[ Having met both Éowyn and her horse, the rider with a spear in hand isn't altogether alarming; certainly Chris wouldn't want to instigate anything with him in particular, but he's not half-convinced he's going to get gored any second. (He might be about five percent convinced, but those are odds he's comfortable working with.)
Walking through the great wooden gates of the city, he can't help but look around curiously. It's astounding, the details he sees everywhere. Chris has visited dozens of new planets, made contact with just as many civilizations, each one unique and wondrous because of it. He can't help but feel that same effervescent excitement now, even with all the wary faces looking at him as he trudges along behind the rider who greeted him down below.
All in all, it doesn't take that long to get up to the main attraction, the building on the top of the hill that must be where the king lives and therefore, by extension, where Éowyn lives as well.
In fact, she's waiting for him at the top of a long flight of stairs. Chris is dimly grateful for the physical fitness requirements of serving in Starfleet and his almost religious dedication to keeping his bone and muscle density as stable as possible. It would be the height of embarrassment if he was huffing and puffing by the time he stood in front of her. As it is, he barely has a chance to say a word before she's speaking to him, holding out a bowl in which sits a piece of bread and some flaky salt.
He's doing as he's told before she even finishes speaking, though he can't help the way he watches her instead of the bread. She looks the same, which makes sense, considering he saw her just a few hours ago. But she also looks different. She's still as pretty as ever, but there's something harder about her face now, something distant and grim. It feels like some of the color has been leeched out of her, like he's looking at her through a pane of glass.
The bread is pretty good, actually, if quite a bit coarser than he's used to, and the salt has an almost herbaceous taste that has the chef in him perking up, wondering just where it's harvested and how that might affect the flavor. Obviously, that's a concern he immediately brushes away, because there's much more important things to focus on, things like Éowyn ordering he gives away his weapons.
He's not an idiot. He's well aware this is a ritual of some kind, probably one to establish that he's friend and not foe, that he'll be afforded some level of protection while he's here. He doubts the princess offers bread to just anyone that washes up on these rocky shores, so this is significant. As is the eye contact he makes after her instruction, Chris searching her face for a long moment before slowly reaching his hand towards his pocket. He has a phaser with him, tucked away because he had assumed he didn't need it. Chances are these people wouldn't recognize it as a weapon, probably wouldn't even know how to discharge it, but he can't forget that little girl in New Eden who, in her curiosity, had set off the detonate function when his back was turned talking to her village elders. He'd only barely had enough time to shove her away from the literal bomb in her hands and throw himself on top of it to stop the blast. He'd earned himself one hell of a dressing-down from Kahn and Burnham, and 24 hours in the med bay with Doctor Proctor and the osteo-regenerator for his trouble.
It's highly unlikely they have one of those here.
Thankfully, Starfleet actually learned a lesson from that whole fiasco — he conveniently left out the part where he broke General Order One in that village too in his subsequent mission report — and now the phasers have a setting where they can be keyed to their user's DNA sequence. He flicks that setting on, feeling it hum under his touch, and only when it has fully powered down and looks like nothing more than a strange hunk of metal does he pull it out and hand it over to Háma who has been watching him with the same grim expression seen on Éowyn's face.
He turns back to the woman he knows, his eyebrow quirking slightly. ] Well. Hi to you too.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sforzinda
no subject
Date: 2025-09-08 07:12 pm (UTC)Walking through the great wooden gates of the city, he can't help but look around curiously. It's astounding, the details he sees everywhere. Chris has visited dozens of new planets, made contact with just as many civilizations, each one unique and wondrous because of it. He can't help but feel that same effervescent excitement now, even with all the wary faces looking at him as he trudges along behind the rider who greeted him down below.
All in all, it doesn't take that long to get up to the main attraction, the building on the top of the hill that must be where the king lives and therefore, by extension, where Éowyn lives as well.
In fact, she's waiting for him at the top of a long flight of stairs. Chris is dimly grateful for the physical fitness requirements of serving in Starfleet and his almost religious dedication to keeping his bone and muscle density as stable as possible. It would be the height of embarrassment if he was huffing and puffing by the time he stood in front of her. As it is, he barely has a chance to say a word before she's speaking to him, holding out a bowl in which sits a piece of bread and some flaky salt.
He's doing as he's told before she even finishes speaking, though he can't help the way he watches her instead of the bread. She looks the same, which makes sense, considering he saw her just a few hours ago. But she also looks different. She's still as pretty as ever, but there's something harder about her face now, something distant and grim. It feels like some of the color has been leeched out of her, like he's looking at her through a pane of glass.
The bread is pretty good, actually, if quite a bit coarser than he's used to, and the salt has an almost herbaceous taste that has the chef in him perking up, wondering just where it's harvested and how that might affect the flavor. Obviously, that's a concern he immediately brushes away, because there's much more important things to focus on, things like Éowyn ordering he gives away his weapons.
He's not an idiot. He's well aware this is a ritual of some kind, probably one to establish that he's friend and not foe, that he'll be afforded some level of protection while he's here. He doubts the princess offers bread to just anyone that washes up on these rocky shores, so this is significant. As is the eye contact he makes after her instruction, Chris searching her face for a long moment before slowly reaching his hand towards his pocket. He has a phaser with him, tucked away because he had assumed he didn't need it. Chances are these people wouldn't recognize it as a weapon, probably wouldn't even know how to discharge it, but he can't forget that little girl in New Eden who, in her curiosity, had set off the detonate function when his back was turned talking to her village elders. He'd only barely had enough time to shove her away from the literal bomb in her hands and throw himself on top of it to stop the blast. He'd earned himself one hell of a dressing-down from Kahn and Burnham, and 24 hours in the med bay with Doctor Proctor and the osteo-regenerator for his trouble.
It's highly unlikely they have one of those here.
Thankfully, Starfleet actually learned a lesson from that whole fiasco — he conveniently left out the part where he broke General Order One in that village too in his subsequent mission report — and now the phasers have a setting where they can be keyed to their user's DNA sequence. He flicks that setting on, feeling it hum under his touch, and only when it has fully powered down and looks like nothing more than a strange hunk of metal does he pull it out and hand it over to Háma who has been watching him with the same grim expression seen on Éowyn's face.
He turns back to the woman he knows, his eyebrow quirking slightly. ] Well. Hi to you too.