NationStates Jolt Archive

The sun beamed down on the glorious city of Vinyatirion, chasing the shadows under the boughs of the trees as the leaves danced to the piping tune of the wind. On the lawn outside his house, a white-robed man sat on a step of stone as he watched the diamonds jump and glitter in the water of the fountain.

He sang to himself, the words of an old song heard distantly on the radio returning to him.

"All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
And their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression,"

In contrast to the song, the garden was lonesome, empty. A high wall surrounded it, keeping it safe from the outside world. A dull brown weaver bird crowed from under the eaves, and flew away as he looked up, soaring over the walls.

"Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tommorow, no tommorow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had."

He stood up, letting the words of Tears for Fears fade away, giving a regretful look at the imprisoning Eden around him before he walked out of the warm sunlight and into the house. It was sparsely furnished: a hotel room, a temporary residence. Not a home. Walk, walk, walk, up the stairs, more white stone, into a room, white walls with a white tent inside.

He ducked in, under a flap of cloth. Inside a black egg, dull matte black, rested on a simple wooden pedestal, painted in yet more white. He took three deep breaths, relaxed himself, and then sat cross-legged.

There. Focus ...

Thoughts drifted by. Memories.

A face, smiling, paternal pride

The weaver bird clucked to itself as it spat up a gobbet off earth and straw into the tree branch onto it's half-built nest.

Soft, sinking feeling, blood on his hands, an armoured figure collapsing to his knees, a dagger in my hand and in his back

Here ... damp mud clamped onto the straw, sticking, adding it to the intricate nest that hung from the tree branch.

Her face, expectant, trusting, sparkling eyes

The weaver-bird jumped off the branch, flew over the wall, back towards the stables on the edge of the city.

The blackness, hard, diamond, centred. I can feel it all ...

It was a pleasant flight, warm, no sign of the equatorial storms that necessitated the weaver's cradling nest. It chirped a song as it swooped down to clutch at more straw.

Black in white ... being in nothing ...

The bird flew back, it's tiny heart straining to propel it against the wind. The man's breaths were long, deep, relaxed.

...

The bird landed, spat out its materials onto the nest.

Vayusthambam

The trees in the garden quivered, bent low onto the ground. And not just the garden ... throughout the city, they bowed as if paying homage to a king.

The man smiled wanly as the universe shifted around him, altered focus, as he became one with it, understood it, inalienable. The egg span, rotated, before resting upside down, balanced infinitely on its tip. He stood smoothly.

"I find it hard to tell you
'Cos I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World ... "

Singing, he walked back down the stairs.

And down the street outside, a figure walked. A robed figure, resplendent in the most vibrant reds and golds... she breathed deep of the air of her capital; it was a strange air to foreigners, for it held the crisp sweetness of the mountains, and the warm salt of the tropical sea, and the lush floral scent of lawns and trees and flowers, all together - yet it was hers, it was Menelmacar, and she loved it.

She walked down the street, a deserted street in the mountainside suburbs; Elven homes, moderate in size but no lesser in beauty than the finest villa of any human realm, lined both sides, built into the slope, peeking through the trees that blew in the wind. And the wind... the beautiful sea breeze off the straits, carrying with it the song of birds, and of an Elf, somewhere in the city, simply expressing the joy she derived from life itself.

Around the walker, if one looked carefully, the street was not so deserted, and out of the corner of one's eye, one might see figures moving about, only when they had to, like heat-phantoms... she wished they did not, but such was their job, and at least they were discreet.

The Elentári of Menelmacar selected a house and turned up the walk; it was hard to miss, really - well taken care of, but without any of the details that made a house a home. She sighed softly; this detail weighed heavily on her heart. Around her the phantoms seemed to fade; mighty but discreet, the Mornahossë had been told the visit was to be private, and so private it would be.

She raised a finger to ring the door-chime, when her hair and robes blew about her in a gust of the wind; and all around, the trees - all of them, in unison - bent low, before resuming their swaying in the breeze... interesting trick, that. She turned back to the door and rang the chime at last.

