005 ✿ text

[secondreturned]

You should have just killed me.

[Did you expect her to be thankful? Delight's text post comes a little belatedly after the poll has been closed and isn't quite the pleasant cheeriness that some of you have come to expect from her.]

I died the moment you saved Hope. We all did. This is just prolonging the inevitable.

I don't much care what you think of my decision or my actions. I tried to save what I could. I planned Hope's assassination for months, negotiated with the beings that killed everything I knew, traded the life of someone I adore very much- all to save my other allies and to save you. This was not a decision made quickly or lightly and I will not be made to regret doing what I felt was right.

I see now that I was too optimistic. You could not be made to lay down your weapons for a more peaceful arrangement- I suppose I should have known better, considering how antagonistic you've been. Still, I had to at least try. Nobody else would.

There's nothing more to say, save for this- don't rely on the other gods to save you. Fear will turn his back at the first opportunity and Hope will not fight alongside you. The others will use you how they see fit. What opportunity for survival you may have had with the Null has faded now. You're on your own.

Comments

video

[so_dark_a_road]

We've already spoken once on these matters, and I mostly won't repeat what I've already said. I did want to say that I appreciate that you really did feel you had some connection with us, and that was one of your reasons for making the deal with the Null. But you made a decision for us, not with us, and that was bound to create problems. I personally could not stand down and watch while they slaughtered my family and my friends and a good many other people who didn't deserve that, simply because they were on the Null's kill list, or because they got in the way. That would have been impossible for me to do. There are some things that matter to me more than life.

I do not believe that we have no chance of defeating the Null. I think we have no chance if you gods and we Hadrielites are split into multiple factions and cannot work together. That is why I spoke for life, not death, not exile, and not prison. I speak for healing. And that is why I say to you that you must fight despair, and keep talking to your brother and sister gods, and that they and you should come to terms with what has happened and look to the future, not the past. Reality is not simple. Betrayal can come from a broken or injured heart or spirit, and the solution is not punishment or abandonment or revenge. I will continue to take this position, and to advocate for it, as long as I live.

But since this may be the last time you are allowed to talk to us for some time -- I hope not forever -- please accept this gift from me. Consider it a token of the hope I still have.

[ And he takes up his melodious Elvish flute, sets it to his lips, and plays a paean to the emotion of delight. Since he's an Elf, a craftsman, and a musician, he has a power to evoke images and the whole rich current of feeling that goes into their making. The tune begins slowly but soon picks up the pace, and breaks into rills of joy and merriment. This melody is one he remembers from the years when his son was small, and he was without a wife and his son without a mother. But father and son were strongly bonded, and they enjoyed one another's company greatly. When little Celebrimbor was steady enough on his feet to join his father in the dance circles at the midsummer celebration, Curufin brought him along. The bonfires crackled away merrily and the sparks flew up in the air, and the harp, fiddle, fife, and boran sounded wildly and joyously all night long. Curufin first lifted his eager little son up on his shoulders and bore him into the circle. Cel clung to his father's arms, neck, shoulders and braids and laughed aloud, his laughter an enchanting music in and of itself. And when finally he demanded to be set down, he wobbled along on his chubby little legs, clumsy but avid to move to the beat, Curufin holding one of those delicate little hands and one of the uncles holding the other. Those moments were times of the purest delight. And now it is a delight that sparkles like moonlight on river-water, and it inundates Curufin's spirit and spills over into the atmosphere. He radiates it so strongly that the air almost vibrates with it, as it does with the clear winding flute melody. ]