Songs of Experience

* Have finally almost got all the Group business settled. Replaced a lot of Alastair’s conservative old codgers with newer people, with newer ideas. Not all of them, though; the voice of experience is invaluable. It’s just not the only thing that matters. There’s not a man or woman on the investment prospect team now with a record of losing money, and that’s not something I could have said before. Alastair will simply have to live with it.

* Need to talk to Trouble again about that play. I think it could be pretty grand. It was foolish of me to let my feelings get hurt. I’m just so fond of her, and the way she brings laughter wherever she goes… to be seen as someone so petty and vain as that… I’m sure it was just a teasing comment. It’s hardly her fault I took it so seriously.

* Still haven’t managed to arrange a tour. Frustrating. Especially since I got myself all filthily disguised for nothing once already. Bah.

* Hear we’re getting a new Poet Laudate. Where -is- she? I’ve got about a million things to discuss with her. I say ‘her’; I suppose it could be a man, a dashing handsome man to distract all the apprentices. I’m not going to be that lucky, though.

* Need to write up those reports. Where are all of the hours in the day?

* Also need more handkerchiefs. Too many people bleeding/crying/getting dirty. Singlehandedly working for better hygiene in Lithmore! Dubious accomplishment.

* Maman’s due to arrive soon. I’m far more excited than any man should probably be about his mother coming to live with him. But finally I can give her everything she deserves in the world. Going to spoil her rotten.

* Oh lord. That reminds me of the heir thing. Do I really have to make a decision on that? I’m young yet, right? But… I’m the last one. There’s not even anybody left with the last name Orban, and that’s one of the stipulations. Damnation.

* Need more whiskey. Clear solution to life’s problems – the ones it doesn’t create, anyway.

I must have begun a dozen entries over the last month, only to tear them out of this book and toss them into the fire as my feelings violently swung from one extreme to another. At this rate of indecision, I’ll soon have to rebind this thing.

The choices that we make are what defines us as human beings. In the last few weeks, I’ve gained considerable insight into my self. Avenue after avenue of making a difference in this world has been presented to me, and one by one, I’ve turned away
from them. I look at the man reflected by these choices, and I’m not sure I like him very much at all.

At times, I think that I have proved that my selfishness remains my defining characteristic, that those optimistic dreams I had of becoming a better person were just more ego-saving delusions. I have chosen love over duty; how can that be the choice of a good man?

But at other times, I think it is the least selfish decision I’ve ever made. That I was a fool to believe I had something unique to contribute, any reason to think I was somehow essential. In that light, this is the first time in my life I’ve put someone else before my own desire to be valuable and worthwhile.

I don’t anticipate that this dilemma will be resolved any time soon; instead, I hope that it will lose its power to wound me as it recedes into the distance. Time will show that the consequences of my decision were hardly so grave, and that there must be some way I can do something meaningful with my life.

There’s more I wish to write on that topic, but… isn’t it funny? I’m too paranoid to put some thoughts to paper even in cipher in a journal I keep hidden somewhere secret. I laugh at my instincts even as I resolve to obey them in the future; old habits are loath to die, one supposes.

Well, then, onto secrets dangerous only to my… pride? Frankly, I don’t know why I keep my involvement with the almshouse secret at all. Perhaps I don’t want people thinking it’s some sort of condescending publicity stunt. Either way, it’s just about ready now and I’m very eager to see its work begun. I wonder if the Order’s willing to fund the staff? It cost an obscene amount of money to retrofit, more than I’d have expected, and there’s no reason I should limit its scope out of some absurd desire to finance the entire project out of my own pocket. I don’t regret the cost, though. If it achieves its mission at all, it’ll be worth it.

I will do -some- good for this city; I will not be satisfied until I have. If certain methods are unavailable, that does not mean my hands are completely tied.

…I seem to always end these with some sort of grand declaration, followed a few entries later by something along the lines of ‘well, that didn’t work out!” Let’s break up that pattern with some sort of plan I actually can complete.