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/sirithil/sirithilnosfeanor.gifLady Sirithil nos Fëanor
Elentári of the Eternal Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar
Regent of Lavenrunz
"We have known freedom's price. We have shown freedom's power. We will see freedom's victory."
~US President George W. Bush
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She was greeted by silence, stillness. The wind - a fresh summer's breath - creaked through the trees and whistled around the city, but made nary a sound in the eaves of the residence. It ruffled her hair, and played with her robes, but it did not touch the wind-chimes hung from the porch roof.

A moment passed, and another, before the door opened for the Elentári.

"Good morning, Lady Sirithil," the sing-song voice sang out. The man's powerful build was concealed by the voluminous robes, and he stood aside to allow her entrance with a slight bow. Something had changed, though. Always before - whether she had been the captive or he - Rhys had been nervous. Now he seemed calm, utterly calm: just like the stillness of the air in the house.

http://www.darkeningskies.net/nationstates/rhysminiature.jpg

"Good morning," she said with a smile, stepping carefully within. She glanced around. The place hadn't changed in months, not a bit, yet... something did seem different. "It has been too long since I have visited last," she said softly. "...I'm surprised - it seems as bare here as the day you moved in..."

And it hit her - it wasn't the house that had changed, it was Rhys. She turned towards him. "You seem... different somehow. Less... nervous, I suppose." She gave him another smile, one that showed she was pleased.

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/sirithil/sirithilnosfeanor.gifLady Sirithil nos Fëanor
Elentári of the Eternal Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar
Regent of Lavenrunz
"We have known freedom's price. We have shown freedom's power. We will see freedom's victory."
~US President George W. Bush
We Love the Iraqi Information Minister (http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com)
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He nodded, and shut the door behind her, before gesturing politely to indicate she should enter one of the rooms that led off from the small hallway.

"I moved my area of studies." He returned the smile, but it did not touch his eyes: they were flat, calculating, observant. He stood, waiting for Sirithil to take a seat in one of the comfortable leather armchairs. A patio door opened out onto the garden. A disgruntled weaverbird could be seen looking suspiciously at a tree, a nest still shaking under the boughs, in and out of the shadow.

"It has been a long time indeed. I trust the days have treated you kindly?" He looked at the bare walls, and nodded. "Few distractions I find are more conducive to learning." He gestured at a pine bookshelf, full of treatises on biology, physics, chemistry, religion.

Sirithil took the proffered seat; she watched his eyes, noted the expression there - a moment of wariness, followed almost immediately by self-scolding. He will hold his oath, she reminded herself.

"I suppose that makes sense," she said. "Yes, kindly... busy, but kindly. Much has happened, little of it worth discussing at length. Such is life. And you? Has the Prefecture of Science kept you interested and challenged?" she asked.

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/sirithil/sirithilnosfeanor.gifLady Sirithil nos Fëanor
Elentári of the Eternal Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar
Regent of Lavenrunz
"We have known freedom's price. We have shown freedom's power. We will see freedom's victory."
~US President George W. Bush
We Love the Iraqi Information Minister (http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com)
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He paused before continuing. "I am afraid not. I feel I have done all the work in the field that interests me with the equipment and strands available at the Prefecture." There was no hint of arrogance in his words, no pride or emotion: just the knowledge that that is what he believed. "I believe that I have finished with gene therapy, for the moment. Hence I turned my study to other areas. I have made an extensive study of Quenya music, for instance."
Another pause. "And swordplay."

He waited, politely, next to a seat that faced the door.

Sirithil nodded a bit. "No more genetics?" she said. "Well, it's not uncommon here, really, to leave a career, and to study or idle for a century or more before launching another. It is part of immortality; we walk many paths. Swordplay, you say? I imagine you have learned much; you were always skilled, and one of the few capable of giving me a good duel." That unreadable expression and voice bothered her a bit. She wasn't entirely sure what his angle was at this point, and it was making her a tad nervous, though not so much she could not conceal it. "Perhaps in future another Prefecture will interest you. Or maybe something in the private sector."

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/sirithil/sirithilnosfeanor.gifLady Sirithil nos Fëanor
Elentári of the Eternal Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar
Regent of Lavenrunz
"We have known freedom's price. We have shown freedom's power. We will see freedom's victory."
~US President George W. Bush
We Love the Iraqi Information Minister (http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com)
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If he noticed her nervousness, he showed no signs of it. "Thank you. That is indeed a compliment. I still prefer knives, however. Sadly, the FHG seemed reluctant to inform me of the techniques for making those monomolecular blades, and I did not press the issue." He shrugs, indicating it does not bother him. "I do not know about the private sector. Working for money always seemed a foolish idea, when I have never needed for it. Why let fiscal concerns dictate actions? As for another Prefecture ... possibly."

