Post by Griff on May 2, 2012 8:58:24 GMT 10
Series: Mirror, Darkly
Title: Changeling Child
Rating: PG
Event: 400D
Words: 400
Summary: The changeling stole his life.
-
The harbinger of his destruction had risen once again and his name was Jonathan.
The day the boy was born, Roger lost his father, his birthright, and his future, all to the hands of a mewling kitten of a creature. First born of Jasson’s first born, Roger was heir apparent to his father’s kingdom, but the fool lost his head on the Scanran border over some pretty peasant girl with a bastard in her belly. His grandfather died at the hands of fate, barrel chested and fat in his bed, leaving a toddler and his uncle of eighteen to rule a stricken conquering nation.
Roald became king. Roger became his son.
For thirteen years, Roald was Roger’s, until the day Jonathan fell out of Lianne’s belly with his black halo and stole his world. First his family, then his birthright, and now his rebellion, taken away by the guileless son of the man he loved most.
In Carthak, the Gallan mages would share whispered stories about fae and godlike creatures from beyond the veil. Changelings with the faces of man, but a devilry about them that seduced goodly folk away from their loved ones, starting in their stolen cradles. Roger had always considered it superstition of the common people, but Jonathan tested his resolve in all things.
The sweating sickness wasn’t sent for Lianne, after all. She was merely an additional satisfaction. He hadn’t realized slaying the mother of the beast would kill the king. Roald had loved her, but men loved and lost every day.
He held a hand up against the gloom of the crypts, his gift wafting through the air in serpentine radians of smoke. Generations of the dead lay under ornate sarcophagus, each etched by the greatest sculptor of their age.
Some ages, Roger noted ruthlessly, were greater than others.
At the end of the long corridor, where the walls shifted from the shoddy tool work of the second-age into the delicate carvings made with magic, the sepulcher doors of the Conté kings stood stone-faced and closed. He turned the heavy spiral bar with ease. It was well-oiled.
The inside was filled with careful rows of fallen men, laid side by side in their sculpted coffins in a morbid parody of a healer’s tent. His uncle’s likeness was skilled, Roger decided as he rest his hand on the side of the hard stone face, but wrong.
“Why,” he asked his father in the darkness, “was I never enough?”
Title: Changeling Child
Rating: PG
Event: 400D
Words: 400
Summary: The changeling stole his life.
-
The harbinger of his destruction had risen once again and his name was Jonathan.
The day the boy was born, Roger lost his father, his birthright, and his future, all to the hands of a mewling kitten of a creature. First born of Jasson’s first born, Roger was heir apparent to his father’s kingdom, but the fool lost his head on the Scanran border over some pretty peasant girl with a bastard in her belly. His grandfather died at the hands of fate, barrel chested and fat in his bed, leaving a toddler and his uncle of eighteen to rule a stricken conquering nation.
Roald became king. Roger became his son.
For thirteen years, Roald was Roger’s, until the day Jonathan fell out of Lianne’s belly with his black halo and stole his world. First his family, then his birthright, and now his rebellion, taken away by the guileless son of the man he loved most.
In Carthak, the Gallan mages would share whispered stories about fae and godlike creatures from beyond the veil. Changelings with the faces of man, but a devilry about them that seduced goodly folk away from their loved ones, starting in their stolen cradles. Roger had always considered it superstition of the common people, but Jonathan tested his resolve in all things.
The sweating sickness wasn’t sent for Lianne, after all. She was merely an additional satisfaction. He hadn’t realized slaying the mother of the beast would kill the king. Roald had loved her, but men loved and lost every day.
He held a hand up against the gloom of the crypts, his gift wafting through the air in serpentine radians of smoke. Generations of the dead lay under ornate sarcophagus, each etched by the greatest sculptor of their age.
Some ages, Roger noted ruthlessly, were greater than others.
At the end of the long corridor, where the walls shifted from the shoddy tool work of the second-age into the delicate carvings made with magic, the sepulcher doors of the Conté kings stood stone-faced and closed. He turned the heavy spiral bar with ease. It was well-oiled.
The inside was filled with careful rows of fallen men, laid side by side in their sculpted coffins in a morbid parody of a healer’s tent. His uncle’s likeness was skilled, Roger decided as he rest his hand on the side of the hard stone face, but wrong.
“Why,” he asked his father in the darkness, “was I never enough?”