Songs of Experience

I think I’m normal again.

…Whoah, okay Ari, back that up a step. I was never ‘normal’, and I’ll never be.

But… women.

I knew that my disinterest wasn’t natural, but was thanks to everything that’s happened. Still, even though I’ve gotten better, I think I’d assumed it wouldn’t go any further. And I was alright with that. I’ve never had any problem with the one I want; she’s always been different. Not being attracted to anyone else wasn’t even an inconvenience. If anything it was probably helpful, once I got over cringing every time a woman touched me.

But lately I’ve felt… more at ease. Since Lien came into my life, I guess, and was always hugging me and sitting in my lap and crawling into my bed and whatnot. …That sounds bad, when I write it down. But it’s just who she is, really, and not that uncommon in Tubori. I used to be pretty physically affectionate myself before… everything.

Anyway, I got over the flinching soon enough. And then I got over even the reaction that would have caused me to flinch. And I expected it’d stay there, in a place of calmness but total disinterest. But it hasn’t.

I actually looked at Sophie’s breasts the other day. Okay, granted, they were unclothed and in my face. But frankly, a lot of breasts have been in my face and I haven’t thought twice about them.

…what the hell has gone wrong (or right?) with my life that I could write that sentence?

Anyway! I looked at them. I even appreciated them a little. And then there was that really weird moment with Lien. I still don’t understand what happened there.

The point is, I think I’m normal again. I can be attracted to other women who aren’t her. I can imagine being with other women who aren’t her without the… discomfort, the… oh, be honest with yourself, Ari. The fear. I still don’t -want- anybody but her; I love her, I always will, and I’ve turned the world upside down to have her. But I’m normal again. I ought to speak with her.

I’d probably better not tell her I looked at Sophie’s brea

(in a different, agitated hand) My god. My god. A messenger came while I was writing. Tobin dead? Truly? I can’t believe it. He was as strong as an ox. Damn, damn, damn. I can’t imagine how Cellan must be feeling.

This could mean war. I doubt it, Tobin won the throne because Cellan told us to back him. She was always the better-loved and more-supported monarch. But there will be those who think her weak, a grieving woman, and seek to act. Anschel ab Loguire must be watched. And… the Daravi front…

Arien. I won’t bother her for a couple days – let her grieve. But then, we have to move.

I killed them.

I killed all those people.

I don’t even know how many, that’s the worst part. I don’t even know how many people I killed. I’m never going to know, either, even if we got all the bodies. We killed them together… but I guess I killed all of them. Does it really matter who struck the final blow?

I just want to go to my bedroom, lock the door behind me and never come out. I can’t. I know that I can’t. Savir is counting on me. But I don’t know how to deal with what I’m feeling right now.

I would go to her, normally, and just being with her would soothe me. But I know that she’d be angry. I went Southside again, and I took a risk, and I got injured, and then I aggravated it digging the graves. There’s no way she wouldn’t be angry, and I can’t handle that right now. I want her arms around me, but I can’t.

And Lien and Rothgar… Rothgar wants me to get back to killing more people pronto, and Lien is only interested in scolding me. Maman would smile and hug me and tut-tut softly, but to her I’m still and forever her golden boy. To her they attacked me, so they had it coming and it’s just that simple. No. I don’t want anyone around me right now.

How can I possibly make this right? Money would help, if they had families – if I could even find their families, if they would even speak to me – but it wouldn’t bring back the dead. I want to confess, and it will cleanse my soul, but what will it do for them?
I can’t change what happened.

There’s nothing I can do. And all the work I’ve done in Southside to try and keep people from feeling like violence was the only way out… completely wasted. The work I did after the Flood… meaningless. They hated me enough to die fighting me for stepping out on their streets. And I used to be one of them.

I wanted to flee, to run, anything… but we had the Hillbeast in chains, if we couldn’t cut a clear safe path for Kyla, he’d have certainly escaped when they attacked her… I go back over it, again and again, in my head. There wasn’t any other option, once our disguises fell apart. There wasn’t any other option. And that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care.

I keep dreaming the mage dream again and again. Except this time I killed even more people, and it’s -real-.

I don’t ever want to fight. Anyone ever again.

