(Elvenking)—❧ Thranduil Oropherion (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
firith) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
eachdraidh2014-11-12 12:17 pm
firith) wrote in eachdraidh2014-11-12 12:17 pm
❧ VIDEO; 04 (both courts)
[ Thranduil hasn't vanished off the face of the Drabwurld again, contrary to popular belief, despite keeping his head down since Samhain. Ensconced in the Caer Glaem library pulling up certificates, maps, and all the other ridiculous paraphernalia required for a legalised contact to take place, he flicks on the locket from his desk in a corner of the vast halls, surrounded by stacks. There he sits sipping a goblet of the last keg of leftover Dorwinion which is currently under strict guard in the cellars (looking at you Samhain revellers). On the table are scrolls and books, all of which have been tidied, while in front of him lies a black leather-bound folder, ostensibly containing the point of the broadcast. ]
The High-King and I have come to an arrangement. In exchange for fair recompense, I have bought the rights to the woodlands south of the forest river and west of the Hidden Falls, within a crux of the mountain-range, to be easily identified on any common map. [ It's not quite as simple as that, of course, but he'll save everyone the pointless politicking. That, and he doesn't want to bring up Celegorm's shard in public; it would be bad taste. ] Aelfen and Elven tribes alike will be travelling to Caer Glaem over the next week or so to replenish their supplies, tools and gold, well within their rights to do so, before continuing on to their new homeland. Please show these former refugees every kindness.
[ As dapper as he looks, he clearly doesn't intend to faff about chatting idly about inanities; someone wants a nice long sleep. ]
If you have business in what will be renamed the Maechenibryth, come the turn of the winter season, or have done in the past which you wish to pursue in the future, you may bring the matter to myself, Thranduil, or to my son, Legolas, who will pass it on accordingly. There is much yet to do and I have little enough time to spare.
[ Sipping his wine, he shuts off the locket. ]
( ooc: if you'd like to continue anything from samhain just pop me a pm and i'll get on it, otherwise i'll take this opportunity to declare tag amnesty on that front as it broke my inbox and burned me out, sobs. tagging will generally be slow until after the weekend because of work. ty for waiting! )
The High-King and I have come to an arrangement. In exchange for fair recompense, I have bought the rights to the woodlands south of the forest river and west of the Hidden Falls, within a crux of the mountain-range, to be easily identified on any common map. [ It's not quite as simple as that, of course, but he'll save everyone the pointless politicking. That, and he doesn't want to bring up Celegorm's shard in public; it would be bad taste. ] Aelfen and Elven tribes alike will be travelling to Caer Glaem over the next week or so to replenish their supplies, tools and gold, well within their rights to do so, before continuing on to their new homeland. Please show these former refugees every kindness.
[ As dapper as he looks, he clearly doesn't intend to faff about chatting idly about inanities; someone wants a nice long sleep. ]
If you have business in what will be renamed the Maechenibryth, come the turn of the winter season, or have done in the past which you wish to pursue in the future, you may bring the matter to myself, Thranduil, or to my son, Legolas, who will pass it on accordingly. There is much yet to do and I have little enough time to spare.
[ Sipping his wine, he shuts off the locket. ]
( ooc: if you'd like to continue anything from samhain just pop me a pm and i'll get on it, otherwise i'll take this opportunity to declare tag amnesty on that front as it broke my inbox and burned me out, sobs. tagging will generally be slow until after the weekend because of work. ty for waiting! )
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No. He did not.
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Da begged him not to go to the Mountain. He knew he'd wake the dragon. All of us in Lake-town who helped him, and he went anyway.
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I will return his shard and sword to his nephews, as is only right.
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[Sigrid tucks her knees under her chin and hugs them.]
Which reminds me to ask--did Clarisse ever give Celegorm's shard to Legolas?
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I asked her to.
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You asked Clarisse to deliver Celegorm's shard to Legolas? [ Watching her keenly, he tilts his head. ] Why?
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[She lets out a breath.]
