OOC | Tristan & the Astairan War
ok so @forgotteneithne as promised a lil bg on our boy! this'll probs be an ongoing sorta thing esp bc i have a lot of hc's abt his bg etc and like??? weaving them together??? aldsjflkjsdf
ok, so since we know that stafford, lorcan, and malconaire were all kingdoms in their own right in ancient days, but are ~also within a day's walk of one another, i feel like they've all got some SUPER strategic significance going on, and so...i do think tristan may have hit lorcan later in the war along w @forgottenrian
some bg here! and corrent me if im misremembering anything? we know malconaire provides a lot of food to stafford and likely hanthom as well; stafford seems to command the sea; lorcan seems to have a mountain AND lake so that probs commands views and movement for quite a ways around!! we know @forgottengodfrey got into naval conflict w the callearies, that edmund hit malconaire, and that roderick took stafford. we also know that rian besieged lorcan but that it never fell iirc
we also know that the above are all far to the south of astaira, which is the largest country in the world, and that kil-kennar and calleary are all located in the north w the fens a bottleneck beneath them which you must cross to get north/south by land etc
ok so!! we know malconaire is landlocked and that there's a riverbend right there, and on the other side is another country that roderick had already conquered but we also know that, by the time you get down to stafford we're on the coast, along w hanthom! similarly, we know that in the north both kil-kennar and calleary are seaside, w kil-kennar high in the mountains and calleary a frozen waste situation. we also know that there's a bit of a bottleneck in the fens so if you're gonna be able to pass between them by land, you've got to go through the fens and, similarly, if you wanna hold astaira, you gotta conquer both north and south AND hold the fens
so!! i think we're looking at a bit of split objective and, i think if there's one superpower roderick's army really has in spades atp its a nearly unlimited number of ppl roderick would consider effectively canonfodder ('most of you will die, but that's just a sacrifice ~i am willing to make!' - roderick, probably) whereas life is considered precious in astaira and i think roderick really just...exploited both sides of that
so!! my thought, without knowing really a single thing abt the ~center of astaira~ or really any of the other houses/places than we've talked abt is that like...i don't think ppl knew where roderick ~really was for awhile. i think he initially made a show of being south of the fens in order to sort of draw astairan forces ~there instead of meeting him in the north where he'd ~actually landed
now, how did he do this? in a word, tristan! while he kept several of his elite guard by him, disguised as someone else, he sent tristan, in command of some of his kingsguard, but largely ppl dressed up as them, complete w a decoy roderick, and a large army of disposable young men into the south to harry ppl there, and later meet up w roderick when he conquered the fens. ofc as we know, roderick got bogged (heh) down in the fens much longer than he intended, and by the end i do think the secret was v much out etc, but!! i do think that at least initially this ploy worked bc i do know that eilia was def like 'look if we can just capture roderick, himself, we can make a lot of headway in our war effort' AND tristan was comfortable w ships, being calainon/kolchean etc, and so rather than getting there by land, i think they probs sailed
A N Y W A Y!! if, north of malconaire, astaira continued to physically border somewhere...or even if tristan came on ships (i do think kolchis was largely getting by on trade by the end so i do think they had a v robust maritime culture of their own etc tho yeah i do NOT think roderick is much good w a navy hahaha i def think godfrey and/or bartholomew/eoin (given his own maritime connections re the callearies oops) were the primary point guys/admirals on most naval battles hence -- paired w edmund's success at malconaire and arthur's failure in kil-kennar -- godfrey getting hanthom/ciara -- also stole some ideas from the hundred years war and have some ideas abt ~that but that's for other posts hahah) but im guessing it would be a lil weird for roderick to arrive on ships but anywayyyyy!!!! basically i feel like tristan probs crossed over below the fens and rode around sieging the most important castles just beneath that for awhile making a show of his forces ~being roderick~
i do think tho that, w roderick tarrying so long in the fens, the plan to meet there got kinda...untenable bc you can't really have a large army just...sit, like...historically the way baggage trains used to work etc that just wasn't really an option (fun fact, that literally led to the end of ghenghis khan), i do think tristan was ultimately forced to drive south, and may have even gotten as far as lorcan before finally meeting up w potentially edmund in malconaire post battle of m, etc, to reinforce there and hold it, etc, w edmund presumably assuming command at that time?
