder quite yet.

So, with bow placed over his lap and quiver close by on the landing, he's idly playing at a wooden flute - a simple, soothing kind of tune that echoes nicely through the forest. It's something of home that relieves the tension a little that he'd been holding off since arrive. The woods here aren't like those in Temeria or Aedirn. They aren't as full, and the air still smells weirdly of sea. But he'll have to get used to it. He doesn't have a choice. If the phenomenon is what he thinks it is, he could be here for a short time, or he could be here forever. He can't know. At least not yet. ]

Comments

[emasculates]

We are not a cabal.

[She says that with a touch of ironic amusement as she takes a seat of her own a short distance away. She holds out one of the cups for him to take, and if/when he decides to take it she'll hold out her own for it to be filled.]

[aenseidhe]

'We'?

[ He'll take the cup, glance inside (Saskia had been poisoned by something in the mug rather than the drink), perhaps even pass a finger along the inside of it because he peers back up to her, eyebrow raised in question. There's idle curiosity in what rebellion she had been fighting before here.

The thermos is brought up to fill hers before his and he'll be waiting for her to drink first. ]

[emasculates]

I too have been a revolutionary. One of many hats I have worn.

[... and because he's testing that cup for poison, she simply rolls her eyes.]

If I wanted you dead, I would not be duplicitous about it. Do not insult me by thinking I would use a coward's weapon. You are lucky I do not care to waste my drink by tossing it in your face on grounds of offense.

[BUT SHE'LL TAKE A DRINK OUT OF IT STUBBORNLY ANYWAY. She even tips her cup towards him to let him take stock of its contents afterwards.]

[aenseidhe]

And your cause?

[ He can't imagine humans having much of a revolution worthy cause aside from their whining over taxes and another taking their lands. Lands they'd usually stolen from another before and conveniently forgotten. But Aisha doesn't seem so petty.

There's a laugh at the drink tossing comment, so this is less accusatory and more amused. ]

I've only known humans to use coward's weapons. I once knew a prince who employed another to do the very same against one far less worthy of poisoning than me.

[ But satisfied, and leaning forward to make a point of checking the offered cup, he raises his in toast and takes a drink. ]

... cw for anti-americanisms/terrorism references

[emasculates]

A complicated one.

[She takes a quiet drink of her tea, and gives Iorveth a considering look over the rim of her cup. She hasn't yet explained this to anyone, and isn't certain how to frame it for someone who's never even heard of Earth, and is more ignorant of its ways than an American child.]

Another country intentionally plunged mine into war. A ploy. We were pawns between that power, America, and another - the Soviets. America had recently fought and lost a significant campaign and their powers were depleted. So they sought to draw the Soviets into a similar war, hoping to do the same to them lest it come to conflict between the both of them, and America should lose. They gave my people weapons, funding, training. And then set us up to be slaughtered by the Soviets. Our president was under the thumb of the Soviets, and invited them into our country to quash a rebel uprising, those who were angry at social and societal customs he was attempting to take away or re-write to suit himself. He had nearly a hundred thousand people quietly executed or exiled for opposing him. When we threatened his gates too greatly, he begged the Soviets for soldiers to put us down.

[She rolls her shoulders in an easy shrug. Though it's a personal story, there's nothing personal about the telling of it. It is a story, like any other, and no more especial for being hers.]

Over a hundred thousand Mujahideen were killed. And some one and a half million civilians, by the war's end. And for that, we had bought the lives of barely fifteen thousand Soviet boys. I was six when the conflict started, sixteen when it finished. There was little else for me but war, and by then I'd grown fond of it. One who had fought beside me became a freedom fighter. And America, the country that had put a gun in his hand and trained him, called him 'terrorist' for doing what he knew. To this day, they invade our land under the pretense of reform, to take our resources - oil and opium - and say they are making a positive difference in the lives of the Afghan people. And they turn a blind eye to the oppression and cruelty of their soldiers, all because it puts a profit in their coffers.

[She Really Really Really dislikes America, okay. And then she cocks her head, and, story concluded, addresses his second comment as well.]

Poison is considered a woman's weapon on Earth. Synonymous with cowardice, expecting the two to be the same. And I have never met a prince worthy of the trappings of the title.

/o/ all cool with me

[aenseidhe]

[ A listens to the whole tale quietly, sipping at his tea and swirling the liquid in the cup. Political conflicts and the intricacies of war are familiar to him, have been his life for the last century. There's a snort in places, already acquiring a sour taste in his mouth for both America and the Soviets. ]

Those of a smaller force, without the means to protect their people and disadvantaged by numbers, resources, and the necessary cruelty are often trampled underfoot.

[ But it all seems so typical of humans. Petty wars over land, resources, in the name of weakening the others. So, so familiar. Even those caught in between, devastated and decimated. There's a respect that grows him him for Aisha, feeling that her life seemed in some ways like his.

For the term 'terrorist'. ]

Freedom fighters to those with their hand on the leash are either 'rebels' or 'terrorists'. When all that is left to reclaim your dignity is taking it by force, to be more ruthless than the ones with their thumb to you, all that is left is lashing out.

[ A pause and he sips at his tea for a thoughtful moment, the part added on a little muttered. ]

Regardless of the reality of fighting a losing battle.

[ A slight smile curls his lips. ]

The woman he poisoned was more worthy of the title of ruler than the prince. I would have happily seen him lynched by the people.

