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Ring-Maker [Worm/Lord of the Rings Alt-Power] [Complete]

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DestinyPlayer said:
I'm not well versed in Latin, but let me try.
"Redemption is not going beyond your mistakes, it's learning from them". Is that close to what you meant?
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I think it was intended, not as a piece of Latin, but as a reference to the two Shakespeare characters by those names. I haven't seen or read The Tempest, so can't comment in depth on Prospero's character arc, but Wikipedia seems to suggest that he ended up redeemed and basically okay. Lear, though, suffers through a long chain of terrible events, during which he gets redeemed, and then he dies. So the implication, then, would be that Annatar's Sauron thought-pattern thinks that redemption will involve suffering-followed-by-death for her, rather than an eventual happy ending.
 
Damn, that was powerful.

I think it would work even better when reading the last chapters back to back. I'll wait for the end of the arc before doing that, though.
 
Hate to say this, but Dragon is likely going to be a problem soon.
As painful as it may be, the best way to snap her out of it would be saying something like: "Guess Ritcher and Saint were right after all then."
 
Timerider said:
As painful as it may be, the best way to snap her out of it would be saying something like: "Guess Ritcher and Saint were right after all then."
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I can`t see how that could possibly go wrong.

Dragon`s currently feeling betrayed and confused enough, implying the man who kind of sort of extremely severely violated her was right to do so is highly unlikely to improve the situation.

Not that Taylor/Sauron/whoever it winds up being has the capacity to deal with that right now. They really need a figurative minute to sort out where they stand, in pretty much all respects, or they`re only going to make things worse no matter how well intentioned and righteous they are.
 
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Timerider said:
Yeah it is kind of a low blow.
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It's worse than a low blow. It's like telling a rape victim who abused their child by the rape that their rapist was right to do that to them. The whole affair is fucked up, as is everyone involved, but blaming one of the victims is not only going to fail to solve anything, it's also going to be wrong.

EDIT: In the context of Ring-Maker, I mean. I realize sapient AI is not even close to that clear-cut IRL.
 
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Lithos Maitreya said:
"Clockblocker, Aegis, Vista, and Assault," he said immediately. I could practically hear his brain whirring as he put a plan together. "We'll take one of the PRT vans. Clockblocker can disable the clone if Vista or Aegis can get him in range."
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Lithos Maitreya said:
"Velocity, Fume, with me. Assault, you take Battery and Triumph. We'll go to the west entrance, you go to the east entrance."
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Where is Assault exactly?
 
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Crystalline 11.7
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    • Many thanks to @BeaconHill and @GlassGirlCeci for betareading.

    -x-x-x-​

    It couldn't have been long before I felt Sophia's arms around me. It felt like an eternity. "Hey," she murmured, stroking my hair. "It's okay, it's okay, shh."

    I leaned into her as the tears streamed down my face. I didn't sob—I was nearly silent. My shoulders barely shook. It was almost as though I was already dead, there in Sophia's arms.

    The others moved around us. I heard footfalls, shifting, grunts as Gallant, Eidolon, and Trickster were picked up and carried away. I paid it no mind. I was lost, reeling, despairing.

    "Why?" I mumbled into Sophia's arms. "Why did she have to die? Why was there no mercy?"

    "I don't know," she murmured, rocking me gently. "I don't understand it either, Taylor. Sometimes things just go wrong."

    Sirens were sounding. PRT vans setting up a perimeter around the site of the battle, ambulances tending to the wounded, and the all-clear sounding to call the civilian population back to their homes. The high, keening sounds mingled and blended into a howling chorus, almost mournful in the early afternoon.

    Sophia took my hand, and gently pulled. "Come on, Taylor," she said, her voice soft in my ear. "There's a van for us. Let's go home."

    Home. Where was Noelle's home? What had pushed her to leave it with the other Travelers? What cruel fate had pulled her from that life, and left her to die a slow death to the encroaching corruption of a frenzied power?

    I allowed Sophia to pull me gently away from the body. As I tore my eyes away, I saw Trickster's ruined from. He was dead—his bleeding had already slowed, the flow thickening into a dark, viscous ichor. Little remained of his body below the waist, and one of his arms was scarcely more than a ruined stump. His eyes stared sightlessly up, forever captured in an expression of profound horror.

