Post by Rachy on Dec 31, 2014 17:14:00 GMT 10
Title: Belief
Rating: PG
For: Seek
Prompt: #3: Taybur and Dove's brave new world.
Summary: New beginnings are accompanied by rethinking old thoughts. A look at religious beliefs.
Notes: Not quite sure what this is, but hope you like it
His hands are steady. Confident, brave. Not fearless, but this wouldn't be his fear.
It's hers.
Her hands are hesitant. Nervous, not quite trembling, but prepared for the weight. It's lighter than it seems.
She lifts the crown, the headdress of the warrior queens, and shows it to the crowd, who applaud and cheer. She watches the crowd, her people to be, and thinks of how they were all prepared to have been here scant months ago, their gowns and coats bought in the styles favoured by Imajane and Rubinyan, so many scarcely altered with black crepe or ribbon, though her gown is black enough for them all.
She raises the headdress above her head, and sinks her arms down, lowering the weight of the Isles on her head, and making a careful, nervous beaming smile to her audience as she does so. Her throne was built with blood, kept with blood, lost with blood and won and returned with blood, and the blood that runs in her veins seems too fragile to infuse a country.
The headdress touches her hair, and she closes her eyes in sudden fear. The gods give, and the gods take away, and it is only with the will of the gods that the headdress settles firmly against her head, and she feels the pain of the combs dig tight into her skull.
She is Queen.
Mithros and the Goddess took the throne away from her people, and Kyprioth returned it to them, as promised. Mithros and the Goddess still hold their sway, but she does not hold the throne with their guidance. She holds the throne with Kyprioth's guidance and will over the Isles, but the Trickster God was not an ideal deity for a country half out of civil war. She opens her eyes and sees two figures at the back of the Hall, and both give her a nod, before shimmering out of sight. There is no sound of gongs, or the baying of hounds she had hoped for, another sign to sway the luarin closer to her cause, but her crown is on her head and her signature on parchment. She places her ring in hot wax, and presses it firmly next to her signature. She may not have their blessing, and they may only respect her claim for the throne and not her herself, but she is Queen of the Copper Isles, and she is prepared for their betrayal.
*
"Do you begrudge it?" She had asked, the day before her coronation, and his hands had shook as he lifted the pillow containing a wire headdress to her waiting hands. She waits for his answer, hands curved around the metal, and he knows that she is interested in his answer for his sake, not for her own safety.
He begrudged her her throne because Dunevon was not offered any choice, by anyone or anything, an innocent child sacrificed and he had not been able to save him. He knew, had known all along, that Dunevon would either die or be manipulated into a puppet, would never live the life of a normal child, but no child had deserved his fate. The only mercy was that Dunevon had not suffered.
"No, Your Majesty." He replied quietly, and she lifts her crown off the pillow, and he steps back. She watches him keenly as she places the headdress on her head, and he matches her stare.
"You have my full trust, Captain, but if it would be easier for you to be stationed elsewhere, it will be done."
"There is no other place I would prefer to be than by your side defending you, Your Majesty."
It is the truth, too. She may be his Queen, and she may be book-smart and people-smart and have a wide variety of advisors full of wisdom and bravery around her, but she is still young. Too young. He couldn't be banished to a far off post when he was useful and needed here. To protect and advise her.
*
The skies still twinkle unnaturally in broad daylight, patches of bright light by the horizons and over the temples. The congregation bear it no mind, but he wonders when it will disappear, or if it will. There was no protest to moving the great gold and silver statues to their Rajumat temples, and when they were placed in the ground, unblemished, no light blasted from the skies or ground quaked beneath them in protest, but the coronation has set the Queen on edge. He remembers the tales his father told him, of how men could forsake their gods in order to live their lives in freedom, and he finds it a bitter taste.
Dove leaves offerings in all of the major and minor temples Rajumat has to offer, luarin and raka and foreign, and the courtiers that follow her do the same, elaborate gift after elaborate gift. He visits the Wave Walker's Temple and leaves his ceremonial dagger and sheath, and at the Black God's Temple he leaves his sword. He has no wish to be involved in the battle of balancing loyalties, and his loyalties were lost in his first step in dry land.
He has seen first hand how fickle the gods are when it comes to the Isles.