I don’t want to fight.

I don’t want anything.

3/30/355

Almost Aprilis already. Soon I’ll be 23, four years since I came to Lithmore. How’s that happened?

And I haven’t written a bloody thing in here in nigh on four months. Aye, the problem at the Group distracted me, but that’s still pretty astonishing.

I look back on this winter as one surreal exhausting nightmare, from which I’ve finally passed into spring. There are many problems still dogging my heels, but at least my head is clear and my heart calm, and I have options to move ahead.

The Hillbeast. The Defiler. The Strangler. Villains, and dangerous ones. But ultimately, they are all but mortal men, and what is mortal can always be killed.

Now I just hope someone who’s actually bloody authorized to do something about it will take the information we’ve amassed and make a plan. This isn’t my area, this isn’t my field, and it won’t be my men who do anything about it. Sure, I intend to fight, but I don’t intend to lead them unless I absolutely have to. If I have to… well. We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.

Speaking of burning bridges, I wince at my last entry here. How could I have been so stupid? Well, I know how. I’ve been betrayed so many times. So many people I trusted turned out to be enemies. Madilaire, Julea, Bryne… still, it doesn’t excuse jumping to conclusions. I’ve got to get a better hold on my temper. I can only count myself lucky that Romana forgave me for my hasty words and assumptions.

Almost got some good news the other day. Almost. I still don’t entirely know how to feel about it. I know that hope should be dominant, hope and gratitude that it’s still within my reach. But to know it was going to happen, months ago, and then it didn’t… it makes my heart clench.

By and large I’m a happy man. I have my trials and my tribulations, but they always pass. There’s just this one thing that I still don’t have, this one thing that I want alone in the whole world.

Please, Lord. Don’t let me screw it up again.

(This entry is written in a wild, angry hand.)

At times I wonder how much more betrayal I can take.

I have been the Order’s faithful servant for years. With subterfuge, strategems and even outright lies I have advanced the goal of sending all of Lithmore’s mages to the pyre as far as practically anyone else who lives in this city.

But why should I hold back my quill, shy from details? The Manus knows now, that much is confirmed. Let them find my journal; let them read it if they can break my cipers. Let them know.

Yes, Rubeus. Yes, I sent Madilaire to her grave (and I mourn it; she should have had the pyre). I sent Chance, and Arvin. I told them of Eriit, then told them again and induced others to report when better evidence was provided to me. Julea reported on Leto Bharani to get back into my good graces. I told Bryne if he suspected Setina how he could best ferret out the truth, and that strategy succeeded. I helped to arrest Qadriyya ab Harkness once, saved her life for them so she could be questioned, then assembled the evidence needed for her second warrant when all others dismissed it. I stopped Florense ab Flewelling in full plate armor until the Inquisitors could arrive. I impressed it on… her, that Magnus Alaric must be turned in.

I have played informant at great lengths and great difficulty. I have been imprisoned, tortured, scorned. I have bled, bruised, suffered. My tongue and my blade and my very body have been laid on His altar to do His work.

And they spy on me. After assurances of perfect faith, perfect trust? They spy on me. To think that I was such a fool to assume that my service would afford me some true honor and respect.

Lord, I love you with all my heart and soul, but your servants begin to tax me. Two corrupt Cardinals, one who abdicated his office, and now one whose judgment is so fatally flawed she wastes a spy on a man who has ever been on her side.

Part of me wants to say no more. Not abandoning my faith – but no longer trying so hard on their behalf. Why should I aid them when she lies to my face? Why should I try to protect people that continually backstab me? I can name my true friends on the fingers of one hand.

But I know I can’t just pretend this fight has nothing to do with me. This is who I am, and this is everyone’s battle. If mages die uncleansed, they are lost forever, wandering in the darkness. And in the time they do live on this Urth, they can do uncountable damage. Laraxis and the Great Flood testify to that. Elowyn was so powerful; what evils did I prevent by bringing her down?

No; I have lost all respect for and trust in Her Holiness, but that does not make the mission itself less valid. It only means I will be very careful before relying on her judgment… and I must be cautious about the Rubeus’s attack on me. I wasn’t concerned when he tried it on Lien, because of course Lien knows I’m not a mage and Her Holiness promised me she wouldn’t believe it. But if she put a spy in my own household… then it is possible his words are what inspired it.

