Day one, and I actually have something to show for it! Days late, because I was away from internet for the week. I'll play some slow catch up over the next while.
I'm not sure if I'll make it for every prompt this month, but I'm going to try at least a few of them! Writing has been a bit of a Process for me lately, but I think this might help with the habit.
Today's little story features Morrel, a character first seen in a previous GT July prompt, but this one takes place long before he ever received his shackles.
~~~
The trees could tell him things, when he bothered to listen. Morrel checked on the gossip among the branches when he could, though probably not as often as some of the elder trees would like. They passed information among them swiftly, and sometimes the message warped along the way. Morrel had long since learned that certain news wasn’t as big as they made it out to be.
Some news, though, drew his attention every time.
When the whispers of fire, fire, fire reached him, he woke from his trancelike slumber quicker than he ever wanted to. His wooden body creaked and the leaves splayed over his head fell away as he rose from the crouch that allowed him to extend his hands into the earth. As a giant-of-the-woods, Morrel had a responsibility to answer that distress. This was his home, but it was also the home of so many more that relied on him.
He rose to his feet, and then leapt deftly from the forest floor, light as a breeze despite standing over twenty feet tall. The canopy was his runway and he dashed over the crowns of trees he’d seen grow from saplings, barely touching them as he passed. They guided him with their urgent whispers, and with each touch he felt like he could reach the roots deep in the earth, become one with the forest.
It took him minutes to arrive at the fire they so desperately wanted him to find. When he did, he stopped and stared.
In the clearing, sitting around their small fire pit, a trio of humans stared back at him. His confusion wouldn’t show on his mask-like wooden face, since he only had his eyes and the sky colors within them. By the nervous demeanor of the diminutive visitors, they saw anger where there was only bemusement. Campfires, tended properly, were no danger at all to the forest.
“G-good giant,” one of the humans greeted, despite hisses of quiet from the others. “Well met, I, I think. Have you come to, ah, warn us?”
Morrel glanced around their would-be camp. They didn’t even have a tent, though he’d seen many a makeshift camp without one. They had bed rolls, and rucksacks, the usual marks of humans just passing through. He could gather up all of their things in one hand if he wanted. More importantly, their campfire was small enough that he’d be able to stomp it out with one boot if he needed to. They were making minimal impact in their passage through the woods.
That was fine, then. The trees could stand to calm down; Morrel rarely met much trouble with humans.
He lowered himself to a crouch, still at the edge of the small clearing they had chosen. One human glanced away nervously, perhaps looking for the swiftest exit. The one that had spoken kept her eyes on Morrel’s. He chose to address her. “No warnings yet, humans,” he rumbled. He gently placed a hand on the ground, just within the flickering light from their fire. “The forest takes note of your fire. See that you do as well, and all will be glad.”
Another human released a breath he was apparently holding. “Of course, of course, giant! We had one little spark go a-wandering, but we put it right out, right out we did!” The others nodded in eager agreement. They were so timid and jumpy, such small things. Like nervous little birds.
Morrel closed his eyes and bowed his head briefly, accepting their explanation. It fulfilled his duty to the trees well enough, and he saw no reason not to trust their word.
He settled himself further, his feet flat and his hands braced on the earth. “I would stay and keep watch,” he told them. “You will be safe here, for the night.”
The humans seemed relieved, and the one who spoke first smiled brightly. “We thank you, good giant, for your understanding. Would you be opposed to a few rounds of song? We cannot offer much else as our supplies are too short.”
Human song was a rare but welcome blessing this deep into the woods. Morrel tilted his head. “Please, little travelers. Sing as much as you like.”
When he reached the end of Rue de Noailles and saw the Alles de Meilhan, he felt his knees give way and nearly fell under the wheel of a carriage. At last he reached the house in which he had lived with his father.
He bought the house for twenty-five thousand francs, which was at least ten thousand more that it was worth; but if it had stood at half a million, Dantes would have bought it for that.
The same day, the young couple on the fifth floor were informed by the notary who had drawn up the contract that the new owner was offering them any apartment in the house, at no additional rent, provided they would let him have the two rooms that they then occupied.
