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rainbowfic2013-08-20 09:39 pm
shadowsong26) wrote in rainbowfic2013-08-20 09:39 pm
Entry tags:
- author: shadowsong26 supreme whumpmaster,
- color: custom color,
- story: feredar,
- style: miniature collection,
- style: photography,
- style: saturation,
- supply: beading wire,
- supply: brush,
- supply: canvas,
- supply: chalk,
- supply: feathers,
- supply: frame,
- supply: glitter,
- supply: glue,
- supply: modeling clay,
- supply: oils,
- supply: stain,
- supply: watercolors,
- supply: yarn
Purpure, Summertime Blues #3
Name: shadowsong26
Story: Noblesse Oblige
'Verse: Feredar
Colors: Purpure saturation, Summertime Blues #3. Aches like an old wound.
Supplies and Materials: graffiti (lint roller, thelinesoflearning's question: Andrell, if you could change anything, what would you change?), saturation, miniature collection, photography, canvas (the first six), frame (the last twelve), brush (zero-sum), watercolors, oils, stain, feathers, modeling clay, chalk, yarn, beading wire, glitter, glue ("You are ready to break out of an entrenched pattern in a current relationship as the futuristic Aquarius Full Moon shines its awareness into your 7th House of Partners. Keep in mind that a change to the dynamics of a partnership might lead to an improvement in your overall attitude. Others can't help but notice your sparkle and come forward to support you.")
Word Count: 2500
Rating: R
Characters: Andrell
Warnings: References to genocide, references to assassination attempts, adultery, character/familial/parental death, references to child death
Notes: Constructive criticism welcome, as always. Could I have a Purpure color tag, please?
9. Proximity of blood
Andrell was never supposed to rule.
He was the fourth son. Though one of his brothers had died in infancy, the others were well on their way to maturity. He was trained for the outside possibility, as his father remembered all too well how lost he had felt when he had come unprepared to the throne.
There were those who thought it would be better if he and his middle brother had switched places. Especially when Kellom remained childless.
Sometimes he wondered if things would have been better or worse if Kellom had had a dependable brother for his heir.
4. Sumptuary
His earliest memories are of his sister Keta’s wedding. He remembered her dress—soft and pretty cloth-of-silver, and how she scooped him up and spun him around, so very happy. He remembered her perfume. He remembered feeling stiff and strange in his first formal Court outfit and taking off pieces that were found scattered around the Hall after, much to everyone’s amusement.
He still has his little jacket from that day, and if he closes his eyes, he can remember his laughing sister holding him warm and close and happy, all overlaid with the faintest trace of orange blossom perfume.
1. Arbitrate
Andrell was unexpected, but far from unloved. His parents aside, he got along well with his siblings, save the youngest of his sisters. His other sisters were old enough to be his mother, and the age difference between himself and his brothers kept him from getting caught up in their rivalry. He could never quite get them to stop fighting with each other, but they both loved him and helped him with his little troubles.
Whatever else he thought about his brothers, when he grew to adulthood and learned to see their flaws, he would always love them for that.
16. Rationale
His mother began carefully steering his mind towards her own beliefs when he was eight. She didn’t want him to hate his father, or his brother; just understand why what they believed was so very wrong, and why it was his duty—even though he would never be King—to try and help make things right.
He didn’t know it then—or at all, when she was living—but later, when he studied old portraits of her, he thought he could see the struggle between acting and the love she didn’t want to lose, buried behind her carefully enigmatic eyes.
19. Audience
Andrell was not a recluse, as his sister Keta was, but he took a similar pleasure in being important enough to be admired, but not so important as to be wooed.
He participated in court events with his siblings, niece and nephews, and made friends and flirted with other peers. He vaguely understood how important this was, but lacked the Kellom’s studied, dutiful approach. And he enjoyed them, but didn’t have Mellir’s almost pathological need.
So the early years of his adolescence passed with all the pleasures of being royalty and none of the pressure, and he was very happy.
21. Court
The year he turned fifteen was the worst of his private life. Even Kellom’s reign, or the assassination attempts the first decade of his own, couldn’t compare.
Because he started to truly grasp the very serious tension behind what he’d previously thought were diversions and flirtations. Because his first serious crush was on his extremely unavailable sister-in-law.
And because his mother died.
If a god or a magician of legend offered him a chance to relive his life and correct all the mistakes he’d made, he’d leap at the chance—as long as he didn’t have to relive that year.
