hadriel | Royal Whining

[Kelson looks miserable, he's depressed and whiny on good days, and with Sorrow's resurrection everything he's tried to hold back is overflowing again. His eyes bright with tears, Kelson's struggling not to shed. His crown is lying somewhere, it’s certainly not on his head right now, his black hair undone from it’s normal braid.]

God help me why wasn’t I paying attention? If I was really in control and really a king I would have noticed. I should have been able to prevent it all. But I didn’t. Why hadn’t I been more careful with Llewell? I didn’t think he’d hurt his own sister. I didn’t notice until she gasped and by then he’d already killed her.

And then he had the audacity to glare at me before the executioner cut his head off. He looked at me with such hated. Why did he look at me like that? I wasn’t the one who killed her! He committed sacrilegious murder in front of hundreds of witnesses. I don’t think I can get married in that church again without seeing her blood everywhere.

I’m so tired of killing in order to bring peace. I want to be able to create life, not death. But all too often all I’ve got is death.

[Kelson shook his head, fighting to keep the tears from falling, twisting a woman’s wedding ring on his little finger, the ring once stained with blood, no longer fit to go on another’s finger. It wasn’t a good ring, but he couldn’t let go either.]

I had to killed her father. He wouldn’t surrender, so I shot him. Right there, on his horse. I just cut him down like a dog.

I killed his other son too. I didn’t even allow him to see a priest before he died. I just ordered my sergeant to haul him up on the nearby tree. God knows he deserved it. I know he did, I saw and felt first hand what he'd had done to innocent people. But I was supposed to be better. I took oaths to temper justice with mercy, but I didn’t feel like being merciful. He hadn’t been.

A friend came after me and asked me if I enjoyed it. He actually had to ask me.

[Kelson takes a shaky breath, unsure whether he can go on and keep going but this last one. This was one was most recent and close and painful.]

Do you know what’s worst of all? I knew my cousin was arrogant, I knew he was childish and jealous and I didn’t do anything. I thought he’d grow out of it. That maybe with a little experience he’d grow into a good man. Now he’s not going to grow up at all.

I’m sorry for the wasted life and all the hurt and pain. I’m sorry I had to behead my own damn cousin. I’m sorry he died weeping and it took the executioner 3 strikes to finish it. I’m sorry he left two children behind, that will never know their father. I’m sorry I’ll never be able to see the man I hoped he’d grow up to be.

[He catches his breath, taking a few minutes to try and collect himself, still wracked with guilt. He’s almost surprised anyone’s let him go on this long, and tries some humor, trying to force himself back into good spirits. It’s not working.]

To make it worse, I’ve been stuck here and haven’t gone to Mass in ages. Bishop Duncan is going to have me saying Pater Nosters until I’m fifty.

Does anyone have a sedative? I think I’d like to sleep unencumbered by dreams.

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[When he put it that way, Kelson really couldn't argue. That was a humongous loss of life for just jewels? Although it seemed to him they were more than jewels.]

You did all that, to take back a treasure? I assume from your story that the jewels were more than just adornments. I do not know your people but a my kingdom thought a jewel was lost, integral to the coronation of kings. As they could not retrieve it, another had to be forged. Perhaps it would not have been the same, not as strong, but it was a substitute. Was this not possible?

[Had he truly taken all steps to avoid loss of life before this murderous tirade?]

Yes.

[ He says sadly ]

Neither law, nor love, nor league of swords...so we swore, and so it was. And it set us against our kinsmen, and eventually even our family, as was foretold.

That depends on what you mean by "just", I suppose. [ He sighs ] The Silmarils are my father's greatest creation, that he said he could not break without slaying himself, so much of him went into their making. And they are holy, hallowed by the Star-kindler Herself to bear no evil touch, for they are the last memory of the light of the Two Trees that were before Moon and Sun, living light more glorious than anything in these hither lands.

But they are, in the end, "just jewels", with no especial powers of their own. Unique and beautiful beyond words, yes. But their value was as weregild, more than anything else - and with the Oath as a whip on our backs we could only restrain ourselves for a time.

And could you not create another of these Simarils? Or was the knowledge and ability lost? Or it seems, it was the wanting that was the undoing.

[Kelson took a breath, knowing that he would never quite understand, having not lived Maglor's life. And that he was not here in judgement, being a situation he had no knowledge of. It still seemed rather....superficial. He liked to think he wouldn't have resorted to such for a mere object, a holy relic, that he would have found another way. But, he might never know what he'd do in a situation like that.]

I hope here you can find some semblence of peace for yourself then, and a recompense for the fallen.

[ Maglor shakes his head ]

Father told no one how he made them - Curufin or Celebrimbor, maybe, could work out some of his notes, could guess at how he made their shells. But even if we could recreate those, the Trees are dead, slain by Morgoth on the same day as he killed Grandfather and stole the Silmarils. Their light is gone from the world, and will never return again. The Moon and Sun are but dim reflections of them, and only in the Silmarils does that memory come again to full life.

[ His smile is very bitter ]

I never wanted them. I hated them, still hate them, for what they did to father, for what they did to my brothers, for what was required of me. But the Oath takes no account of wanting. By the One Himself we swore, and named His Regents as witness, calling down the Everlasting Dark upon ourselves. And so we are bound, for in pressing our wills onto the world so were ours stolen from us in turn.

[That was so sad, a people punished for the will of another. Not particularly new, but it happened, even if that was a simplistic way of thinking of it. He had been bound. For all Kelson knew, his own people might have done something similar, but he'll never know if their plight now was simply human prejudice or a punishment for a wrong done long ago. ]

Perhaps it is better that way then, lost, so that such never comes again to pass?

[Kelson didn't particularly believe that, but Kelson came from a time when such knowledge was lost, and he was desperate to get any bit of it back, even if just theoretical.]

Not in Morgoth's hands [ For a moment, an old, fell flame flicks to life in his eyes, a hatred carefully nurtured and tended, there and gone ]

But they are, in any case. Maedhros took his into the fires at the heart of the world, I gave mine to the sea, and the one that Dior's daughter held is now set at the helm of Vingilot, that her husband Earendil pilots through the sky, and all three are now safe beyond the reach of all.

And all you have now is a memory?

[Kelson watched, waited to see if that old hatred would come back, but it looked stilled, only momentarily stoked. It was a peak behind the curtain though. Maglor was not everything he appeared to be, was he?]

Memory ... and this.

[ Maglor spreads his hands to show the burn scars - old and ropey, it looks like he held a flame in his right hand, and in the center of his palm the scars run almost straight, as if a facet of a great gem was pressed into the skin ]

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