• 10/12/369

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    April 30, 2016 /  Entries

    What makes a person?

    Today, I buried three members of the White Flame. They didn’t know with whom they were fucking; they could hardly put up a fight. I have a few minor wounds – desperate dagger slashes, too shallow to even require stitches. They all died quickly, killed with the surgical precision I suppose is my trademark. Yes, I imagine I’ve killed enough people by now to have a trademark.

    I advocated for this, for simple and swift endings, for eschewing the appearance of due process lest we fail to respect excommunication sufficiently. But there is a part of me that sits uneasy, wondering… wondering, is humanity something so easily taken away? Is there such a thing as being utterly beyond salvation?

    Of course, there is because the Order decrees it, but… is it so true that every single member of the Flame is lost? Might some of them be salvageable beneath the brainwashing of their leaders?

    Then again, it was that sort of thinking that led me to persist with Casimir… persist again and again, well beyond the level of sanity or reason. I was still discussing giving him back nobility long after he’d proven he couldn’t be trusted with power or responsibility.

    Perhaps… there reaches a point where the possibility that someone could be saved isn’t sufficient justification for the effort. Perhaps what excommunication is really telling us is that our kindness, our charity, and our time is better-spent on those who choose not to spit in our faces.

    I could believe that. I do believe that, really. How could I not?

    Have I ever seen anyone saved, except by the pyre, when they didn’t want to be?

  • 8/12/369

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    April 14, 2016 /  Entries

    I can handle this. I can. Things are… under control, I think. It’s going to be all right; I know what to do.

    I think.

    Arien.

    At least she didn’t abandon me after all. And I didn’t… well, I did say things I regret, but I didn’t drive her away. And it was… good. It was a good conversation, moving forward on a new footing, building a better relationship.

    Funny, those lines could apply to three very different women, now that I think about it. I suppose I have a good deal of new and better relationships to forge in the near future.

    I just… need things to hang on a little bit longer…

  • 5/12/369

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    March 21, 2016 /  Entries

    5/12/369

    I would go mad if I was dealing with all of this alone.

    Though, admittedly, sometimes I think I’ve gone mad already.

    I puzzle over it all. What did I do wrong? How did I fail her so badly? She idolized me, considered me a hero, even – dreamed of fighting at my side! Surely I could have said something more eloquent, done something more convincing, to make her turn herself in… instead of exposing the entire city to the kind of danger and damage a demon like the Sovereign poses. Arien, I shake thinking of how easily someone might have died, much like Baildana’s chevalier, and how completely it would have been my fault. I couldn’t have handled it alone… I didn’t even hardly handle it at all, given the curse I was under; it was all Tomas, really. Sending for help was the best choice… but we Knights are supposed to put ourselves in the line of fire, not ask others to put themselves in the line of fire for us.

    My shoulder aches so. I bruised it down to the bone knocking her door in, and then injured it further carrying the corpse to the morgue. Corpses that have bloated are… my least favorite thing. The smell, the feel, the utter foulness… the humors going to war, it seems, without the light of the soul to keep them in check or balance.

    She was telling me how I was her inspiration, her hero, while all the while that corpse rotted slowly in her basement.

    Sometimes I hate almost every part of this wretched world I continually bleed to protect.

  • 7/25/368

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    January 5, 2016 /  Entries

    7/25/368

    Success! Most all of those outstanding warrants have finally been served. A few remain, but all in all, we have made remarkable progress in getting our house back in order. I could wish Rovar was slightly more present, but at least we’re not floundering, and it seems my Squire has at last returned. There is even good news about the Farin Foreign Quarter!

    And Sandomere, the case I was the most concerned about, done. Our informant can rest safe at last, beyond the reach of her revenge – especially if Sandomere was telling the truth, about being utterly alone in the world. I must think so. Otherwise, why take the risk of revealing yourself to a ‘mundane’, as she called us? And beyond that… her sadness spoke eloquently of isolation. It really did bring Curos Arents to mind. The melancholy of a mage who has survived all their companions, some part of them perished with each loss until nothing was left? It would make sense, in its own way. If the soul is twisted, blackened and cramped, perhaps it can offer no support to the injured and hurting heart. Yet another reason why the fire is a mercy.

