• 6/13/354

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    May 31, 2012 /  Entries

    I need to stop writing entries in my diary when piss drunk.

    That last one is a cringeworthy overreaction. Maybe I don’t know if this guardian thing is working out; maybe we need another solution. Maybe she said something thoughtless and it hurt me. That doesn’t mean it’s some kind of betrayal, or that she’s terrible, or that things are hopeless.

    There are times I solely wish I was calmer… times I would trade the absolute bliss I feel sometimes, in order to moderate the pain. If one does not rise as high, the fall is not so long.

    But I am who I am, and I know of no way to change such a thing. So dwelling is pointless; drinking less might be a good start, though.

    I’ll figure out what to do about Lien when she returns.

    Right now I’m just lying in bed coming down off the mandrake. Broken nose, fractured cheekbone, a multitude of small bruises… not enough to keep me bedridden, but enough to ensure everything hurts. The doctors are hopeful my cheekbone will heal in the right position; I did not tell them I hardly care. I think about what I told Flewelling… I don’t mean it as much as I once did, but I wouldn’t mind losing a little of my looks.

    Flewelling… that is a horror that is going to haunt me for a while. Fresh off finally beginning to forget the corpsefires; my life has good timing. Her words were… sad and insane and incorrect. I was surprised by how little her castigations hurt me, perhaps because I’ve largely healed, perhaps because she’d clearly lost all touch with reality. But it is never a -pleasant- thing to watch somebody take a blade to themselves. And none of it had to be this way.

    I screwed up. I really did this time. Where was my usual cool? I should have been able to act more normal, to call in the Knights without raising her suspicion. But the armor, and the ship and everything… I didn’t want to believe it.

    What madness and pain rises from these things. What heresy from love. At times like this it is easy to see nothing but the darkness of the world, with even beautiful things being twisted. But some people stay strong, and it’s for them that I choose to keep fighting.

  • Undated

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    May 27, 2012 /  Entries

    *the handwriting of this entry is so shaky as to be almost illegible*

    You say -I- never saw the good in -you-. That’s a laugh. Except I’m not laughing.

    It’s not like I ever said I was proud of you, that I thought you were a good person, that I was happy about the progress you’d made, that I loved you. It’s not like the vast majority of the things I said to you were pleasant, it’s not like I only called you out when I had to and let countless lies, misdeeds and misbehaviors slide. It’s not like I covered for you time and time again, not just your reputation but even from the law. It’s not like I only tried to hold you to some basic standards of acceptable behavior -for your own sake-.

    It’s not like I opened my life and my heart for you. And it’s not like you always assumed the worst of me even when you chided me for assuming the worst of you.

    Is it? Not in your eyes. No, all I ever was was a patronizing lecturer who wanted you to behave solely in order to safeguard my own reputation and who wanted to keep you away from all your true friends.

    I don’t even care. I give up. I just give up. Arien take you, I hope you never come back.

     

  • 5/19/354

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    May 24, 2012 /  Entries

    I do so love fools who think they are smart. I consider them somewhat along the lines of metaphorical hors d’oeuvres: tasty, plentiful and only requiring a single bite. I would rather relish a chance to cast a look their way and say, “You will be devoured.”

    But that’s not how these games are played – not if you want to win, at least.

    So I will behave myself like a good boy. Which I am, really, you know. If not always in my methods, ultimately in my ends. I don’t play for myself. I wonder how many people doubt that? Probably just about everyone, honestly. Oh, perhaps not Lien or Marisa… but I think everyone else in this city who’s aware of such things wonders what I have up my sleeve. Yet if I showed them, I doubt they’d believe me.

    Such is life, hmm? Well, I’ve no hesitation in drinking the cup it’s poured out for me. There have been hard times, mistakes and betrayals, but there have been beauties and joys as well. Fortune is mixed; that’s just the way it is. I have my friends, my family, and most of the time they’re quite the consolation for any ills that might befall me.

    How’d I write it before?

    Let all the world oppose me
    In a single hateful throng;
    The lone sweet voice that knows me
    Is a healing balm in song.

    But it’s more than one voice now, even if hers is ever the most comforting. I’m a lucky man.

    Anyway, things proceed well. I’ve made my donation to the reconstruction efforts, and the picture is much more rosy than I’d expected, in terms of funding. We may really be able to put much of the city back on its feet again.