Alright: I’m going to take Beauty out and wrestle in the backyard, and then we’ll go on a long run for no reason other than that we can. Isn’t it an amazing blessing to only have to run when you actually -feel like running-, as opposed to because somebody is chasing you wanting something you nicked back?

Not that I’ve ever done anything like that.

Nope.

Happy birthday to me… well, in two days, anyway.

I’ll be twenty-one. Strange how wrong that feels. I should be turning… thirty, yes, thirty seems just about right. I found a few more grey hairs today, though I don’t bother to pluck them out. In my vanity, I am quite certain that I will even go grey in an attractively debonair fashion.

All I can think about, with the date approaching, is where I stood a year ago.

A year ago, I was alone.

A year ago, I was still barely above poor, living off the remnants of my money from Vavard – and more primarily Marisa’s largesse. I was exulting in the fact that I was actually wearing silk, and that no one would challenge me as to my right to do so.

A year ago I was just on the threshold of… the events that so changed my life. Even here, I dare not elaborate on what they meant to me in detail. But I thought myself a competent, experienced fellow, who had seen much of the worst the world had to offer and could face it all without hesitation. Now I know that I was wrong.

Experience… I am no longer stunned every time I set foot inside the Palazzo Damassande; even the palace does not make me stop and catch my breath. I walk in velvet, sleep in silk, bathe in hot water whenever I desire it. Gold does not astonish, stone does not intimidate. (And it’s been a really long time since I ate out of a garbage midden, which is pretty great too, actually?)

Yet I feel as if my sense of wonder has only been sharpened. I have been rendered down to my component dreams, virtues and vices. Uncertainty burned away with all of them, and I see the world for what it is now, taking nothing for granted.

In this one way I am grateful, because I am stripped of doubt. I know that there are beautiful things in this world worth protecting, worth marvelling at. I know they have nothing to do with silk or stone or silver. I know that I can do anything that is required to protect them, because that is the kind of man that I am, and that makes me appreciate them all the more.

Here’s to a year of changes, simultaneously the best and the worst days I have ever known.

It’s the middle of the night, actually, so if you want to be particular about it I suppose it’s no day at all. I hate people who engage in that kind of excessively literal thinking.

I couldn’t sleep, so here I am in my study, ruminating about things far beyond me. But the truth of the matter is that something has to be done. Somebody has to make sure that people are held accountable.

I detest the choice that I’m facing. I am not comfortable betting on myself for such large stakes. I am tolerably clever, I suppose; I am reasonably well-educated and quick to become more so. I am not afraid to say what I mean and to enforce my opinions with whatever power I have at my disposal, but I think I consider the words of others before making my decisions.

But is that enough? Do I have the talent, the will; have I earned the respect? Am I wise enough to know the answers – more importantly, am I wise enough to know when I know nothing? I don’t know. The story of my life is a long list of follies barely escaped by the width of a hair, the breadth of a nail. I have so many flaws, and I’ve made so many mistakes. I know that I want to do what’s best, but I don’t know if I deserve the trust they want to place in me.

And even if I in and of myself am sufficient, am I good enough to outweigh the impersonal disadvantages that accompany me? Even she doesn’t think so, and no one is likely to judge me more kindly. Yet they’re right; they need someone, and who else can and will do it? I have my reservations about any of the other answers that come to mind. If she were interested, it’d be different, but she is already doing good work where she is. No, as unsure as I am about myself, I’m hard-pressed to nominate someone better once all the contextual factors are figured in.

To find yourself in a situation where you have only bad choices is rarely poor luck; it is more often a direct reflection of personal failure, whether to plan ahead or to take a superior third option.

I refuse to be a failure.

I helped save a life the other day.

A life that I had some small part in putting in jeopardy, it’s true, but when one weighs the life against the soul there is no question of the outcome.

It was harder than I had expected, controlling the tremble in my hands. With every stitch I recalled Madi’s face, waxen and still. I’ve seen dead bodies before, friends and foes. Yet never before was it so apparent – what was lost, I mean. Her spirit was sick, but it always filled up the room with pure vitality. Seeing her so lifeless like no corpse I’d ever seen before… it was probably just my imagination that made it such a searing moment, or the knowledge that her soul was already wandering lost and confused in the darkness it would call home for the rest of time. And while I was sitting there there was a thirteen-year-old girl about to join her in the same fate, again courtesy of me.

