#like violence is not possible in his world for like most elves

[astrababyy]

Okay, but in all honesty, what would’ve happened to Sophie if Bronte had gotten his way in the first book? Like, these people uprooted her entire life and tore her away from her family, dumping her with a new one whose sanities hang by a freaking thread. If Sophie hadn’t gotten into Foxfire, if Bronte had gotten his way, what the hell would’ve happened to her? It says somewhere in the book that Bronte might push to have her sent to Exillium. I just can’t wrap my head around the amount of audacity a person has to have to force a freaking twelve year old through all that then still not give her the benefit of the fucking doubt like who does that.

[arlathvhenan]

I think it’s weird that people try and point the finger at Solas for being racist and bigoted when I don’t think I could name a single character in DAI who isn’t?

Except maybe Cole and he’s the exception as he’s a spirit who’s newly crossed over and therefore can’t possibly have been shaped by the world’s prejudice.

But as for the rest, has no one listened to their dialogue? Even at their most well meaning, each character has had their actions and world view shaped by a certain form of prejudice. Casual racism is kind of everywhere in Dragon Age.

Just look at Dorian. He says some genuinely racist things to Solas over the course of their banter. And remember that Dorian is an incredibly privileged man who was born to and benefited from the culture that built itself on the ashes of another civilization and enslaved/abused/dismantled the personhood of the survivors for generations. Tevinter is actively a slave state, and at no point does Dorian really give the impression that he’s all too bothered by it. He outright denies the personhood of Spirits, an assessment we definitively know to be not just inaccurate but deeply immoral.

Then there’s Bull. His banter with Solas reveals so much about them both. In particular, it reveals that Bull looks down on pretty every other culture. He holds up the Qun, an ultra authoritarian nightmare state, as the pinnacle of civil order and admits that he thinks the world would be better if they simply conquered and subjugated everyone.

Even Cassandra, Blackwall, and Varric, as much as I love them all and consider them genuinely good people, have their prejudices.

As for Solas, I’m honestly not sure you can call him a racist? It’s just a gross misreading and oversimplification of his character. People point to his plans for the Veil as being genocidal. But they aren’t. Solas hasn’t set out to wipe all Non-Elves from the face of Thedas. He’s not trying to purge the world of all other races. He’s trying to fix a mistake that he made long ago, one which has left the world in a state he can only perceive as nightmarish and doomed.

I feel like people forget that Solas was only back in the world for about a year prior to Inquisition, and in that year he likely experienced nothing but violence and cruelty. The few redeeming things the world had left before he put up the Veil are all but gone. His people have been scattered, subjugated, and enslaved. They’ve had everything taken from them by this new world he helped create, and that clearly horrifies him.

Solas is absolutely misguided, and he’s absolutely stubborn. But racist? I don’t really think you can call him any more prejudiced than the rest of the characters, except in his case we’re talking about someone who is quite literally from another world. He is as alien to the world and its people as they are to him. And still he shows care and respect to others, despite how awful they’ve been to him.

He respects Cassandra and comes to enjoy her company despite how hostile she was towards him at first. He genuinely befriends Varric, reads his books, jokes with him. He never attempts to fight with Sera, despite her being an outright bully towards him. He shows compassion for Blackwall. He even comes to show respect for Bull and Dorian, despite their various ideological differences.

So, bigoted? No I wouldn’t say he is. Bigoted implies that Solas is incapable of tolerating a worldview outside his own, which is demonstrably not the case. Solas can and does accept the arguments and opinions of others. More than once he concedes to Varric. If you’ve played a Dalish Inquisitior who either befriends or romanced him, he changes his opinion about the Dalish, too.

The only subjects he won’t budge on are the ones that a person really shouldn’t?? He sure won’t entertain the idea of slavery being anything but a horrible atrocity, and that’s a bad thing? He’s a hardliner when it comes to Spirits being recognized as people, because they are and it’s the morally correct stance to have. Again, why is that a bad thing?

What is it with people taking characters who have been made victims by either society or circumstance and are vehemently anti-slavery and trying to cast them as monsters who go too far? I keep seeing it in different franchises cough gameofthrones and it’s starting to make me genuinely uncomfortable.

[lesbiansforboromir]

Why you don't like Galadriel?

WELL. I mean this would need a complex answer, for one thing because you could say I don't actually dislike Galadriel as a character really. She's interesting, she has layers, her position in the story creates intriguing mysteries and insights into elven realities and her actions are always percieved in multiple different ways by different characters. She is both an object of world building and a lense to view it through, she had only contempt for Feanor but is the character MOST like him in the end, there's lots going on!

So as usual what I'd say I dislike is more fandom's perception of Galadriel than Galadriel herself, although don't get me wrong in terms of sympathy for her I have none to spare. But to the fandom she's like... well she's whatever anyone wants her to be, so long as that's pretty much perfect and always more right than anyone else around her. Idk if this question came because of my RoP Galadriel tirade post of a week ago, but the fact that people seem to believe Galadriel's right to the 'good guy' role is so irrefutible that it makes any negative portrayal of her 'bad' and 'tolkien's rolling in his grave' etc etc- it's just flabbergasting to me and is a symptom of this problem.

Like Galadriel's entire motive for coming to middle earth, declared and narrated, is to rule over people. She wants to be a Queen of a land that she controls with people inside it whom she has power over. That's it. Now, far be it from me to be on the Valar's side, lord knows I don't support their right to unquestioned rule either and the Eldar's urge to rule themselves is completely valid and Galadriel's no worse than any of her male counterparts who were also looking for the same thing. (In fact, given this is something she is apparently required to 'overcome' when none of those male elves must do the same, I'm inclined to believe this is another of those 'eowyn must reject violence for peace because war is bad except when men do it and for sure the men do continue to do it that's fine' misogynist tolkien moments.)

BUT STILL.. that's not like... a GOOD motive is it? It's neutral at best, right? And Galadriel never actually does anything that could be called more than polite for the rest of the time we know her. She never risks anything for the good of middle earth, she never solves any problems, she goes from place to place to avoid any conflict that threatens her until she and her husband finally decide to usurp a Silvan kingdom and magically isolate it from the rest of the world. They change Lindórinand's name to Lothlorien, thereby overwriting the language of it's native population and Galadriel then uses the power of her ring (that was given to her she didn't make it heself) to EMBALM (tolkien's words) the forest in time just so that she could make it appear as much like Valinor (her home, not the silvan's) as possible. Like!! This is not some paragon of virtue character!

Honestly RoP's portrayal of Galadriel is actually vastly more sympathetic than her actual character. PTSD, survivor's guilt and the maladaptive cope of needing to hunt down evil fanatically for all eternity is, to my mind, 100% more understandable than just... staying in Middle-Earth because she still wanted to rule over people and never believed she did anything wrong in the first place. Which is the canonical reason she's still in middle-earth post the first age, technically a sin by the Valar's standards! Galadriel is rebelling against the will of the west in doing this, but apparently SHE gets all the grace and chances to 'reform' in the world, unlike some other characters I could name >:|

... Maybe she aggravates me a little, but she does so IN COMPARISON to the criticisms other characters must bear as 'the reason they had to die to redeem themselves'. Like if Boromir wanted to take the ring once in order to save his people, is death really the only way to atone for that when Galadriel has been power hungry for 7000 goddamn years nonstop, acquired and used her own ring of power to satisfy that power hunger and then managed to 'overcome it' at the very last minute JUST before middle-earth became 'less elven' (and therefore her position there would be less prestigeous) to demurely sail off home to a gilded cage paradise where literally all her family are alive and waiting for her. Like is 'power hunger' really the sin Boromir comitted here that he needs to die for. Is Tolkien really criticising the desire for power. Is the narrative of lotr really so cohesive and consistent as to allow you to put all the characters into good and bad little boxes and declare those categorisations infallible?

Am I making sense, is this coherent. Does it make more sense if I say like... I do not dislike Galadriel as a character, I dislike what her fandom-reputation reveals about the way the story is engaged with by and large? When I am getting heated about this or that misconception or aspect of her character, it is not because I hate she has that aspect, I like a lot of morally questionable characters, what I am railing against is the double standard that her having that trait reveals. (And I'm not even really angry about it I'm more just very activated by what it reveals about the story, like it makes me feral) The narrative loves Galadriel, Tolkien loves Galadriel, characters regularly threaten violence in order to defend Galadriel from even mild verbal criticism and no one appears to see this as a kind of ominous aspect of her when she's done very little to deserve it. Other than, of course, be ontologically 'pure' and 'divine' due entirely to the circumstances of her birth. I'm a bit manic right now so I hope literally any of that made sense.

Actually addendum example just to further affirm my point. So catholic tolkien scholars will tell you that Denethor's use of the Palantir was a sin, apparently even using a tool you have 'the right' to use to observe reality as it actually exists and then extrapolating that observation into a prediction of the future (ie seeing frodo is captured and the ring gone and extrapolating that the enemy has it and you're all doomed) is a sin. Because only god is allowed to see into the future. And this is somewhat backed up by the way characters treat Denethor's use of the Palantir, it was apparently foolhardy and bad and reckless and nebulously wrong etc. Remember, the Palantir is not a mystical artifact, it is like a satallite imaging tool + a one way video only skype.

.

Galadriel's mirror literally sees the future 😂LIKE? WHY DOES SHE HAVE IT? WHY IS SHE ALLOWED TO USE IT? WHY CAN SHE JUST SHOW IT TO OTHER PEOPLE? It's because she's holy!! But that doesn't mean anything about her actual character, it's just an attribute she inherited from her family and her place of birth that actively changes what her existence means entirely by it's own virtue. Imagine living in this world for a second, imagine if it was ontologically true that you (an unblessed child of eru) would never be as right or as good as Galadriel, no matter what the reality of both your actions were. LIKE. !! WOULD YOU LIKE GALADRIEL?

[ggadtomarry]

I say it again because I like repeating myself.

Evil!Albus doesn't make sense. Even worse, it actively destroys HP's story.

If Albus wanted... Idk, to kill Harry? He would have done it.

If he wanted control of UK he would have entered in politics.

If he wanted to destroy magic world's traditions he would have done it, and instead he's one of the most powerful and knowledgeable wizard alive, and he deeply respect magic culture.

If he wanted muggles to conquer the magic world, he would have helped them to.

If he wanted to rule muggles, he would have allied to his husband.

Like, I feel like not even writers who write bashing fics with evil!Albus know what they want him to do. They just want a cardboard villain for LV to destroy, no question asked, not answers given.

And that's a damn shame. Because LV and Albus have such an interesting relationship. Like, LV hates Albus, but he also respects him because he respects strength (he only understand brute force?).

Albus admits that Tom was the best student ever in Hogwarts, and he still doesn't want to kill him.

And the Phoenix core! Albus' Phoenix.

Also, they are both incredibly powerful half-blood in a world where pure bloods (more often than not inbred and variously ill and cruel) hold political and financial power and despise the not-pure ones . And still, against all the odds, against all the prejudice, Albus and Tom rose to highs no one wouldn't have ever believed.

So much alike. But no matter, it's their choices to be dramatically different.

And Albus intimately knows Tom. He knows how his incredible but twisted mind works. He knows that under his supervillain title, his edgy cult, his monstrous mask he's still the hurt angry manipulative boy who enjoyed hurting people. Who was rejected and abandoned by everyone, who reacted to suffering with violence, unable to heal himself. Who hated the world enough to be willing to see it destroyed. Who killed without an ounce of remorse, because human life is nothing for him. Who didn't stand for any ideals, just his power.

I really would like to praise how well Albus anticipated Tom's moves and manipulated him, and in the end defeated him from the grave.

1- he knew Tom was not dead, he knew he would have tried to kill Harry as soon as possible. So he protected Harry with the only magic Tom didn't disturb himself to learn. And it worked, as confirmed by LV himself in GoF.

2- he knew Tom wouldn't have been able to resist the call of the philosopher's stone and Harry in Hogwarts. He also needed LV to see the devastating effects of Lily's protection. He needed Harry to defeat him. Everything in order to push LV to desire Harry's blood for his great resurrection. It worked.

3- as he thought, LV went to insane lengths to use Harry's blood. And this was the only way possible for Harry to live. He needed to die for the horcrux to get destroyed. But lily's protection, now living in LV too, would have protected Harry even more formidably. Harry couldn't die until LV was alive. What a genius move!! The only way to save Harry, damned by the prophecy, and to defeat LV.

4- Tom was obsessed with fate, destiny. He truly thought he was chosen by higher forces to rule. And so Albus knew he would have wasted many energies to hear the damn prophecy. And LV did. And in doing so he made stupid mistakes such as appearing personally in the Ministry. It was stronger than his rationality (already compromised by his edgelord lifestyle).

5- he accurately guessed the identity and the location of most horcruxes.

6- he anticipated LV's plans: allying himself with creatures despised by Wizards. Because LV, in spite of his so-called ideology, doesn't really care who you are, just if you can be useful to him.

7- he knew well the neuroses and the twisted way of thinking of LV. He knew he wouldn't have researched on Lily's love sacrifice to better understand the implications of his rituals. He knew he wouldn't have reflected on domestic elves' unique magic. And this was his downfall.

8- in the end, everything worked out. Harry was saved. LV got defeated (mostly by his prevedibile mistakes).

I think Albus' genius in dealing with LV and still saving Harry is not recognized. Like, never? When it's one of my fave things in the series.

When Albus cries after Sirius' death? He admits his mistake: loving Harry. Because if he hadn't loved Harry, he would have killed him. One horcrux less. But he couldn't, he didn't. And he was right.

When LV possesses Harry and tries to tempt Albus to kill him? Foreshadowing. This was the path Albus was tempted (supposed?) To take. One life to save thousands. But he resisted temptation, and he was right in doing so.

Awesome. Inspiring. Such a great character. Such a great foil to LV. How I wish I could meet real Albus more in fics!!! He would enrich immensely Tomarry stories.

And not let me start on GGAD. What a great addiction to him being a foil to LV. The fact that GGAD and tomarry are not often paired together is a betrayal.

Last but not least: he never kills on screen. The implication is that he never killed. Fantastic!!! In fantasy story often the general idea is that a Real Hero/Man Kills. Albus doesn't, and he teaches Harry not to do it. And they still win.

Albus was an internationally renowned, admired, feared wizard. Tom was a genius, but he mostly funded his fame on his ability to murder people. Wow. Like, Tom was clearly able to do other things, not just murder and torture. He invented the incredible magic that allows you to bloody fly. But not, almost all his fame is funded on "great but terrible" things like murdering and torturing people. What a waste.

I think Albus pitied this broken beautiful cruel brilliant boy. And he was right.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

What would happen if Frank the vampire met the cullens. What would their thought on one another be.

Anon's referring to The Heart of the World (written by me @janedoewrites) or else the original fic version Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus.

Though the answer would depend what version we're talking about here. In the fic, Frank is a bit character, who really doesn't do much and isn't all that important in the story. More importantly, he has a bit of a different personality under the hood and a very different backstory.

He wouldn't have many thoughts on the Cullens. They're clearly not what he understands to be vampires, maybe have been cursed by some wizard to be what they are, and he supposes it's nice for them and all that they can eat animal blood and choose to prance around with the humans. Sure, guys, have fun.