Rating: PG
For: Seek
Prompt: #3: Taybur and Dove's brave new world.
Summary: New beginnings are accompanied by rethinking old thoughts. A look at religious beliefs.
Notes: Not quite sure what this is, but hope you like it
His hands are steady. Confident, brave. Not fearless, but this wouldn't be his fear.
It's hers.
Her hands are hesitant. Nervous, not quite trembling, but prepared for the weight. It's lighter than it seems.
She lifts the crown, the headdress of the warrior queens, and shows it to the crowd, who applaud and cheer. She watches the crowd, her people to be, and thinks of how they were all prepared to have been here scant months ago, their gowns and coats bought in the styles favoured by Imajane and Rubinyan, so many scarcely altered with black crepe or ribbon, though her gown is black enough for them all.
She raises the headdress above her head, and sinks her arms down, lowering the weight of the Isles on her head, and making a careful, nervous beaming smile to her audience as she does so. Her throne was built with blood, kept with blood, lost with blood and won and returned with blood, and the blood that runs in her veins seems too fragile to infuse a country.
The headdress touches her hair, and she closes her eyes in sudden fear. The gods give, and the gods take away, and it is only with the will of the gods that the headdress settles firmly against her head, and she feels the pain of the combs dig tight into her skull.
She is Queen.
Mithros and the Goddess took the throne away from her people, and Kyprioth returned it to them, as promised. Mithros and the Goddess still hold their sway, but she does not hold the throne with their guidance. She holds the throne with Kyprioth's guidance and will over the Isles, but the Trickster God was not an ideal deity for a country half out of civil war. She opens her eyes and sees two figures at the back of the Hall, and both give her a nod, before shimmering out of sight. There is no sound of gongs, or the baying of hounds she had hoped for, another sign to sway the luarin closer to her cause, but her crown is on her head and her signature on parchment. She places her ring in hot wax, and presses it firmly next to her signature. She may not have their blessing, and they may only respect her claim for the throne and not her herself, but she is Queen of the Copper Isles, and she is prepared for their betrayal.
*
"Do you begrudge it?" She had asked, the day before her coronation, and his hands had shook as he lifted the pillow containing a wire headdress to her waiting hands. She waits for his answer, hands curved around the metal, and he knows that she is interested in his answer for his sake, not for her own safety.
He begrudged her her throne because Dunevon was not offered any choice, by anyone or anything, an innocent child sacrificed and he had not been able to save him. He knew, had known all along, that Dunevon would either die or be manipulated into a puppet, would never live the life of a normal child, but no child had deserved his fate. The only mercy was that Dunevon had not suffered.
"No, Your Majesty." He replied quietly, and she lifts her crown off the pillow, and he steps back. She watches him keenly as she places the headdress on her head, and he matches her stare.
"You have my full trust, Captain, but if it would be easier for you to be stationed elsewhere, it will be done."
"There is no other place I would prefer to be than by your side defending you, Your Majesty."
It is the truth, too. She may be his Queen, and she may be book-smart and people-smart and have a wide variety of advisors full of wisdom and bravery around her, but she is still young. Too young. He couldn't be banished to a far off post when he was useful and needed here. To protect and advise her.
*
The skies still twinkle unnaturally in broad daylight, patches of bright light by the horizons and over the temples. The congregation bear it no mind, but he wonders when it will disappear, or if it will. There was no protest to moving the great gold and silver statues to their Rajumat temples, and when they were placed in the ground, unblemished, no light blasted from the skies or ground quaked beneath them in protest, but the coronation has set the Queen on edge. He remembers the tales his father told him, of how men could forsake their gods in order to live their lives in freedom, and he finds it a bitter taste.
Dove leaves offerings in all of the major and minor temples Rajumat has to offer, luarin and raka and foreign, and the courtiers that follow her do the same, elaborate gift after elaborate gift. He visits the Wave Walker's Temple and leaves his ceremonial dagger and sheath, and at the Black God's Temple he leaves his sword. He has no wish to be involved in the battle of balancing loyalties, and his loyalties were lost in his first step in dry land.
He has seen first hand how fickle the gods are when it comes to the Isles.
(And the bit about the skies still twinkling unnaturally is lovely. I imagine the lesser tricksters wouldn't necessarily immediately leave...)
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!