remove this world and its sadness [open]

[taurohtar]

Who: Tauriel (plus whomever feels comfortable walking into her room)
Where: Room 215
When: February 14th
What: gurl she's cutting all her hair off with manicure scissors what

 

 

[Being a creature that does not require sleep the same way humans do, Tauriel has spent most of the last week or so carefully exploring the hotel once most of the guests have locked themselves in their rooms. Being light on her feet and inhumanly quick, she has managed to avoid detection by most, taking advantage of the dimmed lights and long shadows to slink through the halls, slipping in and out of rooms, testing doors that do not open and windows that will not budge. The sight of the trees outside shrouded in mist has a kind of wretched longing curling in her breast, but she pushes that down for now. She cannot focus on how near the trees are while she cannot reach them, it will only compound her sorrow, and she does not have the luxury of letting herself fade here, in this unfamiliar realm, in a building she cannot escape, with people she does not know who do not trust her.

During the course of her wanderings, she had discovered a small mirror bolted to the wall of what was labeled a "restroom," a mirror that swung open when she touched it. Astounded for a moment, she had simply stared at first, but then her curiosity got the best of her, and she looked behind the door on the little shelves. There was not much there of use -- a small bar of soap wrapped in thin paper, a frankly miniscule pair of scissors that she can barely fit her fingers through, three strange little sticks with buds of soft fluff on either end that look like pussy willows, and something that claimed to be a bandage but was sealed in a paper sleeve that she had never seen before -- but she pocketed all the items nonetheless, and continued on her hunt.

It has finally sunk in that she is not leaving this place, not for a very long time. Perhaps, to a being that is over six hundred years old, that is not as terrible a sentence as to others, but she still feels a terrible pang of grief in her chest at the realization that she is trapped. She will not get to see her beloved forest again, she will not get to roam the hills and plains she knows so well, she will not get to hear her own tongue spoken by those who share her culture.

This, compounding the grief she has borne ever since the Battle of Five Armies, was almost enough to send her into a melodramatic tailspin, but she had managed to resist the urge and instead simply shut herself in her room for two solid days. Upon rediscovering the tiny scissors in her pocket when she went to take off her surcoat, an idea formed in her mind, and that is what brings her to where she is now; sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed, her hair loosed from its customary braids and hanging about her face, hiding her ears and brushing against her cheeks as she stares down at the scissors in her hands. Clearing her throat, she sets the small carved stone Kíli had given to her on the bedspread before her crossed knees so that she might look at it as she cut her hair in penance, and begins to sing a soft, slow mourning song in her native tongue as she lifts the tiny scissors to her hair.

One by one, long red locks fall to pool in her lap.]

Comments

[villainously]

[ more and more, this place begins to ache of the same hollow hopelessness of Neverland. all the aimless souls, trapped and confused and lost. ripped from what they loved and wanted and offered no answers as to why. it's too early for most to fall in to the resignation that they might never leave. many hold onto the ferocity that they will make it out, ferocity he refuses to let go of himself. it's the only way to survive a place like this, to determinedly remember what waits for you outside of it. in Neverland, he held onto hatred and revenge, it poisoned him from head to toe but it did keep him fighting.

now he holds onto the promise of going back to Storybrooke. bringing a mother back to her son, a chance at home, happiness. if he fought centuries for revenge, he'd fight far longer for that.

the problem is, and he knows it ... being in this place? trapped, after already suffering centuries of the same song to different notes? well, he's not handling it as effortlessly as one might think. he should be used to it only he isn't, he finally had freedom and hope and it's been stolen away. he's anxious and desperate, sharp when he should be patient, unraveling at the seams as he searches for answers that aren't at all apparent. between that, the reappearance of Baelfire, the uncertain ground of where he stands with Emma, his hand weighing on his thoughts, he's not made too many friends. he generally doesn't bother himself with such foolishness, except for one.

he still remembers walking in on the strange woman with red hair his very first day. she reminded him of the Enchanted Forest, and nobody else in the hotel does. not even its former residents. it's the world he understands, compared to the oddness of a modern one. and he knows that however accidentally, he offended her. if it'd been intentional, it'd be different. hell, most times he wouldn't even bother, but the look in her eyes? the sadness, the lost aching, the sorrow that harbors in the heart and takes you prisoner, that he understands. he's felt it too many times before. and he relates to it, and feels badly that he grieved her further when she is surely already grieving enough.

he has thought on how to try and make amends and come up quite limited at first. an apology would be uncomfortable, but a gesture of good will might help. it is only when the cold strikes that he thinks of something. he tried to give the blanket to Emma first, because the chill only reminds him of how terrified he'd been at the prospect of losing her. he still remembers how she was cold as death, or nearly — how she held onto him and for just a few hours, he was allowed to dote on her as he quite desperately wanted to. unsurprisingly, she'd turned him away, and it didn't much surprise him. she didn't take help easily if she didn't need it, and she might have been right in her assessment that he needed it himself. instead, though, he hoped to use it to mend a fence. or at least try to.

