hadriel_logs | Event Log: Bad End

Who: All characters participating in the event
What: The event log for the Bad End event
Where: All over the city!
When: August 23rd-September 5th
Warnings: Bad futures, awkward conversations, smashed mirrors

You wake up to find a mirror at your bedside - a pretty nice one, too, a silver hand mirror perfect for fixing your hair in. Only when you try to do that, it's not your gorgeous reflection that you see. It's something else - a terrible future, just about as bad as anything you could imagine for yourself.

Maybe you see your loved ones dead on the ground, and you know it's your fault. Maybe you see the goal you've been working so hard for pulled out of your reach forever. Maybe you see someone you've hurt in the past ruining your life. Maybe you see your hot girlfriend leaving you to shack up with your worst enemy. Whatever you see, it really sucks, and you know that it's possible. This future could happen if you make the wrong choices, give in to your worst impulses.

Break the mirror if you want, but you'll see the same vision in any reflective surface in the city. You can't break them all, but you can sure try. And what will you do when you see your best friend's vision - and it features you betraying them?

Seek reassurance, give reassurance, lash out, vow to yourself that you'll never let it turn out that way, sink into the depths of sorrow because you feel like the future you see is inevitable. Whatever you do, it won't take away those visions - not until the event is over.

► This log covers August 23rd-September 5th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you can't handle the idea of your dark future, or maybe you just accidentally slip and fall on a mirror shard, let us know here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Fingon leans in to pull Celebrimbor close.]

Don't blame yourself. I saw his master at work in Tirion, and even when you thought that one was the oiliest being you'd ever seen, there was always something about him which made you almost want to stay near.

[Until your baby niece toddled out, The Slimy One looked thoroughly disconcerted and excused himself, and you were left with a crying little girl and the urgent need to find a scalding bath. It was a strange time.]

And from what I've heard, Sauron was better at that game than Morgoth ever was.

(He has no complaints and he settles against Fingon contentedly.)

I was always unsure of every decision I made. I felt as if I was ruling alone and when he came in the guise of a being called Annatar, he seemed to lift some of the burden. I could breathe and create again and for that I was too grateful.

(Not to mention the fact that Annatar had been beautiful. Strange times indeed!)

He played the game well until he revealed his hand. Then I wanted nothing more than to defy him with my last breath.

Ruling is hard, Telperinquar, even for those who are good at it. Anyone who says otherwise should never be let near power. That you wanted a friend to support you? That is normal. That you wanted a chance to practice your Art? Who would have denied you that?

[And, well. There aren't many people Fingon knows who lack a certain weakness for beauty.]

You defied him then, when you knew what he was. That matters.

It is indeed. Impossible, I would say, sometimes, except a ruler cannot accept impossibilities. They must always find a way.

(It's easier speaking to Fingon of this because he knows his cousin understands. Celebrimbor leans towards him, his soft voice gaining some of its old passion.)

After he killed my wife...and my child...

I had a daughter.

Who else is there? [Fingon agrees.] A lord must guide his people, even when there may be no track to lead them on.

[Fingon closes his eyes at that, a sinking feeling in his stomach. He's tried to comfort grieving parents before-his own father not least among them- and it's never gotten any easier, and he's not sure he brings them much comfort.]

Oh, Telperinquar. I'm so sorry.

No parent should outlive their child.

No one. (The question is rhetorical, of course, but it feels right to reinforce it.) Tracks must be made, carved out inch by inch if need be.

(He cannot meet Fingon's gaze, his head bowed under the weight of grief and a deep, guilty sense of failure.)

It happens too often. But I...

I loved her. (His expression twists, enraged.) He had no right to touch a hair on her head.

[It's a somber topic, but somehow Fingon can't help but smile.] They can do wonderful things, our people. If their leaders can help them to do so.

[Fingon has never been a parent, has never known that fear and responsibility. He can't know, really, what Celebrimbor is going through. But he can be there for him now, and he will do his utmost to do so.]

They never do. And parents...they never stop blaming themselves. My father didn't. Not for Arakano, not for Irisse.

[Not for anyone, really. Not Angarato and Aikanaro, not even for the Feanorians when all that was known in Hithlum was that the East had been taken.

Fingon grimaces at that thought, and squeezes Celebrimbor's shoulder a little harder. No need to go wandering around those paths again.]

What was her name?

Event Log: Bad End

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