Because I am something of a Failcannon fanboy, if such a thing can exist, and because I am really bored at work today, I present the following totally non-canon thingy. Spoilered because it turned out really stupidly long.
I am sitting in my cell, nursing a broken hand, and I should feel lucky that this is all I have to suffer. I don't feel lucky. I'm not sure what I feel. Dread, perhaps? Is there a word for the stark feeling you get after your illusions are gone? Like someone has pulled the flesh off the world and you can finally see the bones.
I have met, at last, the spirit that was haunting this place - maybe not a spirit, more of an echo, of something happening somewhere far away. The sound of footsteps. A herald.
I'm starting to sound unhinged. I hope it's just the pain talking.
But I met her. All she could think about were kings, and queens, and rulers, and so many of us heard her in our dreams, it came through in our work in our waking hours. Would I have ever built that throne room, I wonder, if I hadn't come here? Hadn't had her regrets whispering in my ear every night?
The fortress was a madhouse. There was talk that the goblins had broken the back of the army, were slaughtering dozens of us and Weatheredcastle was about to fall. I fled to the only place I felt safe - my creation, my royal throne room. I bolted the door behind me shut, just to be sure, although that didn't do much to block out the sound. The shouts and wails from higher in the fortress echoed down through the rooms - that was just the noise coming through the construction tunnels, of course. We'd never sealed them. The ceiling of the throne room, several stories above, was almost directly connected to the main level of the fortress.
The effect was still uncanny, though, and filled the room with distant, almost sourceless wailings. I approached the gold throne on its gold dais; the wooden roof over it supported intricate steel statues of gods and animals. Gems glittered in the gold - it was truly a seat worthy of a King.
There was also a woman sitting in it.
A human woman, elderly and bent, dressed all in black velvet with silver embroidery. She was leaned forward in the throne, resting on the arms, her body frail and skeletal.
"That," I said angrily, having no idea who I was addressing, "is not your throne, human."
The woman looked up, fixing me with a weary gaze, as if this was all too tiring for her. "Is it? Is this not the throne of the King of the Dwarves?"
"It is," I said, placing my hands proudly on my hips, looking around the rune-carved room, "this is the hall of the Mountain-King, in Weatheredcastle."
Her eyes narrowed then, and her voice became cutting and imperious, "Then this is my throne, dwarf, for I am Queen Under the Mountain, Empress of the Mountain-Roots and the Peaks," she unsteadily got out of the throne, rising to her full height and taking careful steps towards me - and I must admit I stumbled back, such was the look of righteous fury on her face, and her presence seemed to fill the room as her proclamations grew louder, "I am the Lady of the Black Diamond, and heir to the obsidian throne of Graspedseduce. I am Queen Led Shakeoars, the Death of Dwarves!"
Her shouts echoed off the walls of the chamber, and for a moment she towered over me, grand and terrifying; and I knew then I was in the presence of true royalty. I dropped to my knees and bowed, stammering out apologies.
The Queen seemed to sag then, stumbling back to the throne, grasping the golden arm and pulling herself back into the seat. "No," and now her voice was weary, drained of the grandeur it had held moments ago, "No, do not bow to me, little dwarf. Your King is coming soon enough, and then you will all bow. Maybe once I was worthy of you, of this," she gestured around at the grand throne room I had built, "but not now."
I raised my head, and watched as she spoke, and the years seemed to drain from her - her hair slowly becoming black, her body filling out into that of a middle-aged woman, and then a young one.
"When I was young, my father ruled from the black towers of Graspedseduced; a goblin city, ruled by humans and inhabited by dwarves, it was ... many things. At the time, I thought it was a symbol of how all the people of Aluonra could find a place together. Mine was a world full of terrible evils, where the shadows were long and even death was not always an escape. But we persevered, in our obsidian city."
"The goblins, however, took our presence in their city as something of an insult. Their raids were endless, but time after time we managed to find victory. Sometimes the victory came with a price. One night, they took my father and ..." she trailed off sadly, leaning back in the throne and staring at the painted carvings in the peaked wooden roof above her before she continued, "... later returned him. They kept his face intact, so we would know who he was. At the time I could barely understand it - who had put my father's face on this pile of meat? Was this some strange joke?"
"We buried him, and the Obsidian Throne became mine. From that day, I vowed no-one would suffer the way my father - my people had suffered. Death would only come to those who deserved it. I started with the goblins."
Her mouth twisted cruelly, age creeping into her features, "The goblins learned to fear the black banner of Queen Led soon enough. We crushed their heads with our hammers, and the proudest dwarves were those with a bloodstained warhammer to hang over their mantle."
