War isn't about sides.

Madras Welvarden | 924 | Military Leader "It will never be the end so long as the will of the Goodlands remains an incombustible flame to be wrought upon those completely deserving."

[miero-div-yearto]

In Times of Doubt || Miero & Madras

[miero-div-yearto]

Miero felt his spirits rise just from the sight of his uncle’s calm face and controlled tone. He was someone Miero knew he could trust to give him the best answer he knew, and though he hadn’t been the most playful uncle to the boys, he’d always been a pillar of support for them when things got, well, frightening. Madras pulled Miero into a hug, and it was something he’d desperately been missing, that reassurance through touch that they’d always have a bond. He had it with Reed, but their interactions were always on the cheerful side, and when things got serious, they pulled away from one another, they didn’t draw close. Perhaps it was their parents, instilling in the brothers that serious problems deserved serious thought—a wise lesson, that not everything could be solved with hugs. But they didn’t hurt, thought Miero, smiling at his uncle as he was released from the embrace.

"He’s back at our quarters, it’s just me—Are you sure? I don’t want to intrude, if you’re busy." It was a bit of a formality. A man like Madras would always be busy, even when he looked like he was relaxed he would be thinking. Miero tried his best to be like him when he was working with the rest of the Compan, to think of options and strategies that could keep them safe. He wasn’t very good at it, yet, but elves lived long lives—Madras himself was an example of that. "I was hoping I could talk to you, about well, just…" He trailed off. Was it the massacre he wanted to talk about, or the fears and the monster, the war in general? His place in any of it? Eventually, he settled on, "Some things," as he followed Madras into his home.

[madras-welvarden]

                    ❝I am never too preoccupied to speak with you, Miero.❞ 

Softened irises leveled Miero’s wayward gaze and the elf keeled onto the floor and sat, cross-legged and relaxed, attentive and tender. He had the furniture removed; it reminded the elf of cackling flames, flickering machines, mills and mines...it all meshed evenly into an inescapable shadow of dread. It encompassed their world, rupturing that in its path, tarring and blackening. Madras preferred a room filled with naught but lofty air and ambrosial serenity. 

It helped him think. 

                        It cleared his mind. 

But his nephew’s presence brought with it a wave of nostalgia replete with the tender tendrils of composure. It ran warn in his veins. As he sat, attentive of Miero, eager to listen to his experiences and lessons, Madras was content. He was content to be the Uncle who listened and ushered advice -------- and the elf knew, in his heart of hearts, that they wanted an avenue of guidance. They needed it, for the war’s eclipse was all too prone to furrow into the hearts of those unwilling. It crippled and debilitated, Madras knew, and it crept, slowly, before it struck. His nephews would not experience that, if he could help it. After a moment or two of comfortable silence, Madras spoke, his tone soft; mellow. 

                                             ❝What do you have on your mind?❞

[madras-welvarden]

It will never be the end so long as the will of the Goodlands remains an incombustible flame to be wrought upon those completely deserving.

Madras Welvarden, High General, 356 ASW

[miero-div-yearto]

In Times of Doubt || Miero & Madras

Miero had tried not feeling responsible, but it was impossible. The way things had gone down in Beldim had everyone shaken—that was probably why Zea had let him keep Sir Leon without much more argument than a ‘keep out of trouble’. The big yellow dog was one of the massacre’s only survivors, and that only because he’d had refused to leave Miero’s side, and Miero had been pulled back fairly early on to provide support to the rear of the fighting.

Still, what he’d seen was enough. In a matter of hours, the town of Beldim had been utterly destroyed—people working and talking, living their lives, children playing—all of it was gone. Because of them. Miero couldn’t handle it any more. He knew that if he was going to keep fighting, he needed guidance. He couldn’t turn to his compan mates, or to Reed, because they were all more-or-less in the same boat.

Now they were back in the city, though, he did have someone he knew he could talk to. Madras, his uncle. The old elf had lived through so much war, and he’d always had good advice for Miero and Reed, when they were growing up and then later when they were attending Jewantes. It had been a little while since he’d seen him, but that didn’t stop him from walking up to Madras’s door and knocking.

[madras-welvarden]

The sun had begun to peek over the horizon; its translucent streaks of dandelion meshing with the warm strides of sapphire and crimson, creating a florid canvass that madras truly appreciated. War tainted, scarred and seared, and war has distracted him ------ distracted everyone ------ from the forlorn truth that the world around them had been there for centuries. Madras was always taught of fifth gate's marvel; of color and water and mountains but even he had to admit that the polluted calamity of war shrouded their world in unbreakable shadow. Soon, that shadow would remove in seconds what had been for centuries and nothing would remain but a barren wasteland. 

                              Someone knocked, and it ruptured the General from his reverie.