-The Stranger
'Ten times, as I told you, he came to fetch old Dantes and take him to his own house; and the day before he died - or was it the day before that? - as I told you already, he left a purse on the mantelpiece which served to pay the old man's debts and the expenses of his funeral; so the old fellow could at least die as he had lived, harming no one. I still have the purse, myself, a large one, in red crochet.'
The abbe smiled. 'In return,' he continued, 'give me that red silk purse which Monsieur Morrel left on old Dantes' mantelpiece, which you told me was still in your possession.'
Increasingly astonished, Caderousse went over to a large oak cupboard, opened it and gave the abbe a long purse of faded red silk, bound with two copper rings that had once been gilded. The abbe took it and in exchange gave Caderousse the diamond.
-Caderousse's Story
Go immediately to the Allees de Meilhan, enter the house at number 15, ask the concierge for the key to the room on the fifth floor, go into this room, take the purse knitted in red silk that you will find on the corner of the mantelpiece and take this purse to your father.
It is essential that he should have it before eleven o'clock.
Morrel took the purse and shivered, because he vaguely recalled it as something that had once belonged to him.
In one side was the bill for two hundred and eighty-seven thousand five hundred francs. The bill was acquitted.
In the other side was a diamond the size of a hazelnut, with these words written on a small piece of parchment: 'Julie's dowry'.
-September the Fifth
I didn't really notice this the first time through but it's a delight to catch on a reread. When Dantes saves Morrel from his debts (and thus stops him from committing suicide), he does so in a way deliberately echoing Morrel's own generosity towards his father. He used the same red silk purse, and left it in the exact same place - on the mantelpiece of the room that once belonged to his father.
In doing so, Dantes is now the one who is paying for the other's debts - but instead of a funeral, the second thing he pays for is a wedding. Instead of an ending, he is funding a beginning. It's honestly really sweet.
Of course, Morrel doesn't seem to recognize the gesture, not really. He only vaguely recalls the purse, and the address doesn't appear to ring any bells for him. Maybe that wouldn't have been the case had he been the one to collect the purse, but when it's just told to him, and then immediately overshadowed by the news of the Pharaon's magical return, he understandably doesn't connect the dots. Even if he did, he thinks Edmond is dead and he didn't recognize him when they spoke face to face, so it's not a sure thing he would realize what's going on. I don't think Edmond ever really wanted him to in the first place, but he couldn't resist echoing that significant gesture.
Another thing that strikes me is the time being so close. I think there's a couple of reasons Dantes lets it come down to the wire like this. First, I think it's at least partly a test - he does this a lot (with varying results) and I might talk more about it another time. But Morrel is honorable to the end, so he certainly passes; he never even considers skipping town or trying to evade his debts or anything else. Another reason Dantes takes so long is because he is building a replica Pharaon (using input from the sailors who he met on his first visit to Morrel, and his own memory of it). This obviously had to take some time, and then he had them triumphantly sail it in on the day of the debts. I suspect he also knew that if Morrel's character remained as he remembered, any earlier delivery that wasn't a last minute miracle would have been met with some kind of honorable refusal or suspicion. And he did emphasize the importance of the purse being delivered before eleven in his note, and he did earmark the diamond for Julie's dowry. So he obviously is planning on this happy ending.
But. If the timing didn't work out. If Morrel had killed himself that day, then... well, I can't help but notice another echo. The money in the purse would, after all, "pay [Morrel's] debts and the expenses of his funeral; so [Morrel] could at least die as he had lived, harming no one." Thankfully, it didn't happen like that, but the way things are set up here, even in the worst case situation, Dantes' tribute to Morrel's kindness towards his father would remain intact.
- With all the rain lately my dad and I decided to go mushroom hunting one last time before it too cold. We were pretty unlucky the whole summer, but we were tied on findings and I need just one to beat him.
- Luck be my lady, I was able to spot two up a hill! But they spotted me too.
- I dont know how long I was stunned but they never looked away. My legs moved back on their own, and I met up with my dad.
- He'd found another, breaking the tie. I let him gloat on the walk home. I was fine not winning this hunt.
I'm with you on all your Jon/Dany stuff, but do you think it would bother *them*? Assuming they both know they're related?
