Among the haze of
unhappy memories of the coronation, one always stands out to me.
It is Random, the King – hesitating before taking my oath.
Okay, I understand that. And don’t blame him at all. As a subject – loyal though I may be – I am trouble. Neither of us had forgotten that my first act under his new reign was – at his Majesty’s pleasure – one of either gross dereliction of duty or treason. He ordered me to prepare Heather Vale for the arrival of Amber’s returning forces. Instead I ran. Leaving my duty to Brita, Conner and the others.
Keen.
And if he has report of my… performance from before his return? Again, he will find a Ranger who was rarely (if ever) in Arden. I don’t think I will ever be able to explain that. Certainly not to my love; the former councilman. How *can* I explain that the only way that I could find to do my duty to Arden and Amber was to separate myself from them both.
Because they were watching you see. The friends of a lifetime, men who know my every gesture, my every expression, damn near my every thought as well as they knew the trails of Arden herself. And they were waiting for me to raise the forest against Amber in open rebellion.
And ooooohhh how I wanted to!
(If I’d been in Arden at the time, no traces of Wind Grove would have ever been found! It would’ve vanished from the face of existence! Stupid fucking farmers!!)
But even before the Regent’s Council decided to tear down its bulwark against the Green just to ‘feed the hungry.’ Even before the Council decided to burden an already struggling force with the rejects and incompetents it couldn’t dispose of elsewhere (necessitating the enforcement of an unwarranted and unnecessary “authority.”) Even before all the dung I found in Amber upon my return, I would have been tempted.
Ever since the Brothers’ War, we have been ill-used. Ill-used and scorned. And while no Ranger serves for the glory or the praise, still… to be so despised when you have given so much…
So.
Between that and what I found upon my return – it would have been soooo sweet to raise Arden against the bloated tottering despot that was Amber. So very sweet.
But realistically, I knew that neither Arden nor Amber would have survived it.
Thus I hid away from both my friends and the swarm of newly found and oh-so-perceptive cousins. So that neither would hear the rebellion singing in my heart. And no war would inadvertently flare into being, born from the seeds of some gesture or word of mine.
And then… and then Random appears. And he and the Regent seem to agree that he’s King! My rebellious heart wouldn’t accept it. Certainly not without knowing if this wasn’t just the next gambit of the Brothers’ War, now that the Black Road was no longer uniting my fractious Aunts and Uncles.
And I most certainly would not swear to Corwin’s ally until I knew where my father stood. Soooo…
I ran.
Disobeying the King, ditching Brita brutually and abandoning those good, good friends who were returning from the horrors of Chaos into the hands of strangers, incompetents and rejects. I was not there to help mitigate the disaster that Arden had become.
Gross dereliction of duty – and the King hesitates to take my oath.
It haunts me.
And is something that I will never, never be able to speak of to my honorable, duty-bound beloved.
Okay, I understand that. And don’t blame him at all. As a subject – loyal though I may be – I am trouble. Neither of us had forgotten that my first act under his new reign was – at his Majesty’s pleasure – one of either gross dereliction of duty or treason. He ordered me to prepare Heather Vale for the arrival of Amber’s returning forces. Instead I ran. Leaving my duty to Brita, Conner and the others.
Keen.
And if he has report of my… performance from before his return? Again, he will find a Ranger who was rarely (if ever) in Arden. I don’t think I will ever be able to explain that. Certainly not to my love; the former councilman. How *can* I explain that the only way that I could find to do my duty to Arden and Amber was to separate myself from them both.
Because they were watching you see. The friends of a lifetime, men who know my every gesture, my every expression, damn near my every thought as well as they knew the trails of Arden herself. And they were waiting for me to raise the forest against Amber in open rebellion.
And ooooohhh how I wanted to!
(If I’d been in Arden at the time, no traces of Wind Grove would have ever been found! It would’ve vanished from the face of existence! Stupid fucking farmers!!)
But even before the Regent’s Council decided to tear down its bulwark against the Green just to ‘feed the hungry.’ Even before the Council decided to burden an already struggling force with the rejects and incompetents it couldn’t dispose of elsewhere (necessitating the enforcement of an unwarranted and unnecessary “authority.”) Even before all the dung I found in Amber upon my return, I would have been tempted.
Ever since the Brothers’ War, we have been ill-used. Ill-used and scorned. And while no Ranger serves for the glory or the praise, still… to be so despised when you have given so much…
So.
Between that and what I found upon my return – it would have been soooo sweet to raise Arden against the bloated tottering despot that was Amber. So very sweet.
But realistically, I knew that neither Arden nor Amber would have survived it.
Thus I hid away from both my friends and the swarm of newly found and oh-so-perceptive cousins. So that neither would hear the rebellion singing in my heart. And no war would inadvertently flare into being, born from the seeds of some gesture or word of mine.
And then… and then Random appears. And he and the Regent seem to agree that he’s King! My rebellious heart wouldn’t accept it. Certainly not without knowing if this wasn’t just the next gambit of the Brothers’ War, now that the Black Road was no longer uniting my fractious Aunts and Uncles.
And I most certainly would not swear to Corwin’s ally until I knew where my father stood. Soooo…
I ran.
Disobeying the King, ditching Brita brutually and abandoning those good, good friends who were returning from the horrors of Chaos into the hands of strangers, incompetents and rejects. I was not there to help mitigate the disaster that Arden had become.
Gross dereliction of duty – and the King hesitates to take my oath.
It haunts me.
And is something that I will never, never be able to speak of to my honorable, duty-bound beloved.
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