"But," her expression became icy again, "it wasn't enough. Any Queen could be a war leader, but I needed to change the world. For that, I needed power. And I found it. There was a god in my world; a reckless, and power-hungry goddess of death. The more I learned of her, the more I knew she could be manipulated. She wanted a way into the world, and I wanted to wield her power; it would be a battle, but even though she was a god, I knew my will would be stronger. So I built her a temple, and began my plan to enslave Death herself."
"Unfortunately, I was not the first to discover the vain goddess; she was already in the thrall of something ... else. Something dark, something I had no idea even existed, and something against which I had no hope. Over time it corrupted me, and my own plans crumbled before its own thousand-year gambit for freedom."
"I began to despise my own people," she briefly gripped the arms of the throne, face becoming ancient and leathery again, "those boozy workshy little bastards!" She recovered for a moment, "I did many terrible things," only to shake withered hands in the air and rail, "which they totally fucking earned!"
The young woman was gone, and I was faced again with the elderly Queen I had met when I first entered the room, "I became the Queen those flatulent, dirty, stupid creatures deserved! I'd given my whole life to them, and what did I get? Endless whining about the food, and the beer, and how Urist McNeckbeard had a better room than Duke Urist McPencilhammer, and then, and then, when you have them both stomped flat by trolls, they complain about that too! I should have let the goblins tear you all into bloody chunks, but no, no it's better this way, slower. I will keep you all alive, so that when Death comes, she can feast on your souls!"
She was standing again, shaking her fists at... nothing I could see. Whatever it was, it filled her with so much rage I could see the veins bulging on her forehead and froth building at the corners of her mouth. Then, as suddenly as it came, her rage passed and she collapsed into the throne.
She looked at me, then, eyes sad. Her story told, her body began to fade, limbs starting to dissolve into tatters of smoke. "Listen to me, little dwarf. Don't be so quick to bow to a King, you are lucky not to have one. On this world, you are free."
She faded into grey wisps, leaving me with one last chilling warning: "For now."
I dropped to my knees and clutched my throbbing head as the echo of Led Shakeoars passed through me; images flashed through my mind. A man, little more than a chunk of mangled beef with a face, hanging from a wooden door; a temple of black stones, its rune-carved roots reaching deep into the earth; a hammer, held in my right hand, and in my left, something small and delicate and squirming, tiny hands grasping - the hammer comes down and...
I retched, and the images were gone. The echo of that terrible Queen was gone, and I was alone in the throne room again. I suddenly felt such terrible guilt - I had brought this here, I had all but opened the gates and posted a sign saying "tyrant wanted". I needed to do something, to destroy my creation.
I looked up. The construction tunnels still emptied into here. Opening the sluices holding back the river in the underground farms would drain the water directly down into the throne room; if I sealed the doors, this room would flood so that nobody would ever dare enter it, for fear of submerging the entire fortress. It wasn't magma, but it would do.
I left the throne room then, charging up the stairs; I don't know if it was good luck or bad, but the Champion, Realmdude, was standing in the stairs, weary from battle. He must have seen the shellshocked expression on my face and, already having dealt with a dozen dwarves in a similar state of despair that day, he stood in my way.
"Where are you going?" he asked, one hand on his legendary sword.
"Ngh," I grunted. Then I paused, wet my lips, and tried again, "Up. To the farms."
"That's funny, what with you being a mason and all. How about you go back to bed, instead." It sounded less like a suggestion and more of a dire warning, but I wasn't listening.
I tried to push past him then, but the champion was like a solid wall, and he shoved me back. "I said, you should go back to your room."
At that point, I made a fist and swung at his face - I'm not much of a fighter, and it showed when he swiftly slapped my punch aside with a mailed hand, and swept my legs out from under me with a kick. I landed painfully on the stairs, and then he stomped on my hand - I screamed, feeling my fingers break under the blow. He grabbed me by the collar and said, "If you won't go to your bed, the prison's got plenty you can use."
Then he dragged me off to my cell, to sit, and think.
One of the other masons brought me my journal, and something to drink, which was quite kind of him given the dangers of walking the halls alone right now.
I've had time to wonder what I met. Did I imagine it? Was it truly Queen Led that I met, or just an echo of her regrets? How much of the madness in the fortress now is because of the siege, and how much is because, however briefly, we were touched by the Death of Dwarves?
But I heard what she said. Her warning, her herald's trumpet.
A King is coming.
A King is coming!
A King is coming, and we will all bow.
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Topic: WeatheredCastle: A noobish attempt at a succession fort ((Looking for peeps)) (Read 12935 times)