Well, incest between an aunt/nephew or uncle/niece isn’t unheard of in Westeros. We have:
Daemon Targaryen married his niece Rhaenyra (I believe this was considered scandalous because neither had a proper period of mourning for their respective dead spouses before going ahead with their own marriage, instead of the incest)
Jocelyn Baratheon married her half-nephew Aemon Targaryen
Jonnel Stark married his niece Sansa Stark
Edric Stark married his niece Serena Stark
Dany was raised to believe that she would marry her brother, so I don’t think banging her nephew would be a problem for her. imo the bigger problem for her will be that Jon is a son of House Stark, one of the Houses that rebelled against her family in the War of the Usurper.
For Jon … I don’t think it’s a coincidence that GRRM threw some examples of uncle/niece Starkcest at us. Followers of the Old Gods might possibly have fewer prohibitions against incest compared to followers of the Faith of the Seven, idk. Jon and Dany also weren’t raised together as relatives, so I think there’s a lower probability of Jon being squicked by such a relationship. But after those Night’s Watch vows (probably) go out the window with Jon’s death, we need something to add angst to Jon’s inner monologue of should I / shouldn’t I fuck my aunt who I’m developing intense feelings for.
And it’s not like I think they’re just going to meet and just start having sex. I imagine it more as … they have sex because they have nothing left but each other … a “here, at the end of all things” kind of intimacy. Trapped in a strange, alien landscape beyond the curtain of light, totally cut off from humanity, doomed, never to see another human being this side of death … GRRM can say these things better than I can. From Dreamsongs:
She shook her head, and the tears flowed on. “You don’t understand, see? […] In the end, in the cold lonely end, it’s only us, by ourselves, in the blackness.” […]
I read her pain, her sudden loneliness, her hunger, all aswirl in a darkening mindstorm of fear. And, though I […] whispered—over and over—that it would be all right, that I was here, that she wasn’t alone, I knew that it would not be enough. […] Both of us needed someone, and we reached out. […] I […] made love to her as fiercely as I could.
Not a sexy kind of sex (GRRM doesn’t do sexy sex) but an intimacy that’s kind of sad. Desperate. Bittersweet. A Grey Havens, “Into the West” kind of intimacy. An intimacy to “soften the darkness” and push back the (long) night.
The next GT July prompts were Jewelry and Cursed, and though I started with just the first one in mind, it fits the second pretty well too, so I'll count it for both. Got a new concept for me to play around with, some new characters ... we all know I love a forest character.
Introducing Morrel. He's doing his best, but it's difficult.
~~~
The jewels hadn’t shown a sign of life in a long time.
Sometimes Morrel naively, stupidly, foolishly-optimistically thought that they’d finally fallen inert, all power sapped away into the atmosphere never to bother him again. But if that were the case, he’d be able to remove them. The thick wrist bangles, glittering with teal and blue gems, would unclasp and fall away while the choker with its enormous ruby at his throat would fly open and he’d be free of the weight at last.
But no. They stayed with him, more than a human’s weight in gold and a matching quantity of precious stones, heavy and lifeless, until that morning.
It began as a stirring dread in the back of his mind that he almost hadn’t recognized in the early hours. By sunrise, though, he couldn’t deny what it meant.
A human had found and donned the fourth and final piece of jewelry in the set. A ring, the band human-sized rather than giant, sporting a humble diamond little more than a fleck of glitter to his eyes. Despite its small, nondescript appearance, though, that ring meant only trouble for him.
He felt no compulsion, no drive towards the wearer of that ring, which meant that they didn’t know what they’d picked up. That was good. There was still time to figure something out. Time before they understood they had a giant bound to their whim, no matter what it may be. If they figured that out, Morrel would be stuck with them, and they with him, until they passed on or renounced the ring.
No wearer had cast off the ring before. He had no reason to believe this newcomer would either.
To that end, he rushed towards where he’d last seen that infernal ring. The height of a young tree himself, nearly thirty feet, he couldn’t do much sprinting on the forest floor without damaging everything in his path. Instead, Morrel skimmed over the canopy, his boots barely touching the crowns of the trees like a water skimmer barely touched the surface of a lake. To anyone on the ground below, he would be a passing wind and little more.