I'm going to tell you what happened, just...don't say it wasn't my fault. A lot of people say it wasn't and it's only because they're not thinking, or they think I'm just some innocent little girl who's too tender-hearted and blaming herself needlessly because she can't bear what's happened, or something. That's not the case. I've thought about it a lot and I know it was my fault.
So...when Celegorm was marching his army to Caer Glaem, the first to know about it were the birds. They came and they told me. And I panicked. I was afraid and I didn't sit and think what to do. I told Lord Stark because I knew he'd tell me what to do, and he did. He told me to tell Clarisse and some others, and I didn't know them, let alone trust them, but I thought if Lord Stark trusted them, that was enough. It wasn't. So I told Clarisse and I didn't even know her. And I knew that Celegorm wanted. I knew everything, and I let it all fly to the four winds instead of being sensible. That's why there was a battle, and that's why so many people died. A lot of deaths that didn't belong to me, but I got them anyway, and telling Clarisse to give away the shard was the only little thing I could do to try to make something right out of all the wrong I'd made.
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I shall say nothing on the matter, I need not when you suffer enough by your own estimation; nothing I might add to it will increase that guilt further or allay it.
[ He vaguely picks up on where she's coming from, having raised a child who often blurted out his faults and stared up with expectant, wide blue eyes when he knew he was to be scolded. There is no one here to do that for Sigrid and while Thranduil does not wish to, he thinks of what her own father might have done. ]
Good intentions often bear the heaviest regrets. If you can learn from that, you will lessen their load in the future.
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[She is very solemn--not emotional, but not casual at all. She has born this burden for a while, and she has adjusted to it somewhat.]
I was a very stupid spy. I should have kept it to myself and stole the Silmaril. Then I'd tell Sansa about the army and ride to Celegorm and give him what he wanted. Information is more powerful than I knew, and I guess I didn't think it mattered very much who had it, so long as they couldn't surprise us. I learned a few days later that he wasn't trying to surprise us, just draw us out. If I'd kept my head, we wouldn't've done the thing he wanted us to do.
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What is done is done.
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Is that what happened to Clarisse? She fell under its spell? Would that've...why would it happen if I didn't want it?
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[See, this sounds like a much more interesting course for this conversation to take.]
Tell me the story of the Silmarils. Please.
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[ Getting comfortable, he sips his wine and finds a starting point. ]
In ancient times there were two trees that would come to be destroyed by the fallen Vala, Morgoth Bauglir. Their last fruit and flower would rise up as the sun and the moon, but before this their true essence was captured in precious jewels crafted by the greatest of the Eldar, Fëanor. Together with the spider Ungoliant, Morgoth ruined the trees and stole these gems, slew Fëanor's father and fled to his fortress in the northlands of Middle-Earth as it was at that time. The Fëanorionnath, he and his seven sons, swore an oath that would become their doom, to retrieve the Silmarils at any cost. This terrible bond would shape events in the First Age for many, though it was not then known.
Five great battles were fought in Beleriand, with unfathomable losses to both Elves and Men. One Silmaril was recovered through great peril and set in the sky as a star by the Valar, while two more remained with Morgoth until Maedhros and Maglor attempted to take them back; the Silmarils are said to have burned their hands in refusal of their right of possession, as they did with Morgoth. Maedhros threw his into a fiery pit while Maglor cast his into the sea, and so the Silmarils returned to the three realms of Arda, the sky, the earth, and the sea.
That is an extremely narrow explanation, and it does not include why my first home was sacked because of the gems, but I would rather not have us waste away on stories for hours at a time, and that tale I know better than most.
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[ Rubbing between his brows, it's a prolonged moment of deciding before he launches into a second tale. It becomes clear he will have to explain a great deal more, now, rather than an overview. ]
I lived in Doriath, a great forestland, within Menegroth 'the Thousand Caves'. It was very beautiful and ruled by Elu Thingol, who was my king. He came into the possession of a Silmaril, asking it of a man called Beren as a bride-price for his daughter, and sought to have it made into part of a necklace called Nauglamír. The dwarves that fashioned it for him refused to give it up, once the Silmaril was set within it, and they slew Thingol in order to escape. They sacked the city but were eventually pushed back without the prize they felt was theirs. The grandson of Thingol through his daughter became king, Dior Eluchîl, inheriting the necklace. Only a few years later the Sons of Fëanor heard that it held a Silmaril and sacked Menegroth in order to reclaim it, as their oath bound them to do. Celegorm and Dior slew one another, while Curufin and Caranthir of Fëanor's line were claimed by the Sindar that overwhelmed Noldorin ranks. Menegroth, however, could not withstand such an attack for a second time, and fell into ruin. I lost my mother in the chaos of that battle and fled with my father.
