Written By Rey
Dec. 26, 2021, 5:37 p.m.(10/25/1016 AR)
Written By Rey
March 24, 2021, 5:07 p.m.(3/3/1015 AR)
Relationship Note on Tibault
Written By Rey
March 8, 2021, 9:36 p.m.(1/28/1015 AR)
Now I am back in Arx for...I don't know what. I'm sure it will come to me though.
Written By Rey
March 8, 2020, 10:30 p.m.(11/22/1012 AR)
Written By Rey
Feb. 23, 2020, 8 p.m.(10/22/1012 AR)
Written By Rey
Feb. 2, 2020, 10:21 a.m.(9.14016658399471/8.849328703703705/1012.6783472153329 AR)
Relationship Note on Tikva
Written By Rey
Jan. 29, 2020, 3:42 p.m.(8.870472883597884/28.74648148148148/1012.6558727402999 AR)
Written By Rey
Jan. 25, 2020, 3:17 p.m.(8.583939318783068/19.700601851851854/1012.6319949432319 AR)
Written By Rey
Jan. 25, 2020, 2:24 p.m.(8.58133308531746/19.554652777777775/1012.6317777571098 AR)
Written By Rey
Jan. 19, 2020, 3:17 p.m.(8.155575810185185/9.71224537037037/1012.5962979841821 AR)
Written By Rey
Jan. 19, 2020, 3:12 p.m.(8.15533234126984/9.698611111111111/1012.5962776951059 AR)
Relationship Note on Josephine
In light of that, I wish to offer to those that wish to speak about Josephine Arcuri, please feel free to write to me, or even seek me out to speak about her. Healing comes in many forms, and sometimes we just need to share the grief and pain with another.
Written By Rey
Dec. 15, 2018, 2:44 p.m.(3/6/1010 AR)
Written By Rey
Dec. 15, 2018, 2:19 p.m.(3/6/1010 AR)
Written By Rey
Dec. 15, 2018, 2:18 p.m.(3/6/1010 AR)
Written By Rey
Dec. 4, 2018, 2:28 a.m.(2/10/1010 AR)
Written By Rey
Dec. 1, 2018, 7:57 p.m.(2/6/1010 AR)
Written By Rey
March 9, 2018, 1:07 p.m.(5/1/1008 AR)
I don't want this to make sense.
I don't know who my parents were. I can just barely remember my mother singing to me, and how strong my father was. My mother and I were washed overboard from a ship during a storm, and I was found at the shores of Brighthold, very sick, and very alone, with my mother dead beside me. I was taken in, and taken care of, adopted into the family, encouraged in everything I tried to do. When the storms used to scare me at night, our nanny comforted me. I was loved, and never once made to think I was someone less than anyone else because of how I came into the family or anything else about me.
I've always been very proud of House Laveer's tradition of taking in "flotsam". In fact, it's the thing about my family that I'm most proud of. I thought it was a capacity for love and generosity that really made us special, that when a child in need came to us, we took them in, no questions asked, and made them one of the family in every way. I thought that was something about House Laveer that should be admired. I certainly admired it, and still do.
Was it really only me who felt this way? Am I really the only one who admires this about Count Tibualt, about House Laveer? Does the rest of Grayson really sneer at us -- at me -- for taking in, and being 'flotsam'? If House Pravus is being looked down on for taking in the children of a dishonored man who was once a Prince and embracing them as part of the family, what must people think of my family? Of me? The odds are pretty small that even one of my parents were noble.
They're just children.
The world just feels really wrong right now.
I'm glad that I'm going north soon. There's an awful smell in Arx lately, and I think it's going to start giving me nightmares again.
Written By Rey
Feb. 10, 2018, 2:43 p.m.(2/25/1008 AR)
The wind bore me up and up, away from the sea and away from the shore, towards the stars above. I spread out my arms, and my cloak was a pair of glorious white wings, and I was flying. Exhilarated. Free. The whole world stretched below me, and in the night, the glittering lights of ships and coastal towns mirrored the firmament above. It was wonderful; I was so happy that I laughed aloud. I flew fast. Faster than the wind; I could feel myself leaving it behind me as my heart surged in my chest.
I barely had time to see the column of water that shot out of the ocean before I flew right into it; hitting it jarred my entire body, as though I'd slammed into a solid wall, and then I was inside it, my very skin being flayed by the freezing water. I felt the agony of all of my feathers being stripped away as I was buffeted this way and that, until up was down and down was up. I tumbled, helpless, lost, stripped bare by the force of the sea. Stripped of wind, and stars, and home.
