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antishurtugal_reborn2022-05-17 12:48 pm
ignoresandra) wrote in antishurtugal_reborn2022-05-17 12:48 pm
Entry tags:
Spitefic: The Eyes of Madness
Spitefic: The Eyes of Madness
So, this is my attempt to offer a possible point of view Galbatorix may have had on canon events. I didn't actually intend to write this at all, but Calliope wouldn't let me go. Trigger warnings for suicidal ideation, and…whatever I’ve done with depicting seeing and hearing things that are not there. I hope I've presented these topics without sensationalizing them or disrespecting folks who suffer from mental illness.
----
The first time he heard a voice he definitely knew had never been spoken, he was holding Jarnunvösk’s lifeless head. His tears shimmered on her beautiful purple scales, adding layers to the reflection of the weak sunlight of the far north. The voice, little more than a hoarse whisper in his - right ear, he thought? - said “Go south”.
Even though he knew he was now cursedly alone, he looked for the source of the whisper. His eyes roved over the urgal corpses, his dead friends, and returned to Jarnunvösk’s corpse. As he expected, there was no one. A second whisper, slightly higher pitched, said “Stay with her”, even as a low and gravelly third whisper ordered “Make a funeral pyre”.
He shook his head firmly to try and silence the whispers, then drew his sword. Oromis-elda may claim that there was no afterworld, but he didn’t know. He’d honor his friends even if he couldn’t burn them. He carefully nicked one of his fingertips - enough that it would bleed, not so much it’d be a danger - and started as the whispers came again.
“Fall on your sword.”
“Just a little bit further down, your wrist”
“Stay here with her.”
He dropped his sword and clutched his head. He carefully averted his eyes from the blade, which seemed to sing of possible insertions into his own flesh. He reached out with his hand and drew a rune on Jarnunvösk’s cheek. It wasn’t proper, but it was a warrior’s blessing. A sign the Old Folk should bear her to the afterworld without payment and a promise to pay them the difference on his own death, for he could not pay them right now and remain alive.
Jarnunvösk winked. His heart soared with hope even as his head screamed it was impossible. She was dead, impaled through the heart by an urgal spear. He couldn’t feel her anymore. She was dead, dead, dead. But it was as if his eyes refused to believe it.
“Stay, there won’t be any more.”
“She was more worthy than you.”
“You can’t pay.”
He forced his numb limbs to move to his companions and without hesitation took their debts upon himself.
…
The 92nd time he heard a voice he definitely knew had never been spoken, he’d been walking south for some time. His traitorous body screamed out for rest - the rest Jarnunvösk would never know until her debt to the Old Folk was paid. He didn’t deserve to rest until she could, and for that he needed wood and flame.
“There’s a cave. Rest.”
“You’ll never make it this way.”
“Go back for your sword.”
He stubbornly put one foot in front of the other, until, until…
He woke up in darkness. So, so cold. He must have stopped for a moment, and slept in the snow. He laughed humorlessly. He should be dead. Why wasn’t he dead?
…
He no longer knew how many times he’d heard voices that definitely were never spoken. The voices came to him often, and rarely said the same thing. Sometimes they pointed out useful things - edible roots here, shelter there - and sometimes they said nonsense or spoke of blood and death that was never evident.
The first time he’d seen Jarnunvösk poke her head around a tree like they used to do when they played together had put him into a dead run towards her. Then he remembered she was dead and cried yet again. This didn’t cause the image of her to fade, but when he finally approached it disappeared.
When she showed up again on his journey, he tried to look away from her but then he felt as if she was creeping up behind him with malevolent intent. Was this a spirit tormenting him?
The fourth time Jarnunvösk appeared, he knew immediately on seeing her that she wasn’t really there. He would have given anything for her to actually be there.
Though he was among trees now, he told himself he needed an axe first to pay the debt.
…
The Rider council examined his mind. They claimed it was a requirement to consider granting him a second dragon.