    Sophia helped me up into a van, and I stumbled into a seat. She followed me in and shut the door behind us. She said something to the driver, and the vehicle began to hum beneath me. All of this I barely registered. My eyes stared, as blind as Trickster's or Noelle's, focusing on a point somewhere between my knees.

    Had I been so arrogant—so foolish—to believe that I was safe? I had, by now, perhaps been responsible for more suffering than even Melkor. Had I believed there would be no reckoning?

    Sophia sat beside me. She squeezed my hand. "You tried, Taylor," she said.

    "Of course I tried," I mumbled. "It wasn't enough."

    And that was the problem, wasn't it? How could it ever be enough? How could the soul of one Maia ever pay even a fraction of the debt she owed?

    "What are you thinking about?" Sophia's voice prodded me gently. "Talk to me, Taylor."

    Talk to her. And it would be so easy, wouldn't it? If there was no mercy to be had, what fool would seek it? Just a few words. Sophia was here. There was no Cenya to protect her.

    If I could twist the bearer of Narsil to my end, there would be no rebellion. None could stand before me. I would be safe.

    "Do you want me to… to die?" I asked, and didn't have to fake the hesitation.

    "Of course not!" Sophia exclaimed, startled. "Why would you even think that? You're not going to die, Taylor!"

    "I am worse than she was," I said quietly. "She sought redemption, and was paid in death. Why should I be any different?"

    "Oh." Her eyes were wide as she stared at me. "Taylor… it's not the same. You're not Noelle."

    "No. I'm worse." My fists clenched. "I don't want to die," I growled. "Why should I? If there's no mercy for the penitent, well. Maybe penitence isn't the way." I looked up at her, met her eyes. There was no fear there, only a sad and gentle concern. It only made me angrier. "No more lies," I said. "I care about you, Sophia. And I know you care about me, too. Help me. I won't go gently, I won't lie down to die. If the choices I have are being a Dark Lord and being dead, then tell the masons to start on my throne. And I want you there beside me."

    She didn't answer. She just watched me.

    I bared my teeth. "Mercy fails," I hissed. "Or it doesn't exist at all. Gentleness and kindness are fantasy, smoke and mirrors, an illusion the weak use to feel strong. But I don't have the luxury. Not anymore. If I want to live, it must be by being stronger than my enemies. I don't want you to be one of them, Sophia."

    Sophia didn't answer.

    "Fine!" I spat, my eyes flaring with power. "Be that way, keep your silence. Stand apart. Refuse to act, as the 'good' and the 'wise' always do. I'll do it myself. I will not surrender my life. I will not give up! My power will spread until all the world is at my feet, and no one, not the PRT, not Cauldron, not even Scion can bring me down. I am eternal, and eternal I will stay!"

    "Then why haven't you done anything to me yet?" Sophia asked. Her voice was perfectly steady—gentle, and a little sad.

    My mouth opened. No words came out for a moment. "Will you stand in my way?" I asked.

    "That depends on what you want," she said.

    "I want to live!"

    "But you don't want to go back."

    My heart thudded in my chest like a drum. "Do I have a choice?" I growled. "Those who turn aside are cut down. I've lived thousands of years by making sure my enemies could never strike at me. And now you want me to bare my throat to them? Offer them my blood? I'll be slaughtered like an animal."

    "You didn't kill me."

    "I tried to!"

    "Not then," Sophia shook her head. "When you joined the Wards. Back then, I was exactly what you're talking about. I survived by putting down my enemies and rivals. What do you think I did to you?"

    "Entirely different," I sneered. "What were your crimes compared with Noelle's or mine? You hadn't killed."

    "Hadn't I?"

    That brought me up short, and I noticed suddenly that Sophia had tears in her eyes.

    "I have a body count, Taylor," she said quietly. "I can't change that. I can't go back."

    "...Noelle likely killed dozens of people over her rampages," I said. "It's not—"

    "Noelle's only crime," Sophia interrupted, "was getting a shitty power, a shitty situation, and losing her mind. I only had one of those excuses, and at least I still had a roof over my head. Maybe she killed more people when she lost control. I killed them while I was in control. Sometimes I—sometimes I did it more slowly. I had fun with it." She shuddered. "And that's not to mention what I did to a girl whose only crime was being friends with someone I was jealous over."