In terms of the Cullens with Frank, they wouldn't think much either. Frank at a glance resembles most vampires they know of in the Twilight world. Not physically, he's very weak and has no great powers, but he eats people and even vampires who play at being gangsters isn't so far out of the norm. Sadly, Frank's pretty par for the course in Twilight, he's almost not worth commenting on.

When you're competing with the likes of Laurent from Versailles, Astaroth ne George the Conman Vampire, Boris the Fake Russian Bureaucrat, the entire Denali coven--nothing you can do will really make you stand out.

In terms of the novel version...

I imagine Frank would hold them in great contempt. The whole thing about Frank is that he views the night elves as a cursed clan who by their very nature are doomed to violence, murder, and cannibalism. Frank has decided to confront this by embracing it as much as possible, leaning into it as far as he can go, and being very up front about it. He gladly not only supports but effectively runs an institution out of the suffering and destruction of others because he knows he is "the bad guy". This isn't a good coping mechanism by any means but it's the one he's chosen and the one he feels spurred to take by his nostalgic extremely misplaced sense of nationalism.

He would view what the Cullens are doing, integrating into human society, pretending they're not man-eating demons, weakening themselves on animal blood, and telling themselves they don't have to eat sentient beings as avoiding a fundamental truth about the world and themselves that will (and does) inevitably end in bloodshed anyway when they unintentionally eat people then try to pretend that doesn't happen.

"You are a fucking man-eating demon, eat people," is what Frank's sentiment would be about all of this.

The Cullens in turn--

The thing is Frank's so contemptuous he wouldn't even hint as much to them. they're not even worth explaining this to, If Edward's hearing this, it's in Frank's thoughts, but it's also not the sort of thing Edward would be able to parse well. There's a lot of nuance there, and unfamiliar and unexpected philosophies, that I don't think Edward would recognize especially from a few stray thoughts.

I think they would view Frank as a typical, dubious, vampire who can't understand why the Cullens would waste away like monks and deprive themselves of the one pleasure in life.

[theanticool]

My top 10  most anticipated fights of the weekend (7/31/2024-8/5/2024). In no particular order. But also, bonus stuff cause there's more stuff going on I'm happy to see.

Terence Crawford vs Israil Madrimov - Terence Crawford is arguably the best boxer on the planet. He went undisputed in 2 divisions. He absolutely picked apart and tore up an elite welterweight in Errol Spence. And now he’s got his eyes set on Canelo. But that means trying to bridge 3 weight classes. So he’s moving up to super welterweight, where he will challenge WBA champion Israil Madrimov. And while the Boots fight is the one boxing fans wanted to see, Crawford is a 36 year old moving up a weight class to fight a young undefeated world champion. Nothing to sneeze at. Madrimov is a more than capable world championship level boxer and there isn’t a ton of tape out there on him because he’s still relatively young in the game. The table is set for some magic.

Cory Sandhagen vs Umar Nurmagomedov - UFC on ABC 7 - First time we will see Cory Sandhagen in almost 11 months after he tore his tricep mid-fight against Rob Font. Crazy to see how quiet it’s been for Sandhagen, even with the injury. The constant flux of the 135lb division has had him lost in the narrative. With O’Malley becoming champ, his weird rematch with Chito, Yan finally getting the bounce back win, Figs moving up to 135lbs, Cejudo coming back, and now Merab finally getting his title fight, I feel like Sandhagen is an afterthought. But nothing will boost your career like putting an L on a Nurmagomedov. Umar has done his part of adding to his father and brother’s family legacy, winning 5 straight inside the UFC to stay a perfect 17-0. The interesting part of this one is Usman has a propensity to strike with his opponents, far more than his brother did while Cory has shown he is susceptible to a heavy, aggressive wrestling game. We’ll see how it shakes out but I’m super excited for this one.   

Chito Vera vs Deiveson Figueiredo - UFC on ABC 7 - this one has stinker potential. I like Chito, but the man spends 95% of every fight just walking forward throwing nothing. He’s got huge potential for violence. He finished that otherwise one sided beating of O’Malley by hurting him with a bad knee to the body. But he will just let you circle if you want for 15-25 minutes. And I feel like that is a lot of what Figueiredo has built his game around at 135lbs.He’s not the huge powerhouse bulldozer anymore. He’s just a really fast, accurate puncher who can leap across distance. I can see this being a fight where rounds are decided by like a handful of exchanges. But still hyped as I like watching both fighters fight when they’re at their best. 

Elves Brener vs Joel Alvarez - UFC on ABC 7 - Brenner is fun. Alvarez is fun. Alvarez is a 6’2 freak at 155lbs who likes to use his size to set up submissions (he’s won all 20 fights by stoppage, 17 by sub). Brener is a Chute Boxe fighter. Nuff said. Should be electric while it lasts. And I don’t expect it to last terribly long.  

Dakota Ditcheva vs. Jena Bishop - PFL 7: 2024 Playoffs - I’m not sure if this fight will be competitive. Small sample size but Dakota Ditcheva really looks like the goods. But Jena Bishop is an elite jiu jitsu player and if you’re going to get exposed for your lack of grappling skills as a striker, she’s the type you lose to. Ditcheva is a fantastic striker who has shown some tremendous finishing ability against lesser competition. Jena Bishop will be the best fighter she has fought thus far and it’ll be interesting to see if the knowledge of her grappling skills causes Ditcheva to forego some of her tools to avoid possibly being taken down.

Taila Santos vs. Liz Carmouche - PFL 7: 2024 Playoffs - A weird fight. Feels like with a different bracket, this is the final. This has stinker potential too tbh. Carmouche is not historically a fun fighter and Santos is someone who is more known for giving Valentina Shevchenko a hard time rather than a fun fight. But the interesting thing for me is which version of each fighter shows up. Santos is so content to grapple, wrestle, etc with a lot of her competition and when forced into that type of fight, can prove to be incredibly difficult to handle. Carmouche is someone who theoretically will try to take her down and beat her up with elbows from inside the guard/half guard. But we’ve also seen instances of Carmouche getting an opponent who she will decide to strike with, because the idea of extended grappling sequences seem too much or too risky. I’m interested in that dynamic, even if it makes for a hard 15 minutes to watch  

Andy Cruz vs Antonio Moran - It’s Andy Cruz. Of course I’m interested. The rush does not stop. Cruz has fought competition high above the benchmark for guys just starting out their careers. He’s fighting former world title challengers at the very start of his pro career. And working with Bootst team in Philly shows me he’s serious about become not only a world champion but a big player in the sport. He gets a spot on the undercard of Crawford-Madrimov. Matchroom is positioning him for big lightweight fights. And while Antonio Moran isn’t a world beater, he is a guy who is 30-6-1 and been a step up fight for fighters like Devin Haney, Arnold Barboza, and Jose Pedraza. 

David Morrell vs Radivoje Kalajdzic - David Morrell was the scariest fighter at 168lbs. HUGE power out of both hands with some really crafty set-ups thanks to that Cuban amateur background of his. But with the politics of the division revolving around Canelo, he decided enough of that and has moved up to 175lbs is search of a big fight. Radivoje Kalajdzic is a fine 175lber in his own right. Not a world champion level but a fine first fight in the weight class with some pop himself. And considering how hard it was for David Benavidez when he made the jump against Oleksandr Gvozdyk, we’ll see how much of Morrell’s power really carries upwards. 

Nabil Anane vs Felipe Lobo - I don’t know as much about Nabil Anane as I should but from what I have seen he is 6’7 fighting at 145lbs. A true Muay Thai Sebastian Fundora. And I’m here for it. Lobo is always a fun fight, win or lose. Nabil has won 3 straight in ONE and looked like a killer in the process. What’s not to love? 

Dedduanglek vs Nakrab 2 - A rematch of a fight I remember really enjoying the first time around. 

Honorable mention: 

Caroline Dubois vs Maira Moneo - I had a secret 11th fight I wanted on here. Rare in recent weeks seeing as a lot of folks are taking off for the summer. Caroline Dubois is emerging as a true elite talent at lightweight. With Katie Taylor up at 140lbs, those LW titles are potentially floating in the ether. Dubois is looking to grab the interim WBC belt in a fight against a very game Maira Moneo. Haven’t seen much of Moneo but she has a win over an old but game Erica Farias. Can’t put this in the top ten because I don’t know Moneo like at all but I’m always excited to see Caroline Dubois. 

Olympic Wrestling - Olympic Wrestling starts on Monday, August 5th. And to me, it’s by far the most fun combat sport at the games. You got so many fantastic wrestlers competing this year. Akhmed Tazhudinov, Stevan Micic, Rei Higuchi, Hassan Yazdani, Amir Zare, Geno Petriashvili, etc. Mijaín López is looking to become the first ever 5x Olympic gold medalist in Greco-Roman, cementing himself as the greatest Olympic wrestler of all time. Yui Susaki is looking to etch her name as the heir to Kaori Icho and Saori Yoshida and lead the Japanese Women’s Wrestling team into their next era of dominance. American Amit Elor is the future of the US Wrestling team and after capturing 8 gold medals at the world level in the last four years, she’s looking to add a gold medal. Speaking of Americans - Kyle Dake, Spencer Lee, Zain Retherford, Kennedy Blades, Aaron Brooks, Kyle Snyder, Mason Parris, Dominique Parrish, Helen Maroulis, Kayla Miracle, and more. It’s a great squad. They’ll definitely bring home some medals. Looking forward to it!

Feel free to show what has got you all excited this week in the world of combat sports.

[thefirstempress]

First Empress Foreword

So I've been meaning to also offer a big thanks to suspense novelist Matthew Keville (@matthewkeville) for his excellent feedback and support over the years that I've worked on The First Empress, and more recently for agreeing to write the foreword for the novel. Matt first discovered my novel through excerpts I posted to my old blog and took interest in the story, world, and characters, reading several of my drafts and giving great feedback and advice. When I learned that I'm not supposed to be the one who writes the novel's foreword, Matt was cool enough to agree to write it for me. I've posted Matt's foreword below the cut. Huge thanks to Matthew once again and to my Tumblr readers for their support!

********************

It’s no secret that the modern fantasy genre stands on the shoulders of Tolkien. There are the Children of Tolkien in their thousands, with their elves and dwarves and orcs, their magic swords and castles and general Northwestern-Europe-in-the-Middle-Ages milieu, writing novels and movies and tabletop roleplaying games. And then there are those whose work is a reaction to Tolkien, most famously George R.R. Martin with his deconstruction of Tolkien’s morally-aligned universe. This is all well and good; we all stand on the shoulders of giants—Tolkien himself stood on the shoulders of Beowulf and The Kalevala—and no one would do it if people didn’t love it. But it does sometimes seem that people aren’t making the fullest use of the literally infinite possibilities of the fantasy genre.

Jack Newbill takes his inspiration from somewhere else. He goes all the way back to the ancient city-states of the Mediterranean, where the warriors wear linen and bronze instead of steel, and the mysterious marauders from the edge of the world are the red-haired barbarians with the bizarre custom of wearing pants. It’s something I’ve never seen in my forty years of reading fantasy.

Newbill’s Vestic Sea may seem familiar at first, but it quickly becomes clear that it’s at least as foreign to our modern world and values as Wonderland. It is a place where slavery is a simple fact of life, where a wooden warship with an extra rowing-deck is the cutting edge of military technology, where the gods may or may not be real (but if they’re not real, where does all this very real magic come from?), and where our world’s ideas of gender and sexuality just don’t apply.

It’s also an Iron-Age viper’s nest of violence and intrigue, and to survive it—let alone triumph—will require a different kind of hero.

(Granted, Tolkien’s heroes were also a different kind of hero than the standard fantasy hero, in the sense that they were Everyman Heroes who stayed Everyman Heroes instead of revealing some hidden talent or bloodline. But Newbill’s hero is precisely the opposite.)

Queen Viarraluca is a hero in the classical sense—which is to say, the Ancient Greek sense. She is an extraordinary human being who accomplishes truly great and glorious things against astounding odds… but those things aren’t always things that we of the 21st Century would consider “good”. If she were anything less, she wouldn’t survive the first chapter. No time for rookie heroes to learn the ropes on the Vestic.

Viarra is a political savant, a superlative warrior, a military genius, and a visionary as to what the fractured and bickering city-states of the Vestic could become. She is iron-willed enough to do terrible things for the greater good, and kind-hearted enough to weep in her girlfriend’s arms after. And as many characters comment, she is friggin’ huge.

She also likes porn (in the form of racy sculpture and erotic poetry), kittens (even though her girlfriend’s allergic), and as much as she loves her chief handmaiden/concubine, she enjoys collecting a harem as much as any other horny teenager might.

And she’s hearing voices. Voices that point toward a glorious destiny. And even Viarra’s not sure if she’s hearing the voices of the gods or if she’s going mad.

As magnificent as she is, Queen Viarraluca is a beautifully human character who is simultaneously as alien as any elf and as familiar as the captain of the high school girls’ basketball team. I envy you as you read her story for the first time.

Welcome to her world.

—Matthew Keville, author of Hometown

[winterpinetrees]

Jailbreak (The Gap Years part 28)

July 20th 2019

Scapegoat Wilderness, MT

They break the jail. Warning for violence, and discussed violence against children. This is a longer than usual entry.

Marin walks ahead, testing the snow with his quarterstaff and trusting his perfect balance. Compared to him, Brian is an abominable snowman lumbering across the ice. His spiked boots crunch the snow, his gear clangs against itself, and there’s really nothing subtle at all about the way he crosses the face of the glacier. Luckily, that’s the point. Today, he is a solo-climber (risky, but all humans are reckless), poking his head into a few deep-blue crevasses and hopefully not getting crushed by a falling pillar the size of a house. Brian hasn’t done much mountaineering in his life. His gear is mostly for show, but Clay has shown him enough knots over the years to make the act believable. 

Brian kneels beside a deep crevasse in the glacier. This one is good. The sides are less than vertical and there isn’t an overhang at the top that could fall and bury him at the bottom. Marin says encouraging nonsense as Brian carefully digs a trench out of the ice and lays his snow anchor into it. He kicks ice over the top, stomps it flat, and hooks his harness to the rope. When Brian leans back, the anchor easily holds his weight. There’s no use delaying any longer. He can see his breath in the air and his thin gloves don’t properly protect against the cold. He needed them to reach the pistol in his pants pocket, not even in a holster because he’ll be hiding it, but if his fingers go numb it won’t matter at all. Slowly, carefully, he descends.

Is the ice an even more striking blue now that the sky is overcast? He feels like he is entering another world. Brian finds a small ledge in the ice to rest on and looks up. The open sky is a tear in the world itself. He sees Marin looking down at him. The elf is wearing a knitted olive hat with a pompom on top.

“Ready?”

“Almost,” he grunts, hammering another set of anchors into rock-hard ice that has probably been here for ten thousand years. The crevasse below him fades to nearly black at the bottom. He has a memory of tumbling down the side of a mountain when his bike chain broke. He remembers falling with water above him. “Ready”. He can hear the snow creak. Marin is tearing up the first anchor. Then there is a flash of blinding green and utter silence. His rope slithers back into the crevasse, and he is horrified to see it cleanly cut in half. 

Brian breathes. He is safe here, clinging to the side of the glacier like the layers of old gum on that one wall of the dugout. Still, falling into a crevasse is the worst case scenario for a solo climber. It’s why most people don’t climb glaciers solo. He adjusts his grip on the axe, tightens his gloves, and begins to climb. 