“Don’t the dragons choose?” The voices whispered
The council claimed he was mad and refused to allow him to be presented to the dragon eggs. But he wasn’t mad. Someone who was mad would not know it when he saw something falsely, or that the whispers had never been spoken. What gave the all-elven council this authority? The dragons choose, and there were no humans on the council.
He reached out to old friends, and in time and plots, a new egg chose him.
…
Shruikan was nothing like Jarnunvösk.
Where Jarnunvösk was endlessly patient and relentlessly kind-hearted to the frustration of her tutors, Shruikan was impatient and prone to seeing threat in everything.
Still, they bonded. Shruikan became another voice in his head, albeit one that was real, and the whispers subsided somewhat. Shruikan would never grasp that not all of the threats his Rider saw or feared were real, and others would read this as cruelty and a disposition towards violence.
When Shruikan asked about Jarnunvösk, his Rider had no words. When they spoke of Jarnunvösk, the two spoke in the language of dragons - memory and impression.
…
A hundred years later, he sat upon a throne. His agent, Durza, reported the existence of a new Rider that threatened to challenge the king. He resolved to order the Ra’zac to the new Rider’s last known location. They would find him. The Ra’zac were the perfect hunters of man and their methods were more reliable than the shade’s in this situation.
But before the hour was out, he had no memory of this interaction and thus the Ra’zac were never dispatched. Had they been, perhaps Eragon would have been intercepted over the Hadarac Desert.
In later times a collection of dead dragons would claim to have manipulated events, but they had nothing to do with the failure of memory an aged man afflicted with visions and voices can display now and then or with Shruikan’s complete disinterest in matters of ruling.
Shruikan always cared more about chess than ruling. It was the only thing he ever showed real patience for. The king set apart an entire garden for pieces large enough for Shruikan to move.
…
Not long after that, Murtagh returned to court. He’d run. He’d joined the rebels. He didn’t understand what was at stake. He needed to die as an example, but then the dragon Thorn hatched for him.
So now the king looked into Murtagh’s mind, looking for some key to preventing Murtagh from restoring elven dominion over Alagaesia. He found little evidence of Murtagh’s true name, until the voices spoke. Two of them gave him possibilities, and the third wanted to use cake as shampoo. He tried the possibilities, and one of them was indeed Murtagh’s true name.
He wasn’t surprised. His voices had helped him crack the minds of Riders far older and stronger than Murtagh.
…
He sat upon his throne, looking at the people - and the elf - before him. Arya Drottning, Eragon Shadeslayer, the dragon Saphira, and the child Elva. He introduced the children, laid out a threat upon them. The voices wondered what their dead bodies would look like, but he had no intention of harming them. He just needed this to be a conversation of some kind and he doubted anything less would get some kind of courtesy from Eragon (The lack of an emissary before the battle was a sure sign).
Theatricality sometimes meant there wouldn’t have to be bloodshed. He’d learned that over the past century.
It wasn’t working here. Eragon was eager to fight, even with children in the room. Murtagh at least could be relied upon not to kill randomly if he eluded control. He’d have to keep a close eye on Eragon and dispose of him as soon as there were female dragons other than Saphira.
He ordered Eragon and Murtagh to fight while he concentrated on unraveling Eragon’s true name. The boy’s mind was frightening. Ruled by anger, laziness, love of violence, and entitlement but not of any of those things. What word defined Eragon’s life, and would define his future if he didn’t change? He didn’t know.
It probably had something to do with the boy’s tendency towards murder. He tried a few that translated to “destroyer of mankind”, but they didn’t take.
“Wyrdskyldr”, suggested one of his voices. Nonsense, the boy didn’t have the humility.
He tried “False Hero”, and that didn’t work. In the midst of his pondering, something changed.
He was burning. No, he wasn’t. But it felt like it. Like he was burning and had been stabbed and crushed and was being torn apart. Pain lanced down through his teeth, into his skull from his eyes, every aspect of himself afire with pain.