    My medical studies are continuing haltingly, as time permits; my current focus is pregnancy and childbearing. Not very appropriate for a man, but I don’t ever want to be stuck delivering another baby without any idea of what to do. And if something goes wrong for Cellan, like it almost did the other day… I want to be able to -help- this time. I don’t intend to make myself a full midwife (midhusband?) or anything. I just… don’t want to be helpless. Ever again.

  • 5/7/354

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    May 21, 2012 /  Entries

    I’m so hung over right now, I… don’t even know. I was doing so well, too. It’d been months since I last drank myself unconscious. Can’t start thinking I’m a functional human being, I guess.

    I keep staring at Lien’s letter. I should reply. But what should I say?

    “No, I wouldn’t have reacted like you did, not for this secret. Your secrets have never been like mine.” True but uselessly nasty.

    “I’m sorry for having no idea what you needed.” True but… hardly fixes anything. Went about it all wrong. But she deserves an explanation of -why-… that I don’t know if I can give in a letter.

    My brain just… shut down, everything just shut down. Well, no. I was still thinking. What shut down was my feelings in some desperate last-ditch attempt to keep me calm that ultimately failed anyway.

    I keep thinking of all the things she said. It never will just be ‘in the past’, will it? It changed the course of my life in every way. Everyone else involved could be dead and it wouldn’t matter; I’ll carry it on my back to my grave, every step of the way.

    I’ll just… have to talk to her. Have to explain. She says I don’t have to, but I do. No more secrets, I guess. I know it’ll change everything, knowing all that I’ve been and done. But if she’s going to spurn me, it’s better to get it over with now. Rejection is best done quickly and decisively, I know that.

  • 4/16/354

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    May 16, 2012 /  Entries, Writing

    I want… everything to go smooth for just a little while. That’s all I ask, Lord. Please. A little while? A month, even, just one month?

    Yeah, fat chance. But at least the things that matter – the people that matter – are still with me. I can endure anything with the help of the ones I love.

    Lien did a charming job of trying to make me food for my birthday. I mean, it was disgusting, but that’s hardly what matters. I was just… so overwhelmed by the gesture. Trying to cook for the very first time, for me? I’d have swallowed poison in those circumstances. And then throwing me a surprise birthday party… I could have used less surprise so I was wearing more than a towel when everyone showed up, but the thought is what counts.

    I just… wish that what had happened afterward… hadn’t. But it did, and all I can do is try not to dwell on it. Like I said before, at least the people that matter are still with me.

    On a happier note, I found a poem I wrote… oh, it must have been two years ago now? I was seized with inspiration and wrote it on the back of a piece of mail, and thankfully I never throw out my substantive letters. LEt me copy it here just in case, though:

    Swallows

    Some call a bard a fool who’s fancy free,
    good for naught but gossip and a song;
    for an ale-drenched evening, pleasant company,
    but useless when the night work’s hard and long.

    Myself, I say the value of a smile
    Is reckoned best by those who went without;
    The champions of art have oft stood trial
    Within the courts of misery and doubt.

    Our backs are strong and work has crafted leather
    Of hands that write or draw or pluck the strings;
    In service to our craft we often weather
    A myriad of strange and subtle stings.

    So laugh with us, or smile or cry or gawk –
    tis how we please our hearts and earn our bread.
    But if you disdain, you know not what you mock;
    For bards have danced where others fear to tread.

    …right, I’d best stop writing in this and start writing a few letters instead, then get back to Southside. Their need for medical care, even inexpert medical care, is too extreme to go unaddressed.

  • History of House Orban

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    May 10, 2012 /  Uncategorized

    As a gentry family, House Orban has an unusually long history, boasting a storied career in the mercantile sphere of Tubor. Their business, Orban Spices, began initially with two spice plantations. Expansion followed, with the purchase of Callum Shipping in 205 SC and a vineyard acquired through intermarriage with the Storm family in 268. In 271, the company officially diversified into the Orban Mercantile Group.

    Its fortunes waxed and waned in the following decades, though even at the nadir of its influence it has remained a presence in the merchant world. Since Alastair le Orban took the reins in 310 SC, however, the Group has flourished and steadily increased its market share, particularly in the export of Tubori spices. Having its own shipping arm, it’s able to sell its spices at lower rates than many companies who contract out, and so that remains its main source of profit.