That is how I was first made homeless not only by the Noldor that Thingol had despised and I had learned to distrust from the beginning, but by the Fëanorionnath themselves. You see, Sigrid, the Silmarils cast a wide net of doom that encroaches on many lives, and the farther away one remains from them, the better.
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Elves ruined his home.
Elves attacked Elves.
She remembers, vaguely, Maglor speaking of the horrible misdeeds, and only now recalls to mind some of the words he used. She remembers, more clearly, how badly she wished to beg his forgiveness when she saw him lose his brother. Celegorm, who destroyed a beautiful kingdom and drove out its innocent inhabitants, then returned to torture the son of one of its survivors. And into the fray he fell once more, leading an army to Caer Glaem as if to prove he would do it all over again without hesitation. Had not Nerdanel said something about being separated from her sons? How they had wrought their own destiny so? Maglor's crippling grief had been doubled, she realizes, by knowing it was their own fault that they suffered.
And here is one survivor, a pauper risen up as a king, and he has somehow managed not to make war on these people. All this time, she has been feeling sorry for the wrong people, and she feels cheated. No. Manipulated. Misled. That act of grief that recalled to her the face of her sister was not at all what it had seemed. Who had opened their locket to show it, and besmirch the Seelie by showing some imagined injustice? All these months of self-torture over a merciless beast?
It's no longer Morgoth who reminds her of Smaug. Smaug! Would someone villainize her father for killing the beast who destroyed their village?
Her jaw sets and her eyes flash hard, but her voice is quiet.]
Then maybe his death belongs to you. Maybe I don't know so much what I thought I knew, about what would've been right to do.
[She releases a long breath, then starts muttering in the tongue of Dale under her breath. It does not sound like polite language.]
Fá-tœkr móðir Nerdanel, [she finishes more sympathetically.]
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[ But I will use that shard to repair some of the damage its owner wrought on me and mine.
He cants his head, interested in the language she speaks. Snippets of it float up the river with stray Elves, sometimes, who converse with the Lake-Men, but Thranduil is unfamiliar. ]
The Lady Nerdanel is better to deal with than her husband or her sons, I daresay. [ Even if he doesn't disagree with the tone of Sigrid's mutter. ] She is of quite a different line than I.
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[Which is Duty, with a capital D. Not a virtue, merely a statement of fact, a part of her body that controls what she does with regards to her siblings. It isn't a righteous statement. It's a statement of how unnatural Maglor's actions really are.]
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Legolas is named in a way that harks back to the Laegrim, the Green Elves of Ossiriand, a band of Teleri called the Nandor, who wanted nothing to do with Eldamar and were ancestors of the Silvan who welcomed and raised us up as the lords we were by comparison.
[ A wry look as he sips his wine. ]
You can imagine how put out I was when I heard Nerdanel calling him by the Quenya approximation, mangling every syllable with the casual arrogance of her kind. She had never known Sindarin, of course, not before arriving in the Drabwurld, but I find that little enough reason to unravel my son's name.
[ As political a move as Legolas's name is, putting aside its sentimentality, the blitheness of Legolas being chopped up into Laiqualassë is not a sting that Thranduil, of all people, will forget. Just about forgive, yes, but. ]
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They are not evil, Sigrid. Grossly misguided, foolish, arrogant and capable of great cruelty, but not to be forsaken. If they are inside, they know it well enough for they feel as keenly as do we.
I can sympathise without forgiving them an inch, as should you.
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I pity him, even as he disgusts me. I do. He will never know the joy and peace in my son's heart, which will heal in time. Celegorm's never shall.
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