Afire…the Old Folk. He owed them. This must be Jarnunvösk reaching across the divide, letting him know what it felt like to be unable to rest. He’d allowed himself to be diverted for a century. He’d bonded with a different dragon, made friends, lived it up, all while Jarnunvösk was denied rest because her debt had yet to be paid.
The Old Folk took payment in the smell of burning flesh. He’d give it to them, and be lost.
So, this is my attempt to offer a possible point of view Galbatorix may have had on canon events. I didn't actually intend to write this at all, but Calliope wouldn't let me go. Trigger warnings for suicidal ideation, and…whatever I’ve done with depicting seeing and hearing things that are not there. I hope I've presented these topics without sensationalizing them or disrespecting folks who suffer from mental illness.
----
The first time he heard a voice he definitely knew had never been spoken, he was holding Jarnunvösk’s lifeless head. His tears shimmered on her beautiful purple scales, adding layers to the reflection of the weak sunlight of the far north. The voice, little more than a hoarse whisper in his - right ear, he thought? - said “Go south”.
Even though he knew he was now cursedly alone, he looked for the source of the whisper. His eyes roved over the urgal corpses, his dead friends, and returned to Jarnunvösk’s corpse. As he expected, there was no one. A second whisper, slightly higher pitched, said “Stay with her”, even as a low and gravelly third whisper ordered “Make a funeral pyre”.
He shook his head firmly to try and silence the whispers, then drew his sword. Oromis-elda may claim that there was no afterworld, but he didn’t know. He’d honor his friends even if he couldn’t burn them. He carefully nicked one of his fingertips - enough that it would bleed, not so much it’d be a danger - and started as the whispers came again.
“Fall on your sword.”
“Just a little bit further down, your wrist”
“Stay here with her.”
He dropped his sword and clutched his head. He carefully averted his eyes from the blade, which seemed to sing of possible insertions into his own flesh. He reached out with his hand and drew a rune on Jarnunvösk’s cheek. It wasn’t proper, but it was a warrior’s blessing. A sign the Old Folk should bear her to the afterworld without payment and a promise to pay them the difference on his own death, for he could not pay them right now and remain alive.
Jarnunvösk winked. His heart soared with hope even as his head screamed it was impossible. She was dead, impaled through the heart by an urgal spear. He couldn’t feel her anymore. She was dead, dead, dead. But it was as if his eyes refused to believe it.
“Stay, there won’t be any more.”
“She was more worthy than you.”
“You can’t pay.”
He forced his numb limbs to move to his companions and without hesitation took their debts upon himself.
…
The 92nd time he heard a voice he definitely knew had never been spoken, he’d been walking south for some time. His traitorous body screamed out for rest - the rest Jarnunvösk would never know until her debt to the Old Folk was paid. He didn’t deserve to rest until she could, and for that he needed wood and flame.
“There’s a cave. Rest.”
“You’ll never make it this way.”
“Go back for your sword.”
He stubbornly put one foot in front of the other, until, until…
He woke up in darkness. So, so cold. He must have stopped for a moment, and slept in the snow. He laughed humorlessly. He should be dead. Why wasn’t he dead?
…
He no longer knew how many times he’d heard voices that definitely were never spoken. The voices came to him often, and rarely said the same thing. Sometimes they pointed out useful things - edible roots here, shelter there - and sometimes they said nonsense or spoke of blood and death that was never evident.
The first time he’d seen Jarnunvösk poke her head around a tree like they used to do when they played together had put him into a dead run towards her. Then he remembered she was dead and cried yet again. This didn’t cause the image of her to fade, but when he finally approached it disappeared.
When she showed up again on his journey, he tried to look away from her but then he felt as if she was creeping up behind him with malevolent intent. Was this a spirit tormenting him?
The fourth time Jarnunvösk appeared, he knew immediately on seeing her that she wasn’t really there. He would have given anything for her to actually be there.