8. Protocol
He knew Father was having Keta research a consort candidate list. It wasn’t something he was happy about—he wasn’t quite ready to marry. But he was old enough, at twenty-one, and after seven years, Kellom and Fera had not even the hint of a pregnancy, and Mellir’s wife had died after less than six months, and he showed no interest in replacing her yet.
He understood all of this, and would of course make his decision once given a list. He knew his duty.
He just hoped it took Keta a long, long time to get a list approved.
6. Reign
Andrell's father had tried to be fair. He'd fallen far short of the mark, but he'd tried. He'd tried to do right by his people, he'd tried to maintain stability, and he'd tried to engineer prosperity.
He was principled without being a fanatic, which made it both easier and harder to forgive him his part in things--he'd laid the groundwork for years before Kellom became King. Because he tried so hard but he couldn't--or wouldn't--see. And he loved his family and his people, and he was warm and kind and welcoming.
But he got things so horribly, horribly wrong.
12. Noblesse oblige
He didn’t become conscious of what it meant to be who he was, he was ashamed to admit, until his brother’s accession.
He’d always been somewhat shielded from it until then. He was aware of it, naturally, but in an abstract way. Yes, there were his mother’s lessons and his increasing comprehension of the political eddies and currents throughout the court, but it wasn’t until his brother ordered the torture and murder of over a third of the population, for reasons that made sense a thousand years ago…
It wasn’t until then that he knew what being royalty really meant.
15. Supremacy
Andrell did what he could. He kept the Movement supplied with information and what funds he could without raising too many eyebrows. Fortunately, Aunt Rema had a number of charitable projects as fronts.
It was never enough, and the bodies were piling up faster than the Movement could extract the living. He thought about fleeing the city, joining the invaders; maybe he could do more there.
But something always held him back--maybe love of his brother, maybe simple cowardice. The days ticked by and he kept doing not enough, and he forced himself to look at those he couldn't save.
10. Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi!
Andrell slammed the door to his rooms behind him. He didn’t lock it—the guards would panic and he wouldn’t get the privacy he desperately needed. He sagged against it and slid to the ground.
Mellir was dead.
His charming, feckless older brother was dead, killed in some sort of assassination attempt that he may or may not have authored.
And Andrell was now Crown Prince. Because Mellir was dead, in an assassination attempt that he was half-convinced Kellom had staged to remove an undesirable heir.
Mellir was dead.
Andrell felt the Palace itself come crashing down on his head.
23. Droit de régale
A part of him thought the crown should have gone to Deva instead. Deva, who remained steadfast--if not exactly loyal--who was discreet enough to be beloved, mature enough to be wise, and had an heir already.
And had not won the crown on the field of war.
Or, if not Deva, then Sola—charming, diplomatic Sola who was far more intelligent than anyone believed.
But the law was what it was, and since he had never been formally declared a traitor, and since Fera had no children and no sign of one coming, he was next in line.
14. Coronation
It was a grey day, and quiet.
Not a hostile quiet, not entirely. Kellom, it seemed, had done his best to minimize knowledge of his defection. Morale had been low enough in the city at that point without it.
It was more that no one knew exactly what to make of him. He hadn’t been much in the public eye even before his defection, and now…
And it would be even worse, once his politics became clear, and he sued for peace.
He felt the weight of the crown pressing in on his temples and hoped he would survive it.
22. Decree
Some changes, no matter how much he wanted to limit the backlash, could not be made gradually. Those--ending collaring, ending the Purge, acknowledging mages were human, declaring a cease-fire--Andrell put through as fast as he could, before he even appointed his full Council.
If he couldn't be gradual, best to do it all at once, so the more die-hard conservatives that hadn't fled like his sisters couldn't agree on what was the most outrageous. If they were too busy arguing with each other, he hoped, they couldn't lash out against anyone else.
It was worth a try, anyway.
7. Authority
He dealt internally with most of the atrocities. Partly because he wanted to move quickly, rather than waiting for international tribunals to be set up. At the same time, if he moved too fast, he'd face the same instability that Kellom had when he accelerated his Purge.
But the most important thing, in terms of maintaining stability, was for justice--such as it was--to be achieved internally. They may have lost the War, but Feredar would remain an independent nation, not a client-state of any foreign power.
If he couldn't promise immediate peace, he would at least make sure of that.