When the waters receded, I found myself stepping with bare feet on soft, loamy ground, my Mercy's robe gleaming so bright that it glowed with its own faint white light. The water had stripped away everything about me that was dead or dying, everything extraneous, everything that I didn't need, and I was left clean and pure. Ready. I heard a voice in the echo of my silent footsteps. There's something you must do. I raised my head, and saw the hungry dark of a tunnel like a wound that carved itself deep into the earth. This time, I didn't hesitate.
I was ready.
Written By Rey
Jan. 31, 2018, 1:34 p.m.(1/25/1008 AR)
The glow of his spirit lit my way as I moved deeper into the earth, deeper and deeper still, into the dark, stale air of a tomb. My step echoed in the close space as I moved inside, and the chill of death, death beyond time, pressed in around me, but I wasn't afraid. In the center of the room, a man made of stone lay on a bier, under several swords suspended on fine threads. He could have been nothing but a statue, an effigy for a dead man, but I knew that he wasn't an effigy, and he wasn't dead. He was waiting. Waiting for me. It was for him that I had come.
Moving carefully, I sat on the edge of the bier and, as though he were one of my patients at the House of Solace, lifted him with one arm so I could put the cup to his lips. He wasn't as heavy as I expected him to be, or maybe I was stronger than I thought I was. He didn't stir at first, and the light stained his motionless stone lips with a smear of gold. But soon he took the cup of light from me and drank greedy droughts, and I could feel him warming in my arms as the light of the chained man's spirit filled him. He looked at me with eyes that were cut sapphires, and together, we rose from the bier. The Knight of Stone selected his sword from among the ones suspended above him, and held out his hand to me. He, with all of his strength, was so gentle when I took it. I went with him, he, with his sword and all of his strength to protect me, and me, with my cup of light to heal him when he needed it. Neither of us could have done what we set out to do alone.
Together, we emerged at last from beneath the earth, and the sight of the sky stretching overhead took my breath away. A thousand little pinpricks of light, like diamonds scattered on a piece of velvet, lit up the night. Earth stretched below us, and sky stretched above, as we stepped at last into the fresh air and began our journey.
Written By Rey
Jan. 23, 2018, 8:58 p.m.(1/10/1008 AR)
But maybe it wasn't, because I had this feeling, while I was brushing and brushing and brushing, like everything around me, everything that I saw and felt and sensed with such perfect clarity, wasn't real anymore. It was all drained of color, past its prime. I brushed and brushed, listened to the whisper of the brush through my hair, saw my hair gleam silver in the pale, weak winter sun, and I thought that maybe this wasn't the life I should be living. The thought built inside me until it became a need, but even as my heart screamed more and more to shed the world like a snake sheds its skin, I couldn't stop my hands from brushing and brushing. It was with a wrench of will that I looked up from my hair and realized that everything around me -- my bed, the dresser, even the walls and floor were made of cleverly crafted paper. They had always been that way. How had I never noticed? Then I looked down and saw that even my hairbrush was nothing but a papercraft toy.
That's when I heard the singing.
Dozens of voices, maybe hundreds, all singing together, sweet, somehow in perfect harmony. They were just outside my window, and I knew they were singing to me. I wish I could remember the lyrics to the song. The lyrics seemed so important at the time.
'It's not the truth/It's just a dream...'
'Sometimes you need to be lost/Just to be found...'
I ran across the paper floor to my paper window, threw back shutters made of crepe, and looked out. They all stood on the square far below my window, looking up at me. Men. Women. Children. Holding hands and looking up at me as they sang. And all of them, all of them with faces of marble that glowed with a soft golden light. All of that light should have blinded me. All of those voices should have deafened me. But it was all so gentle, like being overwhelmed by velvet.
I wanted to go to them. Oh, I wanted to go to them. I yearned for it with everything in my being. I longed so deeply to put off my pretend paper life and go to what was real and what was beautiful. I reached out to them... And that's when I saw that my hand was made of paper, too.
One by one, the singers began to wink out like dying stars, the glow of their faces going, and the glow of their voices fading away one after another. Finally there was only one woman down there, looking up at me, singing with a delicate voice that I could barely hear. I begged her not to go, but she didn't belong there with me in my dying paper world. She stayed as long as she could, stayed for me, for her love of me, before she winked out, too. I didn't even dare cry, because my cheeks were made of paper.
With my soul sinking down through the floor, I turned away from the window, and found myself in the tall arched room again, its enormous pillars holding back all of the weight of the world, facing the chained man. I stepped towards him as he offered me his cup of sorrows.
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