Hollow Prayers
Tenth Day of the Sixth Month 293 AC
He comes haloed in golden flame, and of gold are his arms and armor seemingly wrought, and seven wings white as the clouds above shroud his form from sight. The Septon King they called him, and Blessed he was named, yet now as you look upon what the 'blessings' of his gods have made of the soul that was once Baelor Targaryen you might almost weep for it. A mortal might look upon his burning form and see the glory of the Seven Who Are One and thus be filled with awe and dread. You see a cage, a curse, a weapon in the hands of cruel and distant gods.
It will be broken, you vow.
"For all there is hope in the arms of the Seven, repent and you will be forgiven," he calls, voice stern and commanding.
"We did not err and so we will not grovel," your sister replies, unyielding. Forth spring the powers of dreams and nightmares spun, the oldest and truest legacy of your House. So does that radiance dim like a candle in a high wind, and for the first time you see the face of your foe in full. The lines are thin and harsh as though hewn from stone, the eyes bright and feverish but painfully alike to your own as they widen in surprise at the tangle of chains that fly towards him, first to bind him hand and foot. Somehow he weaves between them all untouched... or
seems to. Once more your sister speaks a word to turn fate upon itself, and so too a chain coils backwards to tangle one of the avenging spirit's wings.
"Now," Dark Sister's voice is faint and echoing as though from some great distance, but there is no mistaking the cold glee in her words.
"He is weak and knows not battle. Make an end to him. Let those who suffered from his folly be avenged!"
Yet even as you gather your strength of dragon fear around you twice over, your foe proves that whatever he may once have been he is now not one to shy away from battle. Straight at you he flies, not caring that Ser Richard's strikes shears through one of his wings in two mighty blows, nor yet that Vee's beasts try to drag him down.
The jeweled scepter falls like a hammer from on high with strength and skill unmatched, that neither scale or cloak of devil's hide can ward you, and for all that it strikes but empty air, for between one moment and the next you
slip into the grey world of spirits. Runes of cursed power flare with fel and impotent light, so close to their quarry and yet a world away.
As you return you roar upon the boundaries of the world that the living and the unquiet dead both can hear. "Flee Baelor, your gods have no power here!"
The sound of broken weeping and wailing fills the air as he tries to flee: "Father, I have failed!" he proclaims not in the tongue of angels but that which he knew as a living man: "I am not worthy of this gift! Take it from me!"
Then you speak words of ice, strange upon your lips, and Rina speaks them with you. So the herald of the Seven is still, frozen... silent as a carved effigy in the Great Sept as he crashes onto the ground below.
A crack like thunder rings through the air... It is as though the earth is smote with his fall, heaving and writhing, unable or unwilling to bear his weight.
"He's trying to kill himself!" Dany shouts.
As you land and look upon the form of your foe the tremors stop, the world is still. Whatever final gambit he had tried had turned to dust and ashes. "It's over..." you rumble, almost a whisper as you look fully into the tear-streaked face of the man who was once among the most beloved and by most measures the least skilled king of Westeros.
Frozen thus he seems a strangely chimeric creature, the wings whole and broken both like some feathered beast that is tearing itself from his body, the heroic proportions of a warrior angel almost grotesque besides the thin ascetic's face. A whisper calls in your mind:
"I only wanted do the right thing. Please, let me die."
Your heart is not stone but neither are you a fool.
"So that you may strike at me and mine again? So that you might help keep a Usurper on the throne and keep men weak and ignorant of the horrors that rise from the waves or sweeps down from the North? That I cannot do."
Though you could see him broken, beaten until he can no longer move or harm anyone, until you can deal with him in peace, but much dignity you can spare a man ill-used by those he has placed ultimate trust in. By will and wishcraft,
stretched to the very limits of your power, you see him bound in a
enchanted bottle.
The thing is at first heavy even to a dragon's claw with the weight of far more common matter, but it grows lighted with every passing moment, the Seven answering Baelor's last fevered prayer.
What do you do?
[] Sacrifice Baelor to the Old Gods and let them claim as much of his power as they can
[] Let the process run its course, whatever the Seven recover will not be the full measure of what they invested, still less the efforts their mortal servants must have made to bring forth such a champion
[] Write in
OOC: Well that worked about as well as it could have. I had Viserys used the heightened limited wish both because it is faster and because he is not one to cause pain unnecessarily even to his enemies, not to mention the fact that he pities Baelor for his 'enslavement' by the Seven.