He smiles, then, genuinely but oddly: smiling at something, but not at her. "I do not know. I have had a revelation, and what follows I will only know once I have come to terms with it."

Sirithil saw the smile, yet perceived that she was not its object, or at least not its only object. She looked up at him, a bit inquisitively. "What sort of a revelation?" she asked.

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/sirithil/sirithilnosfeanor.gifLady Sirithil nos Fëanor
Elentári of the Eternal Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar
Regent of Lavenrunz
"We have known freedom's price. We have shown freedom's power. We will see freedom's victory."
~US President George W. Bush
We Love the Iraqi Information Minister (http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com)
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((Tag - Never mind))

wow... deep stuff here.

Seeing that permission to sit down was not forthcoming, he moved, gliding over to the bookcase. He ran a fingertip down the embossed leather spine of a book, slowly.

"I knew there was a God, beforehand. A divine presence that touched all, a pyramid of purity that watched his children, everloving, from outside. My faith told me this, my devotion to truth and to Heaven. But now ... "

He turned back to face her, and his eyes were suddenly alight with passion, or madness. "Now I have seen it. Now I know it to be true."

Sirithil ponders this a moment, and she gestures to a chair opposite her. "Please... tell me more; tell me of what you have seen."

Does Siri believe in the Christian God? Of course not, at least not beyond the admittedly numerous similarities to Ilúvatar. But this change in Rhys... she wishes to plumb its depths, discover its secrets, and always, always learn.

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/sirithil/sirithilnosfeanor.gifLady Sirithil nos Fëanor
Elentári of the Eternal Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar
Regent of Lavenrunz
"We have known freedom's price. We have shown freedom's power. We will see freedom's victory."
~US President George W. Bush
We Love the Iraqi Information Minister (http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com)
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Rhys smiled, and moved to a chair, and sat down. The smile didn't last long, no longer than any of the other signs of warmth or feeling he had exihibited.

"I think the understanding is in the seeing, not in the hearing. But as you will. I made the required preparations, following the texts of a book I happened upon quite by chance. It contains lots of little exercises, meditations, expanding the imagination, harmonising the mind. Similar New Age twists on psychological premises - efficacious, once one sees through the embedded pseudo-political messages. But one, the final one ... ah." He sighed, remembering.

"Reaching out to God, in a different way to that of my life so far. I saw through, and stood on a plain of cropped grass. In the distance, yet huge, encompassing my mind, was the pyramid that is the Lord. Lesser mountains surrounded it, hosts at His side, but it was He that drew my gaze and my attention. He spoke to me, and showed me the Truth: not the little truths that I knew beforehand, not my ability to see through lies. The ineffable Truth that underlay the universe. And yet ... He did not tell me what to do. Only how to do it."

He snapped out of his reverie, then. "Free will is truly a double-edged gift."

"And... what was this truth?" Sirithil asks, intensely curious now. The Valar, and even Ilúvatar, had occasionally been known to show themselves, to impart some great wisdom... it was rare, though, and if Rhys had had such an experience, she wanted to know more about it.

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/sirithil/sirithilnosfeanor.gifLady Sirithil nos Fëanor
Elentári of the Eternal Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar
Regent of Lavenrunz
"We have known freedom's price. We have shown freedom's power. We will see freedom's victory."
~US President George W. Bush
We Love the Iraqi Information Minister (http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com)
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Rhys' eyes shifted back into focus, and he looked at her intensely. "It is a Truth I find hard to put in words. The connectedness of all things, the rhythm that makes them beat. The Lord in everything, everywhere ... "

He reached up, and pulled a white lily on a slender green stalk from the air, twisted the stem around his finger.

"All linked, everything, everywhere. Of course, any magician could do the same, I am sure. I do not feel I am yet ... prepared ... to give a more tangible demonstration yet. I feel as if I have run a race even doing so much."

Sirithil nods again, slowly, hiding her surprise at Rhys' newfound abilities. "And what is it you believe God wants you to do?" she asks.