    Beyond the Knights’ success in ensuring salvation lately, my melancholy has been more than adequately tamed. Oh, I have my fits of temper and my concerns – Tomas’s illness, for one! – but I have rarely had so prolonged a period where my enemies and issues were external rather than internal. Feeling yourself heal, feeling yourself recover, is a strange thing. Like repotting a fragile young plant, and watching its stems strengthen every day bit by bit. (Gardening is quite relaxing. I wish I had more time for the hands-on work.)

    I might reach out to Marisa for her birthday. I don’t know how, exactly, but… we’ve been too distant, too silent, of late. I do not want that – I’ve never wanted that – and I think I have the strength to make the first move, this time around.

    A year, nearly, since my travel to Farin. A year that is shaping up to be the happiest one I’ve ever known, oddly enough, because the happiness is authentic. I am myself, fully and completely, wounds and flaws and all. And that is fine. It is truly all right.

    Ah, what bloody sap!

    To more practical matters. I am sincerely weighing the question of political involvement once more, and perhaps these impersonal pages are the best place to think it through. Lord knows the Physicians only need me for the rare case, and there is no reason they could not summon me when required even if I were not officially affiliated. It has been made clear that I would be welcome at Court again.

    But I think Tomas underestimates the pushback that would follow. I made many enemies as Regent who were happy to witness my disgrace, and would be stunned and appalled to see my return. Even those who didn’t dislike me personally and believed my side of the story, rather than Gianina’s, were rather morally offended by my sins. There is no amount of penance that truly wipes away such things, they might say. And would they be wrong? Even if my soul is cleansed, there is still the point that I was willing to commit the sins in the first place.

    Well, I knew that of myself already. I once thought nothing was worse than death. But I have changed – I have learned otherwise. Far better death than to wither to nothing, like Arents, like Sandomere. Far better death than to give in to madness and bloody ruin, like the Flood Witch, like so many others. If I had the choice again, the choice to starve or to sin… well. Life is short, and eternity long.

  • 1/11/368

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    November 17, 2015 /  Entries

    1/11/368

    I put the wrong year on this entry not once, but twice. The first time, I actually tried 366.

    How time flies, aye? It’s been ten years now since Marisa and I wed in a flurry of celebration that overshadowed any lesser wedding Lithmore had seen during my time here – and many ostensibly greater ones, truth be told. Ten years. The cask of hippocras that Shaylei gave us to celebrate has reached its maturity. I never really thought I’d be considering broaching it under circumstances such as these. But what is there to say about it?

    Knight business is in a hopeless shambles at the moment. We have so many warrants piling up, yet no hope of executing half of them given our utter lack of any actual information. Too few boots on the ground, too many cases, and too little support from every direction. We’ve been so half-alive for so long that I hardly know what to do to fix it. Just trudging onward, chipping away at the backlog however we can… never losing sight of how critical these duties are.

    At least I have been lucky to enjoy excellent health this winter. I had one rather nasty bout of my illness, but only one, and my leg hasn’t bothered me at all in months now. I still have to be careful about overextending myself, but I can run a league in twenty minutes again.  (If only hunting mages simply consisted of the literal -hunting- part.)

    Life feels almost settled, almost routine, in a way I am grateful for. I have come to learn that these moments of peace are really all there is. There’s no point squandering them being worried about when they’ll end, when the next disaster is going to descend. Life happens in the cracks, the gaps, the spaces between.

    Now if I could just figure out what to do about all these damned cases…

  • August 22, 2015 /  Entries

    2/10/367

    One day, maybe, I will learn my lesson about venting my anger on these pages in such condemning terms. Then again, perhaps it is spending my rage here that, somehow, brings matters back to a more pleasant state! Either way, I am pleased that I have reconciled with Levona. It feels strange, being at such venomous odds with someone you went through utter misery and suffering for, and more appealing to be less divided on the matter.

    I should be writing more, these days. Ever since that… argument I had, I am feeling oddly fragile, as if I have suddenly become aware of all the wounds I have been carrying for years, and awareness has brought back all the pain. This journal might help me deal with it, and yet, I hesitate. Perhaps because of the paranoia that someone might, someday, find this; perhaps because of the ugliness of what might be loosed if I dared to break the flimsy scabs that keep my issues from the world.

    So. On another note, then. I spoke to the Justiciar today about some of the problems that have been plaguing her, during an inquiry about my will. It was, honestly, pleasant – I felt useful, and hopefully genuinely was of use to her in her trials. This is the part of politics I miss, the part where I advised people how best to achieve their goals and aims, goals and aims I agreed with or thought laudable.