In shorter and more colloquial terms, I’m amazed I didn’t lose my shit all over the place. I don’t know how I didn’t scream at Jei. Yes, she’s a mage or heretic or something; yes, she was wielding a blade against us; no, that doesn’t mean we should run the risk of seeing her dead and her soul condemned forever. I wonder if it’s just what happens, after you’ve been a Knight for a while. To care about their souls could give you that split-second hesitation they need to end your life. Probably it’s a luxury, caring, that they can’t afford.

But she survived… as far as I know, anyway. She survived, and with that another of the chains left on my soul has relaxed. It’s not the first of those moments, when a burden has dropped away from me of its own accord, and I have hope it shall not be the last. I come to think there will be a time where I am… not the man I was before, no. Going backwards is never possible. But I come to think I could even be a better one.

Right now, the future looks as bright as it ever has. Four years ago, I could never have guessed I’d be a rich, respected bard in Lithmore herself, accepted heir to the Orban family. Oh, I might have told everybody that was the plan… come to think of it I think I did tell everybody that was the exact plan… but it’s not as if I ever expected it to -happen-. I have my troubles, but they pale in the face of my blessings. For that, I will ever give thanks to my Lord… and my lady.

Well, -that- was whiny, wasn’t it? Let’s be a little more practical.

To-do list:

* Arrange sitting for my mastery tests

* Finish designing that new outfit and ask M about it

* Finalize the design for the SS Project and get the builders started

* Plan some potential payment options for the SS Project’s personnel

* Write that letter to Grandfather (ugh ugh ugh) and start planning for that trip to Tubor

* Draw up some sketches for an appropriate outfit for JS… better not ask M about this one

* Finish at least a little more of ‘the project’ – look at me I’m so secretive!

* Stop writing this potentially infinite list that I keep generating 2 new items for every time I write 1 and go cartwheel around naked in the enormous foyer of my enormous house because guess what, I can do that now.

You know what? My life is pretty awesome and I need to stop forgetting that. In fact, I’m going to bookmark this page so that any time I start feeling overwhelmed I can go back, re-read it, and slap myself for whining about how I’m just so BUSY trying to spend all my MONEY.

Excuse me, I have to go get naked now.

I can think of nothing more foolish, more likely to end in my destruction, than a chronicle of my thoughts and feelings. So, of course, I’ve decided I must begin one without delay.

No, to be honest with myself – something I should at least do in these pages – I can think of a good many more foolish things. (Quite a few of which I’ve done.) It’s just a question of how much foolishness I can allow myself. I’ll put the more dangerous entries in ciphers in the off chance someone’s able to find this. One thing I’ve learned is that just because something is unlikely doesn’t mean you can discount it.

So where to begin? Well, I’m writing for myself, so I don’t exactly need an introduction, do I? The whole point of this is to corral my scattered thoughts, express the things that can’t find voice.

First and foremost, I’m tired. I’m tired of being driven by mad impulses that I don’t understand; of being aware that what I do isn’t necessary, yet compelled to do it all the same. I’m tired of standing between worlds, trying to chart some course between my identities that ends in a coherent whole.

I’m tired of understanding her reasons, but wondering anyway. If everything works out, there are so many reasons why a marriage between us would make sense. Why it would be appropriate, convenient, the answer to so many of our concerns. Both of us need heirs, both of us will have to marry someone – but she remains lukewarm at best.

If I could just believe it had nothing to do with me… but I can’t. That’s the part that kills me: the seed of suspicion that if I were a better man, the practical benefits of the idea would have long since trumped her unhappiness with the thought of marriage. Can I blame her for being hesitant to tie herself inescapably to me, with everything I’ve been and done?

In the end it all means nothing. I love her and for now, that matters more than any pride. No other woman could do. I’ll take what she’s willing to give, and pray one day that if I keep trying, I can prove myself worthy of more.