He withdrew an appreciative gaze from the window to answer the door. Whomever had disturbed him violated a sacred rule he held during a wind-down period. He preferred to be in the solace of loneliness because it gave him time to think, and Madras discovered he had been thinking far more after returning from Nasdravial. Perhaps, the elf witnessed, for the first time, the unrelenting vigor...the staying resilience...with which Varamadras crept upon their land at speeds they had never anticipated. If no one quenched the demon's seemingly insuppressible malice, and nothing roared mightier within Madras save the desire to send the Demon Lord whence he came, then he would send the world into a Stygian era of darkness. It would collapse. 

When he had laid eyes on Miero, however, the distorting anger rising within him had vanquished. Miero looked different --------- altered by the war, Madras noticed -------- but he was not unnoticeable. Without a word Madras tugged him into an embrace, holding it for quite a while...the clementine link of family binding them closer with each second. Madras could feel it. He relished it; he had not felt it in a long time. 

                                                    ❝Where is your brother? Come in.❞ 

[bloodofwinter]

[madras-welvarden]

Would you feel ashamed if the Goodlands lost this war?

Shame. Iridescent, intangible…a monster with sharp teeth and sharper claws. Would he feel ashamed? Nay, if the Goodlands lost the war the elf would feel a loathing; hotter than dragonflame and wrought like iron —— Madras would feel as if his life were reduced to brittle sand upon an abandoned beach. The Goodlands wouldn’t ——- couldn’t lose the war, and so long as Madras drew breath, so long as he bequeathed life to his weary limbs…Varamadras would have an indefatigable adversary. He didn’t care about the Trolian King or the nifty bureaucrats at his side because they knew nothing. Madras didn’t care if he had to the fate of their entire world on his shoulders…he would keep going.

❝If the Mancers prevail, I swear to you, I wouldn’t be alive to witness it.❞  

[madras-welvarden]

What if you had Magic?

That question sent a shudder riddling through him, splintering his concentration and crippling his line of sight. Unbeknownst to those around him, the elf often wondered if magic would inflate his value ——— if magic was what kept him from bringing about an end to the Eternal War. He wondered, and it did nothing but ignite an incombustible maelstrom of guilt he wasn’t strong enough to sift. But in that moment, the elf found the warm reluctance he had grown familiar with. Emblazoned irises battered by the scourge of time looked dreadfully weary, and his voice was coarse…

❝There’s no point in puzzling over what we can’t have.❞

❝I’d rather not waste my time.❞  

[madras-welvarden]

What was your brother like?

My brother was a great man and even better King. He understood that a crown didn’t give power – one can rule from a high chair, but my brother earned the respect of our people. We both did. I had more fun, considering I fought alongside our armies when the war started and he swerved lords and dignitaries for support in stuffy rooms. Make no mistake about it, my brother loved his army, the city and family – he was – is the man I grieve for most in this world, save my father.

[Time’s slippery-slope infrared his memory, oozing macabre sensations that made his feelings toil and undulate like lofty waves on a sultry evening. He smiled, because through those words his brother’s legacy remained intact.]

[madras-welvarden]

Do you miss your family, or do you have them with you?

— I don’t have anyone with me, for their sake, and because I am my own anchor. Anyone else would get in the way.

I don’t miss my family, my nephews are knights in the Compans and I visit them when I can – we’re a strong unit. They constantly inquire about my time as an elfling, and I tell them stories of Fifth Gate before there was a Dark Lord to drag the world to war. Heh, I enjoy those stories.

[madras-welvarden]

Deviant Proposal | Madras & Deas

     Madras’ bounded into Deas’ chamber with a proposition. His friend would not betray, nor would he instinctively churn the general away – but the elf pondered the possibility that family meant something to him. If there did exist a line of loyalty to Karadas over which Deas would not cross, Madras conceded to accept it. He understood it. Bweston was not his favorite, but connecting them was an intractable chained-loyalty consecrated in blood.

     “Warming to see you again, old friend,” he began, “I wish I were here under those circumstances, but what I’m here to ask is—goes against a code of valor.”

     The general tossed a pamphlet to Deas. He hoped Uef sought an opportune moment to prove Karadas’ wrong about his capability – Madras banked on it. Manipulative, and perhaps vindictive, the elf was not sure of whom the man he became in that moment. It hadn’t mattered. Like a wolf, he was driven by retribution. It ebbed and flowed through his veins; a warm and steady pulse tethered to a fleeting precipice. The proposition was his only method by which to exact retribution – a respite from the humiliation of disgraceful defeat. He was beyond the point of no return.

     “Varamadras is on the defensive; my guess is he’s in reprieve which means the Mancers are without leadership at the top –Opportune moment to stage operation subterfuge.” The general’s irises are firmly planted upon Deas’, “You and I.”