It’s about ten feet to the top. He decided that would be a reasonable distance. It’s short enough to be possible, but long enough that any elves who find him will assume he’s exhausted. Brian has made it halfway to the open world when he hears voices, and he looks up to see two faces silhouetted against the sky. Brian is careful to stay calm. He is a human climber who has never heard of magic and doesn’t know what he’s done. 

“Nice timing! I didn’t know anyone else was out here. Can you give me a hand?” He yells. Brian attempts a slightly deeper and more rural accent. The two figures talk quickly in Lazarin. One of them, a woman, shouts a greeting, but she obviously doesn’t think he can understand any of her language. He’s picked up a few phrases. She seems amused by the wild human that quite literally fell onto their property. The other guard is not. 

Brian’s persona is, like him, a bold and confident idiot. He wouldn’t let mysterious figures speaking a completely unfamiliar language spook him. “Do you have a rope?”

The woman sounds like she’s smiling, but the sky is too bright behind her for him to tell. “Just relax, wilder. This is going to be a shock”.

Brian does the opposite, and tenses entirely. Zerada promised they’d have trouble charming him, but he doesn’t want magic in use until he’s back on solid ground. He feels weightless, more than weightless, and the severed rope begins drifting upwards. Once he yanks his axe and shoes out of the wall, he also begins to rise. He can’t move at all except to push against the walls. Brian hovers in the open air and locks eyes with the guard. She’s pale and blond, with glowing eyes and a mischievous grin. She drops him on the face of the glacier and he hits the ground hard. 

Instinct from years of wrestling has him scrambling back to his feet. Unfortunately, he does not have the balance of an elf to go with it. His vision spins and he can’t find his footing. Brian throws his hands in front of him and barely avoids cracking his skull on the ice. The woman is laughing. He decides to stay on the ground. Appeal to their elven sense of superiority. He needs them to bring him inside the prison after all. He needs to be the lost dog that gets adopted on the spot, not kicked back into the street. His heart is racing. For once, it’s not a good sort of rush. Brian looks up with terror that he doesn’t need to fake.

“What did you do to me?”

“Magic. Do you know where you are, little wilder? I suppose you’re actually bigger than I am”.

“I… Scapegoat Glacier?” Don’t get brainwashed.

She speaks to her partner for a time. He swears he hears a few English words as well, but they don’t make sense. Lord of the Rings?

“Do human boys still learn stories about otherworlds? Fairy circles, changelings, turning your stockings inside out?”

“...Yes?”

“We are the fey. And you are very lost,”

Finally, the other elf speaks. “Quit toying with the boy. He’s clearly terrified”. This elf is a bit older. His hair is black and his ears turn downwards. “What is-”.

The woman throws her hands in the air and speaks over him. He hopes the rest of the guards are this unserious. 

“Can we have your name?” She says. It’s the classic fairy thing. 

“Giving the fairies your name is not a smart thing to do. You can call me Bryce,” he replies with a winning smile. 

“Yes, yes, you’re very clever". Her smile is more like a shark. “Give the fairies your name and you’ll never go home again. Well, we don’t operate by those rules and you probably aren’t leaving either way”.

“Vervain!” 

More argument in Lazarin.

“You’re going to kidnap me?” Brian replies. He’s afraid, but he’s also careful to sound kind of into it. (He is. Why else would he still be on this road trip?) 

The guard points over her shoulder. He’s trying to forget her name. “A thousand feet that way is a prison holding the most dangerous creatures there are. We’re bringing you in. Security reasons. Don’t worry your little human head”. 

The two guards float him across the broken ice. He can barely kick the snow with his toes and tries not to panic. Brian asks questions that seem reasonable and tries to walk the line between endearing and pathetic. His plan depends on where they try to leave him. Hopefully it’s somewhere within the anti-magic zone and without too many other soldiers. He’s alone with nothing but a pistol, trying to break in. 

His guard sets him down right outside the entrance, which is a rectangle of a pale blue substance that he can’t identify. There aren’t any visible cracks or panels. He obediently hands over his ice axe, removes his harness and helmet, and lets himself be led by the arm down a deeper corridor. Does that mean she can’t use her magic anymore? Somewhere above him, Clay and Sierra are sneaking through the vents to reach their own destinations. They need to be in sync, but he has no way to communicate. Clay and Sierra have walkie talkies, but they decided a short-range transmitter would look suspicious on him, ostensibly solo in the deep wilderness. All he has is a loaded pistol concealed in his pants and a second magazine in his boot. Twelve bullets total. 

He is thinking about the details of reloading (before this trip began, he’d held a pistol exactly once) when a chime plays over the loudspeaker. A proximity alarm? It doesn’t sound very scary. Either way, the older elf pulls away and leaves Brian alone with just a single guard who he will swear he never learned the name of. Perfect. He pays attention to the unreadable signs on the walls, the long windows towards the center of the prison, and the ring of flash drive keys on the guard’s belt. Then, once they have twisted down enough hallways and seem very close to the cell blocks, Brian throws himself forward with all his strength. He doesn’t try any fancy moves, just brute force. If he can crush her windpipe with an elbow, then everything gets a lot easier. 

The elf hesitates to release him, so Brian actually does manage to complete the takedown. It’s sloppy and desperate but he keeps his right arm across her throat and reaches for his pistol with the other. It’s harder to move the safety with his left hand, and the elf draws a gun of her own before he can stop her, but elven reflexes can only do so much. Brian holds the gun as close to her head as he can manage, fires twice, and rolls sideways the ground as another shot hits the ceiling behind him. His ears are ringing. His insulating shirt clings to his back and shoulder. There’s blood in his hair and the hand he tries to smooth it with. 

Four more bullets in the gun. Brian takes the key ring from her corpse and begins to sprint. 

There are two cell blocks beside each other in the center of the glacier, and the massive windows in every hall point back towards them. Betrayed abilities must have something to do with lines of sight. He tries to stay low, but gives up after a few seconds. If anyone comes after him, he’ll try and shoot them. He’s so close to the cells anyway. Brian eventually comes to a massive locked doorway. He’s beneath the cellblocks now, dozens of feet under the surface of the glacier. Brian tries three keys in the lock before one turns. It’s a bit inconvenient to do with his left hand, but his right is still holding the gun. A line of blood runs down his wrist and drips from the stock. 

The door opens with weighted slowness but doesn’t seem old or disused. Sierra could probably identify why it sounds the way it does, but Brian chalks it up to hydraulics and moves forward onto a spiraling metal staircase. It’s only wide enough for two people, and turns counter-clockwise. As he climbs, Brian thinks that castle stairs turned the other way so that the right-handed defenders at the top would have an advantage. These stairs are built to benefit defenders at the bottom, or maybe that was never true to begin with. A camera lens greets him at the top of the stairs. He shoots it without hesitation. 

A young voice shouts behind him. Brian turns to get his bearings. He is in a medium-sized room with glass walls. There is a table with a game on it, three chairs around it, and two elves sitting on those chairs. He points his pistol at the speaker and keeps his eyes moving. There are doors on all four sides, leading to two more glass rooms and two that are opaque. Beyond the walls, he can see dozens of cells stacked on top of eachother in a circle around this glass… cell. He thinks again of the panopticon, a prison where a single guard could see every prisoner, and the inmates would never know whether or not they are being watched. Who watches the watchmen. 

The floor is a thick woven carpet. The chairs look comfortable, and the room is almost cluttered. He finally looks at the boy. 

“My name is Brian Whitaker. I am acting on the direct orders of His Highness Marin of Genus Sondaica and Her Grace Zerada of Genus Adust. You will pause the anti-magic zone, or I will choke the two of you out, or I will shoot you dead”. The boy can’t be older than fourteen. He has curly brown hair that falls over squarish ears and his expression seems almost excited. Brian wants to sink into the floor, through the ice, and lie somewhere in the center of the earth forever. 

“There are still Lazarin heirs on the run? And they’re staging a prison break?” His accent is perfectly Californian. The boy turns to the other Betrayed guard, who is far older, and begins to speak excitedly in Lazarin. The older elf is also not scared. There is pity in his expression, and oblivion behind his eyes. 

“That will not happen,” he says, but it takes time. His accent is extremely strong and it is clear he isn’t strong with (modern?) english. 

“I have a gun and no magic for you to block. You will lower your guard, or you will die”. The pistol is going to slip from his sweaty, bloody, hands. He doesn't have time for this. He can’t kill the boy. 

“It cannot happen. We cannot control our curse. You will have to use the gun”. 

More conversation he can’t understand. The boy is enthusiastic and talks with his hands. The older elf is resigned. 

“Okay! Fine! Some of us want to leave this freaking place more than once a year!” The boy actually says freaking, like he's fourteen. The boy sits on the ground at his feet and looks up with pleading eyes. Brian wants to slam his own head into a wall. “Iactra says we’ll be punished for letting prisoners escape, but you already shot our camera, right? You’ve got big human muscles, knock me out and then you can take back the throne and undo the Second Betrayal!”

Brian turns to the older elf, Iactra, and tries to keep the horror off of his face. “We have until a message plays over the loudspeakers. Once that happens, I start shooting”. Then he looks back to the middle schooler on the ground before him. “What is the Second Betrayal?”

The boy looks like he wants to cry. “It’s this law. Common Betrayed have always gone to live in the human world”, he says and gestures to his ears, which have been cut to look human. “I’ve been there for twenty-three years, but the first thing Mercuralis did after taking the throne was start rounding us all up. Betrayed again, you know?”

A chill runs down Brian’s spine. All those villages that Marin had said might be elven settlements but didn’t have any sign of magic… or any people at all.

“Can you try and control your abilities anyway?” he adds, feeling like every teacher he had in middle school who just told him to sit still and try harder. “The glass means your powers are perception based, try and focus on me?” 

Iactra gives one last sharp comment from the table, but he fixes his eyes on Brian as well. 

The pistol shouldn’t be this heavy. “Okay. Okay. Where do you live?”

“Lassen County. You wouldn’t know the town,”

The older elf replies that he was nobleborn and has nowhere safe to return to. 

“That’s by Nevada, right?” They drove through a month ago. “I’m from SF. I played baseball on a travel team though, we went all over,”

“Oh sick! I love baseball!” 

“Do you want a hug?” Brian says without remembering that he is soaked in blood.   

The answer to the last question is still yes, and Brian sits down on the floor beside the young elf. He finally puts the safety back on his gun and places it precariously in his pocket. The boy’s name is Sebastian, but his elven name was Severin and he’s supposed to use that now. He’s legally a commoner but with the power of a noble, which got him this honored position. He cheers for the San Francisco Giants, obviously, and had been studying electrical engineering but also a lot of other stuff because he’s sixty-something but also fourteen. 

A flash of pale light catches Brian’s attention from somewhere above him. He hears a wild roar, then a crash,  as a cell door blows off its hinges and hits the floor two stories below. A small figure in a white uniform steps out and starts blasting the door beside them. Just then, Brian hears Marin’s voice over the loudspeakers. He’s still holding Sebastian in his arms, and struggling to make sense of the fact that he almost had to put him in a headlock instead. He breathes a sigh of relief. He won’t have to kill a kid, and Sierra made it to her position okay.

The message will play twice. Marin will read it in Lazarin, the common language of elvenkind, and Zerada will read it in Old Lazarin, which is only learned by high nobility and scholars. He can speak neither, but knows the message. This is a prison break, led by Marin Sondaica and Zerada Adust but carried out by their wild human allies. They need to work quickly, and they should assume that new Betrayed can be brought in at any time. Switching worlds will not work at all until they are out of the prison. Getting the humans out is the top priority after protecting the heirs to the high noble houses. They list Jezero Adust, Kova Marolak, Lir Sondaica, and Sothea Celeron in particular, but the names mean nothing to Brian. There is then a slightly unsettling bit that describes him, Clay, and Sierra like they’re lost pets. Survival is not guaranteed, but the heirs wish all of them strength. 

Brian commands the Betrayed to go into one of the opaque rooms (where a third guard has apparently slept through the whole thing, or more likely chosen to not make it his problem). Sebastian grabs his red hand as Brian walks towards an exit along the glass walls. 

“I’ll get to go home if you win, promise?”

Whitaker men have been politicians for two hundred years. “I promise,” he lies.

If there were non-Betrayed guards in the cell block, maybe armed humans, they’re already dead or out of the fight. It’s pandemonium outside, everything is glowing and everyone is shouting. He thinks of the word pandemonium, how Milton coined it to mean place of all the demons. Does this count? He certainly looks like one. The elves climbing down to the ground floor have every skin tone and hair type. Their magic glows every color as well, but he strains to try and find familiar Adust orange. Zerada shared that she doesn’t look that much like her brother. He’ll have to wait for him to introduce himself. 

The crowd of elves gathers around the Betrayed quarters. Once again, he can’t understand the language they’re speaking. A young woman with emerald eyes and a possible resemblance to Marin commands the crowd and they split into groups with shocking efficiency. These elves disappear and reappear, or leap onto the glass ceiling above him, but they aren’t going to cause a crowd crush. 

The adrenaline in his system overwhelms all thought “Hey! Who’s going to engineering to get Sierra? Y’all (Y’all!?) wouldn’t know anything without her announcement”.

A tall elf with orange-red hair in twists raises a hand. “She put my name first in the list, right? I’ll do it. Who’s with me?” Half a dozen young elves cheer their response. 

For the first time, he knowingly looks at his girlfriend’s sibling. All the things that are subtle about Zerada are bold with him. They have the same unusual pale freckles and amber eyes, but Jezero’s smile has fangs. Elves don’t look quite like humans, and he’s never been able to categorize Zerada. This elf strikes him as Black and East Asian, not that he knows many people who are. They approach with easy confidence as if they aren’t staging a prison break. 

“Do you have a knife, Enkidu?” 

That, he knows, is a reference to Lazarus’s human brother-in-arms. Or lover. The records are ambiguous. 

“I have a gun,”

“I’ll take it”. Jezero takes the pistol and the extra magazine. “Where should we bring her?”

Brian hands over a stack of maps with a circled rendezvous point three miles out as well as their guesses about the prison. He distributes them to a few leaders of the crowd as well.

“Here. We’ll start to panic if you aren’t there by sunset,”

“I hear you. And I’ll see you by sunset,” they say confidently. 

If Brian had a nickel for every time an Adust elf started flirting with him, he’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but they’ve got to be kidding. Is he? There was something different about the way Jezero spoke. Some sort of joke he isn't in on. It's probably just elven arrogance. The elf looks twenty, but he's over a hundred years old and been nobility for all of it. Jezero gathers his crew and heads down the stairs. Brian follows the last group, one gathered around Sothea Celeron, a young woman who looks the least human of any elf he’s encountered.

Escape is easy. The point of a panopticon is also its weakness: there are so few guards. They walk through the open doors and break down the locked ones until Brian stands again on the face of a glacier. Elves around him blink out of existence, escaping to the human world as Marin takes that cue to reappear. He gives the crowd exactly one cool glance, (many of them salute him or bow) then breaks into screaming delight. Like the nobles and the Betrayed, Marin doesn’t comment on his soaked shirt except to hand him a new jacket. Wet clothes kill in freezing temperatures.

They carefully make their way off of the ice and towards the rendezvous point, a hike that only takes about an hour. Clay and Zerada arrive thirty minutes after that. He’s clean, but has a distant look in his eyes. 

