Fair warning: minor mention of suicide and self-harm. Major warning for death and mental health.
Wolfram Tungsten: a village in a land that’s cold enough to have icebergs amble along the coastlines regularly. The nights are long, and the days are short. Its people see twilight more often than daylight. There are ribbons of light that dance in the sky: auroras. The greatest of these is called Bliza’s Serpent, in honor of the Redanian goddess of cold magic. The continent it’s on was called Bronzewood until Tonitus’s brats, the Elves, conquered it and renamed it Claude-Anne Allen. Bliza has cursed the Redanian Elves to this day.
“If you want my lands so badly, keep them!” she said. “But you will never see your ancestral home ever again!”
And Tonitus let her do it.
“You assholes!” he roared. “If you wanna fight something so badly, why don’t you try fighting me!? I’m not messing around anymore! Clearly, I need to take a claws-on approach with you! You had plenty of land in Silversilk, and Ubul’s kids to fight, what the hell did you come here for!?”
“We’re tired of fighting Orikuro Naru,” the Elves said. “We want new people to fight! And new lands to fight in!”
To say Tonitus wasn’t impressed was an understatement. They started a war over wanting some DLC…
“Do these people look like they’re interested in fighting!?!” Tonitus roared again.
The remaining living peoples of Bronzewood were trembling―not in fear of Tonitus. They recognized him just fine. A serpentine, green dragon with golden veins, and a procession of strong winds following him. That’s the Redanian god of sky magic! The reason he roars all the time is because he has to be louder than his own storms. He’s never had an indoor voice, might as well take advantage of that.
The living peoples of Bronzewood were trembling in fear of the Elves. If this is what they’ll do on a whim, imagine what they’ll do when they’ve got an actual goal in mind!?
“Bronzewood isn’t just Bliza’s place, by the way,” Tonitus said to them. He turned to a crystalline giant that hadn’t moved… until now. “Celesteel, I apologize for this, I’ll bring them back later.”
“Oh goddammit,” the Elves said.
“That’s right this god is damning you!!!” Celesteel said.
Bliza smirked, “These might be my lands, but they’re Celesteel’s kids.”
Bliza went back to admiring herself in the crystals. As the god of cold magic, the most she could do was make snow and ice and biting waters. Celesteel gave her a mirror to be vain in, as well as more “ice” to play with: diamonds! Celesteel wanted to raise her people to be warriors, and Bliza wasn’t doing anything with her lands anyway. It was a mutually beneficial partnership. A partnership to get away from all the other stupid Redanian gods. Those idiots are always fighting over something. That’s why there’s only six of them. To keep Redania safe from their easily sparkable wrath! You know what sparks their wrath fastest? Abusing children.
“Did you even give a thought to the orphans you’ve created in your wake!?” Tonitus said. “Do you even know how many children you’ve slaughtered!?!”
“We haven’t killed children!” the Elves swore. To the best of their knowledge, they hadn’t even seen a child in Bronzewood, never mind slain one.
“How do you know?!” Tonitus asked. “This is a completely different land, with completely different people!”
As Tonitus spoke, Celesteel worked crystals into the grounds surrounding Wolfram Tungsten: the only unconquered village of Bronzewood. Nobody was getting in there but by her leave!
“They look like adults because that’s what I taught them to do: leverage their physical strength while their magic power is in its infancy,” Bliza said. “Mike Emerald!”
The creator of Redania appeared. He’d come in pajamas and his coats. He wasn’t even wearing shoes, but he was wearing socks. When his gods called, he came! He knew he’d initially built Redania on a whim as a child, but he was ready to put more thought into it now. This world was a complete disaster! And so was he.
“Would you mind deciding what happens to Redanian souls when they die?” Bliza said, looking at him in her crystal mirrors.
“On it!” Mike said. “If they feel safer with women, they go with Magna Mater; if they feel safer with men, they go with Ubul; if they need individual attention, they go with Flarenheit.”
“Ooh, why Flarenheit?” Bliza asked.
“Flarenheit created the dragons! And dragons guard their treasures very fiercely! The treasures our dragons guard most fiercely is children. And as dragons, they don’t care how old you are, you’re a baby to them! You’re their baby now!” Mike said. “If someone doesn’t feel safe with anybody, we gotta treat ’em like a prisoner of war! Donnoblake I keeps them at his side or someone else’s side at all times until they’re ready for additional independence; or we’ve determined that they’re not suicidal, self-harming, or going to bolt.”
You really shouldn’t be running around in Goldeniron anyway―anyone less than a dragon bursts into flames! It’s hot out there! As Flarenheit wanted it to be. She’s the Redanian goddess of heat magic. You’d think she’d be the angriest one of the bunch, but she’s actually the easiest to get along with.
“Anger can spark flames, but it can’t sustain them,” she said about the issue. “You need to be passionate about something other than whatever random thing’s annoying you at the moment. Besides, I’ve got an army of dragons who can be angry for me. Constant anger burns you out. It’s more fun to dance with fairies―like me! Heat’s a motion element anyway, and you’re not exactly a physical fighter.”
