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​

 

[Seren Gwyn]

Seren stopped at the edge of the pool.

She did not cross the boundary, not out of fear, but understanding. Whatever waited within that water, whatever truth the palantír was prepared to reveal, was not meant to be shared. Some knowledge demanded solitude—not secrecy, but ownership.

Her eyes moved from the black surface of the pool to the hovering orb, then back to Varin. The change in the runes on his back did not escape her notice.

White. Not resolution. Not surrender. But suspension.

"This is not another trial," Seren said quietly, her voice measured, careful not to echo too loudly in the chamber. "Not in the way the others were."

She took a slow breath. "You did not come here to be tested," she continued. "You came here because you asked a question that could not be answered anywhere else."

Her gaze lingered on the palantír, respectful rather than wary. "That device does not judge," Seren said. "It does not instruct. It reveals."

She looked back at him then, meeting his eyes steadily. "And it will not show me anything."

The whispers in the chamber pressed closer, but she did not acknowledge them.

"Whatever you learn about Ignati," she said, deliberately naming the truth he sought, "will be given to you alone. Not as doctrine. Not as a command."

A pause—enough to let the weight of it settle. "Information without context can be dangerous," Seren added. "But information without ownership is worse."

She shifted slightly, grounding herself at the pool's edge.

"Do not try to confront him here," she advised gently. "And do not try to define him." Not yet. "Observe," Seren said. "Listen. Let the vision tell you what he is… and what he is not."

Her voice softened, not with doubt, but with trust. "You have already endured enough to earn this," she finished. "Whatever comes next is not something to overcome."

She stepped back a half pace, deliberately giving him space. "It is something to understand."

And then Seren fell silent—watchful, steady, and fully aware that the answers Varin sought were finally within reach, but could only be taken by his hand alone.

Varin Mortifer

 

[Varin Mortifer]

Her words found his ears as he took a deep breath.

“Don’t fight, only observe. I…I think I understand.”

He slowly reached his hands around the orb, not touching it yet. His fingers flexed as the pulse of not only power or knowledge pressed to his fingertips, but memory. Memory so deep it remembers each drop of blood amongst the galaxy’s planets.

His brow furrowed as he brought his hands closer.

Finally they made contact. An instant shift happened in the room. His body lurched as if being shocked, muscles and tendons stiffened around his body like a full bodied cramp. His head shot back, unable to remove his hands as a yell of agony left him. The white runes now pulsed a dark crimson red. A snarl erupted from his throat as he tried to loosen his body, tried to refrain from fighting. This thing was trying to invade him, his first instinct to fight back did not bode well.

He forced his head to look down at the orb, his eyes searching into its black expanse before his body began to loosen. His breathing was deep and harsh as the shooting pain began to fade.

Finally…

It opened. The eye of knowledge and memory opened its gates to him.

It felt as if his subconscious was sucked in, his physical body relaxed, staring as if entranced, but inside Varin was floating in a mighty expanse of stars. Searching around he noticed a lone planet with a crimson sun. Unknown of the planet's name or origin.

His vision plummeted to its surface where he witnessed wars, civilizations, kingdoms, utopias, ruins. A life long timeline that spanned the planet changing ever constantly, but one thing remained. The citizens worshipped the planet. Sacrificed to the planet. Words in his mind spoke of Bogan’s Chosen. Varin watched as years went by and sacrifices were still made.

Hundreds of years spanned over the course of these rituals tithed in blood, even through technological advancements. They called to the planet. Until it finally answered.

His vision was torn back to space as he heard mass panic planet wide, countless voices screaming as the planet began to crack. Orange glows spilling across the lands as if it were splitting. The cracks snaked along the surface and over seas, developing the same runic shapes as Varin’s brands.

A flash of crimson spilled over the cracks before the planet burst. Pulling himself from the remains of the rock and ruin that floated aimlessly in the expanded void was a creature of mass that seemed far to big to measure. Wings outstretched like solar flares from the sun. Its head pulled back to release a massive roar from its draconic body. This new birth of a creature was hungry.

Its star-like eyes fell upon the crimson sun from a distance, before opening its maw. The being inhaled sucking anything into the blackhole expanse of its mouth, pulling bits of the sun towards it. Slowly those bits turned to streams of solar energy, feeding this being. Making it grow. Finally, the crimson glare of the sun was snuffed. What was left in the pocketed void was this being, born from the Dark Side, born from blood shed, born from a planet. The Eater of Suns. Ignati’s birth had been revealed.

Varin noticed as Ignati turned its head to look at him. Varin’s fists tightened as it seemed to glide at an increased speed towards him. He concentrated. His fists flexed in his palms as he willed himself out of the vision. Ignati drawing closer, its maw gaping open in a roar, as if to swallow him.

Varin roared back as his hands finally ripped away from the crystal ball sending him falling into the blackened water.

In a panic he quickly pulled himself up looking around, his yells echoing around the chambers until he began to calm down. His breathing still rapid as he caught Seren’s gaze.

Seren Gwyn​