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Title: Soar
Author: alyse
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Pairing/Characters: Gen, Masslar
Spoilers/Warnings: No warnings. Spoilers for The Listener
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~700
Disclaimer: Not mine - this version is ABC/Disney
Author's Notes: Written for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
legendland's Rewatch Challenge for The Listener, due in 30 mins because never let it be said I don't prevaricate when I can. Unbeta'd.
Summary: There is no freedom to be found in the Midlands, not even inside a man's own head.
-o-
There is no freedom to be found in the Midlands, not with Darken Rahl sitting on the D'Haran throne. While Panis Rahl was like all of his house - feckless and greedy, half-mad for power - at least he was not all the way mad like his son. Masslar has chafed under the rule of the Rahls for too long, but even he could not have anticipated how much worse Darken would be than his father.
Panis was too wrapped up in his own appetites to seek to sate them beyond his borders, and too enamoured of the idea that his people loved him to think of treachery from within. He paid for that arrogance with his life. Masslar has heard the whispers, the ones that murmured their way through the palace denizens before Rahl snuffed even that small freedom out - the freedom of servants gossiping about their betters, and he'd snuffed out those who'd gossiped alongside it.
Now there is no freedom, not to speak or to meet or to live and breathe except by the Lord Rahl's command, not when Darken Rahl watches everything so greedily, not blinkered like his father was and always on the look out for the first sign of betrayal. And Darken commands the Mord'Sith far more effectively than his father had, too. They have always been loyal to the Rahl line, but under Darken Rahl that loyalty has become fanatical, the light of true believers in their eyes. And those who do not believe fake it too well for Masslar to ever have sought kindred spirits among them.
Once it would have been an honour to wear the uniform of the Dragon Corps, although it was never an honour that Masslar sought willingly. But to be D'Haran was to serve, even one such as the new Lord Rahl. The Lord Rahl who will permit no freedoms, not even the freedom of thoughts that stay inside one's head, and who has turned even that small, tarnished honour into dust.
So Masslar was left pinning his hopes of freedom on the Seeker, and in that he hasn't been disappointed. It is shaming to admit it, but when he first saw Renn and understood what the boy could do, he was weak, weak enough to think, for one bitter moment, that if he was to betray himself with a thought then perhaps his last deed could be to ensure that Renn would convict no others.
Renn had dropped his eyes, and so perhaps he had not caught that stray thought, the one that said it would be better that both of them died. Masslar hopes that selfishly, because it makes that small, squirming shame easier to bare, but there was a bitter kind of cynicism in the child, one that tells Masslar that perhaps Renn understood him only too well. And what makes it more shameful is that this child - this scared, cowed little boy, chained up like an animal and sold like one, too - had still had more humanity in that moment than Masslar himself.
He'd lied for Masslar, despite not knowing or caring about him, despite understanding too well the depths to which Masslar could have sunk. Given that, does it matter that the lie failed?
He's glad that his resolve failed him, too, that in the end he couldn't raise his sword to a child. That would have made him no better than Rahl, but more than that - if he had tried to strike at anyone but his 'brothers' in the Dragon Corps, if the wizard had not saved him with trickery and an agile mind...
Then Masslar would have missed the greatest freedom of all.
To fly is to be the closest to the Creator, he thinks, more than anyone trapped on the ground can ever imagine. To soar in the sun, feel the air lift you up, ride the currents so high that the air itself glitters like crystals, cold and brilliant...
That is true freedom, and that feeling is worth fighting for.
In the end, it was not magic that lifted him up, that sent his soul soaring, no matter what spells the wizard wove.
It was hope, and that is the strongest magic in the Midlands, stronger even than Rahl.
The End
Author: alyse
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Pairing/Characters: Gen, Masslar
Spoilers/Warnings: No warnings. Spoilers for The Listener
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~700
Disclaimer: Not mine - this version is ABC/Disney
Author's Notes: Written for
legendland's Rewatch Challenge for The Listener, due in 30 mins because never let it be said I don't prevaricate when I can. Unbeta'd.Summary: There is no freedom to be found in the Midlands, not even inside a man's own head.
-o-
There is no freedom to be found in the Midlands, not with Darken Rahl sitting on the D'Haran throne. While Panis Rahl was like all of his house - feckless and greedy, half-mad for power - at least he was not all the way mad like his son. Masslar has chafed under the rule of the Rahls for too long, but even he could not have anticipated how much worse Darken would be than his father.
Panis was too wrapped up in his own appetites to seek to sate them beyond his borders, and too enamoured of the idea that his people loved him to think of treachery from within. He paid for that arrogance with his life. Masslar has heard the whispers, the ones that murmured their way through the palace denizens before Rahl snuffed even that small freedom out - the freedom of servants gossiping about their betters, and he'd snuffed out those who'd gossiped alongside it.
Now there is no freedom, not to speak or to meet or to live and breathe except by the Lord Rahl's command, not when Darken Rahl watches everything so greedily, not blinkered like his father was and always on the look out for the first sign of betrayal. And Darken commands the Mord'Sith far more effectively than his father had, too. They have always been loyal to the Rahl line, but under Darken Rahl that loyalty has become fanatical, the light of true believers in their eyes. And those who do not believe fake it too well for Masslar to ever have sought kindred spirits among them.
Once it would have been an honour to wear the uniform of the Dragon Corps, although it was never an honour that Masslar sought willingly. But to be D'Haran was to serve, even one such as the new Lord Rahl. The Lord Rahl who will permit no freedoms, not even the freedom of thoughts that stay inside one's head, and who has turned even that small, tarnished honour into dust.
So Masslar was left pinning his hopes of freedom on the Seeker, and in that he hasn't been disappointed. It is shaming to admit it, but when he first saw Renn and understood what the boy could do, he was weak, weak enough to think, for one bitter moment, that if he was to betray himself with a thought then perhaps his last deed could be to ensure that Renn would convict no others.
Renn had dropped his eyes, and so perhaps he had not caught that stray thought, the one that said it would be better that both of them died. Masslar hopes that selfishly, because it makes that small, squirming shame easier to bare, but there was a bitter kind of cynicism in the child, one that tells Masslar that perhaps Renn understood him only too well. And what makes it more shameful is that this child - this scared, cowed little boy, chained up like an animal and sold like one, too - had still had more humanity in that moment than Masslar himself.
He'd lied for Masslar, despite not knowing or caring about him, despite understanding too well the depths to which Masslar could have sunk. Given that, does it matter that the lie failed?
He's glad that his resolve failed him, too, that in the end he couldn't raise his sword to a child. That would have made him no better than Rahl, but more than that - if he had tried to strike at anyone but his 'brothers' in the Dragon Corps, if the wizard had not saved him with trickery and an agile mind...
Then Masslar would have missed the greatest freedom of all.
To fly is to be the closest to the Creator, he thinks, more than anyone trapped on the ground can ever imagine. To soar in the sun, feel the air lift you up, ride the currents so high that the air itself glitters like crystals, cold and brilliant...
That is true freedom, and that feeling is worth fighting for.
In the end, it was not magic that lifted him up, that sent his soul soaring, no matter what spells the wizard wove.
It was hope, and that is the strongest magic in the Midlands, stronger even than Rahl.
The End
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