5. Regent
He left for the negotiations with his kingdom still beset by deep, violent tensions. Not because he had ended the Purge, but because they knew he would go farther. He hoped that he left a nation sick of bloodshed, and that, despite his changes and that history would likely name them the losers in the War…
Too many had died in the riots, and in the Siege, and in the lesser engagements outside the City. He hoped his people would remember that.
He left his kingdom in a fragile, shallow peace and prayed he’d find the same when he returned.
2. Regal
He’d known how beautiful Nolani was before agreeing to marry her, though they hadn’t spoken much yet.
And he hadn’t agreed for her beauty, or anything else so personal or intimate. He was more than a little relieved to find out she felt more or less the same.
Living up to his parents’ love was a terrifying impossibility—and he didn’t even really want that anyway. But neither did he want the emptiness his oldest brother had had.
It seemed that he wouldn’t have either. With a little luck, they might be friends. Just that, and it would be perfect.
18. Clemency
It didn’t long to catch the men who’d placed explosives in his study—they seemed eager to claim the credit.
It wasn’t the most disturbing of the attempts on his life—no, that had been the year before, when one of his bodyguards had tried to stab him—but it was the one that had come closest to success. Executing them was obviously justified.
He commuted the sentence to life in prison. Enough had died over his politics and his brother’s already. The fewer he could add, the better.
Even if he didn’t sleep soundly after, knowing they were there.
17. Burden of Proof
Andrell couldn’t recall exactly how or when he’d met Lady Tova—certainly not any kind of formal presentation. Of course, there had been so many, the first year of his reign, that they blurred together.
Nor could he recall exactly when he’d fallen in love. She was the quiet sort of pretty he favored, bright but not brilliant, and endlessly patient and kind. With her—more even than Nolani, though he had become very close to his wife—with her he could be…just a man, if only for a little while.
Even if he never did remember how they met.
24. Privilege
He had a surprisingly warm, easy relationship with Lady Lonura, despite the complications inherent in the two of them sleeping with the same woman. Lady Lonura had a core of common sense that was refreshing, and she truly, deeply loved his wife, for whom he only wanted happiness.
In fact, her friendship with his own mistress--the two of them spent a great deal of time together--was a more disconcerting to him than her relationship with his wife.
But she was a joy to have at his court, and he considered himself priveleged to count her as a friend.
20. Heir apparent
It still felt strange to think of his eldest sister as his heir. She was, after all, old enough to be his mother—in fact, two years older than his mother-in-law.
But Kiva, no matter how much he adored her, could never be his heir, since she was Tova’s daughter and not Nolani’s. And he and Nolani…no matter how they tried, all that they achieved was miscarriage after miscarriage, and sometimes—though he knew it would hurt her even more to say so—he though they should stop trying. He wasn’t sure how many more they could bear to lose.
13. Dynasty
His son was so tiny.
He was on one side of Nolani, and Lonura on the other and baby Istell was cradled in Nolani's arms, eyes scrunched shut, and all Andrell could think was...he's so tiny.
And if anything happened to him...if anything went wrong, as sometimes did with small children, as it had with three of his own siblings...
Looking at his son, he knew he and Nolani were right to keep tryin.
Looking at his son, he prayed for good fortune, and to be a good father, and...
He was so tiny.
3. Law of the land
In some ways, it was probably a good thing that Istell had been born later. If he'd arrived immediately after his marriage, then Andrell, and probably Nolani, would not be alive. Istell was a mage, true, but as an infant, he would be controllable.
As it was, with Istell being born after twelve years of pacification and adjustment to the new regime, Andrell was reasonably sure that he'd live to see his son reach adulthood.
He didn't quite think it was worth all the hurt that losing his potential siblings had caused, but it was a small blessing, at least.
11. Basilica
Andrell wasn’t sure why he believed the gods cared for humanity.
He believed in Them, of course—in the Creation story his mother had whispered to him; in the rules They had set; in some sort of reckoning after death.
All of these were things that all men knew, and he had no reason to quarrel with them.
But when he saw the horrible things men had done to one another all throughout history, he wondered why any just and worthy deities would find anything left in humanity to love.
And yet he believed They did. Gods alone knew why.
25. Lex animata
Andrell was the only King of Feredar ever to bear that name. After his death, the nation he had fought to keep independent and peaceful merged with his wife's--the expanding City of Glass--forming the Farglass Empire.