i do have some hc's abt lorcan and rian and all the mess but ill leave that for now actually bc i really wanna talk abt the pyre walk
i ~do think the pyre walk was actually primarily done w before tristan met up w roderick but, and this is crucial, i do not think it was over
ok so i do think tristan had heard rumors abt that but ngl he had this idealized vers of roderick in his head that he'd long upheld almost like a prophet or a saint -- he's the guy that saved his family from starvation, that swept in and gave tristan a place of belonging when he felt adrift, that raised tristan in his new religion, etc etc etc, and yeah!! i think tristan spent years just sort of dismissing the bad stuff he heard
now, smth to note abt tristan is that he was raised in kolchis by his grandmother, a witch, godfrey, and amira, so his early life def highkey underscored that witches are to be revered!! but on the other side, when he was still pr young he was indoctrinated (and yes i do use that term v intentionally) w roderick's belief sytem and taught they were evil, so he kinda...internalized both messages and just!!! confusion!!!! basically, there's smth dark and evil in him (the evil of great calainon and witch-blood) but also witches are just ppl but they all have smth dark in them so they all have to fight harder than any other ppl to stay good etc, is sort of how he justified all these competing ideas to himself. but also he can't get behind burning ppl to death, even witches, but esp ppl who haven't been tried/done anything wrong, etc!!! and any time someone would tell him roderick was doing that he'd basically be like 'that's just anti-rdoerick propaganda' unfortunately -- it was not!!
ok so fast forward back to the pyre walk. tristan and his army have finally gotten word that roderick is close, have detached from edmund's forces (if them meeting up was a thing?) and have been riding for days to meet up w roderick, as originally planned, on the road to stafford, abt to hit malconaire -- and when they get there he's in the middle of this mass burning situation
tristan, immediately assuming there's some awful mistake and not seeing roderick, orders for this to be stopped but like...ngl these ppl are already on fire and are ~going to die atp but at least they don't have to continue to be ~on fire~ anyway, w the lord commander riding in the ordering a stop to this, some ppl object, but tristan's men do what roderick's soldiers do best and obey orders and all this causes a lot of hubbub. it gets back to roderick that ppl're putting out his fires and he is INCENSED and comes storming in to find its tristan. he ~immediately assumes the power of having been effectively roderick's decoy has gone to tristan's head and a HUGE fight breaks out between the two and still no one's completely sure who ordered what honestly laksdjfkljdsf tristan spends the rest of the night in the ~temple tent~ begging the god to tell him whats right. some of the fires are put out, but all those ppl are too far gone and roderick won't permit anyone else being freed. even the ones tristan managed to extinguish die anyway. the others that weren't put out die too. the god is silent.
roderick remains incensed all day and effectively convinces tristan that its his own evil, witch-infused nature that prevents him from seeing that pain here is a mercy in the afterlife, where their souls will already be closer to being purged and therefore more acceptable to the god. he sends tristan, himself, out w his men to rip up as many trees as they can find and build pyres. while he has tristan's men put ppl to death, however, he (probs judiciously), sends tristan to scout ahead at night so he's not there for that next night's fires, but he ensures that he rides past what's left of them on his way to meet up w roderick in the days that follow
finally, weeks later as they're closing on stafford, roderick commands tristan to attend him at night rather than doing his rangings and things. as usual, a mock trial is held. he tells tristan to prove that he's no witch, himself, and ready the first witch to burn. tristan does, but he secretly slips her some poison (he knows abt some of this stuff too just not nearly as much as either of his siblings...sidenote: he could probs pull off a juliet-style fake death tho... @forgottenpercy ...just saying... ;D that's not what happens here tho unfortunately...) which, if she chooses, she can use to hasten her death/deaden the pain. roderick is distressed, but not tipped off when she apparently dies of asphyxiation or smth before the flames even touch her.