He tried not to think too hard about what he might need to do when he arrived. If he indeed found the ring near where he expected it: on the tiny, fragile hand of a human. He couldn’t touch the ring itself, thanks to his own accessories. He couldn’t harm someone who’d activated the power in the ring. For someone who didn’t know, though … Morrel had options. None of them were good.
The alternative couldn’t happen again. That ring had passed through generations of tiny human hands, leaving him at the command and mercy of tyrants and warmongers, pillars of greed and conquest alike. He’d never felt relief the likes of what he felt when the last king to wear that ring had fallen to a highwayman, his jewels and money taken away to be passed around among thieves. One of Morrel’s first actions taken with free will in centuries had been to terrorize a camp of bandits, to put his hands on a human before he could take up the ring.
A nondescript piece of jewelry was easily forgotten, tamped into the mud and ruin of that camp. No one remembered a ring over a gold-bedecked rampaging giant-of-the-woods, with skin like tree bark, long, bloody hands and sharp features, four narrow eyes glowing with the colors of sunset and a voice like a storm.
Morrel didn’t want to hurt anyone like he’d done then. He didn’t need to hurt anyone. He merely needed to separate them from the ring that would seal his fate.
Whatever human it was had some choice in the matter too.
At less than half a mile from where that camp had stood decades ago, Morrel slowed his dash, sinking into the woods with only a whisper of leaves against his skin and tattered clothes.
He couldn’t do much about the shining gold of his jewelry, but Morrel had at least switched out his old clothes, fine things in the colors of the kingdom he’d belonged to for so long. He wore rougher fabrics now, pieced together or bartered from the occasional passing hill-giant, in the greens and greys of the woods he called home. When he sank into the forest, it was like a new tree had sprouted there and began slinking between the trunks.
The dread in his core ebbed and flowed like a tide. Morrel couldn’t say whether his own anxiety or the actions of whoever had the ring did it. He could barely remember the first time that ring had fallen into human hands, how it had felt then. The freedom of before was a faraway dream, hazy and faded by centuries of subjugation. What he had now wasn’t even freedom, not with that threat constantly waiting.
The threat that, now, hung so close over him he practically felt its shadow.
Stalking through the trees, the dread became sharper, more focused. He had never kept track of where exactly the ring had fallen—he never needed to. This clarity always grew when he came too close to it. Only bad things came from that little band of gold and his whole body knew it; if running as fast as he could in the opposite direction would help, he’d have abandoned it long ago.
A small voice mumbled up ahead—no, two voices. Morrel’s eyes narrowed and he crept even slower towards the sound, blending into the trees despite his bulk. His recent years of avoiding humans hadn’t been enough to forget how to read tone in a small voice; they were arguing over something. One of them was old and gruff, the other young and fresh. It was more than the simple kind of arguing between a willful youth and their elder.
Creeping close enough to parse the words but not enough for them to spot him easily between the trees, Morrel’s core chilled like winter.
“I’ve got a feeling about this thing. Why would we just give this away for what’s probably not enough money to solve our problems? There’s something magic in it, we just need—”
“What we need is money, you little idiot. Not flights of fancy and pretending the dirty jewelry you found in the woods is magic. Give it here!”
Foliage and twigs shuffled as the pair apparently chased each other a few steps. Not far—the older voice grunted in discomfort and the younger voice huffed defiantly. “It is magic. It resized to fit me as soon as I put it on. And I’m going to find out what it does!”
It was as good a cue as any. Morrel couldn’t allow the owner of that young, hopeful voice find out what the accursed ring did. He abandoned stealth for speed and surged forward, slipping past tree trunks like they were reeds in a pond, scraping away bark and low branches.
And then he was upon them.
He was fast, faster than his bulk might suggest. One long hand dropped to the older human where he stood, knocking him from his feet and pinning him harshly to the ground. Weak struggles met Morrel’s unforgiving palm, though he didn’t lean enough weight onto the man to give him more than bruises.