Though he was among trees now, he told himself he needed an axe first to pay the debt.
…
The Rider council examined his mind. They claimed it was a requirement to consider granting him a second dragon.
“Don’t the dragons choose?” The voices whispered
The council claimed he was mad and refused to allow him to be presented to the dragon eggs. But he wasn’t mad. Someone who was mad would not know it when he saw something falsely, or that the whispers had never been spoken. What gave the all-elven council this authority? The dragons choose, and there were no humans on the council.
He reached out to old friends, and in time and plots, a new egg chose him.
…
Shruikan was nothing like Jarnunvösk.
Where Jarnunvösk was endlessly patient and relentlessly kind-hearted to the frustration of her tutors, Shruikan was impatient and prone to seeing threat in everything.
Still, they bonded. Shruikan became another voice in his head, albeit one that was real, and the whispers subsided somewhat. Shruikan would never grasp that not all of the threats his Rider saw or feared were real, and others would read this as cruelty and a disposition towards violence.
When Shruikan asked about Jarnunvösk, his Rider had no words. When they spoke of Jarnunvösk, the two spoke in the language of dragons - memory and impression.
…
A hundred years later, he sat upon a throne. His agent, Durza, reported the existence of a new Rider that threatened to challenge the king. He resolved to order the Ra’zac to the new Rider’s last known location. They would find him. The Ra’zac were the perfect hunters of man and their methods were more reliable than the shade’s in this situation.
But before the hour was out, he had no memory of this interaction and thus the Ra’zac were never dispatched. Had they been, perhaps Eragon would have been intercepted over the Hadarac Desert.
In later times a collection of dead dragons would claim to have manipulated events, but they had nothing to do with the failure of memory an aged man afflicted with visions and voices can display now and then or with Shruikan’s complete disinterest in matters of ruling.
Shruikan always cared more about chess than ruling. It was the only thing he ever showed real patience for. The king set apart an entire garden for pieces large enough for Shruikan to move.
…
Not long after that, Murtagh returned to court. He’d run. He’d joined the rebels. He didn’t understand what was at stake. He needed to die as an example, but then the dragon Thorn hatched for him.
So now the king looked into Murtagh’s mind, looking for some key to preventing Murtagh from restoring elven dominion over Alagaesia. He found little evidence of Murtagh’s true name, until the voices spoke. Two of them gave him possibilities, and the third wanted to use cake as shampoo. He tried the possibilities, and one of them was indeed Murtagh’s true name.
He wasn’t surprised. His voices had helped him crack the minds of Riders far older and stronger than Murtagh.
…
He sat upon his throne, looking at the people - and the elf - before him. Arya Drottning, Eragon Shadeslayer, the dragon Saphira, and the child Elva. He introduced the children, laid out a threat upon them. The voices wondered what their dead bodies would look like, but he had no intention of harming them. He just needed this to be a conversation of some kind and he doubted anything less would get some kind of courtesy from Eragon (The lack of an emissary before the battle was a sure sign).
Theatricality sometimes meant there wouldn’t have to be bloodshed. He’d learned that over the past century.
It wasn’t working here. Eragon was eager to fight, even with children in the room. Murtagh at least could be relied upon not to kill randomly if he eluded control. He’d have to keep a close eye on Eragon and dispose of him as soon as there were female dragons other than Saphira.
He ordered Eragon and Murtagh to fight while he concentrated on unraveling Eragon’s true name. The boy’s mind was frightening. Ruled by anger, laziness, love of violence, and entitlement but not of any of those things. What word defined Eragon’s life, and would define his future if he didn’t change? He didn’t know.
It probably had something to do with the boy’s tendency towards murder. He tried a few that translated to “destroyer of mankind”, but they didn’t take.
“Wyrdskyldr”, suggested one of his voices. Nonsense, the boy didn’t have the humility.
He tried “False Hero”, and that didn’t work. In the midst of his pondering, something changed.