    I could be happy in such a role again, not a leader but a consultant – but who am I kidding? I barely have enough time for all the duties I already have, and even if I did, I’ll never be accepted at Court again. The pampered gentleborn look at me with such utter disdain. But that’s a tired old complaint, to the extent that even I’m bored of it.

    If I am going to do more with my time, it should be personal, not professional. I should put maintaining my friendships first and foremost. I see much less of Tomas and Bryn than I used to, and I am finding Emma’s company more cordial the more I know of her – I grimace to think of how pithily I dismissed her before. All this time, all these examples of my snap judgments being wrong, and yet I persist in forming opinions before I fully know someone! I should be ashamed of myself. Women so kind do not come about often. Of course, perhaps I’m biased because every time she meets me she says something astonishingly flattering. I hope I am not blinded by all the praise, yet, it feels so very… sincere, as if it rises from some boundless well of true generosity.

    I truly, truly hope I’m never proved wrong about her. I truly hope she’s not a witch, or heretic, or – something else, I hardly know what. Such a disappointment would cut me deeper than most.

    Arien, but I ramble today. It’s pleasant, though, sitting in my study and just writing whatever occurs to me. Outside the cold gusts are rattling against the windows, but several feet of stone protects me more than adequately. At the moment I am alone, but likely not for long. The afternoon light is slanting lower, and soon, the door will open. Perhaps we’ll have dinner together, just the two of us; perhaps we’ll visit the new conservatory under the last of the sunset. For now, though, the scent of the lilies is excellent company.

    Whatever will I do when this winter is over? I hesitate to even consider it.

    Ah, enough. I need to work on my will; I have to look through my belongings to find a suitable keepsake for Rei. Lord willing, by the time I die he’ll have forgiven me enough to actually take it. But… better I play the villain in his protection than allow him to make this mistake, and better that he blame me. I do not want to see him turning sour against the whole world, against the whole idea. I am not that necessary to him, any longer.

    Still, I hope…

  • August 12, 2015 /  Entries

    1/4/367

    Another year, the sixteenth turn of the Sun Cycle I have observed here in Lithmore. It is always a reflective time for me, the New Year, where I sit back and think of what I’ve weathered and how I might improve.

    365 was the most painful year of my life, but 366 was not so bad. Busy, yes, but productively so. I do believe I’ve found my footing in the post-Regency stage of my life. At times I miss politics, but rather less than I thought I would. The need to compromise with selfishness, with ambition, with all forms of petty evil… I’m glad that’s largely gone from my life. I need not play nicely with people I despise.

    And speaking of that, journal, I shall vent on your pages a time…

    Levona misused his power in the pursuit of all sorts of personal vendettas, and now he has the gall to pretend he was a good leader removed by noble whim? Arien. I’m not even the one who started the campaign to have him removed; I merely backed it after much thought and hesitation.

    Why did he even come to speak to me? I thought at first he meant to apologize and admit his misuse of his power, and I would have warmly accepted it. Instead, he came speaking vague words that suggested -he- was the one who couldn’t trust -me- and -I- had to make an accounting for myself? It reminds me of Julea, in a way, the way he seemed to think I had ‘turned on him’, just as she did when her heresy was revealed. This perception of betrayal… I don’t understand it. How could they see it that way? The world should not run on traded favors, on obligations and balance sheets; it should run on people who have good intentions doing whatever they can to aid others with good intentions. When someone masquerades as good and is revealed as evil, switching from supporting them to opposing them is not throwing away some balance book, it is doing what’s right. Really, the betrayal lies on the shoulders of the person who dared masquerade as someone worth supporting.

    I thought he understood the importance of station and upholding the system of respect and precedence. I thought he had Lithmore’s safety and protection as his first and foremost priority. I was wrong. How many times have I been betrayed that way? To ally with someone, to make a tentative connection on the strength of their seeming goodness, only to find in time that they are power-hungry, or selfish, or heretical. Madilaire, Bryne, Julea… I cannot even begin to count them on the personal level, let alone the professional. Of course, Levona wasn’t -that- bad. I have no reason to think him a heretic, only a man unable to separate his personal feelings and goals from his professional power.

    Sometimes I find myself wondering if my standards are too high. Should I have simply tolerated him using his power to try and persecute Tomas? He was not doing a terribly successful job at it. But evil is like a bruise. If you can see even a little of it, it is likely there is far more just beneath the surface, waiting to come out. How much did I find about Alphos when I probed deeper, after all? Much and much and more of foulness, the further I went.