He was regarded with both suspicion and adoration in his time. His own journals second-guess nearly every decision he ever made. If he remained shadowed by guilt for wounds unhealed, if he didn't quite reach his goals of reconciliation, he still maintained stability, and steady progress towards that goal.
Whatever he said of himself, History calls him Peacemaker, and honors his name.
Story: Noblesse Oblige
'Verse: Feredar
Colors: Purpure saturation, Summertime Blues #3. Aches like an old wound.
Supplies and Materials: graffiti (lint roller, thelinesoflearning's question: Andrell, if you could change anything, what would you change?), saturation, miniature collection, photography, canvas (the first six), frame (the last twelve), brush (zero-sum), watercolors, oils, stain, feathers, modeling clay, chalk, yarn, beading wire, glitter, glue ("You are ready to break out of an entrenched pattern in a current relationship as the futuristic Aquarius Full Moon shines its awareness into your 7th House of Partners. Keep in mind that a change to the dynamics of a partnership might lead to an improvement in your overall attitude. Others can't help but notice your sparkle and come forward to support you.")
Word Count: 2500
Rating: R
Characters: Andrell
Warnings: References to genocide, references to assassination attempts, adultery, character/familial/parental death, references to child death
Notes: Constructive criticism welcome, as always. Could I have a Purpure color tag, please?
9. Proximity of blood
Andrell was never supposed to rule.
He was the fourth son. Though one of his brothers had died in infancy, the others were well on their way to maturity. He was trained for the outside possibility, as his father remembered all too well how lost he had felt when he had come unprepared to the throne.
There were those who thought it would be better if he and his middle brother had switched places. Especially when Kellom remained childless.
Sometimes he wondered if things would have been better or worse if Kellom had had a dependable brother for his heir.
4. Sumptuary
His earliest memories are of his sister Keta’s wedding. He remembered her dress—soft and pretty cloth-of-silver, and how she scooped him up and spun him around, so very happy. He remembered her perfume. He remembered feeling stiff and strange in his first formal Court outfit and taking off pieces that were found scattered around the Hall after, much to everyone’s amusement.
He still has his little jacket from that day, and if he closes his eyes, he can remember his laughing sister holding him warm and close and happy, all overlaid with the faintest trace of orange blossom perfume.
1. Arbitrate
Andrell was unexpected, but far from unloved. His parents aside, he got along well with his siblings, save the youngest of his sisters. His other sisters were old enough to be his mother, and the age difference between himself and his brothers kept him from getting caught up in their rivalry. He could never quite get them to stop fighting with each other, but they both loved him and helped him with his little troubles.
Whatever else he thought about his brothers, when he grew to adulthood and learned to see their flaws, he would always love them for that.
16. Rationale
His mother began carefully steering his mind towards her own beliefs when he was eight. She didn’t want him to hate his father, or his brother; just understand why what they believed was so very wrong, and why it was his duty—even though he would never be King—to try and help make things right.
He didn’t know it then—or at all, when she was living—but later, when he studied old portraits of her, he thought he could see the struggle between acting and the love she didn’t want to lose, buried behind her carefully enigmatic eyes.
19. Audience
Andrell was not a recluse, as his sister Keta was, but he took a similar pleasure in being important enough to be admired, but not so important as to be wooed.
He participated in court events with his siblings, niece and nephews, and made friends and flirted with other peers. He vaguely understood how important this was, but lacked the Kellom’s studied, dutiful approach. And he enjoyed them, but didn’t have Mellir’s almost pathological need.
So the early years of his adolescence passed with all the pleasures of being royalty and none of the pressure, and he was very happy.
21. Court
The year he turned fifteen was the worst of his private life. Even Kellom’s reign, or the assassination attempts the first decade of his own, couldn’t compare.
Because he started to truly grasp the very serious tension behind what he’d previously thought were diversions and flirtations. Because his first serious crush was on his extremely unavailable sister-in-law.
And because his mother died.
If a god or a magician of legend offered him a chance to relive his life and correct all the mistakes he’d made, he’d leap at the chance—as long as he didn’t have to relive that year.
8. Protocol
He knew Father was having Keta research a consort candidate list. It wasn’t something he was happy about—he wasn’t quite ready to marry. But he was old enough, at twenty-one, and after seven years, Kellom and Fera had not even the hint of a pregnancy, and Mellir’s wife had died after less than six months, and he showed no interest in replacing her yet.