Ugh. It’s such a transparent strategem. The Rubeus can’t take me down directly so he tries to get the Order to do it for him. That I should have to fight it at all angers me. But I have been beset before by enemies; I will not let my name be blackened.

And I will continue to fight the good fight, should every last person in this city oppose me.

In Savir now.

I actually rather love it. Noticeably warmer than Lithmore, even if it’s not a tremendous change. Rolling plains with hills and valleys on the mountainous side, picturesque country.

The people are partially Farin-blooded, and so I don’t at all look amiss here; indeed, I look almost more like them than I look like other Tubori, with the darkness of my skin. I could have easily been born here, at least at a glance.

I speak enough Farin so as not to be caught out when they casually throw a word of it into their speech, too, though I can’t follow the street children’s pidgin chatter yet. I intend to take the time to learn.

And there are more things I don’t feel it’s safe to talk about in detail, not even here. You never know who might manage to steal your journal and break your elaborate, frequently-altered cipher, huh? So tired of hiding the best part of my life. Very soon now it will have been a year since I was raised to nobility. Isn’t that long enough? Ugh, let it go, Ari. You’re happy, even if you have to keep your happiness quiet.

Enough of that. Were I here at a better time, I might be loving every moment of it. But the events happening back in Lithmore preoccupy me, weighing so heavily on my heart.

Such misery and misfortune for Lien – it isn’t fair. I feel the weight of my obligations, the cost of my title, more than ever. I have to acquaint myself with the area and its business, speak to all of my stewards, put Castle Torem to rights; I can’t just run back to comfort her.

But my work here is drawing to a close, as I’ve packed it all into as little time as I could manage. I think very soon now we can set off on our way back to Lithmore City.

Part of me is angry that I can’t even get a month’s vacation without things going wrong. (Angry at the world in general, not Lien.) But it is outweighed by the part of me that is worried about her, that wishes to make it right.

Perhaps I’ve grown up a little. Can’t say I’ve grown up all the way until I finally get over having to keep my secrets.

I’ve been too busy to write lately – too much happening, good and bad.

No, to be truthful. It wasn’t just business – it was also a persistent exhaustion, a sort of malaise that lingered. The fight with Florense, the attack on Lien… everything just weighed on me. I spent a while just lingering around the house sleeping too much.

But now that’s over, after I spent a lovely evening just talking to Marisa. It was if the clouds hovering over me somehow parted after just a brief time in her company. She and I will soon be traveling; I’ll get to see Savir for the first time. I’m unaccountably nervous, truth be told. Will they see me as an interloper, a foreigner who doesn’t understand anything about their land and their people?

The moment I was given Savir as my domain, I started dreaming of turning it into a little paradise. Improving trade to enrich the area; then with the money, spreading education, reducing poverty, bolstering health, opposing crime… but what do I know about these things?

I have ideas, it’s true, but my education is a patchwork that more allows me to pose as a gentleman than be thoroughly schooled in any given subject. I’ve done what I can to rectify those gaps, but I never can find the hours in the day. Maybe it’s just foolish ego making me think I could sweep into Savir and improve anything at all.

Then again, perhaps I shouldn’t be so doubtful. The Group has done well since I’ve taken over. The shipping arm in particular has won several highly lucrative contracts. I can’t take much of the credit for that, I just installed brokers and let them do their jobs – but there’s a wisdom in knowing which decisions you ought to make and which you ought to delegate, right? If I just make sure all of the stewards in Savir are as solid as the Group’s brokers, I think I can be quite confident in its future.

On a different note, I’m worried about Lien. She has been behaving better since her encounter with the bandits, but she has seemed subdued and withdrawn, lacking her usual spirits. I think she feels sadly neglected by Jei and perhaps afflicted by a similar malaise to my own, haunted by all the darkness that has dogged Lithmore in recent months.

Perhaps her birthday gift will cheer her to some extent, or just some time in quiet celebration… I owe it to her to try.

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.

*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.

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.

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.