Kingdom of the fallen

Battle of Taurband

The annoyed father stared his son down, expecting him to give in eventually, but being slightly surprised when instead of doing as expected, Redd threw a murderous glare right back at him as their king did his best to hide his amused face in a cup of tea. Dirhael almost wasn't able to suppress his own proud smirk.

The boy got some practice since last time.

Gandalf gave a light chuckle horribly disguised as a cough; his amusement still palpable in his voice.

"And would you be interested in a more civilized conversation without those on?"

The elder lightly gestured with the bottom of his brilliant white staff in the general direction of the clinging chains. Needless to say, that the sudden stop to the argument surprised Redd enough to stumble on his words.

"I, uh...maybe?"

Aragorn let a smile warm his face for a moment before calling on a guard, who brought a chair, unlocked Redd's iron shackles and scurried out of the tent.

Redd did his best to recover what was left of his emotionless mask of stone and sat down as Gandalf finally took the seat on the other side of Aragorn. Somehow, Redd felt more judged sitting down than when he was standing.

Aragorn looked Redd up and down, leaned forward in his chair with a mask of equal curiosity and compassion.

"I think I'll start this of first, shall I? Why did you defect, Redd?"

Redd's confusion broke through in his expression.

"I'm sorry, your highness, what?"

Aragorn gave him a patient smile as he leaned back in his chair once more.

"I'd like to know why you abandoned your family and left Gondor. You see, in any other circumstance, I might have believed that you just wanted to rebel and look around the lands that were prohibited to enter, but you fought against Mordor for years before this. Not to mention that you rebelling wouldn't be enough to convince five more rangers to follow you meaning that there is something I do not see, a problem that's driven you and your friends to do this and I'd like to know why."

Redd leaned back in his chair, loosing himself in his thoughts for a moment as he lightly stroked his chin. Sure, it will be a slippery slope once he starts talking, but then again brooding won't help anybody either.

He looked up to see the king with patience written all over his face, his father who looked equal measure interested in Redd's answer as he looked furious that this conversation had to be had in the first place and finally Gandalf who shot him an encouraging nod and a warm smile.

Redd let out a small sigh.

"All our lives we were told that all the patrolling and later on the war was to free the people of Middle earth from the threat that was Sauron. But..."

"And didn't we? The dark lord's no more."

Valar know that Redd loves his father, but in times like these he would just love to throw him out of a window.

"BUT, in leading a war and tending to the civilian disputes, the leadership has forgotten about the people that needed us the most. The slaves of Mordor. From my very early youth I can remember the people who escaped the iron prison, telling their horrifying stories of the torture they went through and how in every single one of these cases the survivor was found dead a few weeks later because they lacked the motivation to keep on living. That's why we defected. We wanted to stop the problem at its source. Mind you we expected the orcs, but we did not expect to encounter a nazgûl."