He understood all of this, and would of course make his decision once given a list. He knew his duty.
He just hoped it took Keta a long, long time to get a list approved.
6. Reign
Andrell's father had tried to be fair. He'd fallen far short of the mark, but he'd tried. He'd tried to do right by his people, he'd tried to maintain stability, and he'd tried to engineer prosperity.
He was principled without being a fanatic, which made it both easier and harder to forgive him his part in things--he'd laid the groundwork for years before Kellom became King. Because he tried so hard but he couldn't--or wouldn't--see. And he loved his family and his people, and he was warm and kind and welcoming.
But he got things so horribly, horribly wrong.
12. Noblesse oblige
He didn’t become conscious of what it meant to be who he was, he was ashamed to admit, until his brother’s accession.
He’d always been somewhat shielded from it until then. He was aware of it, naturally, but in an abstract way. Yes, there were his mother’s lessons and his increasing comprehension of the political eddies and currents throughout the court, but it wasn’t until his brother ordered the torture and murder of over a third of the population, for reasons that made sense a thousand years ago…
It wasn’t until then that he knew what being royalty really meant.
15. Supremacy
Andrell did what he could. He kept the Movement supplied with information and what funds he could without raising too many eyebrows. Fortunately, Aunt Rema had a number of charitable projects as fronts.
It was never enough, and the bodies were piling up faster than the Movement could extract the living. He thought about fleeing the city, joining the invaders; maybe he could do more there.
But something always held him back--maybe love of his brother, maybe simple cowardice. The days ticked by and he kept doing not enough, and he forced himself to look at those he couldn't save.
10. Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi!
Andrell slammed the door to his rooms behind him. He didn’t lock it—the guards would panic and he wouldn’t get the privacy he desperately needed. He sagged against it and slid to the ground.
Mellir was dead.
His charming, feckless older brother was dead, killed in some sort of assassination attempt that he may or may not have authored.
And Andrell was now Crown Prince. Because Mellir was dead, in an assassination attempt that he was half-convinced Kellom had staged to remove an undesirable heir.
Mellir was dead.
Andrell felt the Palace itself come crashing down on his head.
23. Droit de régale
A part of him thought the crown should have gone to Deva instead. Deva, who remained steadfast--if not exactly loyal--who was discreet enough to be beloved, mature enough to be wise, and had an heir already.
And had not won the crown on the field of war.
Or, if not Deva, then Sola—charming, diplomatic Sola who was far more intelligent than anyone believed.
But the law was what it was, and since he had never been formally declared a traitor, and since Fera had no children and no sign of one coming, he was next in line.
14. Coronation
It was a grey day, and quiet.
Not a hostile quiet, not entirely. Kellom, it seemed, had done his best to minimize knowledge of his defection. Morale had been low enough in the city at that point without it.
It was more that no one knew exactly what to make of him. He hadn’t been much in the public eye even before his defection, and now…
And it would be even worse, once his politics became clear, and he sued for peace.
He felt the weight of the crown pressing in on his temples and hoped he would survive it.
22. Decree
Some changes, no matter how much he wanted to limit the backlash, could not be made gradually. Those--ending collaring, ending the Purge, acknowledging mages were human, declaring a cease-fire--Andrell put through as fast as he could, before he even appointed his full Council.
If he couldn't be gradual, best to do it all at once, so the more die-hard conservatives that hadn't fled like his sisters couldn't agree on what was the most outrageous. If they were too busy arguing with each other, he hoped, they couldn't lash out against anyone else.
It was worth a try, anyway.
7. Authority
He dealt internally with most of the atrocities. Partly because he wanted to move quickly, rather than waiting for international tribunals to be set up. At the same time, if he moved too fast, he'd face the same instability that Kellom had when he accelerated his Purge.
But the most important thing, in terms of maintaining stability, was for justice--such as it was--to be achieved internally. They may have lost the War, but Feredar would remain an independent nation, not a client-state of any foreign power.
If he couldn't promise immediate peace, he would at least make sure of that.
5. Regent
He left for the negotiations with his kingdom still beset by deep, violent tensions. Not because he had ended the Purge, but because they knew he would go farther. He hoped that he left a nation sick of bloodshed, and that, despite his changes and that history would likely name them the losers in the War…
Too many had died in the riots, and in the Siege, and in the lesser engagements outside the City. He hoped his people would remember that.