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/sirithil/sirithilnosfeanor.gifLady Sirithil nos Fëanor
Elentári of the Eternal Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar
Regent of Lavenrunz
"We have known freedom's price. We have shown freedom's power. We will see freedom's victory."
~US President George W. Bush
We Love the Iraqi Information Minister (http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com)
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"Bring order, peace and justice to the world, by His divine grace." The eyes now are clear, gleaming again.

Sirithil nods slowly. "A lofty goal," she says. "And one we share, though, admittedly, probably not by the grace of the same deity. What sort of justice do you have in mind?"

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/sirithil/sirithilnosfeanor.gifLady Sirithil nos Fëanor
Elentári of the Eternal Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar
Regent of Lavenrunz
"We have known freedom's price. We have shown freedom's power. We will see freedom's victory."
~US President George W. Bush
We Love the Iraqi Information Minister (http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com)
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"A justice where all may live their lives as they please, and those who transgress against them are brought to terms with the Divine Mandate. Where enlightenment ends wrongdoing, and those who forsake enlightenment are prevented from harming themselves or others. A real justice, not one of courts and men, but of the spirit. That is the justice I believe in. One that allows God's favoured children to lead the misguided to the light!"

Seeing the Elentari rendered speechless, the man stood and gave her a grave bow, his eyes suddenly blank.

"And now, Sirithil, I must take my leave of you. I have tasks to attend to." He offered her his hand to stand, and politely escorted her from the house.

<months later>

Rhys groaned, pushing himself up the floor. It skittered away from his sight, the angles twisted and demented and individual stones of the mosaic jumped at him.

Not yet. Not yet ... The flesh of his palms pressed between the jagged edges of the coloured fragments. The blood pounded in his ears, his heart beat painfully.

The blow was sudden, to the small of his back. He could feel his spine splinter, slivers of bone fractured away and driven throughout his flesh. He collapsed back down, watching the lattice painted on the floor by the bubbles of blood that dripped from his gasping mouth. For the first time in many years, his body was not knitting itself together.

The next assault pulled his left arm out of its socket with an audible 'pop'. Tendons creaked and he slumped. He could taste the dust of the floor against his mouth, distantly. The pain had made threatened his equilibrium at first, but now it helped it: the distance he needed to stay conscious kept the pain away, maintained his concentration.

A kick to his kidneys, and a slash just above his knee. He couldn't feel his leg any longer.

He felt his body dying, his brain starving of oxygen.

I will pass this test, he thought, as he died.

Rhys' street ran up a little river-valley between two outlying peaks of the Pelóri's inner slopes; it overlooked the city to the southwest, and to the northeast the environment very much resembled Rivendell of old, but with lines of sprawling homes on lovingly cared-for lots. With the exception of one... well cared-for, yes, but not landscaped to the degree of the others around it, little effort expended in making it a home rather than just another house.

Next door lived a relatively young Elven couple; their house was their first house, and they had moved in only three months previously; the downpayment made with wedding-gift money, every part of the house an endless range of future possibilities. The wife, Faiseliel, hummed softly to herself as she tended the garden, urging greater growth and color from her flowers in the rich black Menelmacari soil. She looked up, briefly, her gaze leading over the hedge, at the house just up hill, just next door... shaded by trees as were all the others but its lawn empty of anything particularly creative.

She had seen its occupant occasionally - such an odd man! - the tall, black-haired human who always was ever so polite but very guarded, and when he spoke at all it was of very strange things which he never wanted to go into much detail. Yet, nobody else in the neighborhood she had talked to seemed to bear him any ill will, and there had been rumors, rumors that occasionally the Lady herself would walk up this very street and visit at that very house.

As she looked at the house, though, something felt wrong... the man was fastidious, incredibly so, yet there was mail stuffed into the box at the door... and as a breeze wafted down the valley from the mountains the crisp and refreshingly cool air was mixed with something else... a smell of decay.

Faiseliel glanced around; nobody else was out at the moment, it seemed. "Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt if I took a look... maybe he went away on a trip," she said softly to herself. "He'll thank me if I pick up his mail for him, I'm sure..." She went around the hedge, crossing the lawn tentatively, making her way up towards the house; she stepped lightly onto the porch, and bent to gather the mail that had been left - there were several letters, one of which was from the Imperial government. What looked like a bill, and three days' worth of newschips in their little sealed plastic bags. She couldn't help but glance one of the envelopes, at the name, Rhys G... just G... even the government letter was addressed such. Odd indeed.