“It didn’t go well?” he says desperately.

“Don't worry, doctor. This isn’t mine. Close quarters combat, you know?” Brian thought he'd cleaned the blood off in the river, but clearly missed some. He decided to stop once he started to feel like Lady Macbeth.

Clay opens his mouth but says nothing. Scattered heirs from several genera make their way into the woods to negotiate and share numbers before fleeing in every direction, but Jezero and Sierra do not. 

Clay checks the angle of the sun over the mountains. Zerada begins to pace, then throws knives at a tree. Sunset is after eight pm, but they’re panicking by four. Then Jezero emerges from the trees. They’re limping, and their prison uniform is stained with blood. The two elves behind him are equally injured. He set off with a squad of eight. 

Hope evaporates in his chest “Where the fuck is Sierra”. 

“She was gone by the time we got there,”

……………..

Hehe! School is starting now so idk if updates will happen weekly. Sierra is fine. Clay is not.

We’re running on PG-13 rules for now. They get 1 (one) swear per arc. 

There is no Scapegoat Glacier, nor any Montana glaciers where you can ice climb in high summer. I made it up because I liked the aesthetic.

@lokiwaffles @reggie246

[raayllum]

So I was thinking about how post-S2 most of us assumed that Callum wasn’t the first primal mage ever (just because the world seemed too old and magically varied for that) but just the first in a very, very long time, as well as thoughts about the show’s endgame likely being Xadia and the Pentarchy unified as one again, and...

While TDP is very much about redemption and breaking a cycle of violence, of doing things better a second or third or hundredth time around, of being about being about belief > “deserved” but I was also thinking specifically about Soren’s arc and the landscape of Xadia if they do re-unify because...

They honestly don’t quite have redemption arcs. Soren didn’t start out as a villain, just a kinda jerky guy with his heart and loyalties generally in the right place. Even when unified, the distribution of magic and solidarity between elves, humans, and dragons left much to be desired.

So what do Soren (and possibly his family) and Xadia have in common?

They’re going to have, or have already had, Restoration arcs — of going back to what they used to be, but Better than they were Before. 

Soren starts and ends Arc 1 as a crownguard, but by the end of S3, he’s a true crownguard; no longer a bully to Callum, no longer vying for his father’s approval, no longer with divided loyalties and writing Ezran off as a crown prince, but as the True King. 

In many ways, Viren and Claudia, if they both get ‘redemption arcs’ (and I think they will), will take similar paths. Viren will be a proper friend to the royal family after years of building resentment and dark magic, helping to protect boys he once tried to kill; Claudia will be a mage but a primal mage, possibly, and have a healthier dynamic with her father and her brother. Even Runaan, who has always seen himself as a protector, will get to actually be one rather than just continually perpetuating the cycle of violence once he is freed from the coins with a second chance.

Xadia will be reunified, but humans will have equal access to magic; it won’t go back to the way it was before, it will be More than it was before. Human primal mages used to be more common (although seemingly not very common) with dark magic presented as an easier path until it overtook them entirely. Now, they’ll be finding their way back, yet also paving a way forward, much like another mage did...

[subiysu-chan]

Worldbuilding gender roles for fantasy

Now, also, other tropes of worldbuilding gender roles, that are stupidly unrealistic.

Long-term persecuted matriarchies or gender-equal groups (for humans) :

Not that the idea itself is unrealistic, but if a social group is persecuted, chances are they would not stay non-coercitive towards females for very long, sadly, whatever the family structure was initialy.

Persecution and predation, in most primates (for example, champenzies having to deal with more predations are very coercitive towards females), often results in phallocracy. It's not just humans that have such a similar behavior (Pascal Picq). I think the main reason is that keeping the females of the group alive and able to reproduce would require the males to restrict them, at least to some capacity.

In human groups, societies that have a long history of persecution, with maybe an exeption of the Jewish community (although the Torah's view of women isn't optimal to put it nicely), have strong internal issues of female inequality. If we look at the Americas only:

-The Huron-Wendate, plagued by colonialism, epidemics and increasingly unequal combats with other Iroquoian nations, eventually renounced to a matrilinial family structure, with increasing domestic violence against women. Also, they are quasi-extinct...

-The modern African-American community, with a long history of being victims of lynching, have a strong domestic violence issue, internal to communities.

-The Romani of Europe, very patriarcal.

Also, in humans, the fight or flight reflex actually blocks a lot of sexual responses, in both males and females. Not to mention pregnancy and ealier years of child-care would severely hinder a woman's ability to defend herself independantly. Not to mention that in Homo Sapiens, females are punier than males, and that's the case for most mammals.

For a man in such a society to have any shot at having surviving off-springs, making sure his woman stays as far away from sources of persecution and predation as possible would be paramount, not to mention, it'll be also in the woman's best interest for survivial. However, it would drastically limit the amount of freedom she gets, and would make her more dependant on others. It doesn't mean she won't be a productive member of society, as many crafts can be done in a hiding spot. Heck, it's possible for a blind person to knit as long as the number of stiches is kept reasonably low. Also, because of how reproduction works in mammals, a male can fertilize many females, while females can only bare so many offsprings at the time. In humans, this dilemma is even more extreme.

Not to mention, humans from more ancient times are theorized to have larger brains because of a slightly larger reptilian brain.

So, persecuted matriarchies are not likely to survive as a social group for very long unless they have psychology and reproduction drastically different from not only humans, but other species of primates. If you want this group to go extinct in your story, than whatever, but if you want a group to stick around long term, being both persecuted and matriarcal would be...Problematic. Also, yes, it's fantasy, but, why would humans in that fantasy world have such drastic psychological adaptation from humans on Earth ? Plus, it would also make characters a lot less relatable, because they have such a different psychology to anything ressembling a human. So, it's actually an issue that would not only plague the worldbuilding, but also character creation and writing, since they would be working on psychological and reproductive insentives that are drastically different, which would make characters less relatable for no logical reason what so ever. It's okay to write a few characters with different instincts than humans...But most of the time, they are exactly as one could imagine: non-human. Vampires and elves having different instincts and desires from humans is all fine and dandy. It's that humans should behave like humans.

Magic might change that up, but it drastically depends on how powerful magic is in your universe.

[late-to-the-fandom]

In which Renathal's quest to learn more about the Maw Walker is almost as difficult and time consuming as the quest after which this story is named. Rated T for brief, inexplicit mentions of death, violence, and non-graphic sexual tension.

Takes place shortly after "A Spilled Tea", before Denathrius' imprisonment.

"Are you quite comfortable?" asked Renathal, with the sort of razor-edged politeness that would have cut another Venthyr’s sense of self-importance to ribbons.

The mortal across the table from him, however, merely shivered, taking care the motion did not disarrange his long, well-coiffed blond hair. 

“Hardly. It’s freezing,” he berated the Dark Prince. “And you’d think with the number of candles in here you might actually be able to see something.”

Renathal’s eyes fluttered briefly closed. His well of inner patience was deep, but not infinite, and it had been centuries since anything had tested its limits like his on-going quest to discover more about the Maw Walker.

To add insult to inconvenience, it should have been a straightforward task. Any other time in Renathal's existence, he could have consulted the Curator, or the Master's private library. The Master himself would probably have known much about the Maw Walker's people offhand. But both the Curator's memory and her archives were ruined, and Denathrius and his library were no longer at the Prince's disposal. Still, with the surfeit of mortals currently residing in the Shadowlands, Renathal had expected little difficulty in locating another of the Maw Walker's kind to interrogate.

Recent events had illuminated the intriguing possibility that the Maw Walker might not be averse to negotiating new, more intimate, terms to their friendship. It was a tantalising prospect, though one fraught with difficulties, and while none were insurmountable, Renathal thought it prudent to collect more information on her before deciding how best to proceed. Besides, his curiousity had been salivating for some time for further details of the rebellion she had mentioned in passing but refused to fully explain.

He had sent Draven to Oribos with the task of retrieving a less recalcitrant Nightborne, but the mortal the General returned with bore only the barest resemblance to the Maw Walker. A shorter, paler elf with long, blond hair and small, green eyes, he introduced himself as a Sin'Dorei. But Blood Elf was the translation, and the term most familiar to Renathal. There were more than a few of those souls in Revendreth.

"What sort of information are you looking for?" asked the elf, adjusting himself in his chair with a long-suffering implicative of a cushion filled with nails.

"I would like the history of the Maw Walker and her people," said Renathal, ignoring the elf's show of discomfort. "And please, spare no detail."

The Sin'Dorei raised a long, blond eyebrow.

"I do have another job, you know."

But he gave Renathal an hour.

In that time, the Prince of Revendreth learned a great deal about the history of the elves of Azeroth; their descent from one race called the Highborne, and how its splintered factions became the variety of elves their world now contained.  Despite his protest of busyness, the Sin'Dorei recounted many tangential tales of his own people, but his font of garrulous knowledge dried up considerably when Renathal pressed for more about the Shal'Dorei, or Nightborne. Except, this elf called them something different.

"Why do you refer to them as, Nightfallen?"

The Sin'Dorei's eye roll was the very picture of elegant disdain that, on anyone else, Renathal could not have helped but admire.

"Well, I shouldn't really, anymore," said the elf. "I suppose they're all the same now. But the ones who rebelled called themselves 'The Nightfallen' and, you know, old habits." He shrugged, and made it look like a move in a dance. "I suppose they called themselves that because they'd fallen from their once grand place in the world. Suramar City used to boast itself as the 'jewel of the Night Elf kingdom'."  He wiggled his fingers skeptically. "Not hard since the majority of them live in trees but it's nothing compared to Silvermoon."

The elf paused to allow himself a well-tailored smirk, and Renathal blinked at him drily. He very much doubted either mortal city held a candle to the eternal beauty of Revendreth.

"And now, it's as much a ruin as this place," continued the elf blithely, eyes wandering the room in distaste. "Or so I hear, I've never been personally. But Lor'Themar, our Lord Regent, has been excessively generous in his assistance to the First Arcanist. He sent quite a few from Silvermoon to help them secure their city."

"The First Arcanist ... that would be the Nightborne ruler?" prompted Renathal, steering the discussion back to relevant waters.

"She is for the present. I don't know what their permanent plan is. They're historically led by some sort of coalition of noble houses. And the Grand Magistrix, but you know.” The elf shifted fractiously in his seat. “Are we nearly through? This chair was clearly not designed for beings with proper nerve endings.”

Venthyr did not require air to exist. Renathal's deep, rattling inhale was entirely affectation; a subtle warning to the mortal before him that he was rapidly losing patience.

"It is safe to assume," he said crisply, disregarding the elf's complaint. "That the ephemeral histories of one minor race on one small world are predominately unknown to those of us who have spent our existences blissfully unburdened by such quaint mortal affairs."

It took a moment for the elf to grasp this scathing pronouncement. When he had, he rolled his eyes once more, though this time it was accompanied by a blotchy, unflattering flush.

"The Grand Magistrix Elisande was the Nightborne's de facto ruler for something close on 10,000 years. Before she made a deal with the Burning Legion and let demons infest their city."

Renathal straightened in his chair. At last, they were getting somewhere.

"Anyone who disagreed with her was cast out and lost access to the Nightwell, their source of power. The First Arcanist was one of those, I assume the champion was as well.  They put a stop to Elisande eventually, but they're still purging the Legion from the land." He shook his head. "Really, they ought to have dealt with her much sooner. When we discovered what Sunstrider was-"

The elf's editorial comments drifted to the background of Renathal's thoughts. He leaned on the arm of his chair, stroking the hair on his chin absently, as he compared this new information to the cryptic hints the Maw Walker had dropped. He supposed this Grand Magistrix was who she had meant by “her people's Denathrius", and he assumed her rebellion of subjective success was what the Sin'Dorei called "The Nightfallen". But nothing the elf said so far accounted for why the Maw Walker would not speak of it. Unless...

"The rest of the Nightfallen. Were they destroyed?" asked Renathal, interrupting the Sin'Dorei's diatribe.

"What? No, of course not. Not all of them," he said exasperatedly. "I mean, I'm sure many were killed by the Legion, but there's plenty left. Haven't I already said Lor'Themar sent them aid? Really, if you're not even paying attention -"

But the Dark Prince of Revendreth had finally had enough, and his title, unlike his breathing, was not an affectation.

He leaned slowly forward, claws clicking menacingly against the table, and his expression would have cowed even the most hardened of Venthyr. As for the mortal opposite, he looked as though he might faint; his pale face registered a wholly inelegant terror. And the only reason he was not reduced to a gibbering puddle of penitence was Renathal’s determination to extract every bit of information he could.

"And the Maw Walker’s family? What became of them?” Renathal said into the chill silence.

"Dead, I think. She let slip something about a dead sister once, but I don’t know any details." The Sin'Dorei’s voice quavered with the dregs of fear. "Besides the fact that she's virtually indestructible, nobody knows very much about her."

Renathal's burning amber eyes narrowed dangerously.

"You told General Draven you were her friend.”

"I said I knew her, and I do!" cried the Sin'Dorei, cowering in his chair. "I followed her around in Zuldazar, and we fought together a few times but you have to understand - the Champion doesn't have friends! Not really. Even her own First Arcanist doesn't talk to her. Or about her. I don't know anybody who does. And she does not like to be asked questions."

This time, there was no artifice in the Sin'Dorei's shiver. He looked a great deal less glamorous with his pinched face discoloured by fear, and Renathal allowed his own features to soften enough so the mortal would not ruin the chair's upholstery.

“Very well,” he said, and for the first time since their introduction, granted the elf a small, smug smile.

In fact, though it would not do to show it, Renathal felt almost excessively cheerful. The idea that this mortal - and his careful good looks - enjoyed a much lower standing with the Maw Walker than Renathal himself set him in such high spirits he could not even be disappointed the elf had nothing else useful to offer. He produced a sincere thank-you and a more than civil farewell before allowing the elf to gather what remained of his dignity and scuttle from the room. With the door safely shut behind the Sin'Dorei, Renathal gave his smirk free reign of his face.

She doesn't have friends, the elf had said, but had the Maw Walker not called Renathal just that at last week's Ember Court rehearsal? A different kind of friends, he remembered her thrilling words perfectly, and he leaned back in his chair and basked in the warmth of his immoderate pride. He had not learned all he wanted, but this proof the Maw Walker preferred him to her mortal acquaintances made the time spent more than worthwhile.

And - he steepled his fingers in front of him - it was not as though he had learned nothing. True, he had as many questions now as when the interview began - such as why the Maw Walker was here at all instead of aiding her own city’s restoration efforts - but he also had a greater grasp on Nightborne history, which could make it easier to coax the details he still lacked from the Maw Walker herself. 

Renathal’s jovial self-satisfaction lingered through the rest of that day and into the next, insulating him from the disaster that was the first official Ember Court.

Reflecting on it as he scanned the now-empty courtyard for his co-host, Renathal was hard pressed to decide which part had been worst: the Maw Walker's spectacular failure at the Ritual of Atonement that elicited actual boos from the socialites in the crowd; some debacle with the dredgers Renathal had not personally witnessed but which resulted in the shattering of Theotar's favourite tea set; or the manifestations of sin erupting from the court's meagre anima font and assailing the precious few nobles who had consented to attend. The Prince had closed the court with his humblest apologies for the various mishaps, and assured their guest of honour - Cryptkeeper Kassir - that next week's would be a much more traditional affair.