Back to the matter at hand: the newly-decided Redanian afterlives.
“That’s what he did with his own kid: Donnoblake II, and now he’s the worst babysitter ever! Purposefully! He brings those who are ready on the best power fantasy ever: Skyrim, where fucking anyone can slay dragons! Most people in that situation aren’t used to royal levels of luxury. They might think they have to earn it or whatever. Tell those people they can earn it by being the king’s companion! That’s a job. It’s pretty lonely at the top.”
“Quite right,” Bliza said. “Now, I would like my pet back please. They killed Beowulf.”
“They did what!?!” Mike said. “Oh fucking hell no! You absolute fucking idiots!!! This is why we’re not bringing Redanian Elves to Middle-Earth! Celesteel’s kids are safer! I do still care about you, but you need to stop being so obsessed with warfare! I got even more warfare-crazed Elves to deal with than all of you: Fëanor’s kin-slaying, oath-keeping brats. Tonitus, I assume you got this.”
“That’s right, I do!” Tonitus roared.
“Celesteel, would you mind coming with me? I need the best general ever! We gotta keep Elured and Elurin from starving to death in the woods,” Mike said, “If the Redanian Elves get bored of fighting their own god, they can fight Draconem: the Redanian dragons. Decisions made! We’ve got a rescue mission―you know what that means! Rally, Red Rebels! We gotta test Spirit Call on somebody from Middle-Earth, might as well test it out on Celegorm―after Lucky and Lockdown send him to the Halls of Mandos. He’s the reason they’re in the woods in the first place. Maedros’s brothers are out of control! Elured and Elurin aren’t safe with them! They’re riding with me unless Celegorm’s willing to die in their place. I gotta learn how to kill things anyway, might as well start with him.”
“Or maybe,” Shadow of Chaos appeared. “As the eldest child of your family, you understand what it’s like when your little brothers get violent. You only had two younger brothers. Maedros has six.” (Or however many of them are still alive at this point. I don’t give a fuck! Those orphans don’t need a guardian, Elured and Elurin do! If anybody would understand that kin aren’t automatically safe, you’d think it’d be them. Elured, Elurin, and I learned this the hard way. Maedros and his asshole brothers apparently still haven’t! They truly are a bunch of idiots!) “So Maedros, if you and Maglor would like something to do other than commit suicide once you’ve got the Silmarils, why don’t you go to the Eeveeking’s Halls instead? You need a rescue team too! Who cares if Elrond won’t want you back, you’d love to stay alive! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to warn my mom, my parent, and my sister to go on a vacation. The minute we step foot here, we’re going to be taking on a lot of patients. And those patients will not be worthy of meeting them. Eru might not care about the orcs’ souls, but we do. They’re our Elves now! If your dad had left you guys asleep on a beach without anybody watching over you, Nerdanel would send him to the Halls of Mandos! No wonder they were all enslaved! You shouldn’t need to be a god to figure that out, you just need thoughts in your head!”
Edits that need to be made:
- Remove: He’s never had an indoor voice, might as well take advantage of that.
- Add: I love my gods exactly the way they are, as stupidly argumentative as they are. I need to stop worrying about what any outside god(s) would think of my work and worry about what I think of my work instead. And I need to stop belittling my work and myself. I put a lot of work into all this! As well as my own self-improvement. My body will die, but my spirit will live on in the stories that I tell: the fanfiction and the original writings. I don’t exist in the same context Tolkien is. I’m an American civilian who’s disillusioned with not only my own personal life, but with how my selfishly overly-individualistic country is handling a goddamn pandemic that’s killed over 6 million and counting. I need an evil that’s easy to fight. And to just say no to obsessing over kin-slayers! Potentially, all we’d have to do is bring in Pecha Berries, and Thranduil will not care at all what stupid songs we have to sing.
- Celegorm’s already dead at this point. Better yet, get all these Orcish bitches out of my pure craft!
- Ardan Elves are physically mature at 50 years, but they’re not considered adults until they’re 100.
- Tonitus needs a better name. It sounds too much like tinnitus. Might as well name him after Rayquaza. Ray Quasar! or Ray Quazar. Only problem is that name doesn’t sound super sky-like.
- Focus the piece. There’s three big topics here that could be their own seperate pieces.
- The newly-decided Redanian afterlives.
- Redanian Elvenkind’s Great Atrocity. I like that phrasing better than “first sin”. There’s enough Christianity in my life. Not the loving kind.
- The Redanian creation myths.
- Why would Mike Emerald, the Pokémon trainer, be a killer!? Any. single. one. of these creatures can completely trash the place, never mind the people! Pokémon doesn’t just let you see, fight, befriend, and capture ghosts; it lets you see, fight, befriend, and capture gods! If Radagast gets to hole up in Mirkwood with his animal friends, so does Mike Emerald from Littleroot Town. After he delivers the actually important message he has to deliver: TA 2509 is not a good year for Gentle-natured Silver-Queens to go on journeys.
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