Tauriel might despise him yet but he'd feel better.

he brought it to her door, intending to leave it on her bed to cancel out the possibility of her refusing the charity. he didn't hear the low murmur of her song until it was too late and the door was already open. she was clearly present and she was even more clearly in the middle of something. he didn't understand the haunting words but the melody leaves little to the interpretation. that hits him first and the fact she is cutting her hair with the most impossibly small device hits him second.

so much for making amends, he has to guess that he has only succeeded in making it worse.

he looks downright ashamed as he looks down, aware of how intrusive he inadvertently was. ] My apologies, I was trying to... [ he trails off. it's not important what he was trying to do. he looks back at her, expression heavy with remorse, and yes, understanding. ]

I am sorry for your loss. [ he's not talking about her hair, he's talking about whatever name in her heart she is mourning. perhaps he's not supposed to know, but he does and he can't avoid saying it this time. ]

[taurohtar]

[Grief is a serious business for the Eldar, to whom death is an if and not a when. Losing a loved one, whether it be to a mortal wound or to the Grey Havens, is a life-defining moment. When your family is expected to live for thousands of years, to have one member suddenly gone is, of course, quite a shock.

Kíli was a dwarf, and therefore fated to die a mortal death, but that does not mean Tauriel will not mourn him all the same.

Long, healthy hair is something of a status symbol for her people, and hers was her pride and joy. Being low-born, a commoner raised in the court of her king, Tauriel had always had something of a chip on her shoulder regarding her Silvan blood, made so incredibly obvious by the bright copper of her hair. Pale hair, silvery blond like the hair of her king, was considered desirable, but if she could not be blond, she could at least have hair that cascaded down her spine like a red-gold cloak, thick and strong, curled at the ends like an afterthought. Cutting of one's hair is a way to mark mourning, shame, or banishment.

Tauriel suffers from all three afflictions, and so here she is. To cut it so close to her scalp is the harshest self-flagellation she can think to inflict upon herself that doesn't involve actual flagellation. So she sits on her bed and sings quietly, doing her best to avoid getting choked up as she forms the ancient prayers, entreating the Valar — who might not even hear her prayers in this strange world — to watch over Kíli's soul as he travels to rest in the halls of Aulë with his ancestors.

She cannot say she's surprised when her door opens. That the one opening it is the pirate she met on the first day is also unsurprising, and she does not stop with her singing and her cutting until she has finished the prayer she was in the middle of.]

You have a habit of letting yourself into my room, Killian Jones. [It might almost sound like a joke, if she did not sound so tired and sad, if her eyes were not so dark, if her hands did not continue to slowly, methodically, snip her hair with the tiny, curved scissors so that it fell loose about her legs.

She cannot bring herself to acknowledge his condolences, knowing that if she does, she will start to cry, and so she simply inclines her head a little, most likely giving him an excellent view of the mess she's made of her hair. She doesn't care about it anymore.]

[villainously]

[ he can't say what compels him to linger, even as she continues her song and ignores that he's even present. perhaps even in his guilt, he wonders if she might not want to be alone in this moment. his loss of everyone he's ever known has been punctuated by aching loneliness. he'd never let anyone close enough to see him grieve, but that didn't change how empty it could feel. he can't take her pain away, he can't even offer her any comfort. condolences won't help, he knows enough about loss to know. yet the one thing he could possibly give her, not having to be alone while she mourns... he almost doesn't suspect she would want it, not from him.

yet he lingers anyway.

cutting her hair might have seemed extreme to some. to Killian, well, he knew full well sometimes the pain needed an outlet into something else. he'd burned a sail and devoted his life to punishing the king that had stolen his brother from him, he'd done even worse to avenge Milah. he'd sat countless hours for a painful tattoo etched into his arm to mourn her, too. he couldn't actually say if such reaction really helped... but he understood it.

she really can't see the sad smile he offers at her words. yes, he does. he should work on that. ] Pirates are dreadful about boundaries. [ and it's kind of laughable, that in his attempts to make amends for the last time, he's only made it worse. he looks at the tiny devices she's using to shear her hair, and is silent for a moment. he really shouldn't, but he can't help himself. (story of his idiotic life, really.) ]

Getting the back might be difficult on your own.

[ the offer is hidden between the lines; but it's there. he's certainly not gifted with hair styling, he could still help her in this. if she wanted him to. if she asked him to leave, then he would. ]

[pontificus]

[She's come to search out the woman who so bravely explored the inn-- no, no. It is a hotel, they say. Lucrezia is too fond of her, eager to have some sort of the security she finds herself without. Even at her husband's estate, she has had something to fall back. Of course his abuses are altogether something different.

Padding down the hall in soft slippers, Lucrezia comes to the lady elf's door. She means to peer into it to see if she's there. Instead she knocks softly on the hard wood.]

Tauriel? It is I, Lady Lucrezia.

[taurohtar]

[Tauriel had not given much thought to the lovely young girl she had taken such a shine to — how terrible of her, to have put her so easily out of her mind, but she had been occupied with other thoughts, sadly — since she had come to terms with the fact that she would most likely not be leaving this place, at least, not for a very long time. She has been so consumed with her own grief that she had not spared a thought for nearly anything else at all, and so the gentle knock on her door is quite a surprise.

What is more surprising, of course, is what is said through the door.]

I— It is unlocked, my lady. [Tauriel does not much want visitors, at the moment, but Lucrezia is of noble blood, and Tauriel is still reluctant to be rude to those of higher station than her. Perhaps the girl will not tarry too long, and she can be alone with her tears once more.]

[pontificus]

[She does not think that anyone would not wish to see her if they tell her to enter, so she does so in high spirits. It is not that things are going particularly well for her here, being so alone and separate from her family, but she not yet so hardened to take this place as hard as she could. But when she enters the room and sees the elven woman with most of her hair sheared off, it is hard not to stop and gasp at such a sight.]

Tauriel-- [She tries not to balk, realizing that it is indeed a terrible time to bother her.]

I had only hoped to see you well, but I see you are not. My pardons for intruding so.