Motionless, resembling a monument hewn from marble more than ever, Thranduil stood at as courteous as comfortable distance. His own attention momentarily pinned to the fabric — how it gently swayed upon receiving curiosity’s touch through a stranger’s fingertips. Rooted in what twilight filled this chamber, MOONLIT strands kissed by faintest tinge of gold, the elf allowed for a lackadaisical smile to replace flawless nonchalance. ❝ For the better ❞, poured that slice of repetition forth in tones audibly skeptical.
There was reason behind that. None the ELVENKING rushed to lay bare just yet, for Morgana’s unexpected laughter stirred in him a breeze of irritation which tilted his crowned head a tad.
Her further confession posed another revelation that suffocated an any grain of speech otherwise escaping his mouth in response. She must have been lonely for a tremendously long time. ❝ You have come to gather answers to your visions. The only one here whose forgiveness you need has to be yourself …. ❞ And he gestured for one of the waiting servants to prepare the table with some food and drink, ❝ … for I doubt it makes any difference to me if you find those answers or fail ❞, ere aiming for one of the chairs to halt behind it.
In fluid motion, one richly adorned hand pointed toward a seat across from the one he had picked for himself. Expectation that his soundless suggestion be heeded lifting prominent brows, alow which STEELY eyes averted from his guest in no moment. ❝ This would be the best imaginable opportunity to collect practise, then. We will begin with something simple ❞, the sound of wood grating along stone sent a swiftly fading echo up into the heights. For those chambers all might seem smaller than the great hall, the walls but were all reaching for the sky.
❝ You said you bear hope for this world to continue and change for the better. What meaning does that term hold from that perspective of yours ? Better. ❞ A servant returned to place a wooden platter on the table’s center; it carried a glass bottle filled with spring water and two glasses. Thranduil thanked them with a subtle nod. Returning the gesture, that same servant exited swiftly. ❝ The definitions thereof vary as do the lives roaming our world. ❞
𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐀 𝐌𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐑, and she had begun to wonder... had she a right to inflict her questions upon so noble a person for her own benefit? she shuddered to think that she should fail, and that all would be for nowt, or that she should lay her head back down upon when she made her bed within the wilderness with nothing but doubt to fill her head. NO. she had every right. she who had toiled through for years through the dark, who had seen the emptiness of the human soil. she would make no apology for seeking the answers she deserved. still, tempestuous turmoil shown sharply in every crease around her eyes, though feet did carry her to the end of the table where she sat as directed, though with no small amount of nervousness.
where she hoped to smile at him and alleviate some of her own trepidations, she found only the deepening lines on her face. how confusing he was, electing her to practice, as if she were speaking to a common man off the beaten path between one city and the next. what would she do if her answers were not satisfactory? if they failed to miss their mark or worse, if they offended him? he might as well have been staring down at her with a ghastly grin wrinkled on his lips and a gaze filled with fire.
but it mattered not, did it? she made it here. she had. and not a damned person could take that from her.
then she looked on him, and every ounce of callous preparation seemed to fade from eyes to lips into an expression of practiced calm. ❛ better ❜, the young woman echoed again, tasting it as it rolled on the back of her tongue, on the tips of her teeth. ❛ the meaning i propose would be: the propensity not for progress, but for kindness. for the world needs nothing if not more of it between one man and the next. ❜
she hid her hands in her lap and straightened her posture when servant made their hasty exit, and anxiety set back into her eyes. she sat perfectly still, fingers wound tight around one another to pull on hempen rings, and scanned him for any break in his demeanor; any little clue that would tell her if she had said the right thing or not.
glancing around the table setting, she added: ❛ i’ve often found that kindness is the trait missing in dealings between people who would benefit of it the most. one never knows the pain or torment another has endured, and therefore how even an ounce of tenderness or goodwill might change their lives for the better. but the world is oft bereft of this. men instead find solace in tearing one another down. and inflicting pain on those differ. i’ve been laughed at for this before. for having a child’s dream. ❜
❝ Flattery implies that I am mistaking you for someone ordinary, which isn’t the case. ❞ Well, well, part of secret remained secret then… Good enough for him. Pacing his way to the nearby wall, hands moved behind his back before Eligos leaned against it. Why give any more reason for doubt or wariness ?
