Month: March 2016

crocordile:

misbehavingmaiar:

There is very little I would not say you that would not also be difficult for me to say to myself. You know I use the truth as often as I am able— it takes only a little embroidering, if any, to make it work to one’s advantage. 

…I would like to tell you that if you had seen the elves of the First Age, you would not be so inclined to put your whole faith in their wisdom. They have never, and will never, have your species’s best interests at heart. 
Neither will the Valar, who have no place for you in their paradise nor any knowledge of where your spirits rest after death. The only one to whom you are not a complete mystery is Eru, and Eru has not spoken since the beginning of time.

All the custodians of this fragmentary world will fail the Edain in the end, and if you were sensible, you would run from them all and never cease until you had a kingdom of your own, beholden to no one.

Now that would be a true tribute to the Giver of Freedom! Far more than this useless ceremonial blood…  

~S

The upper balcony has a better view of the city, but it also provides others with a better view of whoever stands there. Instead, Míriel watches through the window of her own study room as the smoke ascends to a sky made red by the stained glass. An adequate color, but the potential symbology of it sounds unoriginal somehow. The world has grown full of cheap poetry nowadays.

“The Giver of Freedom.”, her companion spits, probably wearing the expression of disgust he only allows himself in their brief, secretive conversations about the Temple and its High Priest.  “This whole city has lost its wits”.

“My father also believed that death was freedom”. She still dreams of his last moments: a serene expression and a hint of a smile even as she grieved and begged him to stay. ‘It is time, child’, he told her, even though she was already a woman grown, even though she was indeed the queen by then, ruling in his place as he wasted away. ‘Do not hold me back, for I long to be free’. 

The memory still stings a little. “It is not so different from what the Wise said once, is it?” If I died, I would be free as well. “Was the magician not one of Them once? How do we know we are being cheated now, and not before? ‘Death brings freedom’, he says. It is quite the same.” She knows this logic is false, faulty and cynical, and has put it apart herself many times over the long years, and yet the words just stumble out of her mouth. Perhaps she grows unstable as well as old. Perhaps she is only bored and trying to provoke some feeling out of her companion. Or out of herself.

Words seem to escape him for a moment, till his expression grows even more bitter , grave beyond his years. “It…. It is as different as the sun and the sea, your Majesty. There is a time for living and a time for dying. These grotesque murders are… the way they give our brothers bound and gagged to be murdered in the name of this Shadow! To die screaming, in bonds like a slave… No, your Majesty, pray don’t test me like this. The Men of old ran from and fought against the Shadow of tyranny and won their freedom with blood and sacrifice, and yet their sons receive the very same Tyrant it in their homes, with a welcome feast and arms wide open… ”

And the Women of old, what did they do? Míriel vaguely wonders, but it’s pointless. What do scholars and books ever know? Far and wide people call her “Zimraphel”, and “Pharazôn’s queen”. Perhaps in history books they would tell of how she loved him so much she spit on her father’s grave and gave him the scepter and the crown willingly, and then also willingly faded into darkness so as to let him shine more brightly.

In the horizon, the smoke keeps rising lazily, so dark and unending it might as well cover the whole sky. In the silence that follows, Míriel finds she is also disgusted, after all.