The other hand snatched at the other human where she stood on a boulder jutting out of the ground, surely the spot she planned to flaunt her spryness over her companion while she talked wistfully of magic and boons and happy tales. Morrel’s hand found her all the same, long fingers like steel coiling around her middle before she could flinch away. His thumb lengthened and sharpened as he hauled her off the stone, the point resting just a breath away from her throat. She stared at him with wide eyes, all bravado forgotten, while her companion shouted unintelligible things from where he was stuck on the ground. She didn’t even struggle, just stared at him with wide, terrified eyes.
It wouldn’t be the first time. With and without the influence of the jewels, Morrel’s hands had been bloodied. He could do this again.
She was so young.
Had that mattered last time?
He couldn’t remember the faces or the voices of the last humans he’d accosted. They had been bandits, humans living rough much like these two seemed to be. They were so so different from the humans dressed in fine things and living in constant luxury that had hurt him. But they had the same opportunity to hurt him anyway.
He couldn’t hurt a fully aware master of that ring, but even though she wore the grubby thing on her grubby finger, she hadn’t realized its potential yet. She knew it held magic, and that provided the wary dread at the back of Morrel’s mind, the knowledge that he could be captured again. Now was the only time to save himself, and he hesitated.
It needed to be done. He’d be protecting himself. Just one little motion of his hand and it would be over. Her fate was regrettable, but his own had to matter more to him.
But she stared up at him, so young and afraid, with eyes that couldn’t have taken in two decades of life.
“Close your eyes, young thing,” he said. He didn’t have a mouth, but his voice rumbled out of him all the same, and he was grateful it didn’t betray his hesitation. “Close your eyes. Look away. Whatever is easiest.”
It wasn’t the young human but the older one that responded. “No ... no! Take me instead, if you must take someone! We meant no disrespect or trespass!”
Morrel didn’t look away from the human in his hand, but his gaze softened. His lower set of eyes closed entirely. “No. Close your eyes, little thing.”
She shook her head, though a shiver diminished some of the sense of brave defiance. Her gaze flickered over him quickly, taking in a few details of his appearance, but she didn’t waver. “Y-you don’t actually want to hurt me, do you?”
Morrel’s eyes shifted to a slightly stormier color, some grey mixing in with the sunset hues. “I want to do what is necessary. If you will not accept what mercy I can offer, that is not—”
“No, that’s not it,” the girl said, her confidence growing while his dimmed. “I can—” she broke off into a laugh and finally looked away from his face down to her pinned arm, where one hand sported the faintest glint of gold. “I can feel what you actually want.”
Morrel froze.
Somewhere within him, a lock clicked into place.
His dread peaked and then drained away to nothing.
The girl grinned wider. “I know what this ring does.”
A very sad yet intriguing chapter today. Skimmed through a lot here, but these are my thoughts:
Morrel: he's a nice guy. Really the employer who goes above and beyond.
Villefort: okay, he's quite a clever little schemey bastard as well. I like that he obviously feels kinda guilty but not enough to keep him from absolutely burying Dantes for his own self-interest. And the way he plays people so they thank him for the help, then immediately turns around and betrays them, is very good villain behavior. I also really enjoy him and his dad on opposite political parties but both helping one another out in largely selfish ways, they're very much cut from the same cloth it seems. Guess he will have to be my new favorite schemer, given...
Danglars: ran away out of fear of Dantes and is no more heard of! What! I got attached to that asshole! Though, given that this book is known as a revenge story, maybe he has the right idea. I kinda hope he continues to have an excellent career due to extreme schemery and is a good villain in someone else's story too, if he truly doesn't return to this one.
Fernand: his section begins "Fernand understood nothing" and that sums it all up, really. What a stupid ass. I feel so bad for Mercedes, since she really cares about him as a brother and he just isn't worth it at all.
Mercedes: still a badass. I hope she gets to do something cool at some point.
Dad Dantes: noooooooo, he's dead! Poor guy toughed it out until his son's return, so I imagine he wasn't doing super well financially either after the arrest, depending on how much they spent on that betrothal feast. He was so excited for their marriage and got all dressed up and then his son was taken and he died before ever seeing him again. At least he had Mercedes. Poor guy. I'm very sad about it.
Dantes: sucks to be you, kid. Truly just buffeted about on the winds of other people's ambitions. Well, maybe sacrificed to the gods of their ambitions is a better way to put it.