❝ I have no need for divination or for acquiring a woman who catches my eye, I am much more interested in the source of them. Call it boredom or scientific curiosity, either would be truth. ❞
𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒 𝐌𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐎 man, and in them stood the white atomic fury of the queen of air and shadow. lips part with the ferocity of the panther, and despite the pride of her powerful stature come shining through with fervor, the crow woman sits a little taller with no crown upon her head.
❛ i do not exist to sate your curiosities. or the curiosities of any man who comes traipsing through the woods in search of faerie secrets. furthermore, you’ve not even made mention of YOUR NAME. either make known your intentions or be expelled. i have no time to play your games. ❜
𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐔𝐑𝐄 . is that not what he has been doing his entire life ? from the moment he could walk ( or perhaps even before ? ) til now . every second has been a trial of endurance . 𝐈𝐓 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐁𝐄 𝐓𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 . he shifts his weight in his seat , old wood creaking with the slight of his movements .
❝ i’m done with enduring .❞ he answers – not spitefully , though his words may suggest otherwise . 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐎𝐌 𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐕𝐎𝐈𝐂𝐄 . but it’s most certainly not aimed at her . ❝ why must we wait and do nothing ? we have the power to act .❞
𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐁𝐈𝐓 𝐀 𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐒. ready to don his iron armor and go riding into battle. morgana’s lips curled into a furtive sneer, for she could not deny that he had waited, that he had suffered, and that she understood his hasty desire for swift and just revenge more than any ever could. tome is set aside in favor of attending her young nephew, headstrong mordred, who she drew up behind with a scoff in her mouth.
❛ because, so do they ❜, said morgana, who threaded her thin fingers into the curls atop his head. she soothed the scalp with the tips of her nails and cast her steely gaze into the fire. it snapped and snarled at the dry logs at the top of the pile, sending vicious plumes of dark smoke barreling up the uneven pipe of gray and gloomy stone. ❛ and if we are to go charging in headfirst while they are walled up within their precious camelot, we will be crushed like ants fleeing from the mound. come now, mordred, you know better than to draw your blade first. let arthur come to you. ❜
—— SOMETHING IN THE air shifts; whispers of the ancients that once walked wood ‘pon the wind, as soul becomes ever so slightly disquieted in presence of she ( aura one of mystery, of something archaic & reverent ). gaze falls upon noble steed, noting its calmness at timbre, lips curving into faint smile.
then it shifts to woman, emerald hues wavering before falling to earthen ground. “throughout. i am on…a leave from my profession.” much needed, after all man had ENDURED ( glad to be away from heat & sand of caribbean; of woman that had broken his heart ). “no — merely entered to escape from the others on holiday.” and once more does gaze lift, sincere & earnest. “i did not mean any ill will towards you.”
❛ 𝐍𝐎𝐑 𝐃𝐈𝐃 𝐈 𝐒𝐀𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐃𝐈𝐃. ❜ toneless words scorched the tender skin of frostbitten lips, and the tension around them grew stiff and cold. the lady’s fingers curled about her soiled skirts so that she could walk carefully through the mud, until she had come close enough for him to smell the smoke of burned incense clinging to her hair. there she knelt along a patch of mostly-dry grass and began to pick up the kindling that had fallen, piling each heavy twig in the crook of her arm, as one would hold a child. those cold eyes cast themselves up at him, as if squinting toward the canopy of a much-too-tall tree. ❛ at least make yourself useful. ❜
teeth ripped off a leather glove so that fingers could smooth away the soil that had splattered against her cheek, and morgana rolled the watery sediment between thumb and forefinger before shaking it away. the day had been long and taxing on her body, which was obviously worn, willowy and frail beneath the heavy green fabric of her cloak even despite evidence of her young age. hair slick with perspiration shimmered against her forehead, and in the shadow of the trees her eyes gleamed with a peculiar sense of preternatural power. ❛ what profession? you mentioned that you were on leave. what do you escape from? ❜
done with permission from @tharanduil / inspired by them, i decided to make a post about fanon tropes present on this site vs my own original portrayal. / TRIGGER WARNING: topics include historic xenophobia, intolerance and brief mentions of sexual assault.
