[video] An Open Query

[northerndragon]

[Jon has been in Hadriel for a few months now, and because he's a member of the Guard, and Sansa Stark's brother, most other residents have probably seen him around. Still, he's a quiet man, however affable, and using the network is not second nature to him. It's likely that most people don't know much about him, except that they might be able to accurately recognize him as coming from a world where the technology is still set at "medieval." If they've heard him speak, they might also assume he's from Northern England, but the truth is that he's not from England at all.

He's dressed as he usually is, today, in a dark brown brigandine and a gorget with two facing wolf heads at the front center. His expression is curious and interested, while his tone is serious.]

I have a question for everyone -- for anyone who's willing to speak to me on the matter.

To some extent, I know what we face here. I'm always learning, but I'm beginning to have a better understanding of it.

What I want to know is: what do you face at home?

Comments

[northerndragon]

The Valar, you said. Powers of the Earth.

It sounds like this Morgoth wanted to be like a god -- a cruel one. So that every person in the world might serve him.

[Six years ago, this might have been too large for him to wrap his mind around. He had still been a boy then, his mind mostly set on meals and Ghost and horses and his family's troubles, and how best to prepare Lord Commander Mormont's hot wine.

Since then -- well. It's easier to think of the world being overtaken and understand what that might be like, the enormity of the thing; it wakes him up at night, when he dreams of nothing but swarming wights as far as the eye can see, every person he's ever known among thousands of faces he doesn't recognize.

Still, while doesn't know what the Night King wants, it can't be what Morgoth wanted. Wights don't seem to delight in anything, and before they were wights, they were merely killed; he can't recall a time when the dead toyed with the living before killing them. There doesn't seem to be any plan beyond making more wights and making the world cold. The killing itself has always been fast, efficient, a swarm running over everything. But the White Walkers are cold, unmovable, even in triumph: their arrogance shows, but only a little.

Once, Jon had seen surprise on the face of one. Only once, when it failed to shatter Longclaw and was shattered itself a moment later. And not long after, he stood in a boat and watched the shore in horror, as thousands of dead men stood up from where they were killed to watch him go.

It's only a moment before he speaks again, but when he does, he looks tired, grim.]

How were you able to fight him? How long was the war?

[utulien_aure]

He did- but he was as close as he would ever come. He was the mightiest of the Valar, once, but even they are but servants of the One who created them.

[And that sentence might have been out of a children's tale of his own. Perhaps it had indeed come from the tales of the creation of the world, and the war that had raged before the count of time began. It had been a popular subject for the more daring bards and poets when Fingon had been young.

Not that any of those bards had known what war was, then. Or the depths of what the villain from the old stories would prove capable of, were he ever released.

The Noldor had been very naive, when Fingon was young.]

I'm told it went on for another century or so after my time- so perhaps six hundred years in all, if one counts from his escape?

As to how we fought- with armies and allies, blade and bow. He poured power into his orcs and dragons and other monsters, and that power he could not take back. He diminished as his armies grew, so even his successes came at a cost. So long as he was not provoked to destroy us all at once, we could whittle away at his power bit by bit.

[He closes his eyes, and tells the rest in a voice mixed with grief and pride.]

We've lost too many men, too many lands. My kinsmen tell me we lose more, before the end. But it's working- he is not what he was. What kind of god, after all, takes seven wounds from an Incarnate, and never manages to heal the limp?

[northerndragon]

[Talking of the One reminds him a little too much of talk of the Lord of Light, but for now, he sets that aside.

Six hundred years makes him suck his breath in.]

Not much of a god at all. But six hundred years is generations of men born and living their lives and dead never knowing anything but this war. It's ruin enough for anyone it touches.

I know you're not men, not in the way I would think of them. Where my sister and I come from, what we face... anything even a little like what you've faced... will bring winter with it. Or rather, it's winter already, and it won't be spring again until we've won.

If we win.

[utulien_aure]

[Don't worry, Jon, there's an easy way to tell the two apart. Historically, Iluvatar prefers less empowering people who set living creatures on fire and more drowning them.

...That might not be very reassuring, actually.]

There are times when all one can do is fight. And though the valor of the Edain did not conquer all, it bought more years of peace for their children then they would have had otherwise.

[At the mention of winter Fingon tenses ever so slightly.]

I know a little of life amidst the Ice.

[Make that a lot, and all of the knowledge dearly bought.]

And your sister has spoken of your world before. But what you speak of now is not the same as it's usual seasons, I take it?