Certainly an inauspicious inauguration, and yet … a smile teased Renathal's fangs as he spotted the Maw Walker's purple gown at the top of the rampart stairs. Apart from her belligerent argument with the Accuser over the appropriate atonements for sin, none of the incidents had really been her fault. And besides, he thought cheerfully as he crossed the courtyard, it was nice watching someone else fail for a change.

The Maw Walker was perched on the highest step, back ramrod straight and eyes tightly shut. If it were not for the slight breeze lifting loose tendrils of her high-piled hair, she might have been a statue carved from purple-hued stone. Renathal walked, rather than glided, up the steep staircase, letting the precise thud of his plate armour boots herald his approach. But the Maw Walker's eyes remained closed even when he stepped across her, carefully placing the items he carried on the nearest iron baluster.

"It could have been worse," he said by way of greeting as he set to work preparing his after-court gift.

A vague hum was Renathal's only indication the Maw Walker heard him until the pop of the cork from the bottle made her eyes snap open.

"It was only your first official foray," he continued, pouring a generous measure of anima wine into the two long-stemmed glasses. " I assure you, they do get easier. And Kassir is fortunately forgiving. He has already promised to return next week. So, we will have another opportunity."

He bent to offer a glass to the still-seated Maw Walker who regarded it steadily for a moment before, at last, accepting.

"To your first true court experience," said Renathal wryly, clinking his glass against hers.

He straightened and lifted his glass to his lips, then lowered it when he noticed the Maw Walker staring blankly at her own. Admittedly, it was the wrong sort of glass for this wine, but the best Renathal's dredger contacts had been able to purloin. He wondered if the Maw Walker - a self-proclaimed connoisseur - was particular about such things. But before he could inquire, she gave what was, for her, a dramatic sigh.

"I've been hosting courts much like this for thousands of years, your Highness," she said. "I'm afraid I’ve always been a bit disappointing."

Thus unburdened, she drained the glass in one, then held it out to Renathal again. He eyed it hesitantly, unsure if he ought to refill it or take it away. 

"These sorts of affairs were a regular pastime at home," the Maw Walker added.

Renathal hastened to pour her more wine.

"Suramar, you mean," he said tonelessly, scrubbing his voice of any trace excitement.

"Mm," the Maw Walker hummed her agreement, sipping her second glass more sedately. "Political parties and courts ... impressing guests ... forging alliances over drinks. It's strange ... " She cast somewhat unfocused eyes on the courtyard below before continuing thoughtfully, "Running all the way to a different plane of reality just to find the same things you had at home."

Renathal took a short sip of his own wine, but tasted only the triumph of being granted the perfect opening.

"It is true," he said, after swallowing. "There are many similarities between our respective realms."

"What do you mean?"

The Maw Walker's voice had shed some of its dreamy quality, but Renathal, eager to flaunt his new knowledge, chose to overlook this.

"Well, the parallels between the Master and your Grand Magistrix speak for themselves," he said, taking his time with each word as if only now considering them. "Rulers who have betrayed their realms to an enemy in exchange for power. In Denathrius' case, the Jailer, and in Elisande's, the Burning Legion. And, of course, the Nightfallen rebellion has much in common with our work here in Sinfall."

He chanced a glance at the step below him. The Maw Walker was openly staring. Shock radiated off her like a wave of her arcane magic, and Renathal used his half-full glass to cover the smirk he could not quite contain. 

"How do you know all this?" she asked in wary wonder.

Renathal, who had absolutely no intention of ever admitting the lengths to which he had gone to gain this information, merely arched an eyebrow and gave a shrug the Sin'Dorei would have envied.

"This is not Bastion, where souls are divested of their memories. Those who arrive in Revendreth bring many stories, their own and others. And I have always been a passionate collector of such tales."

The Maw Walker's eyes narrowed, and Renathal cast about for a decent distraction before she could pick apart his non-answer.

"Of course, stories lack pictures, but from what I understand, Suramar City was once nearly as handsome as Revendreth."

He was taken aback at how well this rudimentary tactic worked.

"Nearly as handsome?” the Maw Walker repeated, the growing shrewdness in her face abruptly vanishing. "Suramar City at the height of its power was the jewel of all Azeroth. Truly, there is nowhere that compares.”

Renathal sniffed, and took another sip of wine. "Quite," was his only reply, but its dubiousness did not go unnoticed.

"I am not sure you could be considered a qualified judge, your Highness, having never left the Shadowlands," said the Maw Walker loftily. "I have been to many, many worlds now and have yet to see anywhere more beautiful than Suramar City before its fall. It was..." Her mouth hung open, waiting for the right word to appear. But language ultimately failed her, and she shook her head. "Beyond description."

Biting back the argument unlikely to vouchsafe him more answers, Renathal dipped his head and agreed, "I am sure it was considered very beautiful among mortal cities."

It was the closest he could come to concession, but apparently it would not do.

The Maw Walker's glass rattled as she abandoned it on the stone step and finally stood, squaring against the Dark Prince with uncharacteristic vim. He gave no ground; indeed, the spark in her blue-white eyes - not to speak of her body's sudden close proximity - made anima pump through him pleasantly and his heart affect a faster pace.

She stared at him for several, unblinking seconds, and Renathal could not decide if she was more likely to hit him or kiss him. But the Maw Walker - always full of surprises - chose, instead, a wide and wine-dark smile.

"Would you like to see?" she said in a voice that promised mischief, and before Renathal could fathom her meaning, let alone decide on an answer, the Maw Walker had reached up and touched her fingers to his temple.

The last time she did this - when rescuing him from the Maw - her spell had granted Renathal a unique mental clarity. This time, it dropped a heavy purple veil over all his senses. The wuthering wind and caustic Light of the Ember Ward disappeared, replaced by the soft murmur of running water and a silky, violet twilight. He opened his mouth to ask the Maw Walker what she had done, but a glance at his new surroundings temporarily robbed him of speech.

The entire world was drenched in agnate shades of purple and blue. Renathal's vision swum as his eyes tried to focus; the lack of visible horizon on which to anchor himself made him sway. A city engulfed the skyline on every side, swelling in endless crescendos; it felt as though he was drowning in a sea of enormous, graceful buildings. Except, to call them buildings was uncharitable, almost indecent - they looked birthed, rather than made, crafted through some more elegant magic than Revendreth's steel and muck-made mortar. He craned his neck to follow their silhouettes where they surrendered to a glittering indigo sky.

"Welcome to Suramar, Prince Renathal."

The Maw Walker's voice broke through Renathal's trance.

“How is ... what did ...” he stuttered incoherently, his brain stumbling through the deluge of sensations, but the Maw Walker - as was often the case - understood his concern without words.

“Don’t worry, I haven’t kidnapped you," she said in mild amusement. "This is just an illusion. We’re still standing on the ramparts. So be careful where you step."

Her warning recalled Renathal’s sluggish mind back to his body. He became aware of his slack jaw, his loose grip on his half-forgotten glass.

“So… what do you think?” the Maw Walker asked with ill-concealed smugness.

Renathal brought his wine to his lips and swallowed thoughtlessly, buying himself more time to craft the admission she was certainly owed.

"You ... did not exaggerate,” he said finally.

The Maw Walker's laugh lacked condescension. It was a free, light-hearted sound, happier than any Renathal had yet heard, and her face was bright with a joy that made her look, somehow, younger.

“And you’ve hardly seen anything, your Highness. Come!"

She grabbed his free hand and attempted to drag him forward, but Renathal dug in his heels. Thrown off his axis and scrambling for some semblance of control, he regarded the Maw Walker sternly, an expression only part jest.

"I have asked you to call me Renathal."

The little violet spots on the Maw Walker's cheeks were the same shade as the surrounding twilight. She wet her lips briefly, then conceded, "Very well. Come then, Renathal."

She tugged at his hand, more gently this time, and Renathal allowed her to lead him into the illusion of Suramar City.

Conscious of the ramparts hidden beneath them, the Maw Walker picked a careful path through a courtyard of such splendor even the Master would have been envious. To Renathal's surprise and delight, she turned out to be an effusive guide, all her usual reticence gone as she named and explained Suramar's intricate architectural details. His eyes drifted in and out of focus, struggling to absorb each new wonder, but the longer they wandered, the less Renathal noticed the sights at all - the towering magenta topiaries, the dusk lilies floating in softly glowing pools - and the more his attention fixated on the Maw Walker herself.

Perhaps it was the anima wine or some effect of her own arcane magic, but the visible change it wrought in her usually impassive face was striking. He had noted on many occasions the Maw Walker's various physical attractions, but the carefree smile she wore now - as natural on her face as her nose or eyes - had transformed her into something as exquisitely lovely as the city she clearly adored.

At first, Renathal kept up a suitable dialogue, nodding and querying where appropriate, but this eventually trailed into pensive silence as he drank in the Maw Walker's voice. What must it be like to be talked about with such undisguisable affection, to be thought of in such adulation it leaked into every word someone spoke? His mind conjured mesmerizing fantasies of the Maw Walker saying his name like this, and the thrilling shiver it drew from him caught her eye.

"Where the arcwine is - Oh." She broke off mid-sentence and stopped so abruptly Renathal nearly knocked her down. "I'm ... so sorry, your - Renathal. I - I suppose I've made my point. I'm sure you must be bored. I'll take us back."

Embarrassment marred her earnest beauty, and Renathal could not permit it. He tightened his grip on her hand before she could end her spell and slip away.

“No, not at all! Far from it," he insisted. “This has been a rare delight. I have loved every minute we have shared here, I was ... merely wondering ..."

The Sin'Dorei's warning about the Maw Walker's stance on questions gave Renathal pause. But ... he was a different sort of friend; she had said so herself. Surely such rules did not apply?

As if in encouragement, the Maw Walker's thumb absently stroked the back of his hand, and the intimate gesture infused Renathal with a warm and sanguine confidence.

"Why did you leave Suramar?"

A cloud passed over the Maw Walker's shining face. She blinked it quickly away.

"I am better suited other places," she said, which answered nothing, and Renathal pressed recklessly on.

"Better suited somewhere other than your home? Other than ... here?"

He indicated the magnificence around them with his glass, spilling wine across the illusory marble. It made the Maw Walker laugh, albeit less fully than before, and pluck the cup from Renathal's careless hand.

"Is this your way of saying you no longer need me in Revendreth?"

"Absolutely not."

The low growl in Renathal's words surprised even him, and made the Maw Walker's breath catch sharply. He was suddenly very aware of how little space remained between them. To lean in and taste the wine still lingering on her lips would require no effort at all. But...

His eyes flicked from side to side, vainly attempting to penetrate the rich purple glow of the illusion to the courtyard lurking underneath. It had been empty except for the guards when he had first found the Maw Walker, but he had no idea how long ago that had been ... or who might have ventured out of Sinfall's depths in that time ... or even where exactly in the courtyard they now were.

Renathal inhaled deeply through his nose, a breath necessary only for cooling his heated anima. Reluctantly, he eased himself back a fraction, adding a measure of cautious space between himself and temptation.

"I am certainly not giving you permission to abandon the oath you swore to Revendreth," he said. "But it is evident how much this place means to you. It seems strange for you to have left it."

The Maw Walker's breathing was also measured, and Renathal wondered if their thoughts ran the same tantalising track. But when she spoke, her voice was subdued.

"This is Suramar as I remember it before the Burning Legion," she said. "Nearly everything I loved about it - that made it home - is gone. It is ... not like this anymore." 

This time the Maw Walker succeeded in freeing her hand, and she touched Renathal's forehead again.

The noise assailed his senses first, a cacophony of terrified screams and uncanny, eldritch shrieks. Glancing around the same courtyard through which the Maw Walker had escorted him, Renathal watched as demons of various incarnations prowled the once pristine streets. The glowing trees and topiaries were alight with fel green flame, tainting the purples and blues in a jarring, inconsanant glow.

From a strictly aesthetic perspective, the scene was inarguably horrible, but Renathal was less discomfited than he had been upon his first vision of Suramar. Terror was much more his wheelhouse. He watched in professional curiousity as the fel creatures wrought their havoc, and cocked his head in interest at one beast in particular whose horns and hooves and wings were oddly familiar...

Renathal took a half step forward, intending to inspect the illusion, but the Maw Walker's hand suddenly clutched his shoulder, winning his undivided attention. His amber eyes widened as they found her face, more startled by her sickly pallor than any of the surrounding horrors. She leaned closer to him - head bowed, eyes closed - and if Renathal had not known her better he would have said she sought his protection. Which made it all the more fortunate none of the visions could do them harm; the Maw Walker's obvious and uncharacteristic distress had frozen him in place. 

Some enormous demon of rock and green flame lumbered around the corner. Its steps made the ground beneath them shake, and the Maw Walker actually shiver. Her hand holding Renathal's wine glass trembled so violently he was sure it would shatter. But it was only when her head hit his chest plate that his trance finally cracked in alarm.

"End this," he said to her. "Now." 

It was a command, and though Renathal lacked his medallion, it rang with unbroachable power. Eyes closed, the Maw Walker's fingers crawled up his face; locating his forehead, and pressing hard, and -

- and they were standing on the silent ramparts overlooking the Bridge of Banishment.

Renathal shook his head to clear the dregs of the vision, blinking in the abrupt change of light. The clamor and chaos had left a ringing in his ears, so he felt the Maw Walker's short sigh of relief against his chest more than heard it. Squinting through the Ember Ward's harsh light, he inspected her discreetly. Not that she noticed; her eyes were still squeezed shut, fingers fisting in his shirt. It would wrinkle the material, which was a ridiculous thing to be thinking about, but Renathal's mind was still fumbling to find sure footing in a world where the Maw Walker was afraid.

"I suppose that would be the Burning Legion," he said slowly.

He hoped his voice might break the spell of whatever horrors held her captive. But the Maw Walker only nodded once, another quiet tremor wracking her frame.

Renathal glanced around the ramparts and what he could see of the courtyard below. Apart from a few scattered dredgers, and the Stoneborn guards he knew waited at the gate underneath, there were no witnesses to observe them. With all the gentle, respectful caution he would apply to a skittish sinrunner, Renathal slipped his arms around the Maw Walker's bare shoulders. She didn't move - another surprise - although one considerably more pleasant.

The initial shock of her fear now fading, he found he very much liked being the Maw Walker's source of comfort. Seeing her capable of anything so mundane as fear was as nice a change as watching her fail at the Ember Court. It made the illustrious champion of the Horde seem more real, not to mention what it did for Renathal's ego. In fact, the only thing marring the buoyant experience was his inconveniently irrepressible curiousity. 

Even as his fingers stroked soft circles in the Maw Walker's silky gown, his mind was racing, seething to know why such commonplace enemies should upset her. He sifted through the sights the Maw Walker had shown him, searching for something she might have let slip ...  Let slip ... the Sin'Dorei had used those same words, and Renathal was struck with an idea.

"Was your sister among those Nightborne killed by the Legion?" he asked, realising his mistake too late.

The Maw Walker stiffened in his arms. She released her hold on Renathal and lifted her head, face fixed in an expressionless mask.

"Did one of Revendreth's souls tell you that as well, your Highness?"

The words were tinged with an unmistakable frost. Renathal scrambled to construct a plausible explanation, a suitable excuse. But he could think of nothing, and the Maw Walker was still staring, and he fell back on his old failsafes: dark humour and charm.