As she stood up, she smelled it again... much stronger... tentatively Faiseliel reached for the door, unable to stop herself, and turned the handle - the door opened easily, swung soundlessly inwards, and the smell was overpowering inside. The house was quiet; the sunlight shone in through the windows, the angled sunbeams reflected by dust in the air. She stepped inside onto the mosaic tile floor of the foyer, which continued uninterrupted through many parts of the house. "Rhys?" she called, softly, a little afraid now. "Are you alr--" It was about then that Faiseliel glanced into the living room... more specifically, at the crumpled, shattered body sprawled in a sticky puddle of blood.

Her scream echoed through the house.

http://www.weirdozone.0catch.com/projects/nationstates/sirithil/sirithilnosfeanor.gifLady Sirithil nos Fëanor
Elentári of the Eternal Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar
High Queen and Lady-Protector of Elvenkind
"We have known freedom's price. We have shown freedom's power. We will see freedom's victory."
~US President George W. Bush
We Love the Iraqi Information Minister (http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com)
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The man's body was surrounded by a pool of dark brown dried blood, and the strong smell of ammonium sulphate filled the air. His body was rent and shredded, with protuberances of bone ripping through parts of his skin. His chest was flailed, with half of it mashed in and the other half poking out like a macabre ivory comb. One leg was snapped, bent at an unnatural angle: one arm likewise. Only his face remained calm, and placid: still glowing with faith, as it had done in life.

There were no signs of struggle in the room, though. Just the body on the floor, and the blood on the carpet. No shattered weapons, holes in the wall, or even scraps of clothing cut during a knife fight.

A great plain, grass stretching on into infinity. And on it a house, with walls of rippling water, dark and opaque. Windows of light shone beams out that roved across the land, featureless save for the greenery. Occasionally one of the house sides would bulge slightly, or sink. Flickers of colour travelled across it, veined like black in marble, like lightning in a storm.

And Rhys stood in front of the doorway, his face set. Blood trickled from his mouth, tiny sanguine droplets wending a way down his chin and soaking into the white of his shirt. A large cut along his chest bisected his midrif, from over his heart to down by his appendix. Bloody red flesh poked through the edge of the wound, and the gleaming white of a rib, and the pale pink of organs danced teasingly in gash as his chest rose and fell with his breath.

He turned to look back away from the house, and the plain changed: mountains were there, jagged and covered at the top by clouds. Pine trees swayed in unseen winds, snow carpeted the foothills. The black ice of a frozen lake ended at his feet, steaming as a gobbet of blood dropped and landed on it.

He looked at the door again, and the plain returned, the detail gone in a flash. The door of the watery house - open, yet not inviting - led into a hallway. A photograph, sepia, of a handsome man greeted his entry into the house.

Simon. Traitor, yet one I cannot blame. I neglected my duty to you, my liegeman, by denying you your revenge. I hope you will find peace from the ghost of your brother one day.

Memories of the Royal Institute of Genetic Research, the Menelmacari raid, the death of his Royal Guard at the hands of the Mornahosse as he had watched from a thousand miles away. Staying Simon's hand, when the man had been confronted by the sleeping killer of his brother, the elven soldier asleep on her bed. He pushed the feelings downwards, and inwards, and banished them.

Rhys stepped foward.

The door rippled shut behind him, and he walked along a corridor of mute darkness. A bust on a dark surface, beautiful haughty features softened by age. A sculpture carved by loving hands, capturing spirit as well as form.

Sirithil. Yes, I hurt you too, and you showed mercy. Foolishly? Yes, I think so. Life is hard ...

Fleeting glimpses of the past, of an altar and of twisted emotions, and calculated manipulations of spiritual energy to shatter the mind and will of one who had survived forty millenia of enemies. The tears, the broken voice, the whispering of secrets. The memories were wrung of emotion, the feelings unstitched meticulously and separated. He walked on.