     You and I. The phrase thumped around in his head. A huge army was a liability. Between Tordanes and Hagafosiel were minimal Compan tents to the Woodelvian army. Soldiers from those tents could accompany them.

     “My proposition? We strategize Hagafosiel’s takeover.

[madras-welvarden]

Serenaded Burial | Monologue

One mistake has the unprecedented potential to tug the pendulum of war.

Ninety-eight piles of skin and bone crackled under ribbons of orange and red and blue.  Madras hadn’t arrived at Karadas’ quarter; he was but a league’s distance whence shrills uproared. A fraction of a second was all it took for the elf to realize his premonition’s reality. Varamadras was on the offense. He sprinted across the vast plains, only to greet death upon arrival. He was too late. Fists bawled, he scourged the cerulean skies for a trace of their assailant.

Madras blamed Karadas. The trolian monarch, despite his dire warning, insisted upon a direct approach – it was a folly. The King was an indistinct fool: not a leader, not a soldier, and unfit of his crown. In lieu of heed a man’s word; a man who faced Varamadras on the battlefield, Karadas interjected a directive from behind his parapet. A directive that cost one-hundred lives. Eyes planted on the skirting horizon, a silent curse parted the general's chafed lips.

He rounded up the bodies to commiserate a proper burial. Old-fashioned; a funeral didn’t honor a soldier, fire did that. Removing his sword from its hilt, Madras sheathed it in the ground and watched, solemnly, whilst his comrades slept. Without a doubt they slept in a peaceful world the likes of which, so long as Varamadras slithered about fifth gate, Madras wouldn’t experience. In honor of their memory, and by extension all his comrades’ memories, Madras made a vow never to make another grave mistake. Because this one cost close to one-hundred lives.

Silence enveloped the canopy for miles. There was a time for anger, but there was also a time to embrace a frail nature. Gracefully he sat upon verdant hearth before the fire. It flickered and fluttered, billowing beneath a serene pasture. Its dance was reminiscent of the precarious sway of his emotions – Varamadras ignited an old fire from deep within. He wanted to sheath his sword in the demon lord’s gullet – and swore, on Fifth Gate, that it was but a matter of time.

A matter of time.

[madras-welvarden]

How often do you talk to the Knights?

[A wave; lukewarm and glistening in luminosity embraced the ancient elf’s jagged remonstrance whilst his mood brightened; shone effervescently as the livid remembrance of his pastimes outside the tainting enmity of warfare waded to the surface — in which he laughed amongst his brothers-in-arms, shared pats on the back and reflected on a period prior to the madness that engulfed their lives.]

— Whenever the chance comes up. They’re not just knights, they are my comrades, and we share a bond out there that I’ll never forget.

[boate-na-zona-sul-deactivated20]

[madras-welvarden]

Do you feel like you let your Elfish Kingdom down by denying the Throne?

[Nasdravial witnessed the shimmering, warm translucence of prosperity for long after the elf decided to give up his birthright. Not every kingdom could boast of that clamor in a war-stricken country — and it wasn’t something he could give, no, not when there was a war that could have ultimately been prevented if it weren’t for his grievous mistake. Madras knew his place; it wasn’t on a throne.] 

Nasdravial is in good hands — no point in regretting what I did. 

[madras-welvarden]

If war is only about the objective and not about sides, then how can war ever be truly over?

While he understood his logic wasn't comprehensible for everyone, to explain the intricacies of war only shoved the scorching vessel of its reality into his face. The words that followed were spewed through taciturnity. 

A war -- any war can truly come to an end when everyone realizes that they all want the same varied version of the world they live in. It's not win or lose, good or bad -- my side or the other -- that's child's play. War is more abstract than that, more about what type of realm we want, or changing it drastically. 

Something felt by everyone becomes divided because of minor change in an ideal, and divided again because of time, and divided again because of leadership. Eventually everyone forgets the objective and focuses on their side versus the other.

He had relatively clung onto meager shreds of composure brought to him by that sententious explanation that made sense to him but could have fell deaf in meaning to anyone else. What should have made sense, not just to him but to everyone was the fours words he articulated in-depart.

The objective is everything. 

[madras-welvarden]

What's the first thing you're going to do should you win the war?

What do you plan to do should you win the war...what do you plan to do should you win the war...it swam around the crowded knapsack of his mind over and over again. He thought about it numerous times across the everlasting span of the war and one would assume an answer would come to the elf autonomously; and it did.

I have a family that could use my guidance, a great deal of people I have to protect and just between us -- I think it's hightime I found a wife and settled. 

[madras-welvarden]

Is there something that haunts you?

Any man who claims they aren’t haunted by something is lying through their teeth. The prospect of losing the war is the closest thing to have plagued my thoughts — I don’t want my family or the will of my people to dwell in vain. Their will is my own, it is my weapon and as long as I have it I’ll fight. 

[madras-welvarden]