#at which point quynh falls to the balrog and everyone has a bad time about it

[youssefguedira]

lotr au snippet for you all this evening please enjoy them <3 (as always for @spacegirlsgang!)

Yusuf nearly doesn't approach him at all. 

Regardless of what Andy had said, when he reaches the small balcony she'd pointed him towards (more of a ledge, really, given its lack of any kind of railing) and sees Nicolò sitting there, his legs hanging over his edge and his back to Yusuf, shoulders slumped like he's carrying the weight of the world, it feels like something he shouldn't be witnessing. So he almost turns and goes back the way he came, certain that Andy, or one of the hobbits, or even Sebastien will do a better job, because Nicolò hates him – but his job is, in part, to make people smile. He is not as much of a fighter as everyone else in this cobbled-together company, but that he can do. 

Either way, before he can do anything, Nicolò turns and looks at him over his shoulder. He doesn't say a word. Yusuf is pinned in place by his gaze. 

"Hi," Yusuf says after an uncomfortably long pause. "Andy– I wanted to see if you were okay."

Nicolò's lips quirk up into the tiniest of smiles at that, so slight Yusuf wonders if he'd imagined it. He turns away, his back to Yusuf once more.

 "I know I'm not – I know we aren't friends, really, but. If you wanted to talk," Yusuf ventures, trails off mid-sentence when Nicolò shows no response. Maybe Andy was wrong, and he doesn't want company. Certainly not Yusuf's, at the least. 

He decides to try one more time, at the least so he can tell Andy he did try, and because it wouldn't be right, he thinks, to leave him like this without one more attempt.

"Can I sit?" he asks.

Nicolò is silent long enough that Yusuf considers leaving, but then he looks over his shoulder once more and nods. 

So Yusuf makes his way across the short space from the door to the ledge Nicolò is sitting on. He lowers himself down carefully, conscious of the fact that it's not particularly wide and there's barely an inch of space between them, and then swings his legs over the edge to mimic Nicolò's position. Below them, Lorien, in all its magical, eerie glory, and above them, through a break in the canopy of leaves, the stars. Somewhere, the elves are still singing the lament for Quynh, though it's faint, now. 

"I'm sorry," is what Yusuf says, because he can't think of anything else. From this distance, Nicolò's eyes are red-rimmed, and he looks – he looks tired. 

"Thank you," Nicolò responds. He doesn't look at Yusuf. Just keeps staring ahead. 

"I didn't know her well," Yusuf says, "but. She was kind." 

Nicolò is silent for a long time. Then – "She was my sister," Nicolò says, so quiet it's barely audible. 

And Yusuf doesn't know what to say to that, because what can he say? So instead, he sits in silence, and waits. 

After a while, Nicolò speaks again. "Tell me about something." 

Yusuf nods, probably too quickly. "About what?" 

"I don't know." Nicolò tilts his head then, finally looks at him properly. "You're a storyteller, no? Tell me a story." 

There's something so quietly vulnerable in his voice, so exhausted, that Yusuf couldn't refuse even if he wanted to. "Okay," Yusuf says. "Okay." 

So he does.