the way that one line from the new epilogue in an astarion romance is going to HAUNT me
just. what a profoundly intense thing to confess to someone.
like, just these six months of newfound happiness with you exerts a force on his heart equal and in direct opposition to two centuries of endless torment, the gnawing hunger and exploitation. this flashbulb-bright fraction of his long life holds the same gravity to him as years upon years of darkness and suffering.
in all likelihood, he hasn’t even known his lover for as long as his worst memory lasted, that year sealed away to go mad from starvation and sensory deprivation, yet he still tells them this brief time has been so fundamentally and powerfully important that the weight of even that unimaginable hell is vanishingly small compared to this present he has now and the future ahead of them both.
how am i supposed to act normal about this.
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So many people are so mean to Kingsley and say they hate him simply because he's not Molly and I am fighting them off with a sword. None of you fuckers are true Tealeaf enjoyers. Love my boy or die by my blade; what did he ever do to any of you 😭
Hello! The thing is--I do understand why Kingsley can be upsetting to people, I really do. Especially when we've had Molly for such little time :( And it does make me sad that Kingsley doesn't seem to get the same treatment as the rest of the Nein, or that he's not as loved, so I understand both perspectives.
But honestly to me, a part of the appeal of Kingsley is that...although he's grown and changed, a part of him is still Molly; it's the thought that this shard of a soul was loved enough that it managed to endure, to grow and find its way home.
I love the ending of Lucien's novel, because the thought that Molly felt for Lucien enough to want to reach out to him in the very end, the way they both make peace with each other and decide to be reborn together--it's so heartwarming and cathartic, and it really feels like the final piece to me that King's introduction was missing.
I think, terrifying as the thought is, Kingsley himself is also aware that he's grown from Molly's soul shard (and Lucien).
Kingsley: “Not now, but in the future, I'd like to hear about your friend. Later, once I--once I know me better.”
Yasha: “I would love that.”
Kingsley: “Thank you.”
Yasha: “It's nice to have you back.”
Kingsley: “It's nice to be here.”
Yasha: “You know what I mean.”
Kingsley: “I do.”
The fact that he calls out to Yasha and knows her as Love, remembers the tarot card names he gave to everyone. The moment when Jester casts Greater Restoration, and King is lost in his pretty dream of the circus--"I was having the nicest dream."
And more than that, he keeps asking for Lestera specifically. "There was a--oh. There was a circus. And a...a beautiful woman, in a red coat. She was telling me secrets, showing me how to keep secrets. Show secrets--I...Where's the woman? No, not her...where's the woman--" Molly's heart, the part of him that loved Lestera and Yasha and the rest of the Mighty Nein? It's still there, still feels for all of them. "I get...feelings from you. All of you..." And that to me is such a comfort.
Lastly, I'm still very much struck by the fact that Molly always intended for Mollymauk to be more of a temporary name, one he kept until he was ready to choose another for himself--it feels kind of like Molly was his birth name, and Kingsley is more of a tiefling virtue name. I love the way that King changing his name when he's reborn mirrors Molly's worship of the Moonweaver--and how he incorporated his religion into his tarot cards. There's something nice about how King is still following those tenets of the Mooweaver, even if he doesn't quite realize it. For everything that's changed, there are many intrinsic aspects of Tealeaf that still ring the same.
"Each deck of Moon Oracle cards are different, as each deck evolves with the owner. When a card is weathered or simply no longer speaks to you, replace it with a new card of your own design. Something personal and true. Trust yourself; what is true for you will ring true for others. Some choose to change a card each Lunar cycle. Some decks magically destroy a card when it is replaced with a new one--such decadence!"
One more thing, but--I think that, because we've gotten so little time with King (and haven't really gotten the chance to hear Taliesin really talk about him ;; CR please give us a Kingsley Tealeaf Q and A one day I am begging--) there's so much about him that's open to interpretation or that's left intentionally vague. And the same could be true about Molly's initial soul shard too. "If souls could grow from but a piece..." Even Molly's own goddess is surprised when he's reborn as Kingsley. There's no precedence for this. He's an anomaly, an impossibility...a miracle.
All that just to say, that. I don't think one interpretation of King is inherently better than another, and I'm sure a lot of people aren't happy about my interpretation either. But I understand why King is as decisive a character as he is. He'll always be important to me though--and I'll always see him as being a part of Molly, a shard of a soul that was full of so much love and joy, he got another chance to live again and be reborn. And I'm happy if this little tiefling king is able to bring others the same kind of joy and comfort he brought me.
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