He was burning. No, he wasn’t. But it felt like it. Like he was burning and had been stabbed and crushed and was being torn apart. Pain lanced down through his teeth, into his skull from his eyes, every aspect of himself afire with pain.
Afire…the Old Folk. He owed them. This must be Jarnunvösk reaching across the divide, letting him know what it felt like to be unable to rest. He’d allowed himself to be diverted for a century. He’d bonded with a different dragon, made friends, lived it up, all while Jarnunvösk was denied rest because her debt had yet to be paid.
The Old Folk took payment in the smell of burning flesh. He’d give it to them, and be lost.
no subject
Forgetfulness is a way to put it. I was thinking more about the fact that people who've suffered traumas and have mental health issues often have problems with short or long term memory.
I singled out Shruikan as "completely disinterested in ruling" to explain why Shruikan wasn't acting as Galbatorix's secretary in this matter and reminding him of something this important later. That flowed into discussing what Shruikan did care about since it wasn't the politics of power.
I guess he's one of the best chess players in the world by the time Úmagon shows up. And if you don't mind, I'll steal this detail for my own work.
Feel totally free! The idea of a giant dragon playing a game much like chess with courtiers at Galbatorix's court just feels so cute to me, especially in context with some real life shit nobility actually did pull - like having servants dress up as chess pieces to play on a life-size board.
So in my head Shruikan was a chess fanatic and even if he wasn't interested in ruling the ordered structure of his mind helped compliment the creative chaos of Galbatorix's mind. Whether Shruikan was asking people dressed as chess pieces to move, moving the enormous stone pieces specially made for him, or telling his opponent his moves on a human-sized board, it's what he found joy in.
The short sentences work perfectly here. I don't know exactly how, but it works.
It's a technique I stole from poetry. Basically the reader interprets individual sentences as having a pace. Longer sentences are seen to be languorous and calming; as gentle waves on a sandy shoreline. Shorter sentences: Impart Urgency.
In a poetic form, this segment looks like so:
The increasing sentence length creates an impression that Galbatorix is panicking at first, but then slowing down and thinking it through.
Fucking Roran. I knew Orrin had the right idea.
Yeah. I wanted to offer some consequence for Roran's stupidity because he was being such an asshole. Of course Roran wouldn't see "As a direct result of my actions, children were in the room when Eragon and co were murdering an old man" as his fault but still.
And he immediately links it to the experience of his youth, showing that he has never really ceased to care. As for the rest... it's simply masterful.
Part of it's inspired by a potential death in Sunless Sea. "Rise and be lost"; for travelling the surface when your captain is overcome by a yearning for sunlight.
And yeah. I wanted his final thoughts to be of Jarnunvösk, who is the reason he did all of everything he did. That's also why this story starts with Jarnunvösk's death - so I can bookend it and highlight that the person Eragon killed in such a horrible way was fundamentally an old man overcome by grief.
no subject
I know what you mean, I just couldn't come up with a better term for it.
I have in mind that Murtagh also finds rest in such structure during the time he serves Galbatorix. One way he does it is by calculating prime numbers.
I know it from prose, too. Paolini really doesn't know how to use this.
As indeed they should be.
no subject
Most of my writing experience is literal poetry, honestly. I have about a dozen poems and two or three short stories before this fic.
Poetry is a lesson in intentionality in writing. In how the difference between the right word and the almost-right word, even though they be synonyms, is the difference between a cat (the animal) and a "cat" (The two-hulled boat) and a "cat"(apult). In how important it is to control the length of your sentences, to edit and revise, to decide on phrasing based on how and where and when and if to rhyme, and when to place breaks between segments to retain audience attention.
One of my favorite tricks is to establish a rhyme scheme, and then deliberately break it so the odd line out sticks in my audiences' minds.
Now, I didn't take this level of care with this fic (I feel like it would be even better if I had). But there's reflections of how I've practiced writing before in it.
no subject