A painted portrait hung from the wall. The man on it bore a resemblance to Rhys, although he looked older. Not as strong, his eyes somewhat paler. The canvas was slashed, though, and flaps of it hung down.

Nothing. I must feel ... nothing.

As ever, his mind hardened as he thought of the blackness at the centre of all things. Rhys stared into the picture of his father. He reached out and smoothed the canvas flaps back into place.

Ah, father. How I miss you still ... His blood ran hot, as he remembered his life. Young, motherless, his father taking time from ruling the country to spend it with him. Playing football in the palace corridors, encouraging him to study hard. Attending Rhys' confirmation at sixteen,
as he was inducted into the One True Faith. Teaching him a love of science, of mathematics, of the arts ... the linking rhythmus that underlay them all, merged them into one beautiful hole. Rhys took his emotions, his love, and carefully drew them into the black sphere he visualised in his mind. Cold, calm, collected ... and the anger went with them, the memories of his betrayal, his father's weakness.

Nothing. I feel nothing. I am calm, I am seperate ...

The portrait disappeared before his eyes. Stairs opened up in the watery wall, leading upwards as the corridors of his experience flowed and swirled, and he walked up them.

Stephan ... ah, cousin ... you fought for me so often, and I know you would have died each time, had you more than one life to give ...

Stephan Bryant, his elder cousin and Lord Commander of his military when he was Crown Prince, smiled back at him wanly. So many wars ... Glubbdubdrib, Arani, Drum Gods, Roania, Raem, Inarli, Knootoss, Resi, The Corpselands, Automagfreek.

So many victories in my name, and I never let you rest, never let you marry, never let you father children. I took your life, for all that the traitor Simon gave you death.

Remorse clouded his senses, missed opportunities, the mistakes he had made, the thoughtlessness he had shown. And Rhys accepted them, and pushed them into the blackness, emptied his heart once more of his feelings. The walls tumbled, currents pulling threads of light into shreds and merging them again. He waited for the way through his mind to be revealed ... and gasped as he slipped, sucked down as the floor swirled and sank into a maelstrom of darkness.

At the bottom, as he knew she would be, was Lucia - but no picture, no statue. The girl herself, breathing, his face reflected in her bright eyes.

http://raph.com/3dartists/artgallery/soa1.jpg

"I have waited long, my Lord," the soft voice said.

Nothing. I have come to wipe clean the slate of my feelings.

Despite his thoughts, he seethed. His heart was close to bursting at the sight of her, the one true obsession of his life.

And her words, and her actions ... her lies.

"But what was I to do, my Lord? Your father was King: his word was law." As in life her voice lowered when she was upset, and he stepped forward just to be able to hear. "He would have broken our engagement had I protested ... exiled me ... forever." She reached out towards him, timorously, pleading. "You would have found out, and hated me for it. I do not think I could have borne your hate ... and then it was too late, and you found out, and he dragged me into the mirror."

The hate she spoke of flared, and Lucia sank back into her chaise longe, sighing, seeing it on his face.

"You should have told me earlier. Things may have been different." His voice was calm. He had always been able to sound calm, even when he was young.

"No, my Lord. Like your father, you were too strong. Too stubborn. The King did not solve problems, my Lord: he removed them."

And so he did, dragging you through the Speaking Mirror, into their realm.

"I could do nothing, Lucia."

"The spirits keep their pledge, my Lord. The last blood heir of your line will have their protection, always. The King would have been able to keep them from me - and from himself - were he the last living heir."

No feelings. Nothing. It was far harder than before, far far harder. Guilt was the emotion that stuck in the throat, that choked away all reason.

"I had made my vows, Lucia. My faith. Suicide is a cardinal sin, I could not have killed myself - not even to save you." And I had things to live for, then. I could not bear the thought of death ... little did I know you were all that mattered.

She opened her mouth to speak, but the dark place within him swallowed her whole as the last of his guilt was quelled, and he sighed. The house disappeared around him, leaving him on the grassy plain, alone and whole once more.

He did not feel relief, or sorrow. It was all gone, gone with the joy and the laughter and the pain. He felt the link to everything, then, the rhythm of creation, the breath of the Creator himself, and the essences of all things that were his.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Vinyatirion, Rhys stepped out of the debris of his own body, glanced at impassively lying broken on the floor.

Now. There are things I must do ...