"In a manner of speaking," he said, painting on a wry smile. "I do not believe I specified whether the soul was living or dead. Or ... whether they were condemned to Revendreth or here on some different errand."

The Maw Walker blinked slowly, then turned, still carrying Renathal's wine glass, and walked briskly down the ramparts in the direction of the stairs. Leaving Renathal's heart to plummet miserably as he kicked himself for his misstep. Her uncommon volubility in the illusion had disarmed him, lulled him into a false sense of candor. And now ...

Now, he thought glumly, he had damaged the remarkable friendship they had managed to create, and almost certainly destroyed his budding hopes for more. He would be demoted to the same status as the Sin'Dorei: an acquaintance whose tiresome company the Maw Walker was occasionally forced to endure. And that thought was so unbearable, Renathal forsook his own scrupulous self-regard. 

He followed the Maw Walker's path down the ramparts, in something shamefully close to a run, determined to offer an apology she could not reasonably refuse. He had no idea if he was truly sorry, or even what he had to be sorry for, but that was beside the point. The Maw Walker was the refreshing oasis that sustained Renathal in these tumultuous times, and he would shelve his sense of fairness - and his insatiable curiousity - if the alternative was losing her altogether.

His brisk footsteps slowed as he rounded the corner. The Maw Walker was still at the top of the stairs.

She had retrieved her abandoned wine glass and was filling it again, Renathal's own waiting beside it on the iron baluster. When the glass was full - much more than was strictly proper - she emptied the last of the bottle into his. Renathal took this as a sign the Maw Walker would permit his presence, though he walked the rest of the ramparts with a greater degree of caution.

"I'm sorry," she said as he reached her, though she addressed the courtyard below. "I know things are different here. Death ... doesn't seem like such a loss. It's not the end of anything for you, but ... you must understand, it was for me." Wine trickled down the Maw Walker's chin as she gulped down the last of her glass. She brushed it away, fingers hiding her face as she finished, "My sister's death was the end of my life, and I prefer to let it rest in peace."

There was a definite tremor in the Maw Walker's voice, but her hand as she set down her glass and picked up Renathal's was steady.

"I know you have an ... excessive fondness for stories," she said, turning to face Renathal though not meeting his eye. "But mine is disappointing. And I prefer it to be forgotten. I hope you can understand this, and I hope ... we can still be friends."

The Maw Walker held the wine out to Renathal like an offering of peace. Its request was inherent, and he hesitated only a second before acquiescing.

If privacy was the price for her friendship, he would find a way to pay it. He nodded his agreement, accepting the glass with both hands.

"I apologize," he said, and was surprised to find a genuine earnestness tripping his tongue. "I cannot pretend to truly understand, but ... you do not have to explain if it pains you. And ... I am sorry for your sake that circumstances have led you here. Revendreth must seem a very poor replacement for your home and your family."

The Maw Walker blinked, and her sangfroid gently thawed.

"I wouldn't say that," she replied. "Renathal."  She added his name in a voice as soft as Suramarian twilight. And while it could not quite be called adoration, it still made Renathal's anima effervesce.

With a final eloquent shudder, the Maw Walker shed the conversation like an ill-fitting coat and leaned back against the balustrade.

"Alright," she said, adopting a business-like air. "Explain to me how atonement works. All these different sins and their punishments, I just - do not understand. How do you decide what sort of punishments make up for the different kinds of crimes?"

Renathal's long-suffering sigh would have made the Sin'Dorei's pale face green with envy, as would the friendly, familiar way he leaned on the balustrade beside the Maw Walker.

"We do not punish in Revendreth," he explained. "We educate."

The next hour found them propped side by side, debating the intricacies of atonement. And while they remained at least a sword's length apart, Renathal genuinely felt no disappointment. It was not exactly how he had hoped the evening would end, but, for the moment, he was smugly content in the knowledge he remained a different sort of friend.

The Maw Walker was not going anywhere. Renathal could wait.

Read Part 21: Mortal Reminders: What are you hiding? | Visit the Masterpost

[shaelashaela]

Before You Were Born, ch. 5

[cw] catcalling, verbal harassment, physical violence [reading time] 7 mins.

“Hey. Hey, pretty. Slow down a sec.”

I averted my eyes and picked up my pace instead. Despite my best efforts to go unnoticed, I had the unfortunate luck of constantly attracting the worst types when I went out. Today it was a young man with spiky hair and an arrogant swagger. He’d followed me for a couple of blocks, probably thinking I didn’t notice him. Once he decided to open his mouth, it confirmed exactly what I assumed about him.

He wouldn’t give up, though. “Yo, I just wanna talk.”

I walked as fast as I could without breaking into a run. My heart kept pace with my feet, and I repeated in my head, Go away. Go away. Go away.

My heart sank as I approached the bus stop. I had to make a choice: either stop now and endure this, or keep moving and find somewhere safe to disappear for a few minutes. The man with the red beard was here again today, though. Maybe if I was closer to him, the other guy might not approach?

I walked up beside him and stopped, still pointing my eyes toward the ground. I hoped the bus would arrive soon, and I shuffled my feet back and forth, trying to be as unassuming as possible.

Spiky-hair stopped just an arm’s length away. “Why’re you bein’ a bitch? I just wanna say hi.”

Cornered, I finally responded without turning around. My voice rattled. “You’ve said it. Now, please leave me alone.”

Red-beard took notice at that point. He wasn’t wearing earbuds today, and he glanced over his shoulder curiously at spiky-hair.

The other man didn’t take the hint. “Just gimme a smile. C’mon.”

Red-beard turned suddenly to me. “Oh, hey! I didn’t see you walk up. C’mere.”

He beckoned with his hand. Confused but too scared to refuse, I leaned down closer to him since he was quite a bit shorter than me. Without warning, he grabbed me around the shoulders and hugged me tight.

“Don’t say anything,” he whispered in my ear. “I’ll let you know when he’s gone.”

His arms were stout like tree branches, so I didn’t feel like I could escape anyways. After a brief pause, I heard spiky-hair swear under his breath and walk away. A moment later, I was released. I regained my senses and drew away from my rescuer, both thankful and wary at the same time. A gasp left my lips; I didn’t even realize I held my breath.

Red-beard resumed his original position, waiting for the bus to arrive. “Sorry that dude was being a dick to you.”

I fidgeted with my skirt, smoothing it out to give my hands and mind something to do. “Th-thanks.”

He didn’t say anything else. Curious, I looked over at him, and for just the briefest of moments I glimpsed grey, bark-encrusted skin underneath his neatly cropped ginger hair. He caught me staring at him and shot me a stern glance right back.

“Hey lady, take a picture,” he quipped, his voice suddenly much colder than it was a moment ago.

I turned away, ashamed for being rude. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to stare.”

He harrumphed indignantly. My curiosity would get the better of me, though. There was only one kind of fey I knew that could pull off elaborate glamour in broad daylight. I had to ask.

“You—you’re a spriggan, aren’t you?”

He threw his hands up in exasperation. “This is the thanks I get? I just ran off that creep, and now you’re trying to blow my cover?”

I should have known better. I tried hard myself not to be noticed (and failed spectacularly, unlike him). But I was fascinated, and I couldn’t help myself. Most elves lost much of their ability to weave complex illusions when the veil between worlds shattered, and we could only do so with considerable effort. Spriggans were masters of the art and could wear whatever appearance they wanted. I was momentarily proud of myself for noticing his true form.

I didn’t want to push away another fey though, considering how few of us there were living among the humans. I apologized to him again, and he waved a hand dismissively at me.

“Forget it,” he responded.

“My name’s Sylvie, by the way.”

His face stretched under the strain of incredulity. “I guess you wanna be friends now?”—he grunted a half-hearted laugh—“I’m Malcolm. Most people just call me Mal.”

I made a friend!

The bus pulled up to the stop, and both of us were relieved for very different reasons. Mal made the same gallant gesture as the other day, motioning for me go first. I found a seat and moved over to let him sit down, but he walked past me. I’m not proud of it, but sometimes I can be a little single-minded. I got up and relocated next to him, blocking him into his window seat. He shook his head in disbelief.

The bus started to move again. I pursed my lips for a moment, trying to think of a good topic for conversation. “So, what brings you here? I didn’t think spriggans liked to venture much outside of the Moonwood.”

“Look lady, don’t make a big deal of this. I’m just trying to live my life. Let’s just say it’s complicated, and I like being alone. Don’t you have any elf friends you can bother?”

I shook my head. “Outside of my parents, I haven’t met any other elves that live here. A few pass through from time to time, but I don’t think they want to stay here. Oh! Though I did learn yesterday that my neighbour’s wife is an elf. Er… well, was an elf. She passed away some time ago. I didn’t even get to meet her.”

He banged his head up against the window. “Jesus, you’re a piece of work.”

I ran my fingers through my hair over and over again, nervously trying to think of what to say next. I annoyed him. Maybe it would be better if I kept my mouth shut.

A rush of air brushed past my legs, just for a second. Odd, since I didn’t see any open windows. I looked down but saw nothing.

Mal sat up, and his brow creased. “What was that?”

I started a reply, but instead cried out as pain shot up my right arm. Sharp icicles pierced my flesh. I looked down, and a faint glow of two red eyes in the midst of churning black smoke stared back at me. I panicked and tried to shake it off, but the shadow creature held tight.

Screams broke out all across the bus as people panicked. Dozens of the biting smoke animals surrounded us. I tried desperately to compose myself and remember what my father taught me about defence against dark magic, but my breath was short and strained. Fear clawed its way up my throat.

Mal climbed over me and slammed his fist down hard on my assailant’s head, and it finally let go. “You are just nothing but trouble for me,” he quipped, and then he tumbled out into the aisle via my lap.

The bus came to a screeching halt, causing further chaos as everyone was thrown forward out of their seats. Thankfully it also disoriented the shadow beasts, scattering them everywhere. I’d never witnessed so many conjurations in one place. I rubbed my throbbing arm, trying to assuage the pain and regain focus. Most of the other passengers took advantage of the momentary lull in the melee to force the doors and emergency exits open and flee, though a few were left behind, struggling to get off the floor.

My new friend got to his feet and tilted his head back and forth until there was an audible crack from his neck. I couldn’t fathom what he was thinking—was he going to beat them all with his bare hands? He’d be overwhelmed for sure!

Since he stood instead of cowered, the creatures all turned their misshapen heads in his direction. Several of them converged into a larger, wolf-like beast made of coalescing smoke and shadow, slightly more opaque as a unit than they were individually. I tried to warn Mal that he would be torn limb from limb, but he wasn’t listening to me anymore.

I felt a surge of energy in the air, a familiar rush of magic that only the fey could muster. It exhilarated me and at least partially cleared my senses. Before my eyes, Mal changed. His human skin melted away as he abandoned his glamour. His body grew to the ceiling like a great oak tree, and his skin turned ashen, bark sprouting from it in irregular patterns. Coppery autumn leaves cascaded from his head and chin in place of hair and beard. The few people who remained on the bus grew still, dumbstruck by his presence.

His voice rumbled like thunder from within his new frame. “Come on, mutt.”

The wolf lunged at him, going for the throat, but Mal was surprisingly agile for his new size. He slammed his fist into the beast’s chest while it was in mid-air, and then with one arm shoved it down so hard that the frame of the bus protested with a metallic groan. He gave it no time to recover and brought his other fist down hard in the same spot, this time striking so hard that his fist split the floor open. The smoky creature dispersed into mere wisps as it was crushed between spriggan might and solid steel.

The horde of fell animals was undeterred, however. While the wolf amalgam was momentarily dealt with, another group of shadows clumped together and fashioned themselves into a great snake. Mal rose back to his full height just as it fell upon him, coiling around his neck. He grunted and fell down to one knee, clutching at his throat.

I swallowed hard. Now was not the time to let my fear take hold of me. If I didn’t do something, the snake would surely choke him to death, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see the wolf slowly reforming itself from its scattered remains.

Time slowed for me as I let the adrenaline take over. I was terrified, but I grabbed onto one of the seats and pulled myself up. All around me, the shadows were closed in, and I wanted nothing more than to run as fast and as far away as possible. I couldn’t leave Mal to die, though. I called upon the discipline my father instilled in me through years of drills. For decades, I had wondered if my skills would ever be tested, and now I knew.

A low murmur rose in my throat as I recited incantations practised a thousand times. My eyes closed, and my mind sought the evil all around me. One by one, they lit in my consciousness like bloody beacons. One, two, three, four… I counted them all. Seventeen in total. It would be difficult, but I had no choice but to believe I could do it.

With two fingers, I drew a sigil in the air, leaving behind a trail of soft white light. Direct casting of sorcery was not one of my strengths, and magic itself weakened in the human world. But I hoped deeply in my gut that it would be enough. One, two, three swift motions—my fingertips reached the point where they’d started, completing the spell.

A hundred tiny darts of light shot out in all directions, seeking the gloom that threatened us. The creatures wailed and gnashed their icy fangs, writhing in pain as magic melted their ethereal bodies. A bead of sweat ran down my temple. Focus for a moment longer, and I’d burn them all.

No such luck, though; one of the shadows slammed into my chest, and I doubled over. It only took one of them to escape my grasp, and I knew I was finished. I closed my eyes and fell. At least I tried. I hoped Mal would forgive me. It was my fault he was caught up in all of this, after all.

I expected to hit the floor, but someone caught me. The low, throaty voice of my spriggan companion touched my ears. “So you’re not useless, after all. Let’s get out of here.”

He threw me over his massive shoulder and ripped a hole in the side of the bus with his bare hands, breaking out into the welcoming daylight.

[middle-earth-mythopoeia]

Some of my favorite parts of The Lays of Beleriand

I’m going to copy some of my favorite parts here, but this isn’t all of them, because that would just be the entire book. Still, this will be a long post. No one can stop me. This book is so good and I need to talk about it!

One of the versions of the Lay of the Children of Húrin begins like this:

Lo! the golden dragon of the God of Hell, the gloom of the woods of the world now gone, the woes of Men, and weeping of Elves fading faintly down forest pathways, is now to tell...

There is just something about the feeling this conveys. The gloom of the woods of the world now gone. That line is so good. It’s like these fragments of epic poems are from a real oral tradition passed down from the First Age, from the world now gone. Don’t get me started on the alliteration. Given who wrote it, I think it’s safe to say the alliterative style of Beowulf was definitely a major influence.

Another version begins:

Ye Gods who girt your guarded realms with moveless pinnacles, mountains pathless, o’er shrouded shores sheer uprising of the Bay of Faery on the borders of the World! Ye Men unmindful of the mirth of yore, wars and weeping in the worlds of old, of Morgoth’s might remembering nought! Lo! hear what Elves with ancient harps, lingering forlorn in lands untrodden, fading faintly down forest pathways, in shadowy isles on the Shadowy Seas, sing still in sorrow of the son of Húrin...

I can’t stand how good it is! How this is addressed to the Gods, and then addressed to Men who have forgotten the tales of the First Age. And then it tells you to listen to what Elves still sing in sorrow of the son of Húrin... They remember. They still mourn. There is this sense that even though the Gods have cut themselves off from the world, and Men have forgotten much of the past, there are still those who remember Túrin, and his story is worth telling. It gives me chills.