    "That's…"

    "I don't think Noelle was way worse than I was—am." Sophia swallowed. "I think she was less lucky. But no, I think if anyone deserved to die for what they did, it wasn't her. It's not about deserving. It's not about who did worse."

    "Then what is it about?" I asked, and my voice shook. I put my head in my hands. "I can't live in fear. I can't live knowing at any moment my debt might come due. I need—I need certainty. I need security."

    "And you think you'll get it by going back to how things were?" Sophia reached out and touched my arm gently. "You know better, Taylor."

    And, really, I did. Maybe I always had.

    I choked back a sob and put my face in my hands. There was no way out.

    "Talk to me, Taylor," Sophia said gently. "You said you… remembered things, after your second trigger. You remember things that happened long ago. What did you remember? And why—why do you feel responsible?"

    "I am responsible," I said. "I was there."

    "What do you mean?"

    I didn't want to explain. I hunched over, huddling close, irrationally afraid. Sophia knew more than most, but she understood so little, in the end. If she knew what I was, what I had done… would she remain? Or would she come to regret all the effort she had put into bringing me back from the brink?

    Of course she would regret it. How could she not? I had already fallen past that point of no return, long before she had ever begun her attempt to save me. How could she not begrudge the wasted effort? There was no coming back from where I had gone.

    "Taylor?"

    "I was the serpent." The words escaped unbidden. The analogy was undeniable.

    "What?"

    I swallowed. There was no escape—not from my Father, and not from this. "The men of Númenor were tall and fair," I mumbled, remembering the stern face of Elendil, and the way it had looked grey and terrified before me on the plains of Dagorlad. "They stood seven or eight feet tall and were each as strong and wise as the greatest of men now. Their lives were measured not in years or decades, but in centuries; even the lesser Dúnedain of the third age could linger on the earth for three hundred years or more before their strength failed. And I took that from them. I tempted them with eternity and sent the fleet across the sea. I brought down the storm which sank the island and destroyed the kingdom." I squeezed my eyes shut. "So much of the suffering of your species finds its roots in me. Had I never existed, you might still live in shining towers overlooking the West. You might yet live in peace with the Firstborn who have long since gone back over the water."

    There was silence for a moment. "You're not being figurative at all, are you?" Sophia mumbled. "This literally happened. You're talking about something… something so old it's not even in our history."

    "History passes into legend, into myth, and thence out of all knowledge," I said. "Your lives are so short. It is so easy for humanity to forget."

    "And you—you were really there? However many thousands of years ago? How?"

    "I am a Maia," I said. "We are ageless and timeless. We cannot die any more than the sea or the wind can die. Though I was scattered at the end of the Third Age, I have been gathered up again." I put my hands on my knees and looked up at the ceiling of the van, blinking hard. "Why, I don't know. Just to suffer? As punishment for my crimes?"

    Sophia stood up. She crossed the van and sat down across from me. Her hands reached out and took mine. "I don't… really understand," she admitted. "It's a lot to take in. You're talking about reincarnation?"

    "Yes." My lips twisted into something like a wry smile. "I suppose it was fitting that, after everything I did to humankind, I should be born into it."

    "But—why? If you can't die, why would you need to be reincarnated at all?"

    I put a hand over my face. "It's a long story," I said roughly. "My Rings—they're more than conduits of power. They're… they're shackles. Collars. And I hold the leash—the One Ring. I poured myself into it—it was as much me as was my physical form. When it was destroyed, I… there wasn't much of me left. Not enough to gather into a physical form, barely enough to be called conscious. That was—I thought that was the end of it. It should have been the end of it! I couldn't hurt anyone anymore!"

    "You couldn't help anyone either."

    "I don't help people," I growled. "I never have. I'm a monster, a danger. I—"

    She slapped me. It wasn't very effective—her palm rang against my helmet, and my face barely moved. She let out a pained grunt and began to wring out her hand, but her eyes were focused on me, glaring. "And what about me?" she asked, her voice thick with pain—not all of it from the blow. "I'm able to look myself in the mirror every morning without wanting to break it because of you. Is that nothing, then?"

    "I could never have done anything for you if you didn't want it for yourself," I said. "You helped yourself."

