Songs of Experience

Things I Never Wanted To Do In My Life But Did Anyway (the far more revealing opposite of “Things I Want To Do Before I Die”):

1. Profaning a truly sacred location by having sex in it with a witch

2. Also, having sex with a heretic in Ahalin Tower

3. Having sex with a Reeve in the Interrogation Room – can I just put ‘all the sex I wish I hadn’t had?’

4. Special mention: Getting tied to a bed… that I DIDN’T want to get tied to

5. Meeting ‘Woody’

6. Discovering the myriad joys of torture (at the hands of both the Church and mages)

7. Knocking over the Fountis Major (even in order to put out a fire)

8. Jumping under a demon’s claws to play meat shield

9. Headbutting Her Royal Majesty Cellan ab Samael (or was it getting headbutted by?)

10. Being accused of sleeping with the Queen AND the King to get a title. (At the same time? Rumor was unspecific)

11. Performing emergency life-saving medical care on an unwillingly castrated man

12. Becoming overly fond of a large procession of mages, heretics and traitors whose true qualities were unclear to me

13. Getting lost in the Lithmorran sewer system for an approximately twenty-four-hour period

14. Getting lost in the Hedge Maze for at -least- a twenty-four-hour period

15. Falling into a pit of decomposing bodies

16. Assuming a long-time ally had turned on me with completely insufficient evidence and wallowing in angry, angst-filled betrayal before waiting to find out if it was true

17. Killing enough people that I’m not actually sure how many have died as a direct or indirect result of my actions

18. Failing to save Madilaire’s soul

19. Writing this depressing damn list

20. …becoming a cripple.

So, life goes on.

One of those trite statements you don’t particularly see the value of until you’ve been in a position where it seemed impossible that things might continue, even as your heart kept beating.

I haven’t dared to touch this volume in a long, long time. I have felt the distant apprehension that my veneer of calm and control was as thin as paper, and the tip of a quill might tear right through it. Surely my insides would leak out, liquefied and irretrievable.

But that’s the thing about acting I didn’t really mention in my last entry. Act like something long enough, and it becomes reality. I get annoyed when people bow to me, but I also get annoyed when they don’t. I can tell myself it’s because it means I’ll have to try and force the question (and I genuinely hate doing that), but if I’m honest with myself, I have become accustomed to the presumption of respect.

Anyway, I guess I’ve acted like I am fine and can deal with this for so long that… perhaps I am fine, and perhaps I can deal with this. Writing this is half expression and half test of my sanity.

I can’t write about what happened to me down there. Not really. There’s a point at which rehashing the past is nothing more than torture, which I guess is why I’ve never talked about all what happened to anyone. I probably should; talk means healing. But it’s been four months now and I still can’t. I just can’t.

Leaving the memories behind… the hardest part is realizing that things won’t be -easy- anymore. I mean, there’s almost nothing that I can’t do now. I can still climb stairs, run, dance. Tumbling’s out of the question, but it’s not as if I went around doing flips all the time (in the last few years of my life, anyway). With enough practice and training to suppress the limp when I have to, I’ll likely even be able to fight almost like my old self. What I’ve lost is the ability to do those things gracefully, naturally, without thought or difficulty or pain.

Shoes with asymmetrical soles, canes, floleaf or willowbark (or mandrake on a bad day). Soaking for hours in the hot water not for the sheer joy of it, but to soothe my aching bones. Being winded when I go up a single flight of stairs. Being called ‘grandfather’ by careless young Vavardi men.

That’s life now. And… it’s not so bad as it first seemed when I realized the limp was almost certainly permanent.

Life goes on.