Guileless Son by Kaylee Arafinwiel

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Guileless Son

“Guileless son, I’ll shape your belief, and you’ll always know that your father’s a thief/You won’t understand the cause of your grief but you’ll always follow the voices beneath that sing/Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty only to me…” - Heather Dale, “Mordred’s Lullaby”

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Carphadril smiled thinly, pacing around the pallet where Dairon lay, shivering under his worn blanket. The Queen of Gorthebar, in the north of the wood which would someday be called Greenwood the Great, had no use for boy-children - usually.

 

“Sleep now and dream,” she murmured, almost gently, eyes glinting. “Tomorrow, my son, your training shall begin.”

 

“Goodnight, my lady,” Dairon whispered.

 

“‘Mother’ will do,” she said, a hand ghosting over his pale brow, slick with sweat. “But remember your place, my little prince.”

 

“Yes…mother.” Dairon curled up on the pallet, going still as Carphadril tucked the blanket around his shoulders. Her kiss on his brow froze him, white with fear.

 

Still, he tried to look as though he was asleep. Why would the Queen of Gorthebar be showing him this special favor?

Just so she could take it away, surely. He cringed, feeling as though a bolt of lightning would strike him for daring to think such traitorous thoughts, but nothing happened.

 

At last, he fell asleep.

 

The next day, Dairon was called before Carphadril’s daughters, her staunchest supporters, who began his training in the art of slow poison. “Tell me, my son. How do you kill a Maia?” Carphadril asked Dairon, looking down at the slender youth.

 

Dairon’s lower lip worked between his teeth, and he gnawed anxiously, yelping as one of the princesses dealt him a sharp cuff.

“You…can’t? They’re immortal?” he hazarded.

 

“Unless you find a way to make them mortal,” Carphadril mused. “Shall we see about that?”

 

A frisson of fear plucked Dairon like a harp string. “It will be as you say, my l--mother.”

 

“Good boy.”

 

They worked on the blood poison for a long time. In Dairon’s spare time, when he had any, he was permitted to write his songs and poetry, and play his flute. It surprised him that the Queen would allow him any such indulgence, but when he was told of the dark power Songs could wield, he understood.

 

He showed Carphadril one of his simple compositions.

 

The blood, it flows red

From many deep gashes where

Our warriors have struck

 

She praised his effort, encouraging him to study the topic of blood further.

 

At last, when Dairon had grown old enough, Carphadril deemed him ready. “Remember what I have taught you,” she cautioned him.

 

“I will present myself at the king’s court as a minstrel,” he recited. “I will win the princess’ heart with my music, and ensure she bears you a powerful heir. And I will kill the usurper queen and king, so that they may not try to overcome your power.”

 

“My power shall not be overcome,” Carphadril corrected sharply. “But they say the fall of Doriath will come from within. I shall punish the usurpers for stealing my daughters away, and take my rightful place.”

 

“Of course, mother,” Dairon bowed. “I live to serve. I am yours.”

 

“Yes, you are.”

 

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Chapter End Notes

In this AU, Dairon (Daeron) is the son of Queen Carphadril's consort with a female thrall, which is common practice in Gorthebar. She generally accepts his daughters as servants and forces sons to be disposed of for her blood magics, lest they become a threat. But a vision of how her traitorous eldest trueborn daughters - one the wife of Elu Thingol's brother and Steward- might be brought low causes her to keep her youngest stepson alive, for now.

Similarities to certain Disney villains, as well as Morgan le Fay in Arthurian mythology, are not accidental.