    "And you think I'd have been able to do that without you?" She snorted. "Don't make me fucking laugh. You did this."

    For the first time in my very long life, words failed me. I stared at her. Her green eyes glittered.

    "And now I'm doing the same thing," she said. "I'm trying to do better. And I'd say it's working, you know? It's not been easy, and I've made mistakes. Emma's… Emma. But I got you back, didn't I?"

    "Was I ever there?" I asked. "You thought you'd pulled me from the edge of the pit, but I fell into that pit long ago. I'm a monster, Sophia. I'm something people have nightmares about. Why can't you understand that?"

    "I shoved a girl into a locker just because she was there," Sophia hissed. "I ruined the last thing she had from her mother just because I wanted to hurt. I killed people because it made me feel less weak. I don't care what you've done—if it's worse than what I've done, it's only in scale. And you know what's even worse?" She swallowed. Her eyes were shining now, slightly damp and slowly reddening. "I haven't even apologized. I—there's never been time, it's never seemed like the right moment, and… and I've been scared." She stared at me. Her hands took mine, squeezed. "But you are, too, aren't you?" she asked. "You're scared that you can't pay back your debt, your karma, whatever."

    "…Yes." My voice came out small. "I don't want to die."

    "Well." She swallowed. "We'll do it together then." She cleared her throat. "Taylor, I'm sorry. And it's not enough!" she added hurriedly. "It'll never be enough. That's—that's why it's so scary, to try and apologize. It feels so—so arrogant, like I'm assuming that apologizing would somehow make us even. But still—I'm sorry. I'm… I'm so, so sorry."

    My voice caught in my throat. Just as I'm sorry must have felt small and meaningless on the scale of the wrongs committed, so did I forgive you feel diminished by the apology.

    "And… and I'm done running away," she said. She reached into a pouch at her belt, and when her hand emerged, a silver Ring glimmered in it. The gemstone matched the green of her eyes perfectly. She held my gaze as she raised Cenya.

    "No!" I exclaimed, my voice a startled gasp. "Didn't you hear me? It's a shackle. You can't—"

    "I can," she said firmly. "I trust you, Taylor." And she slipped Cenya onto her finger again. It shimmered there, flaring merrily like a well-kept hearth. I could practically feel it singing, joyful at the return to its Bearer.

    She sat back, still holding my gaze. "I believe that we can do better," she said. "I believe that we can improve, that our mistakes don't define us. And I am trusting that, because you are trying, you can do better too."

    I swallowed. "I don't know if I can live up to that," I said.

    "I know," she said. Then she smiled. "But I do. So trust me, if you can't trust yourself."

    The words which I had once never conceived of saying, which I had so seldom said in my life, suddenly came easier than breathing. "I forgive you."

    Tears sparkled in her eyes. "Thank you."

    -x-x-x-​

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    • I`d make a joke about two girls and one voluntarily putting on shackles for the other, but I`m above that.

    I kind of love this chapter and I kind of hate it too, because that semi co-dependent thing it feels to me like they`ve got going now ? That can go really well for them or really, really, really - is that enough 'really' to hammer the point home ? - wrong for everyone. And while it`d be nice to see it go well, literal divine intervention is probably neccesary to make it go well in the situation Worm presents.
     
    hamof said:
    Then it's a good thing that that's happening.
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    And yet somehow Worm got into that situation to begin with. Eru`s been slacking, or has allowed for a metric fuckload of suffering to teach someone a lesson.

    Typical God I guess.

    EDIT : Also it kinda cheapens the message - and pretty much everything else - if it only works through divine intervention.
     
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    I'm very glad so many of you enjoyed this chapter. It went through a lot of editing to get to the state it's in now.

    The next chapter, Interlude 11b: Shaper, will arrive on Monday and mark the end of Arc 11.

    Arc 12's first chapter has been drafted and its second is in the works. The arc has been titled Resplendent.
     
    Lithos Maitreya said:
    "I can't live in fear. I can't live knowing at any moment my debt might come due. I need—I need certainty. I need Security."
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    Oh, he's in an entirely different Worm fanfic. ;)


    This was a good study in the true hardship of repentance. It's barely even the beginning, but it is an important step. Now, Taylor, Serpent... about that Tree of Life you cut people off from... Where, exactly, was it again? >_> <_<
     
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