11/23/366
Finally, I can take a moment to sit down and write something. Time has been in ever so short supply lately, it seems, and I doubt it’s going to change any time soon. But the last of my plans are in place for the winter. I can’t save the whole city – and the rest of it is Tomas’s job, anyway – but I’ve done what I can for the people I feel the most responsible for.
The ink is blurring in front of my eyes. I have to start sleeping more, I know I do. My health has been surprisingly good this year, ever since the nightmares stopped, but… winter is coming, and every winter is a trial and a danger to be survived. Especially this winter.
Though who am I kidding? I’m not going to suffer from a famine. Someone in my position is never going to know what it means to be hungry again, unless I somehow decide to starve on a lark. (Which I will not, obviously, but.) My charity is the same well-meaning but infinitely divorced sort of kindness all the other nobles are offering.
To some extent, anyway.
I hadn’t realized the truth of my existence until I penned that letter to Marisa, that what I am doing is settling into both of my contradictory identities and making sense of them. Rejecting neither, embracing both, and trying to see what is left when the dust settles. That is what I’ve been doing – that is what I’ve been becoming – and it fills me with a certain kind of peace.
It’s not something I can expect others to understand; there is literally no one else in the world who has lived a life like this. To the nobles I will always be an upjumped commoner, while to the commoners I will always be a spoon-fed noble. But… that’s all right, actually. The downside of never quite fitting, of never being entirely accepted, is absolutely minor compared to all the benefits and privileges of my position.
I am… happy. Oh, I remain an irascible bastard besieged by a ludicrous number of demands on my time, of course, and accursed by the same black humors as ever. Not to mention my sensitivity to all the many ills and wounds of the past. No doubt when the anniversary of Casimir’s death rolls around again, I’m going to have to be carried out of the graveyard drunk, though I am no longer so famous for that to be worthy of grand scandal. I have my foes and my frustrations, just as I always have and always will.
But I am happy. My life is meaningful. Knighthood fits me like a glove despite all of the reasons it should not. I am in the best shape of my life, and a better fighter than I ever was in my callow youth. Tinkering in my greenhouse in the warmth feels good on my aching bones, and I save lives with my needle and thread. I am lonely at times, but not nearly so often as I was, and my life lacks that aching feeling of emptiness that used to bedevil me.
Though… I’m beginning to feel a little uneasy about my drinking habits.
Ah, well. I should probably solve that by having a drink until the unease goes away. Pour some of the good whisky, recline in the hot bath, picture that smug arse of a Count’s face when he heard “Less lace, more grace” for the first time.
Life is good.
