Songs of Experience

The games we play with each other.

I’ve been too busy to write, so of course approximately a million things have happened since I last put quill to paper.

The melancholic humors that were consuming me have abated. While I am hardly past the horrors of the last few months, I have my feet under me again and can continue to move onward, trusting my healing to time.

Much of that I owe to Marisa. Courting, at last! I frankly don’t care at this point if we never marry. Though I suppose I must, for our baronies’ sake… but we are both young enough I think we needn’t worry. Well, I am. Do you know, I still don’t know how old she is? Four years we’ve known each other and she’s never confessed it to me. I suppose she must be thirty by now, but she hasn’t really aged a day since we met.

I have never been as happy as I was after her birthday party, after she accepted my gift and my suit. Never in my entire life. And I think it would have stayed that way… if I hadn’t seen him. I’d known that sigil anywhere, the morning bird.

I wasn’t prepared for how seeing him again would make me react. I’m still not prepared, truth be told. The contradictory feelings that reared up in me have only gotten worse after reading his letter.

You were my best friend in all the world, Bryne. I couldn’t understand when or how or why things went so incredibly wrong as to turn you into my enemy.

And now I’ve flirted with heresy myself by telling you about the warrant. I knew even as I put quill to paper that I shouldn’t be doing it, and the moment the letter was sent I regretted it. I probably could have paid the courier to give it back, and yet… I didn’t. I couldn’t.

I had to give you the chance to prove that you meant your words, but it’s already haunting me. What if that chance ends up being the death of someone who tries to take you in? What if that chance means you run away, unrepentent, uncleansed and unsaved to die just like Madi did? What you did wasn’t worthy of execution, but to run from it again… probably would be.

I don’t even understand why it’s so painful.

…enough of that. At least I’m working on something practical, meaningful right now rather than just sitting around. After reading her testimony, my resolve crystallized. Anyone who thinks bard is synonymous with whore is my enemy, and worthy of destruction. I think I could have taken my dagger to hand again and duelled him myself. It would have been unpleasant… at first. Then it would have been too pleasant.

But it wasn’t necessary, as the duel is just the theatre, the drama. The real work of taking him out happens behind the scenes. Still, people buy your vision a lot more easily when you spin it into a story they recognize. The wicked Justiciar, misusing his power and position to oppress the people. The righteous Proconsul, taking up his weapon to defend an innocent young maiden from the Justiciar’s perfidy. He demonstrates that the Reeves categorically reject their leader’s sins and still stand up for justice. The Justiciar is shamed, and the people’s faith is renewed.

Two birds, one stone.

Bryne, did you write me and only me because you suspected I was the weakest one out of everybody you wronged? Because you knew that I would find it so hard not to forgive you, after everything? Because you knew that if you could only convince me, I’d argue for you til my breath ran out? If you did, I guess you were right. Lord forgive me, I want my friend back – I want my partner back.

The games we play. Two birds, one stone.

At times I wonder just when our aim became so good, and if it’s actually a good thing.

Years ago, I sensed – knew – that I was at a crossroads in my life.

The two paths I could walk were embodied in the two women I had met my very first day in Lithmore.

I could take the easy path and idle away my life in Madilaire’s poisoned garden. Drunk on women, wine and song, uncaring of any reputation I won in the outside world. Again a pretty toy for a powerful woman, with no higher aspirations than to amuse and be amused. A two-bit bard in cheap taverns.

Or I could take the hard path and live up to the potential Marisa seemed to see in me. Change my entire self; take the lessons that I had bought so dearly to heart. Become a gentleman in clothing and airs, in bearing and in words… in truth. Become a man of substance, known throughout the Realm and respected.

I took the hard path. Of course, I was barely more than a lad then; in reality it turned out to be far less simple. In choosing the light, I had to go through the dark, and I paid a price I could have never fathomed. I try not to think about my days in the Tower… though I do anyway from time to time, albeit rarely now. I was a wounded animal, half-mad with loss and rage, and still forced every second to wear the mask lest my fellow prisoners discover the truth.

In all the horror and misery that has followed me since, I have never been as… abject as during those last few days in the cage. I clutched her handkerchief as the only line to sanity that I had left. Lying in my own vomit with the burns along my sides searing with every breath, my ribs stabbing and my broken nose a constant ache, desperately praying that no one would be able to touch me again…

…but I digress. Those days are gone, even if I still have the handkerchief.

I made the choice, and I followed the road, and it went further than I could have imagined. I have many regrets, but not the path I took.

Yet here, it stops. Again, I’ve come to a fork in the road. This time, it’s not two women representing the choice I have to make… it’s what I hold in my hands.

Down one path, I hold a sword. Scarred and weary, bitter and cold. I have chosen to walk the road of the blade to the bitter end, and what do I have to show for it? Countless wounds, an aching soul, and solitude. I know, deep in my bones, that when it ends I will be alone. Those I love will have been taken in retribution, or find themselves unable to deal with the walking mass of scars I would become. I would, too; I’m not that strong as to keep on fighting without being ruined by it.

In the other path, I hold a needle. I have still seen atrocities, and many of them I have no doubt found myself unable to prevent. I have had to watch while others protect the Realm, and if they do so with stronger hearts and souls, they still may not do so with the same success. Proud, perhaps, but I think I’d be a fool to pretend that my efforts have meant nothing. Down this road, I’d be helpless… but my triumphs would be lives saved. Not nebulously, because they didn’t become victims, but directly. People who are alive because I and my needle were there.

It’s a false dichotomy, again. It will never be a hundred percent one way or the other. But that doesn’t make the essential choice any less true. The sword, or the needle?

I feel like I’m swimming, sometimes, in a great lightless ocean. I’m exhausted from treading water, but I can’t stop. If you ask me what I would have changed among my past actions, I can’t tell you. What I’ve done needed to be done; protecting people is how I make up for my sins. And yet… the more blood I spill, the higher it all rises over my head. I can’t keep my head above the surface anymore; I’m drowning.

Somewhere along the way, I dedicated my life to saving and protecting others. The graveyard is full of people I have both helped save, and those I have failed. Somewhere Madilaire lies, mouldering to dust, in a grave I will never find how many times I look.

And now Sophie, too. Sophie, whom I failed twice. I could not help Anna… and I could not kill Sophie as I intended. Quick, quiet, peaceful, painless. I don’t know why I’m so sure she was coming to me – she sent several letters – but I feel it in my bones. I would have, Sophie. I promise you that.

I can’t do this anymore.

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.