[emasculates]

People of greater stature do not always realize when they trample things that bite back.

[She thinks of Clay, of Max, and her mouth twitches upwards into the ghost of a smile. A pity about Clay, but they both burned.]

There are more interesting ways to kill a man than by lynching.

[aenseidhe]

Perhaps do not realize, or perhaps do not care, thinking they are safe behind their troops and their walls. That brute force is all that's needed to protect them.

[ A short smirk comes to him, thinking how many he'd proved wrong. Perhaps not kings, but commanders, dignitaries, loud mouthed racists thinking they were safe. ]

That is true, but the peasantry isn't known for being creative.

[emasculates]

Would that they were right. It would make our jobs more of a challenge.

[Her tone is wry. No man is untouchable, no matter what he pretends. The devil of Karakum learned it, to his horror. And her father, the warlord, who kept poor sad skeletons in the bowels of the earth for his amusement. But as people live and breathe, there is no one that cannot be torn down from their perch, be it by the hands of one or an army of many.

And certainly, it requires sacrifice. Time, money, energy. Blood and tears. Sometimes even one's own life. But it is worth it, for the sort of vengeance that has driven her.

It is still strange to live without it now. To know her work is completed. Oh, Afghanistan will likely not shrug off the American influence in this generation or the next. Fahd is dead, but his fight will continue. But her part in that war ended when the bomb split open the distant sky. She died - for she knows quite well she is dead - with her foot planted on a man's chest as she bent down to saw his ear off his head. A bloody trophy, her favourite sort.]

The immediacy and anger of a mob often neuters the need for creativity. It is easier to come by in premeditated vengeance.

[aenseidhe]

No man or being otherwise is invincible. It only takes a well placed blow to prove that. Topple a king and the pawns quake in fear.

[ Temeria had fallen to pieces after Foltest's death, crumbled as the vulture nobles ripped each other apart to crawl towards the crown like the underhanded scum they are. The once greatly influential kingdom divied up between Kaedwen and Redania, all at the consequence of a single death with no apparent heir.

A slight smile comes to Iorveth's lips at the memory of having a hand in it, before covering it with the cup of tea, taking a deep drink.

Given the chance, he'd do the same to every monarch in the Northern Kingdoms. And once done, move onto Nilfgaard for the Emperor that promised them freedom and a sovereign land only to betray those that would have died as fodder for their mad expansion. Watch the lost remaining dh'oine scurry without their leaders. But another human would soon clamor to the top, through chain of command or merely splitting the skulls of all men ahead of him. It's the nature of them. ]

Had the Scoia'tael had precedence over it, we'd likely have invented something befitting such waste of air. Yet the prince was still needed at the time. [ A pause and he stares into his cup as he swirls the remaining tea. ] And it would not have culled the peasantry for elves to have taken their revenge.

[emasculates]

I have never liked monarchies.

[Or anything that deems someone worthy by the merit of the feats of their ancestors. Would that the world relied on the ideology of a meritocracy.]

They are considerably more trouble than they are worth.

[aenseidhe]

[ Blink. ] Nor I, but there is not much in the manner of choice. Someone must rule.

[ Because what is any government besides a monarchy. Granted, there have been plenty of usurping done by other noble families. Whoever has the larger army. It is what it is. ]

Considering the crafts they do seem to manage are often shite in comparison to Dwarven or Elven make, yes.

[emasculates]

Someone. The firmest hand or hardest fist. But there is no perfect ruler. A trait deemed admirable in one man is deceitful in another. No system of government is immune to it.

[Iorveth, let her tell you about presidencies. ... Actually, on second thought, don't, because her vitriolic hatred of Taraki could probably warp the fabric of space-time as we know it.]

Elves and Dwarves. Fictions, in my world.

[aenseidhe]

Typically, yes. [ Negl, he would stab most human rulers in the face, and the single elven one as well, but then there's Saskia. And she's really the only one of her league. But she's no where near human or Aen Seidhe. ] Occasionally, there is one that seeks a rule for the sake of those that need them. I've met only one truly worthy of the trust of the people in a hundred years.

[ After Enid an Gleanna had handed the Scoia'tael, the Aen Seidhe's own youth, over to be slaughtered, he'd sworn never to trust another idealistic ruler spouting freedom and equality and safe haven. He hadn't had a hope he'd live to see the day the Aen Seidhe's fate would be anything but staring down a spear. But Saskia had been another thing entirely - not a warrior or royal, not a rebel leader, not some one looking for title, profit, or anything more or less than what is right. She didn't even belong to the conflict, could have flown miles away and had nothing to do with it. Nobility in the truest sense of it. It brings a sort quirk of his lips that might have been a smile, but he'll take a sip of his tea to hide it, doot dee doo ]

And Gnomes, Dryads, Dragons, Vran. A sundry of others that humans don't often take note of before ploughing through their land to claim it as their own.

[emasculates]

I have also met one.

[She tilts her head. It's an oddly calculating gesture, performed as she takes another sip of tea.]

Who was yours?

[And she is curious. The sorts of people who deserve leadership are rare to come by, and too often they die before their time while others less worthy live on in their place. In a way, she's glad she did not long survive Fahd.]

It is a human trait. They concern themselves more with expansion than with keeping what they already have.

[She's hardly setting herself apart from the race specifically, but from the foolishness? Absolutely.]