#WHYWouldIEverMoanDoingYoga

[not-glorfindel-stop-asking]

What’s more mortifying: Accidentally moaning while stretching after a long night of work, or catching Eredin’s very intrigued expression when you do?

*SCANDALIZED INDIGNATION NOISES*

Excuse me? Excuse me?!

First of all, why would I—why would I ever—why, in the name of every recorded tome in Imladris, would I make such a noise in the first place?

Do you believe I am afflicted by some grievous, muscle-locking curse? That my joints, through years of dedicated transcription and scroll-carrying, have begun to protest with the anguished wails of the damned?

What kind of harrowing, eldritch, full-body stretch do you think I am performing? Some sort of ancient, secret Elven yoga known only to the most devoted of scribes, whispered about in dimly lit halls, passed down in hushed, reverent tones from one ink-stained scholar to the next?

Do you imagine me slipping away in the dead of night to enact some solemn, ceremonial sequence of movements—the Transcriber’s Salutation to the Moon, perhaps—knowing that only the most enlightened of archivists may achieve its perfect form?

Do you suspect that through these sacred, arcane stretches, I am communing with the very spirits of knowledge? That each precise, fluid motion grants me a deeper understanding of the universe, while also, apparently, forcing involuntary noises of overwhelming enlightenment from my lips?

Because that is the only explanation I can fathom for why you seem to think this would ever occur.

And I assure you, it does not.

Second—why is Eredin watching me stretch?!

WHEN is Eredin watching me stretch?!

We have routines. We have schedules. We arrive in the archives at precisely the same time each morning. We complete our work with discipline and diligence. We retire to our quarters at reasonable, sensible, dignified hours.

So at what point—at what point—in this perfectly respectable schedule does Eredin find the time to observe my supposed moments of physical repose?

Oh, Valar, am I being perceived during my morning warm-ups? My post-transcription wrist rotations? My evening scroll-organizing lunges? Am I to believe that while I am simply existing, going about my scholarly duties with all the grace and decorum befitting an Elf of Imladris, there exists a witness to these deeply personal moments of bodily realignment?

I—I refuse to believe it. I refuse.

Eredin also has a strict routine. He arrives on time, sets out the ink and quills with an almost religious reverence, drinks his cocoa at precisely the same angle every morning, and to my knowledge—to my explicit, deeply held knowledge—nowhere in that schedule is there a designated timeslot for “staring at one’s master’s unparalleled yoga form.”

And—and—even if, in some deeply cursed, utterly unthinkable reality, this was occurring, I demand to know why. What, precisely, is so fascinating? The sheer elegance of my stretches? The sharp precision of my movements? The undeniable majesty of my posture, honed by centuries of perfecting the ideal seated reading position?

No. No, this is madness. This is slander.

And above all else, NO ONE—not one single soul—should be looking at me in leggings.

Eredin is far too focused on his own absurdly meticulous routines—his cocoa preparation, his gentle-but-firm battle with disorganized documentation, his determined hoarding of the exact right shade of ink—to spend time observing me.

And yet.

AND YET.

If, somehow, impossibly, he has noticed—if he has looked up from his cocoa cup, his quill, his beloved system of organizational perfection and beheld me stretching—why, in all the ages of Arda, would he look intrigued?!