Work Text:
Rivendell’s lord is not a religious man.
It’s not something he wants publicised, of course. Rivendell practically lives and breathes the old gods, and he would be ostracised faster than the rivers during snowmelt if they knew.
He goes to church like a dutiful ruler, says his prayers with the priest like everyone else, and his mind doesn’t wander from the sermon like he expects most of the court’s children’s minds do beside him. He is restless, but he does his due diligence to what is expected of him because it is all he knows.
It is difficult, though, when even the corridors he walks down every day make him feel uneasy. Every tapestry in the palace is of a scene from some great battle, past or future, stitches spelling out blood and chaos and destruction, like a child’s story.
They cycle, over and over, the same scenes with different figures and different times but always the same outcome. He’s starting to wonder if Aeor wishes its champion would fight back a little, sometimes. He wonders what happens to the champions who do.
The wall he walks past between the bedroom he’s been given and where Rivendell’s throne stands holds a tapestry that shows a figure on their knees on the peak of a mountain, head tilted back to the sky. The figure is surrounded by silvery stitches and Scott hurries past it every morning, trying not to think of the ice crystals that sneak up his knuckles or the frozen edges of the lake at the base of Rivendell’s cliff.
Aeor’s house is a palace for pious kings, and a prison for Rivendell’s lord.
It’s not that he’s an unbeliever.
He thinks that faith is beautiful. Beautiful in the way Pixandria speaks about life and beautiful in the way children find comfort in their mothers. There’s a grand, empty echo in the room beside the one he’s been given, and Scott has faith in those dusty sunbeams that sing duets with the peeling paint on great arched windows in the barren room.
And he’s certainly not denying his surroundings. He has seen the work something has done to the empire, recognises that the corruption has been driven from the feet of the great stag, sees the fertility of Rivendell’s fields despite the harsh weather of the mountains.
But the old gods that belong to Rivendell are tired, bratty and worn, bickering children who stayed up past their bedtime, fighting the same battles for eternity like they’re entitled to blood being spilt. Scott thinks he’s sick to death of it. He wants to march up to the altar of Rivendell’s church and tell the gods that they’re not welcome, not anymore, not in his ear and not anywhere near Rivendell. They can fight each other themselves, he thinks in the solitary moments, they can fight without engaging in a proxy war like the one that is tearing him apart.
Some mornings he wakes up with bruises he doesn’t recognise, watching the cold sunlight draw patterns in the ancient arched ceilings of the palace. The shadows spell out sweeter stories than the threads of the tapestries outside, and Aeor can demand nothing of him when the warmth of the duvet melts the frost that tries to form across the skin between his fingers.
He reads the stories the sun spells out for him in the swirling dust and pretends he can ignore the tolling church bells outside.