i do also think asp he probs tried to help some of them escape but yeahhh they were surrounded by roderick's men and that didn't go too hot and then it was back to square one again
anyway, this goes on for a bit, and eventually roderick ~does pick up on the pattern that any time tristan is involved the victims die a lot sooner etc. he has tristan severely lashed (saying that this is a mercy, given what he's done errs on the side of blasphemy -- being both borderline witchcraft AND probs more importantly ;D a miscarriage of roderick's justice/questioning of his orders! -- enacted only for love of roderick's wife and child, instead of the much harsher punishment he deserved) and do hella penance for both his own and the souls he's now damned by refusing to allow them the mercy of mortal pain and thus instead condemning them to an eternity of immortal pain instead.
so yeah!! after that, roderick didn't really involve him much and they were v soon thereafter at stafford, anyway, and yeah!! tristan ~did perform pr heroically in the siege of stafford tho, once he'd recovered from his punishment, so roderick just sorta decided to overlook the whole thing and yeah!! his record ~before then had also been pr good, and his actions v honorable before he hooked up w roderick in the south, and while 'roderick' was besieging things in the south, roderick's conduct was notably chivalrous (bc it was actually all tristan's call and yeah) and that did good things for ~roderick's rep too and roderick will NEVER mention that but he was glad of it ngl!!
honestly, re: the pyre walk, tristan ~still doesn't know what the right thing to do was and feels guilty abt it no matter how he slices it! sure its wrong to question the god's own champion but also its objectively terrible to burn ppl alive?? but also?? poisoning ppl??? is not great either!!!! and sure his intentions, wishing to spare them as much horror and pain as he could, were good but also he still killed those ppl???? and also like...were any of them even witches???? and even if they were did they really deserve that fate??? did he blaspheme??? did he condemn them to eternal agony in the afterlife??? was it all the darkness in him feeding into some horror??? is that still clouding his judgment??? like no matter how he approaches it, tristan does not feel he did the right thing but also???? he doesn't know what else he really ~could have done???? he couldn't just let them suffer when he had a way of helping them find peace instead??? he couldn't have broken them out???? but even if he had could have, would ~that have been the right thing???? as a knight he's meant to protect the innocent???? but who even was that in this scenario???
more and more, tristan has been growing ever since then wildly disillusioned w roderick and his god and his rhetoric, and if he could go back and do it all again, well, he doesn't think he could stomach another burning, and frankly...i ~do think the next burning he sees (presumably the malconaire trial etc) ~will be his last straw w roderick and he probs ~will rebel
but yeahhhhh basically i think tristan has been through it and lowkey is still going through it, tho he doesn't talk abt it, and yeahhh this is one of the many reasons he defffff believes that hes not worthy of eithne, or any good, and also wants to do some sort of penance to the world for his actions but doesn't even know what he could do like??? its all??? just sm and he def still carries around the belief that there's smth darkand terrible inside him and he did indeed kill innocent ppl and???? like he had no choice???? and still tried to be as merciful as possible abt it all, its true, but he still v much did do that thing and yeah!!
so yeah eithne def still has plenty of reason to be pissed at him/sus of him bc it is just a matter of record that he participated in the pyre walk, and he wouldn't deny that he had either (i think tbh he probs assumes ppl know he was but yeah he does nottttt talk abt that time!!) but also probs wouldn't try to excuse himself either and feels her rage and fear re his particiipation there is competely justified, he hates himself for it too, and yeah!! this is what i meant when i said i didn't think hed been to the fens so yeah!! fun facts ig lakjsdfkjdsfkj