DO NOT REBLOG. DO NOT !!! THIS IS A ROLEPLAY BLOG AND MY HEADCANONS ARE NOT UP FOR DEBATE.
popular fanon concept: morg.ana is evil, and only wants to kill arthur pendragon for the throne.
okay, so i cannot even begin to dissect why this is wrong without first pointing out that the bbc version of events can walk off a cliff. you have to understand that in my portrayal, i pay very close attention to the fact that pagans in briton at the time were being driven out by the new christian doctrine, and morgana herself (in original written canon) actually grew up in a convent after the deaths of her parents, one of whom was literally raped by the christian king uther pendragon in order to conceive her half-brother, and the other who was killed by the same king so that he could assume his form to sleep with his wife. morgana has harbored a blistering hatred for uther ever since she finds out what truly happened; which is done through sleep-induced visions once she comes into contact with the lady of the lake and awakens into her true abilities as the future priestess of avalon. it is her spite that drives her forward, and yes she does let herself become consumed by this hatred. especially after this same prince, her half-brother, becomes the center of a plot (where she is partially at fault) that finds not only most of her extended family, but also her lover, accolon, dead. she is the first born to to gorlois and viviane, and with uther’s crimes having left her bereft of any family, she stakes her claim to the throne of camelot through her sister’s sons, gwaine, mordred, agravaine and others, who are heirs to the throne of loth in modern-day scotland. if you decide to ignore the fact that non-christians and non-britons were being slaughtered during this time and to therefore whitewash the history of where this story came from and its main protagonist, it’s safe to say you should not be following me.
popular fanon concept: mor.dred is morg.ana’s son through an incestual relationship with her brother.
sorry, i don’t subscribe to the weird la morte de arthur obsession with creepy incest. mordred, like the rest of his brothers, was a son of morgawse and the king of loth. arthur did not conceive a son, & while gwaine and mordred were the last of his nephews left alive, morgana did align herself with mordred as he was a powerful druid that she assisted in teaching and training. after the death of her sister and brother-in-law, morgana did take on a matronly figure (especially with her namesake coming from the goddess, matrona) to both Agravaine and Mordred, though she was only ten to twelve years their senior. Both of them became part of her own immediate family, and she plotted with them thoroughly to see the youngest on the throne, and therefore forestalling the coming genocide to the northern tribes of what is now great britain and keep free the old religions. morgan.a loved mordred like her son, and when finally all brothers but gwaine had fallen, and mord.red was killed at camlann, she gave up the fight for the throne all together and withdrew into votadini lands to hide in the hills and wallow in her grief. she buried mordred alone.
popular fanon concept: morgana worships the old celtic deities in the ulster cycle
morgana was actually born at a time when the ‘’old’’ deities of the britons and saxons were still at large despite the onset of catholicism. she worshipped deities like wodan, thunor, tiw, freyja, lopt and others, this was after she threw away her education in a convent. the ulster cycle wasn’t introduced to arthurian legend until almost 800 AD, which is 400 or so years after morgana’s conception as a character.
popular fanon concept: morg.ana helped to kill arthur and left him to die with no remorse.
nope. in fact, in most instances in the actual legend, morgana finds herself feeling pity for him; she has stolen excalibur’s sheath from him, and in doing so he cannot use its magic to heal himself back to full health. mordred was also given a sword just as powerful as excalibur to slay a king, made by the fused hatred and magic of morgana herself. however, once mor.dred is dead and buried, she cannot bring herself to let her only remaining family member die sorry gwaine. she puts his body atop a boat of reeds and brings him to the isle of avalon, which is a portal between the physical and metaphysical world. while it is known he left the world of the living, it is under speculation in several versions of the story if he truly ‘’died’, or if he was put into a cycle of reincarnation.
popular fanon concept: morg.ana just used accolon. she never loved him.
get the fuck out of here with this. she loved accolon. and she used him. she was angry that she could not seduce lancelot to bend him to her will so easily, and she did use accolon as her first champion. she stole the excalibur and replaced it with a simple blade, and so during the duel between king and knight, when accolon came at him with a magic sword his own combat skills were not up to par. it was only after the sword was returned to arthur mid-battle that he stabbed through accolon’s silver armor with a fatal blow. his body was actually brought to morgana, and she mourned over him for several years. this was, in la morte d’arthur, the beginning of her plot to ruin arthur’s relationship with Guinevere, and when she really started to plot revenge with loth’s sons. (another small point is that while morgana did use her sexuality and femininity to manipulate others, it was never done through ‘sex magic’ or as a means to her own enjoyment, and was instead used as a means to get cis men to listen to her in 400 AD. something that is still impossible to do in 2020.)