Here is Húrin in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, one of my favorite passages:

For Húrin standing storm unheeding, unbent in battle, with bitter laughter his axe wielded—as eagle’s wings the sound of its sweep, swinging deadly; as livid lightning it leaped and fell, as toppling trunks of trees riven his foes had fallen. Thus fought he on, where blades were blunted and in blood foundered the Men of Mithrim...

This is so heroic I cannot stand it. I can’t even process it, it’s so good. The alliteration is amazing. The imagery is incredible. That the sound of his axe is like a eagle’s wings recalls the fact that eagles carried him to Gondolin. The comparison to lightning reminds me of another heroic final stand, that of Fingolfin. In this passage there is such a vivid picture of the chaos and violence of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad and how brave Húrin was in this battle. He is a truly great character. And speaking of which, there are several versions of his conversation with Morgoth, and they are incredible!

Said the dread Lord of Hell: ‘Dauntless Húrin, stout steel-handed, stands before me yet quick a captive, as a coward might be! Then knows he my name, or needs be told what hope he has in the halls of iron? The bale most bitter, Balrogs’ torment!’ Then Húrin answered, Hithlum's chieftain— his shining eyes with sheen of fire in wrath were reddened: ‘O ruinous one, by fear unfettered I have fought thee long, nor dread thee now, nor thy demon slaves, fiends and phantoms, thou foe of Gods!’ His dark tresses, drenched and tangled, that fell o’er his face he flung backward, in the eye he looked of the evil Lord— since that day of dread to dare his glance has no mortal Man had might of soul.

Is it possible to love Húrin even more? This is just unbelievably good. Morgoth threatens him with torture and that is his reply! Steadfast indeed! I love the way the dialogue is composed and all of the alliteration, which really enhances the intensity of this scene. And I literally cannot convey how stirring this entire section is. It also has a lot of dialogue, which is exciting, since that is something often lacking in the prose Silmarillion.

The Lays of Beleriand also has an early version of the Darkening of Valinor, the flight of the Noldor (the flight of the Noldoli) and the Oath of Fëanor. The entire section is amazing.

The Darkening of Valinor:

A! the Trees of Light, tall and shapely, gold and silver, more glorious than the sun, than the moon more magical, o’er the meads of the Gods their fragrant frith and flowerladen gardens gleaming, once gladly shone. In death they are darkened, they drop their leaves from blackened branches bled by Morgoth and Ungoliant the grim the Gloomweaver. In spider’s form despair and shadow a shuddering fear and shapeless night she weaves in a web of winding venom that is black and breathless. Their branched fail, the light and laughter of their leaves are quenched. Mirk goes marching, mists of blackness, through the halls of the Mighty, hushed and empty, the gates of the Gods are in gloom mantled.

I don’t even know what to say. This is as poignantly and beautifully written as it is painful to read, because the death of the Two Trees is so horrible. In death they are darkened...the light and laughter of their leaves are quenched. There is a sense (as there is elsewhere in Tolkien’s writing) that the Two Trees were not just living things, they were beings that could feel. The fact that they bled (as they also did in The Silmarillion) lends even more horror to this moment. The death of the Trees was not just tragic because they were beautiful and the Gods and the Elves loved their light—it was tragic because they were living things and they suffered. Tolkien never wrote the Aldudénië, the poem lamenting the death of the Two Trees, so I think this is the closest thing we will ever have to what the Aldudénië may have been like (except it would have been in Elvish, of course). Also, I can’t help but notice that Ungoliant is in spider’s form, like in The Silmarillion. It’s easy to forget that she is not a spider, she is in the form of a spider, and that really adds to how mysterious and terrifying she is.

The next lines are amazing too:

Lo! the Elves murmur mourning in anguish, but no more shall be kindled the mirth of Cor in the winding ways of their walled city, towercrowned Tun, whose twinkling lamps are drowned in darkness...

I love how the imagery of the city is conveyed—winding, walled, towercrowned, twinkling. Tolkien doesn’t interrupt the poem to give a full description of what Tirion looks like, and he doesn’t need to; he hints at it with just a few adjectives in a few lines, and it’s just enough for readers to form a picture.

And here is the Oath of Fëanor:

Then his sons beside him, the seven kinsmen, crafty Curufin, Celegorm the fair, Damrod and Diriel and dark Cranthir, Maglor the mighty, and Maidros tall (the eldest, whose ardour yet more eager burnt than his father’s flame, than Fëanor’s wrath; him fate awaited with fell purpose), these leapt with laughter their lord beside, with linked hands there lightly took the oath unbreakable; blood thereafter it spilled like a sea and spent the swords of endless armies, nor hath ended yet: ‘Be he friend or foe or foul offspring of Morgoth Bauglir, be he mortal dark that in after days on earth shall dwell, shall no law nor love nor league of Gods, no might nor mercy, not moveless fate, defend him for ever from the fierce vengeance of the sons of Fëanor, whoso seize or steal or finding keep the fair enchanted globes of crystal whose glory dies not, the Silmarils. We have sworn for ever!’

This is amazing. I have so many thoughts. It’s so interesting that Maedhros is here described as more passionate about the oath, and more full of wrath, than even Fëanor himself. Also, it’s so cool how it speaks of the oath as a present tense thing: nor hath ended yet. And that whole part is so chilling: there lightly took the oath unbreakable; blood thereafter it spilled like a sea... That is terrifying, and such vivid imagery. I love it! It gives me chills every time! And in the oath itself you can really see the origin of the later version which appears in Morgoth’s Ring.

Another favorite passage of mine is this part about the Dagor Bragollach, which is not in alliterative verse like the other parts I’ve quoted, but in rhyming couplets:

Rivers of fire at dead of night in winter lying cold and white upon the plain burst forth, and high the red was mirrored in the sky. From Hithlum's walls they saw the fire, the steam and smoke in spire on spire leap up, till in confusion vast the stars were choked. And so it passed, the mighty field, and turned to dust, to drifting sand and yellow rust, to thirsty dunes where many bones lay broken among barren stones. Dor-na-Fauglith, Land of Thirst, they after named it, waste accurst, the raven-haunted roofless grave of many fair and many brave.

Those last two lines are so haunting. There’s something about the way this is written, what it says and doesn’t say. It doesn’t describe the fighting itself, just the beginning of the battle and the aftermath. And there are descriptions of the sky and the field and how it turned to dust before it tells you of the many bones of the dead, and then hits you with those last two lines, which are just brutal. It’s so tragic. When I read this I want to ride to Angband and challenge Morgoth to single combat myself. I can understand why Fingolfin felt such wrath and despair.

Speaking of which, The Lays of Beleriand also has a version of Fingolfin’s challenge to Morgoth, and it is so good! This is just the beginning of it:

In that vast shadow once of yore Fingolfin stood: his shield he bore with field of heaven’s blue and star of crystal shining pale afar. In overmastering wrath and hate desperate he smote upon that gate, the Gnomish king, there standing lone, while endless fortresses of stone engulfed the thin clear ringing keen of silver horn on baldric green. His hopeless challenge dauntless cried Fingolfin there: ‘Come, open wide, dark king, your ghastly brazen doors! Come forth, whom earth and heaven abhors! Come forth, O monstrous craven lord, and fight with thine own hand and sword, thou wielder of hosts of banded thralls, thou tyrant leaguered with strong walls, thou foe of Gods and elvish race! I wait thee here. Come! Show thy face!’

This is...YES. I love this so much! I’m so overjoyed that Tolkien wrote it! The Silmarillion doesn’t tell us Fingolfin’s actual words to Morgoth when he called him forth to single combat, only that he named him craven, and lord of slaves. This is Fingolfin’s actual challenge, or a poetic retelling of it at least. This is larger than life. And the entire rest of this section is just as good. It describes the fight itself, and how Thorondor rescued Fingolfin’s body and bore it away to the mountains above Gondolin. And it is full of incredible descriptions and absolutely awe-inspiring lines. I will never recover from the sheer epicness of the line at the end of the section which reads, till Gondolin’s appointed doom.

Another of my favorite parts is this passage about the halls of Menegroth:

Then sudden, deep beneath the earth the silences with silver mirth were shaken and the rocks were ringing, the birds of Melian were singing; and wide the ways of shadow spread as into arched halls she led Beren in wonder. There a light like day immortal and like night of stars unclouded, shone and gleamed. A vault of topless trees it seemed, whose trunks of carven stone there stood like towers of an enchanted wood in magic fast for ever bound, bearing a roof whose branches wound in endless tracery of green lit by some leaf-emprisoned sheen of moon and sun, and wrought of gems, and each leaf hung on golden stems. Lo! there amid immortal flowers the nightingales in shining bowers sang o’er the head of Melian, while water for ever dripped and ran from fountains in the rocky floor. There Thingol sat. His crown he wore of green and silver, and round his chair a host in gleaming armour fair.

I mean this is just unbelievably beautiful! It’s gorgeous! The descriptions are so vivid! I want to go there! It’s also the most detailed description of Menegroth that exists, which makes me wonder what other details we might have gotten if Tolkien hadn’t abandoned the poetic Silmarillion.

Another part that never fails to give me chills is this, when Beren departs from Dorthonion:

Southward he turned, and south away his long and lonely journey lay, while ever loomed before his path the dreadful peaks of Gorgorath. Never had foot of man most bold yet trod those mountains steep and cold, nor climbed upon their sudden brink, whence, sickened, eyes must turn and shrink to see their southward cliffs fall sheer in rocky pinnacle and pier down into shadows that were laid before the sun and moon were made. In valleys woven with deceit and washed with waters bitter-sweet dark magic lurked in gulf and glen; but out away beyond the ken of mortal sight the eagle’s eye from dizzy towers that pierced the sky might grey and gleaming see afar, as sheen on water under star, Beleriand, Beleriand, the borders of the Elven-land.

Chills! Chills every time! First of all, shadows that were laid before the sun and moon were made is a terrifying concept and I love it so much. And second of all, Beleriand, Beleriand, the borders of the Elven-land! I love the way the momentum builds as the poem continues, and the sense of longing that those last lines convey... it gets me every time.

I don’t know what the point of this post is except to say I love The Lays of Beleriand so much! I could have made this post twice as long. Or three times as long. There are so many incredible parts of it. I just love this book and I wish it got more attention. I think when some people try reading HoMe they give up somewhere in the Lost Tales and never make it to The Lays of Beleriand, which is a tragedy. If you haven’t, please read The Lays of Beleriand! 

[animatorweirdo]

Maedhros, Rog and Glorfindel with a thrall reader

(Nothing much. Hope you enjoy!)

Warnings: Mentions of captivity, mistrust, death, slavery, killing, torture. Violence, scars, comfort and trauma. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maedhros 

-Former thralls taking refuge in Himring were nothing new to Maedhros. He knew what they went through, so he welcomed them after making sure they weren’t possible threats and spies heavily influenced by Morgoth’s corruption. 

-He was no fool, so he was careful who to let in and keep out of his fortress despite the opinions of others who would rather see all of them out without giving them a chance. 

-It was because of the darkness that touched their kin ages ago, and now they lingered as their mangled selves in the forms of orcs. It made the elves weary as they looked for the signs of the same corruption in the faces of the escapees. 

-You were one of the refugees, seeking shelter and food after escaping from the iron hell and traveling by foot. 

-Like all the other thralls, you looked scarred and tired and must have lived in Angband for a long time since you gained some grey strands of hair. Maedhros pitied you since you most likely suffered a lifetime in that place, and he knew too well how cruel and kind your captors were. 

-He gained interest in talking with you after a rude confrontation with one of his people. They had begun insulting you while you were waiting on the side for some food. It was unprovoked, so Maedhros considered coming to your defense since you did nothing to deserve the slander until he noticed how other thralls came to defend you from the elf. 

-They became aggressive and would have ended up in a fight if you didn’t interfere and tell them it was alright. Your fellow thralls calmed down, and you managed to persuade the elf to leave without trouble. 

-How you interacted with other thralls gained his interest because they seemed to respect you and didn’t hesitate to come to your defense. You also bore a smile after the confrontation, like it was funny and nothing too big to get agitated about, even though they scolded you for being too soft to handle such rudeness. 

-Maybe it was your calm and peaceful nature that attracted Maedhros to you as he soon found himself talking to you. 

-You were respectful and soft-spoken. Your first thought you were causing trouble when Maedhros came to meet you. He assured you were not causing any problem, nor was anyone you knew, but you did make him curious and wished to converse with you. 

-So you two began talking a bit. 

-The reason you waited aside was to wait for others to take their share of the food before taking some for yourself. 

-Maedhros thought you were too humble until you smiled and mentioned you couldn't care for others without horrible consequences, so you were glad you could now and not feeling guilty about it. 

-He was curious what you meant, but he concluded you were forced to decide for someone’s fate like he once had. A terrible choice no one should have to make. 

-You then mentioned you just simply enjoyed the food. 

-You had almost forgotten how many flavors there were in the world, so you just want to enjoy it and savor every taste with no hurry. 

-The distributed food was said to be tasteless and gross, but it was better than what you had eaten in years spent in Morgoth’s prison, so you thanked Maedhros for his kindness. 

-Maedhros found somewhat enjoyment in your positivity despite what you went through. 

-When he questioned about your connection with other thralls, you explained you helped them during the escape from the iron hell. You traveled together, so you grew some bonds and became protective of each other. 

-He was impressed and managed to conclude a plan that might help the former thralls and his people to reconnect and heal, and you agreed to help him with it through your connection with your fellow thralls. 

-Maedhros found camaraderie with you as time passed, and you two managed to help the refugees to live among the people of Himring. The skepticism somewhat managed to subside.

- Since you two shared the experience of being former thralls, Maedhros found enjoyment in your company, sometimes coming for a simple talk over tea. You were always very welcoming to him and sometimes shared new recipes you learned from others. 

-You found a new hobby in cooking. It was relaxing and helped you cope with the things from the past. It was easy to control your restless thoughts in the soothing process of mingling flavors and textures. And it gave joy to others as a bonus since you often had dinners with those you considered close. 

-Maedhros respected that since it showed you were gradually healing. He envied you since his way of coping was a bit unhealthy, and he had not really considered finding a new way to cope with his trauma. He had given up hope for peace and acceptance long ago.

-He was used to living with it, not talking about it to anyone, and trying to appear as a leader his people needed. Even though: he was still haunted by his experiences. 

-He sometimes invited you to events so you could enjoy other delicacies of the culinary world. Seeing your smile and the expression of joy just felt right. The world felt brighter when you gushed about the slight citrusy flavor of the pie or the pleasant aftertaste of mint in the tea. 

-Seeing you happy might have turned into his new way of coping. 

-Even though: you two have grown friendly with each other. You did not share a lot about your past in Angband. You said it was hard to talk about, which he understood perfectly as he rarely spoke about his experiences. 

-You did share that you were forced to survive the fighter pits where they threw the thralls to fight for their lives. It was a sick form of entertainment for them. 

-You managed to fight the orcs and other monsters, but you got forced to fight your own people too, and you never truly healed from it. 

-Maedhros knew what you meant. He had seen the arena and watched how his people were ripped apart by the orcs and many other types of monsters. He understood that you got forced to fight and possibly kill those you did not want to kill. It was something he respectfully did not inquire more about from you. 

-Your soft-spoken demeanor and peaceful nature might have been misleading, but your scars and the callouses on your hands proved the truth in your words. He could sense the guilt that still bothered you to this day. 

-It motivated him to help you heal from the dark past that you both shared. 