    And I know the nature of a man based on how he reacts to my past. Yes, I sinned. But those sins were confessed and expiated twice over before they were ever revealed to the world, and they had naught to do with my rise through society. No good man, no good Davite, has reason to taunt me with them. That he did, despite his own unsavory deeds… says a great deal about the pettiness of his soul.

    There is a certain loneliness that comes from a history of disappointment. I allow people into my trust, but always carefully, always conditionally. Waiting to see if they really are what they seem. I cannot give my faith wholly to anyone. Even Tomas has let me down, though he faced his sins unflinchingly, admitted them, and sought to make amends. That’s all I would ask of anyone; perfection is impossible. So why is it so hard? Why do people justify and defend themselves instead of simply admitting they were acting wrongly? If he had just admitted it I would have thought the bloody world of him!

    …Why do I keep thinking of Julea? It’s been so very long since she died, and she never would have admitted anything. I had to confront her with her own heresy, first. Arien, she was so ambitious. She wanted the world. I ignored every warning sign of it, ignored her desire to wear red and silks, to go to Court, the way she rejected the outfit I had made for her so she could bare more flesh. I was so young, and so stupid, and yet I don’t know if I’m truly smarter now – or simply more bitter. After all, I’ve doubted Emma ab Courtland again and again, when in reality there has been no evidence to suggest she was remotely culpable in her misfortunes. Is it better to mistrust even the good than it is to trust even the bad? When you are a Knight, perhaps.

    Ah, well.

    For all this ranting, I do remain largely happy and hopeful for the new year before me. The Almshouse expansion and infirmary is a great triumph, and I look forward to seeing how many people it can help. The lengths to which I’ve had to go to ensure the supplies are safe leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but better this than theft and rioting, and so far the supply distribution has been utterly peaceful. I have good hopes the season will be no more painful than any other, and possibly even less given the efficiency of the rationing system. I’ve my ruffle charity money to invest once the winter’s over, in some project; that’ll be a pleasant bonus. The Physicians are well-funded from the charity auction, and well-staffed. The Knights’ ranks are slowly swelling; I must ensure more lessons for the pages and squires, and to finish my book.

    What is better than a life lived with purpose and intent?

  • August 1, 2015 /  Entries

    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.

  • March 9, 2015 /  Entries

    5/2/365

    Casimir is dead.

    Somehow, despite all the times we came so close to this, I never quite believed it would happen – never quite believed anything would get him. Even as I agreed with Brynieve’s judgment, even as I said he had to die for this, I never believed.

    I wish I’d never told him. I wish there’d never been anything to tell him. I wish he’d been sane enough to deal with the news like a normal person. I wish he hadn’t let the bad in himself win, but I think I knew, deep down, it was never going to end any other way.

    Every time I spoke up for him, every time I tried to coax or herd or force him onto the right path, I knew I was kidding myself. Sometimes wounds heal but the body never works quite right again… and a crippled soul is even harder to fix.

    He had to die because he was never going to be able to control himself, but that doesn’t mean he was evil.

    And who can I say that to, who can I talk to about him? I doubt my friendships with Cellan and Tomas will ever recover. I know I’ll forgive them, in time, but the world has shifted in a way that it won’t come back from. Broken things can be glued back together, but they’ll always be vulnerable at the stress points, and Casimir was nothing if not a stress point.

    Her… I can say anything to her, somehow. I’m not quite sure how that happened. I need to put some distance between us before I do something regrettable, but I can’t yet, not when the two of us need each others’ support so badly. That nurse applicant… I should interview her. Yes, the sooner the better.

    God, I can’t even write in a straight line over all of this, meandering from topic to topic. I feel terrible today, and I’m not even hungover; coughed blood several times already. It’s as if my body’s trying to express my grief in some physical way, or remind me of him through all the things we did to one another. Some people would say it’s crazy to miss someone who put so many scars on you, but I think that connections take all sort of forms. All relationships are about the marks we leave on one another. It’s just… usually not quite so physical.

    He was so young when we met. Such an arrogant asshole, I remember thinking, someone I couldn’t trust one bit. Out for glory, out for power. I never considered there was more to him until that day he saved my life. I challenged him to a duel for someone else’s honor, I played with him – scarred his face, intentionally – and he saved my life. After very nearly taking it himself.

    None of the people who hate him would understand that. Understand that both deeds were done wholeheartedly, that both were the real Casimir. That’s not the kind of story people like, because it’s complicated and confusing and colored in a million shades of grey.