    The family itself, however, has not been so lucky. Of Alastair’s four brothers and sisters, only he survived to adulthood; of his five children, only two made it that far, the heir Raymond le Orban and his younger brother, Petyr. Both suffered from the same delicate constitution that had led to their relatives perishing, particularly Petyr, who was rumored to be slowly dying of consumption.

    Raymond was groomed to succeed his father, but inexplicably disappeared from the public eye for eight months in 331 SC. When he reappeared, it was in a grave at the age of twenty-one, evidently the victim of a plague that swept through the ducal seat that winter.

    Petyr le Orban took the reins of the Group from his father in 340, handling the company wisely and well despite frequent bouts of illness. These bouts began to intensify as he approached the age of forty, and he did without issue in 352 SC.

    Alastair was seemingly left without heirs until, surprising those familiar with the Tubori gentry, a young man named Ariel op Orban was acknowledged after Petyr’s death as Raymond’s legitimate son. Though he had seemingly come out of nowhere, all the documents existed to prove that Raymond had married a young woman simply named Ista – of unknown origin – and fathered Ariel legitimately, dying before his son was ever born.

    At the time of his recognition as heir to the Group, Ariel op Orban was living in Lithmore as the court bard to the Lady Chancellor of the Exchequer Marisa dul Damassande. With his family’s money now backing him, he soon made a name for himself in the Kingdom. During the succession crisis, he gained political prominence as one half of the Persela-Orban Coalition, a powerful faction that backed first Cellan dul Ansari and then Tobin ab Samael for the throne. In the wake of the crisis, he became a well-known face at court, serving as an advisor to the royal couple.

    In late 353, he was rewarded with a title, raised to the Barony of Savir to fill the void left by the heretic Baron Bardane ab Whirothol.

    Quiet rumors abounded as to the precise reasoning behind Ariel’s ennoblement, suggesting everything from secret services to the Crown to unnatural relationships with the King, the Queen, and even possibly the King’s dog. Nonetheless, his ennoblement has been largely accepted at Court with a general lack of fuss.

    However, House Orban’s future remains tentative, as Ariel seems to be in better health than his unfortunate family but has no heir – indeed, he has essentially no relatives but his grandfather and mother. His closest blood relations are his fourth cousins Lien and Sien le Storm of Strongjaw, and he serves currently as the guardian of Lien.

    Colors: Emerald and gold
    Sigil: A gold-hilted dagger held vertical within an emerald wreath

  • 3/5/354

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    May 5, 2012 /  Entries

    First the water, then the fire.

    The smoke of the corpsefires has been rising to the sky steadily since the waters receded. A foul haze hangs about our city like a filthy halo of palpable stench. Much of what is being burned now is hardly recognizable as human flesh any longer, merely decaying slime ripe with putrefaction. But it must be burned all the same, for health, for human dignity.

    Dignity? What am I even saying? I pay them five silver a body to burn them; I have gotten messengers asking how much to pay when it is unclear how many bodies a certain wheelbarrow or barrel of remains used to be.

    My soul is sick within me. I know the Lord does not control our actions; He gave us free will so that we could achieve greatness by living according to His word. If we didn’t have the ability to choose evil, there could be no goodness in our hearts – only an existence of meaningless and empty perfection.

    There is no one to blame for the hideous evil perpetrated by Laraxis and her demons but Laraxis herself. But I still want to ask – why? Why did this happen? Why were we so unable to prevent it, or to end it sooner? Why is such misery even possible?

    There is no time to wallow in such questions, to let myself be lost to fear or doubt. It is far more important to look after the living than to grieve uselessly for the dead. It would be indulgence of the worst sort to allow horror to dog my footsteps, to slow me down in my efforts to relieve the miseries of Southside.

    But I am still gripped at times with a numb disbelief that seizes my soul with more force than any conventional pain. I think of what the priestess said to me, her last words – “Save Lithmore, op Orban”, she asked of me.

    And I couldn’t.

    Oh, we turned back the flood waters, banished the demons, killed the mage… but I couldn’t even save the priestess herself, and the dead burn silently, numberless as the stars in the sky.

    I wish I’d known her name.