-He thought he knew everything about you, but he was wrong when one day there was an ambush outside Himring. 

-When he heard about the ambush and remembered you were on that group that got ambushed, he rallied his men and hoped it wasn’t too late. 

-There were many dead, but you were standing before the orcs. Covered in blood and a sword in hand as the orcs ran away by the sight of you. 

-The look in your eyes showed many things to him. Fear, anger, shock, and emotion to fight for your life. It looked like you had conflicting memories running through your mind. It was the look of someone forced to fight, trying to survive. 

-Maedhros was glad, but he was careful to approach you and take you back to Himring since in your state you could have confused him as your enemy. 

-It took time for you to calm down, but when you did. You confessed about your past in Angband. The ambush made you remember things and feel like you were back in the pits. 

-You remembered all the orcs and monsters you faced and all the people you had killed because of your feeling of danger and urge to survive. 

-There was a lot of blood on your hands, the blood of the innocents, and the guilt ate you alive when you were finally out. 

-But this was not all…

-As one of the most surviving fighters in the pits, you received some special attention from the dark lord that still gave you nightmares. It was all because you refused to die. 

-You swore you would never hold a sword again so you wouldn't hurt anybody, but now it happened again, and all you could remember are the pits and what the dark lord had done to you. 

-Maedhros was understanding and couldn't do much but offer his comfort. One assuring thing he told you was that he was thankful that you saved his people from the ambush. 

-Maedhros felt inclined to keep you safe from the world. He had grown to care for you and did not wish to see that look on your face again. In his eyes, you were another poor soul who had suffered too much by Morgoth’s hands. 

Rog 

-As a former thrall, Rog often welcomed former thralls to his house. 

-The people might be skeptical and mistrustful, so he tried to help them get comfortable and rehabilitate after years of trauma. 

-He did not expect to see you after the next group of refugees that arrived in Gondolin. 

-You knew each other, so it was a happy reunion between old friends. 

-Rog didn’t even mind that you came to hug him as he was just as relieved to see you alive and well. 

-He welcomed you and made sure you were comfortable before you two decided to catch up on the events. 

-You two had met in the mines. You two used to converse before you got taken away to fight in the fighter pits. 

-No one ever survived for long in the pits, so Rog assumed you had died since it was technically a death sentence to anyone. He had no idea you had survived and lived long enough to escape. 

-He apologized because if he knew you still lived. He could have come to rescue you. 

-You did not blame him. You assumed the same thing when you didn’t hear about him for a long time. You were happy to see him alive and well. 

-You two had spent some time, and Rog introduced you to many people.

-You found enjoyment spending under the sun in the gardens of his house. You would sit on the grass, close your eyes and just bask in the sunlight with a smile. Rog found your content beautiful and made sure no one would badmouth you for being a thrall and ruin your pastime of simply enjoying the sunlight. 

-The only warmth you ever felt was the burning steel and the uncomfortable heat in the caverns of Angband. The cells were deadly cold, so the sunlight was a gentle welcome. 

-You tried reading but soon figured your reading skills had diminished over the years in captivity, so you tried to ask for Rog’s help with embarrassment in your eyes. 

-Rog was understanding and only chuckled, trying to assure you that you could ask anything from him. He employed Ecthelion’s and Penlod’s help in educating you again in reading and writing, but he enjoyed reading to you when it was just two of you. 

-Sometimes you wandered into his forges, waiting outside with a book in your hand before finally mustering the courage to ask him to read to you in the garden. 

-It became a habit, and you always apologized if you were disrupting him at an inconvenient time. He always had to assure you never bothered him in the first place. He found your behavior amusing since the group you came along with held you in high regard, yet you were shy to ask for his help or time. 

-Your timid nature just made him more protective of you. You were short compared to him, and you confessed what you went through in the pits and how much guilt you still carried in your heart for taking other lives who were forced down there with you.

-Sometimes, you couldn't sleep properly and found comfort in his voice when he read to you. 

-Rog understood your pain well. It pained him to know what you went through. He sometimes only wanted to wrap you up and keep you safe in his arms. 

-One thing he and some people miscomputed about you was that you were a frail soul who suffered much, but the truth couldn't be more clear that you were still a pit fighter. 

-Rog once accidentally tripped on his foot when he came back, and you were there to catch him with no problem. He was almost double your size, and there you held him asking if he was okay. 

-The incident didn’t end there. Your strength became more apparent when you wanted to try arm wrestling against Egalmoth, who was one of the most powerful lords in Gondolin. 

-Rog was worried about you since Egalmoth was one of the buffer elves too, but his concerns soon flew away when you managed to flip Egalmoth off the table, silencing everyone who watched. 

-Rog couldn't help but laugh at the predicament. 

-You apologized in panic. You might have gotten too excited and gone all out. 

-Rog was to assure you that day Egalmoth would not hold it against you. He at least found a new rival in arm wrestling since his pride was damaged a bit, and so did his arm. 

Glorfindel 

-Rog introduced you to him. Glorfindel was curious about this old friend of Rog’s, so he took time to meet you and was kinda enamored with your shy and peaceful nature. 

-He was welcoming and friendly, so you couldn't help but be charmed by him. He had been more welcoming than many others who had met you and known you were a thrall. 

-Glorfindel showed you around and included you in engaging conversations, making you smile and giggle at his jokes and funny stories. 

-He didn’t inquire much about your past in Angband since many would rather not talk about it, but you did share how you knew Rog and how you got forced to fight in an arena to survive. 

-You were aware that your kind of thralls were perceived to be dangerous and killed without hesitation, so you thanked him for his generosity. You did not remember someone showing this type of kindness to you. In a place like Angband, kindness was a twisted thing that carried mangled promises of suffering and pain.

-Glorfindel was moved and could almost feel the pain in your heart, so he decided to try and make your life a bit brighter and happier. 

-He would invite you to spend some time and join a party or a special event. He made sure you would have fun, and no one would criticize you for your scars. 

-You didn’t mind the scars. People would see them as rather horrendous, but you liked to think they were your trophies of what you survived. You were not weak. You survived and proved to the dark lord you’ll be free one day. 

-Glorfindel liked the way you thought and considered you as one of the strongest people he had ever met. 

-He felt motivated to ensure your life would be filled with nothing but love and happiness. 

-One peculiar quirk you grew was collecting tiny toys or stuffed animals. 

-You explained there wasn’t a huge reason for it, except that it helped you to cope a little and maybe connect with the childhood you lost after being captured by the orcs. 

-Glorfindel would feel heart touched by that and made sure no one would mock you for it since it helped you to cope and make you smile. 

-One day, he invited you along to a festival. There was a stall where you could win prizes for hitting the hardest in the game. 

-You wanted to try it because there was this fluffy toy you wanted. 

-Glorfindel offered to pay for the trial and was slightly prepared to do it himself since he couldn't help but doubt you might fail.

-He slightly misjudged you because the next thing you did, you punched so hard the whole thing started to shake and broke apart. 

-He and the stall owner were shocked to see the broken mess and you standing there with an awkward expression.

-You felt ashamed, but the stall owner was too amazed to complain about it and allowed you to have the fluffy toy since you did win it fair and square.

-You were happy but couldn't help but still feel bad for breaking the thing. Glorfindel assured you it was alright even though he couldn't help but wonder what other things you could do with your arm strength.

[charlesoberonn]

I’m writing one story pitch a day for a writing challenge.

Here’s the first one:

Title: Out Theres

Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Crime Drama

Premise: A man is in prison for a murder committed while an alternate self was in control of his body. While in prison he discovers the ability to swap bodies with alternate versions of himself from other universes. Now he is trying to find the real killer out in the multiverse.

Characters:

Carl - Previously an unambitious office worker in his 30s. He was in the middle of proposing to his fiance when he found himself in another universe. Sometime later he came back and found his fiance dead. He was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life in prison.

He used to be timid and careful, taking things slow and keeping his head low. But ever since going to prison and discovering his abilities he became much more ambitious and outgoing and discovered darker aspects of his personality.

Carl can swap minds with alternate versions of himself in the multiverse. While he is in their bodies, they are in his. He has limited access to their memories, allowing him to more or less take their place, but he has a limited time before the swap reverts, so whatever he has to do he has to do it fast.

Jeffrey - Buff guy in his late 20s. In prison for killing his rapist who got away with it. He is Carl’s cellmate and close confidant. The only one who knows Carl’s ability and when the alternate Carls take over his body he makes sure nobody notices. He is carefree most of the time but when things get intense he freaks out and can even lash out. He is good natured and kind and polite but he also has a dark side.

Yolana - Carl’s fiancee. A sophisticated but outgoing and cheery woman. Fiercely intelligent and a lover of puzzles. A bit of a short temper, and a bit of a guilt complex. In our universe she is killed by Evil Carl when he is in Carl’s body. But in other universes she is often still alive and is there to help our Carl when he needs her. 

Evil Carl - Another version of Carl with the same ability. He used his powers to cause havoc and commit crimes with no conquesques, or so he thought. He was a fugitive from an interdimensional police force, but he managed to convince them that our Carl was him. So now he’s scot free to go about his business causing havoc. He is all of Carl’s negative traits to an extreme degree. Outgoing, charismatic, but sociopathic and violent as well.

Officer Xen - An interdimensional cop. She travels physically from universe to universe and can take the form of the inhabitants wherever she finds herself. Whenever Carl is out of his own universe, she goes after him. She is a bit of a maverick who loves her job, but gets annoyed easily by small things. She is tough and pretends not to care, but it hides a softer, sadder inner self.

MuPH - The Multiversal Personal Helper. Xen’s assistant, a helpful robot with a cheery attitude. One of the main sources of annoyance for Xen. Is more sympathetic to Carl than his boss. He also has a bit of a twisted sense of humor, and he enjoys violence and drama.

Setting:

The Prison - A maximum penitentiary full of hardened criminals. Killers, gang leaders, and corrupt guards. For allegedly killing his fiance Carl is particularly hated by the other prisoners and staff. Besides normal criminals, the prison is also home to various mysteries and weird stuff due to sitting on top of an interdimensional nexus.

Whenever Carl uses his powers, this nexus is probed and something else comes through. Jeffrey and the alternate Carl in Carl’s body often have to contend with these visitors.

Interdimensional Police Headquarters - A labyrinthian extradimensional castle full of doors into different universes. The place is ancient, and existed long before the Interdimensional Police made it their headquarters. They fitted it with technology and transportation to the different universes, but it’s still not fully explored and is full of weird entities and secrets.

The Multiverse - A possibly infinite number of alternate universes, each of them sharing some similarities with our own, but with a lot of differences as well. Some universes have the same laws of physics but a different history. Others operate differently, like with fantasy rules of magic, or cartoon logic, etc.

Examples of alternate universes:

Elfworld - A fantasy world with magic and elves that constantly wage race wars against each other for the most minute of differences. Elf Carl and Yolana are both magical peacekeepers in a neighborhood particularly fraught with racial tensions.

Congressworld - A world similar to our own, except that Carl is a congressman currently running for president. This world’s United States is in the middle of a crisis caused by a recent civil war against Fascist rebels.

Swordworld - A world of roving knights, samurai, and musketeers. Some of them robbers, while others are vigilantes. Carl is the squire of a heroic but full-of-herself knight Yolana.

Asteroidworld - In this world the Earth has been destroyed decades ago and its remains are a mining operation for an alien corporation. The few remaining humans live on a reservation on the planet Mars. Carl is a meek office worker in the mining corporation.

Factoryworld - This world is a grim, black and while, horror dimension. The entire universe is a massive factory complex full of enormous dark machines, roaming monsters, and mindless zombie workers. Carl is one of the zombie workers. When he travels to this world, our Carl retains his intellect at first but slowly loses it, becoming more zombie-like.

[bookwyrminspiration]

hi there this is ink on a smaller blog!! in light of me apparently waking up this morning and choosing violence i wanted to ask if you had any thoughts about maruca, specifically on... just... her character and her family? her reputation in the Cities? hope u have a lovely day/night quil and no pressure to get to this soon!

Hello, Ink On A Smaller Blog! Congratulations on choosing violence, as knowing you there was likely a justification for it; I hope your violence went well. As for Maruca, yes! I have several thoughts on her and her family, reputation, and everything!

I've discussed previously how she's had such a drastic shift in her perception of things, going from being outside looking in to suddenly finding her family (Wylie, mainly) in the middle of it all and in danger after his kidnapping. But! There's more to her than that, specifically because...her family was already involved in everything before Wylie was kidnapped. Wylie is her cousin, so in some way/shape/form Prentice is family too. So when that whole situation went down all those years ago, it would've affected her family as well--but she wasn't alive then, or if she was she was like 1 at most.

While her family grew up with that stain on their reputation, Maruca was essentially oblivious to it, which I think contributed to her being more of an unpleasant person in the earlier books. Her family was irrevocably involved in this rebellion, and yet she had no idea. She came into the story after that had all happened, and by the time she'd grown up enough to understand it was more of a whispered story, a "I heard from a friend about this scandal" kind of situation where details can get really mixed up. Additionally, the people Maruca was around wouldn't have known either. She spends most of her time with people her own age, as most elves do, and none of them would have any reason to be involved in that aside from gossip. It's the same situation though, they would've been either months old or not born yet, so I don't think any of them would really know about the Prentice drama in depth enough to go "hey, Maruca's related to that family." I think Fitz even said something like "and his father was exiled" when telling Sophie Wylie's adoption, so it stands to reason people just...don't know. And that it includes Maruca.

That's one possibility, her being oblivious to her own relation to the drama of the story and finding it out suddenly when Wylie's dragged into it later. She'd get some exposure with his adoption, but it wouldn't really impact her in the same way as the kidnapping.

it's also possible that she was aware the entire time, and that brings us to her friendship with Biana and Stina. I've looked at Stina in the past and my general conclusion has been "she insults and demeans others as a way to keep attention off herself, given her situation." Doesn't mean that's a good method of doing so, but I do think it contributes to why she's so unpleasant; because she has to differentiate herself from those like her (in terms of being the child of a bad match).

If Maruca was aware of her family's precarious place in their society, known and with a fewe scandals connected to them that could damage their image and affect how they're treated, she might try to distance herself from that. What better way to distance yourself from the undesirable parts of elven society than being friends with the Vackers? /rh. They're prestigious, well-known, the top of the top. Maruca, by association, can get some of that praise and some of that immunity. At the very least if people are talking it'll be behind her back. Because she's friends with the Vackers, and the Vackers aren't friends with the lowly parts of their world (e.g. Dex), so if Biana is friends with Maruca then it's like a stamp of approval.

But then she fell out with Biana, and she became friends with Stina instead. Through that friendship, I think she could've become more like Stina and relied on her methods to protect herself. Being unpleasant people and messing with others to take the attention off of themselves, to get people to look the other way. It's self-preservation in such a ruthless society, and loosing Biana as a friend would've been a huge blow to her, as being cast aside by a Vacker cannot be a good thing. Becoming meaner and associating with Stina is like a backup plan, because no one likes Stina so they'll leave her alone too.

I think both approaches to her character could be reasonable, but either way I hope we get to learn a lot more about her in Stellarlune. I mean, she is on the cover, so hopefully that's indicative of something and not just her being useful in the situation!

She's either one of the character's with the biggest 180s and ability to adapt, or she's one of the most cunning and deliberate. Each is fascinating in it's own respects!