    No, they’ll say Casimir was a bad seed all along and eventually it finally caught up with him. The good that he did, the good that was in him, will be erased. Here lies Casimir ab Azadar, a bad man who did bad things and met a bad end. The kind of nice, tidy narrative that people love to hear, the kind that snips off the messy ends of injustice and trauma and good intentions. But he was more than that. He was more than his damage, more than his bad deeds, more than his heresy and his jealousy and his never-ending disrespect. He was multitudes.

    And now, just like that, he’s gone.

  • February 28, 2015 /  Entries

    I thought that, at least, I knew myself.

    I might have many flaws and many weaknesses that prevented me from being the man I wished to be – but at least I was under no illusion that I already was him. Even if I could not always do right, I understood what right was, and I understood the faults in my being that opened the gulfs between the real and the ideal.

    But I had never thought myself to be so afraid.

    Every night, a new dream seeks out another impurity in my soul and, with unerring accuracy set to the tune of distant laughter, rubs my face in it. I’ve learned, already, that I am terrified of so many things a man ought to be able to bear with more equanimity than this.

    Last night, I was in the oubliette again. I had almost forgotten that for some time after they pulled me out of that hole I hated and feared the dark; for months I kept a candle burning even when I slept, an extravagance that would have horrified Maman if she had been in town.

    The Sleepless winnowed that germ of old terror from its hidding place in the recesses of my mind and magnified it to madness. A year of nightmares, I bargained, once a night. But time is one of the many powers and principalities that must bend the knee in the face of dreams, unstoppable in their own logic.

    I was in the oubliette again for what seems to have been about two hours in the real world, but countless years in my mind. This time, though I was starving and thirsty just as I had been in reality, I wasn’t given the bare minimum required to keep me alive.

    Yet I didn’t die.

    My body fed on itself, reducing me to wasted skin and hollow bones, but I didn’t die. My lips cracked, my tears evaporated, and finally my eyes withered like old grapes in their sockets, but I didn’t die.

    In the real world, they came twice: one to question me, and once to torture me for the fun of it. I had not realized that those moments had been a sort of reprieve until I knew, somehow, their appointed time had come and gone without one sign that anyone was ever coming for me. I would have cried, then, if I had still been able.

    I don’t know if the Sleepless is getting better at flaying my mind – none of the other dreams have been this bad – or if an unpredictable routine is part of her charm. Lulling me into a sort of comfort with a milder dream one night, just so that the next can shatter me harder.

    But I do not think I can survive a year of this.

    Not in the lonely, duty-filled life I’ve made for myself. After Gianina, I embraced the Knighthood in the hope that good work would soothe me – would cleanse me. But I think I wasn’t getting better; even before my deal with the Sleepless, I was getting worse. And now that I’m having these nightmares, I’m sick nearly as often as I was before the surgery – I’ve even been forced to use my cane a few times. My mind is falling apart, and because of it my body is following suit.

    Who can I turn to? Is there anyone? I have friends, thank the Lord, who would help me – at least a few. Tomas will be there if I ask it of him – will drink with me, spar with me, distract me for a time. Rain would talk to me of everything and anything, Physicians’ work and the Southside – and she would listen, too, if I simply needed to unburden myself. Cellan has already offered to sit up with me during the nights I can’t get back to sleep after the dreams, though that’s a side of me I’d rather not show just about anyone.

    …but I want someone there. I want someone to hold me, to let me hold them, when I wake up shaking. I want someone who will say soft things to soothe me and look after me and prevent me from doing anything – stupid. If I don’t make it through this year, Levona’s soul is surely forfeit, and then it will all be for nothing. Not even to mention the mission I’m failing so desperately at already.

    I went to the Palazzo the other day, and stared at the windows. Even with how roundly I’ve insulted her pride and hurt her, I don’t think Marisa would turn me away if she knew the depths of my despair. She might well even be willing to give me everything that I needed… but I would be the worst sort of bastard to try and find out. I cannot, I will not, ask for things that I am not sure I would be able to properly give in turn.

    But I cannot allow myself to be destroyed, either, not with so much left undone. I must find some way to get through this. After the oubliette I lit every candle in the house, gorged myself nearly to the point of sickness, and then ran as far as my leg would allow. Even with that kind of mindless overindulgence, the temptation of more… drastic remedies played in my head.

    When the Sleepless doesn’t hold me, I dream of dying… and it is not a nightmare any longer.