𝐁𝐘 𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍’𝐒 𝐖𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒 , by your sons in servile chains , we will drain our dearest veins , but they shall be free . lay the proud usurpers low , tyrants fall in every foe ! liberty’s in every blow , let us do , or die .
morgana as an entity, or morgan of the faye, is linked heavily to the goddess matrona of celtic mythology, and also to a goddess specifically known for the ulster cycle as of her involvement in la morte de arthur, written in 1470. while i will have a much, much longer headcanon dealing with her link to matrona, especially being that the same deity was linked to be a protector of modron, or mordred.... i specifically wanted to talk about her similarities with the another goddess of irish mythology known as the morrigan. the goddess is more of a primordial force than a ‘god’ by conventional means, and is known more by her moniker ‘the phantom queen’. while she is linked heavily to the outcome of battle and bloody war, rather than being wholly associated with the actual fighting of a battle, she has more to do with the fate of those in and after a clash and the gruesome deaths that follow. but instead of acting as a means to transport someone to the afterlife, they were simply a symbol of death on the battlefield to some lesser extend.
A huge part of the Tuatha de Danann, the Morrigan was also known to have been made up of three distinct goddesses known mostly today as the maiden, the mother and the crone. All of which have a link to Morgana in one of the many stages of her life and to goddesses such as Ceredwen,
The morrigan would often appear in the form of a black crow, which happens to be morgana’s symbolic familiar, and upon seeing one on the battlefield it was believed to mean that death would befall that person imminently. this aspect of the morrigan made her popular for worship by those going into battle. interestingly, in most forms of media that portray morgana, this also links to her being used as an instrument of war, offering her services to the queens and kings of the north in exchange for shelter and safety, or for troops to fight of camelot and the rest of growing mercia.
but the morrigan also has in-depth protective qualities that enable her to protect her people. namely those who were worshipers of these ancestral gods and practitioners of magic, which also directly aligns with morgana’s personal interests. morgana le faye was a symbol to most practitioners of witchcraft and druidism of this time as a pariah that fought against the Anglicization of what would become albion. remember that at the time of her life (presumed to be around the timeperiods of 400-600 ad, respectively) it was when the heavy Catholicisation of what is now great britain, had begun. uther pendragon, and later the knights of the round, had pushed those that they had deemed uncivilized (magic-users) into areas in and north/west of lothian, gaelic and pictish lands.
BECAUSE OF THIS, TOO, morgana can be seen as a protector of those who were like her, especially if we bring popular canon such as bbc’s merlin into view, which i take some inspiration from in terms of magic being ‘outlawed’ at the time through penalty of death. fighting against the oppression of pagan ritualistic practitioners all over briton, as well as the druids of the dal riata alike, she was turned into a martyr of sorts and later demonized to the point of gaining a status of ‘evil’ ... while the kings who had oppressed or slaughtered these people (particularly the druids, like uther pendragon or his son in historic canon, not in the case of bbc) were instead built of as heroes to the people of albion for ridding them of the ‘evil’ pagans that had previously (as termed by uther) ‘infested’ their lands. propoganda against them surmounted and the britons and anglo-saxons continued their territory war, until separately the battle of camlann occured [ where king arthur had lead his knights of the round table into a war that would have claimed most of the northern territory in the name of camelot against the anglo-saxons, which had currently belonged to several albic tribes including that which belonged at the time to his nephew, gwaine of loth. ]
almost ironically, this battle is what enabled the bernicians to take even more land for themselves, creating the kingdom of deira (which, in my canon is what pushed morgana even further north of lothian, into the lands of the gaels). the reason i bring up this battle is because the morrigan is famous for taking part in the battle against the fomorians. the morrigan did naught at first but speak in chant, which caused the fomorians to scatter in fear until they fell into the seas.
another story she is involved in is that of Cú Chulainn, who threatens the morrigan when she releases his cattle back into the wild, only to realize who he has angered and explain his misdeed. when the morrigan prophecies ill-tidings for him on behalf of his threat, he tells her that she has no power over him. as we would expect, Cú Chulainn is given numerous chances to mend the relationship with the morrigan and botches it every time, eventually leading him to his inevitable death with the morrigan, as a crow, standing atop his dead body as a means to confirm his death. interestingly, morgana was also present at the battle of camlann, which i mentioned earlier, when both her nephew and her half-brother (mordred and king arthur) were slain by a single blow from one another’s enchanted blades.
