Arc 13 Post 14: Sorrows of the Grim Sovereign
Sorrows of the Grim Sovereign
4rd of February 2007 A.D.
There's a part of you, not a very loud one but present just the same that wants to sunder those gates and free those behind them. There is a rightness to freeing those who are bound that sings in the deep places of your anima. But you are no mere instrument for those ancient echoes, you are Molly Carpenter and what you want to know is... "Why should the heroes of the land be barred from returning? Whose will is it that bids them to be bound? What consequences of their return."
It is not the lead hound to answers but Lydia, speaking you realize at once not for herself. "Long has it been since the Pendragon walked the Earth and many are the tales that men told of him. A king for this land, this whole isle? No, Arthur's dream was grander, it was the dream of all great men in those days, the dream of Rome, to be Emperor. A sword he bore which you and I have both seen with our own eyes Excalibur it was and is still, long carried through trial and strife, but at the last despairing of his strength he turned it to the task of conquest."
"No/Wouldn't work," you and Daniel say, practically at the same time.
"So he found to his sorrow, but the Red Dragon was not as other men, a fire was in him awakened that had slept since the dawn of the world. So set down Arthur King the sword that would not serve his ends in ending the wickedness and folly of the kings squabbling over the carcass of Rome and vowed he before Powers and Principalities great and small that he would be Emperor in Rome and in the City of Constantine to the East, that he would bring all Christendom under his banner as Augustus Cesar come again. He fought and he won, but weary was he and wearier was his army when news came to Arthur of Mordred's treachery. In Cambo-landa on twisted land, with twisted blade the tale ended true and he was dead by fate, by right by law of land, but he would not allow it. With dying breath called he to the Queen of the Summerlands and in repayment for the good done to her he asked of them to let him live again. That power Summer did not have to turn fate and undo death, but the body they could make live, enchanted in slumber until the stars go out or until some other power could be found to bring him forth, the Pendragon once more. Three ships there came onto my shores, Prydwen and they asked for the Cauldron that Arthur might live, but onto..." Lydia stops, freezes really.
"Onto the queen who is no more," the first of the hounds speaks as though he had expected the tale to falter. "Was given the gift of prophecy and looked she before the feet of Arthur should he be allowed to walk under the sun a living man again nine times time nine she read his fortunes. In one he was great an good as ever he had been, gracious and honorable as ever he was Excalibur at his side, but in each of the others she saw naught death before him and thus she advised her lord the King to give them not the Cauldron they begged for. For if he did, said she, many would flock to the House of Arawn untimely. Saith the knights, did not Arthur in all of his deeds and all of his travels prove himself wise enough to pick out one thread of gold out of nine times nine? Quarrel there was, strife and the blood of the queen, laid crimson on stone by mortal steel. Though swifter than mind was the hand thus laid, the deed now was done and battle there was. Of all those who came but three escaped. Harried them we did, the last Great Hunt and brought them before the throne of dark eyed Arawn Thus the King ordered them cast from his presence thieves and Cauldron both. From him they had taken that which his power and even the Cauldron could not return so from them he took the fate of their souls until the Last Days."
"Holy shit," Olivia mutters softly and you cannot bring yourself to even be a little upset at taking the Lord's name in vain.
"Heroes are not without flaw," Tiffany says. She'd surely know.
"I... apologize," Lydia breaks the silence. "I'm not sure if I should be upset at my father for not telling me this at myself for even asking, even coming here. but know that I am sorry," she sighs, looking around as though expecting the owls to offer up some wisdom. "I think... they have been there long enough. Now or one day soon I will come and let them pass. "
"It's OK," Daniel pats her hand awkwardly.
What do you think should be done?
[] It's been fifteen hundred years since Arthur fell, five hundred since the last vestige of Eastern Rome fell, try to reason with the knights through the bars that their quest is lost but they need not be. You understand now the pain of Arawn, but that pain alone does not merit three souls bound until the End of Days
[] Harden the door as much as it's needed that Lydia might take what hounds wish with her. You will have words with Amoracchius-that-is-Excalibur and perhaps with others and then you will find some way to right this ancient wrong one way or the other.
[] Write in
OOC: So yeah... the reason Arawn did not want to talk about this, not an NDA, he just did not want to relive his wife, whom he deeply loved, being killed in a scuffle as she threw herself between knights blades and him. Her death was as much an accident as such things can be, but it still happened and he reacted as he did to what was a horrific breach of the law of hospitality.
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