Private Legends Written in Ruins

[Varin Mortifer]

He listened to her words as he felt her presence draw closer to him. His fists slowly relaxed as she spoke. No, he did not know what all he had gone through. And he dared call Varin a traitor? A coward? After he slaughtered any man he could to protect his sister?

A fury began to ignite in Varin’s eyes. He slowly stepped up to Lord Mortifer. Seeing him as the ruler he was and not the father he had been.

“I drenched our planet’s soil in the blood of our invaders, just as you did.”

He ground his teeth together as he stepped closer, the heat of the throne room building around him.

“I only survived because I was hungrier than you. Even now to this day, my loyalty lies in the betterment of Carcosa!”

His voice echoed off the walls as he began to draw the hilt of his saber.

“I would still see the banners of our enemy burn no matter where or how they hide. Ruin will find them.”

The saber ignited with a roar, the crimson blade springing to life as flame itself also engulfed its shape.

“It is no longer YOUR kingdom, father. You have no hold or claim to it.”

Lord Mortifer stood in silence as he looked down at him. His eyes looked into him and through him. As if to burn away any secret intent behind his back. He took a deep breath before He spoke.

Dzis ri ckabiradi iw Carcosa. Ki shahkû. Tu'iyia shahkû.

He lifted his weapon with effortless ease as he pointed it towards Varin, not in warning, but in recognition.

Kitshija ri wisûtis, zudyti ri tsosûtojona, tsiti ani diyi mukda iw zo katwa dro ri zûtadani iw kûts. Nisosûti Ki kraujas, Tu'iyia kraujas, shuriji.

Varin did not respond verbally. He gave the visage of his Father a slow nod, never leaving his sight.

Lord Mortifer sheathed the mighty blade before walking back to His throne and taking His seat.

“Do this, not as an order. But to right our wrongs, son.”

The visage slowly began to dissipate back into the familiar walls of the caverns, the hot feeling of the flames around them now cooled. The last thing to disappear were Lord Mortifer’s eyes.

Varin’s saber disengaged as he fell back into the wall of the cavern with a heavy breath.

Seren Gwyn​

 

[Seren Gwyn]

Seren did not move until the last of Lord Mortifer's gaze dissolved into stone.

Only when the heat fully bled from the chamber—when the cavern returned to itself, cold and ancient and indifferent—did she step forward. Not hurried. Not cautious. Measured, as she always was when something important had just ended.

She stopped beside Varin as his saber disengaged, close enough that her presence was unmistakable, but she did not touch him yet. She let him breathe. Let the weight settle where it needed to.

"That was not submission," she said quietly, breaking the silence without shattering it. "And it was not defiance."

Her eyes lingered on the space where the throne had been, where authority had chosen to withdraw rather than be broken.

"You did something rarer than either," Seren continued. "You redefined the terms." She finally turned to him then, studying his expression—not the fury that had carried him forward, but what remained after it burned away.

"He did not strip you of your claim," she said. "He acknowledged it." A pause. "Not as a father. As a king recognizing a successor who survived what he did not." She lowered herself slightly, enough that her voice was unmistakably meant for him, not the cavern, not Malachor, not whatever watched from deeper still.

"The trial did not ask you to kill him," Seren said. "Because your past no longer requires violence to release you." Her gaze softened—not with pity, but with something closer to respect. "You faced him without kneeling," she added. "And without running."

At last, she reached out—briefly, grounding—her fingers resting against his forearm, steady and real. "That was the lesson," Seren said simply. "Endurance without erasure." She withdrew her hand, giving him space again, but her presence did not recede.

"Malachor has what it needed from you here," she said. "What comes next will not be a vision." Her eyes lifted to the cavern ahead, where the path waited—changed.

"When you are ready," Seren finished, calm and certain, "we move on." Not because he was ordered to. But because he had earned the choice.

Varin Mortifer

 

[Varin Mortifer]

He spoke softly.

“Theres always a third option when faced with ultimatums.”

He looked back at her finally after he was certain the visage was gone. He looked down at his hands as they finally finished shaking.

“I don't think I could have killed Him if that was the challenge. I don’t know how I would overcome defeating Him. He was such an unstoppable force in the kingdom. The very foundation of Carcosa itself. The wind and forests bowed to Him, mountains groaned as they strained to avert their gaze at Him. He was not just a force of nature and power He was The force of nature and power.”

He looked back at her into her eyes.

“I feel that I must become that and more in order to take back my home and keep it.”

He looked down at her hand as she touched his forearm, a light simple touch.

He slowly pulled himself back up with a groan as she spoke of what Malachor had to offer him. His trials were all completed, all that was left was to enter the next area. Already it looked and felt different. Like the previous caverns were stuck on a loop until some breaking point happened. This room felt heavier. The very presence of the darkside was thick here. It sat deep into his bones, whispers fell to him, not promises or temptations, but whispers of those who had come before him and have either made it or did not make it. Echoes of former wanderers that still haunted these chambers. The center was a pool of black thin liquid, similar to water. Every now and then a drip could be heard as it echoed off the wall.

In the center of the pool, sat a palantir. The orb looked to be made of obsidian glass hovering a mere inch or two over its slotted platform. It hummed and vibrated with power.

He stepped into the pool slowly. The water enveloping his ankles, then his calves and finally up to his waist. The chill was sharper than anything he had come across, as if the pool were stripping him of his heat, causing his breath to hitch. His breathing was rapid and shaky before it slowly deepened as he took in the area. Sinew sat staying just out of bounds of the room, panting and waiting for him to return. She was nervous, but she did not run away, she just waited.

The runes on Varin’s back pulsed brightly, sending ripples of glow towards the runes that ran down his back around his ribs and down his arms, only the glow was not its normal orange, but a neutral white. He was quiet. Just breathing. As if waiting for what was to come.

His shivered breathing echoed from the walls as he stared into the orb.

Seren Gwyn​