so why bring up the morrigan at all? in my canon/headcanon, morgana didn’t just receive simple ‘fae’ powers from becoming the high priestess of avalon. i believe she drank from the proverbial spring itself when there was nothing more to learn from merlin and nimue and was granted similar powers to the three major goddesses, including the ability to dictate fate - albeit with a price she was not ready to pay. morgana in general is almost always seen as both a victim and chooser of fate, so i felt this was a very nice way to tie these figures together.
Every once in a while there were those who would not be as easily fooled by visage, having knowledge — or perhaps instinct — above the rest of their kind, and thousand times more interesting… He saw it in her expression, not charmed nor curious, but so was to be expected, otherwise her name wouldn’t be known even below. Eligos offered a wide smile, a silent admission of guilt as couple steps shortened the distance between them. ❝ You value truthfulness and purpose above impression? Wise of you. ❞
❛ 𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 all at once. or didn’t you know? ❜ folding frail hands atop her knees, her pale gaze slid from his odd, if not worrying countenance to be intrigued by the fire instead. it was warm, and from the hollow roar of black smoke racing up the chimney one could assume that the top logs were fresh and dry.
❛ few men make the journey to seek me out in these wilds. and those that do make petty offers in search of a soothsayer, or a spell or potion to catch some poor woman’s fancy when they have no honour of their own worth attracting. but you have made no demand of me. why have you come, then? ❜
❛ 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐒 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐇𝐀𝐒 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐍 from the very pinnacle of comfort, it seems to me that poverty is an eyeglass through which one may see his true friends. ❜ / @unfaeyh / sc.
‘ something’s terribly sick in my head ’
‘ these are my darkest thoughts , the bad things lurking in the closet ’
‘ is this how i tear the monsters from my body ? ’
‘ i want everything to stop ’
‘ fuck your immaculate existence ’
‘ today i want my heart to tremble ’
‘ i want my teeth to shatter bone ’
‘ today i want killing to mean living ’
‘ nothing you do can hurt me but you better try ’
‘ you can’t live without burning your comfort and safety as firewood ’
‘ maybe the ghosts learned how to build stairs into the mountainside ’
‘ believe me when i say there is no pride in this ’
‘ i want to be one of those city sprites among termites ’
‘ cleanse this body through tears and emesis ’
‘ circumvention was futile , damnable ’
‘ we’re all burning ’
‘ we learn to laugh in the midst of the inferno ’
‘ i realize now that i am the one out of place ’
‘ i want to destroy all the parts that aren’t working ’
‘ i never knew i had the capacity for cruelty ’
‘ i condemn myself to failure without batting an eyelash ’
‘ choosing to protect ourselves is not failure ’
‘ nothing is working ’
‘ at some point i stopped , i sank ’
‘ breathing seems so difficult now ’
‘ living was easy as breathing once upon a time ’
‘ i don’t think it’s living , but it’s not hurting either ’
‘ my body is a room made of glass walls and wooden floors ’
‘ today , i ache for somewhere to hide ’
‘ how do i turn the light on in my eyes ? ’
‘ please , no one look at me today ’
‘ i mused over all the times i had prayed to a god i do not believe in ’
‘ the gods died laughing ’
‘ you must learn fear ’
‘ let’s not be enemies tonight ’
‘ hold my hand while our greatest tragedies are lost and forgotten ’
‘ you are only a murderer if someone cares ’
‘ dreaming is so painful and i wish i would stop ’
‘ i can still love you with my eyes closed ’
‘ i’m not sure why you’re acting surprised ’
‘ let me pretend that i’m made of magic ’
‘ i am a creature of contradictions ’
‘ remember your strength , unchanging and eternal ’
❛ 𝐏𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐈𝐍 𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐘 𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄 as for me, i make no such boast. -as you know, no master of a household has all of his utensils made of gold; ..some are wood, and yet they are of use. ❜ the witch turned her gleaming gaze to rest above black hair, and a face that seemed too sculpted to have been anything but picked. morgan the fae was more than used to faeries and their glamours. but which kind was he ? BE HE WOOD OR BE HE GOLD ? | @hellknighted / sc.
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