He left his kingdom in a fragile, shallow peace and prayed he’d find the same when he returned.
2. Regal
He’d known how beautiful Nolani was before agreeing to marry her, though they hadn’t spoken much yet.
And he hadn’t agreed for her beauty, or anything else so personal or intimate. He was more than a little relieved to find out she felt more or less the same.
Living up to his parents’ love was a terrifying impossibility—and he didn’t even really want that anyway. But neither did he want the emptiness his oldest brother had had.
It seemed that he wouldn’t have either. With a little luck, they might be friends. Just that, and it would be perfect.
18. Clemency
It didn’t long to catch the men who’d placed explosives in his study—they seemed eager to claim the credit.
It wasn’t the most disturbing of the attempts on his life—no, that had been the year before, when one of his bodyguards had tried to stab him—but it was the one that had come closest to success. Executing them was obviously justified.
He commuted the sentence to life in prison. Enough had died over his politics and his brother’s already. The fewer he could add, the better.
Even if he didn’t sleep soundly after, knowing they were there.
17. Burden of Proof
Andrell couldn’t recall exactly how or when he’d met Lady Tova—certainly not any kind of formal presentation. Of course, there had been so many, the first year of his reign, that they blurred together.
Nor could he recall exactly when he’d fallen in love. She was the quiet sort of pretty he favored, bright but not brilliant, and endlessly patient and kind. With her—more even than Nolani, though he had become very close to his wife—with her he could be…just a man, if only for a little while.
Even if he never did remember how they met.
24. Privilege
He had a surprisingly warm, easy relationship with Lady Lonura, despite the complications inherent in the two of them sleeping with the same woman. Lady Lonura had a core of common sense that was refreshing, and she truly, deeply loved his wife, for whom he only wanted happiness.
In fact, her friendship with his own mistress--the two of them spent a great deal of time together--was a more disconcerting to him than her relationship with his wife.
But she was a joy to have at his court, and he considered himself priveleged to count her as a friend.
20. Heir apparent
It still felt strange to think of his eldest sister as his heir. She was, after all, old enough to be his mother—in fact, two years older than his mother-in-law.
But Kiva, no matter how much he adored her, could never be his heir, since she was Tova’s daughter and not Nolani’s. And he and Nolani…no matter how they tried, all that they achieved was miscarriage after miscarriage, and sometimes—though he knew it would hurt her even more to say so—he though they should stop trying. He wasn’t sure how many more they could bear to lose.
13. Dynasty
His son was so tiny.
He was on one side of Nolani, and Lonura on the other and baby Istell was cradled in Nolani's arms, eyes scrunched shut, and all Andrell could think was...he's so tiny.
And if anything happened to him...if anything went wrong, as sometimes did with small children, as it had with three of his own siblings...
Looking at his son, he knew he and Nolani were right to keep tryin.
Looking at his son, he prayed for good fortune, and to be a good father, and...
He was so tiny.
3. Law of the land
In some ways, it was probably a good thing that Istell had been born later. If he'd arrived immediately after his marriage, then Andrell, and probably Nolani, would not be alive. Istell was a mage, true, but as an infant, he would be controllable.
As it was, with Istell being born after twelve years of pacification and adjustment to the new regime, Andrell was reasonably sure that he'd live to see his son reach adulthood.
He didn't quite think it was worth all the hurt that losing his potential siblings had caused, but it was a small blessing, at least.
11. Basilica
Andrell wasn’t sure why he believed the gods cared for humanity.
He believed in Them, of course—in the Creation story his mother had whispered to him; in the rules They had set; in some sort of reckoning after death.
All of these were things that all men knew, and he had no reason to quarrel with them.
But when he saw the horrible things men had done to one another all throughout history, he wondered why any just and worthy deities would find anything left in humanity to love.
And yet he believed They did. Gods alone knew why.
25. Lex animata
Andrell was the only King of Feredar ever to bear that name. After his death, the nation he had fought to keep independent and peaceful merged with his wife's--the expanding City of Glass--forming the Farglass Empire.
He was regarded with both suspicion and adoration in his time. His own journals second-guess nearly every decision he ever made. If he remained shadowed by guilt for wounds unhealed, if he didn't quite reach his goals of reconciliation, he still maintained stability, and steady progress towards that goal.
Whatever he said of himself, History calls him Peacemaker, and honors his name.
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