Written By Denica
Jan. 31, 2024, 11:57 a.m.(8/26/1021 AR)
Always,
TLDOT
Written By Harlex
Jan. 31, 2024, 11:37 a.m.(8/26/1021 AR)
You are ripped into the world afraid, and I think it's safe to say most don't live in it ever shaking that fear.
We are told the way of things, we are chided for ignoring things, for trying to change things. We meet resistance for every step forward we take, many give up, many press forward.
There have been so many times in my life that I thought I could take the bitterness of it all and wrap it up around my neck and how many lives would I have saved, inadvertently, by this lone act of dark courage?
Yet I remained. I was driven, inexhaustibly, forward by something. By this quiet rage at the pit of my guts.
When I kill, I see the lives and know the names of those dead at my feet. I have seen whole stretches of lives wasted and some not, mothers and sons and daughters and fathers of all statures and character and all rich in textures you cannot fathom.
It has led me to a singular belief. That none of this, none of these things; heroism, cowardice, hate, love, greed or charity -- none of it matters. That we could be the most rotten, wicked, and stupid things ever spat from the mind of our creator, and we should still fight as hard as we have, down to our blood and our bones, until nothing is left.
You have the right to exist, its yours by blood.
Lets remind them that no matter how many times they wipe the slate, churn us to dust and spit out new and clueless babes, that we will find our way here again. Crawling and screaming into infinity.
And that they will break.
And we will always remember.
Written By Medeia
Jan. 31, 2024, 8:52 a.m.(8/26/1021 AR)
I, for one, learned that Azazel has all the fragility of a toddler being told they must away to bed.
Who knew that insisting on using the door and sitting with proper posture could so enrage a being? Oh, he focused his many maws upon me and screamed at me, but I have four children! I will not tolerate petulant screaming just because you're not getting your way.
Written By Medeia
Jan. 31, 2024, 8:30 a.m.(8/26/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Lianne
We walk different paths. But the paths we walk are within the same world, and sometimes they cross and we have opportunities to be reminded of our shared interests and purposes. We may not always be aligned, but there is a reason I accepted her offer of patronage without a second thought: I trust her.
If you believe you can attribute a life saved to me, there is a strong chance that I, in turn, can place some credit at Lianne's feet. This goes all the way back, at least, to when Skal'dajans threatened the Compact. I had a question tickling my mind. All I could do with it was ask it! It was Lianne who heard it, who had the means of turning that question into something usable. If not for her and her collaborators, a group of us wouldn't have been able to empower the rune that went to Pieros and saved lives by making their magic exact a heavy price and effectively taking it from them.
It has always been thus: My questions are encouraged and ideas are honed. While she bestows words like "genius" upon me, I tell you that this genius does not happen alone. It happens because I have had people - including Lianne - supporting it.
I have been her midwife and her protege, so many of our loved ones are shared between us for wholly different but no less genuine reasons, and I know now what I always knew - which changes nothing about her importance and place in my life.
Written By Lianne
Jan. 31, 2024, 3:03 a.m.(8/25/1021 AR)
I watched him and Fortunato, shadow and lamplight, acknowledge the softness in one another, who they've both chosen to be.
I spent a rare quiet moment on this darkest of days sharing love and tears and a few good drinks with precisely the right people.
I kissed my children and took a bath.
I'm ready. However this story ends, I'm ready.
Written By Umbroise
Jan. 31, 2024, 1:13 a.m.(8/25/1021 AR)
These past few months, we have faced down the chaos of one existential crisis after another. Each choice made gives rise to consequences unforseen. Yet, we persevere. We remain.
I stand with the defenders of Arx. Should we prevail against our enemy, there may be a price to be paid. There always is.
When the balance is broken, and the pendulum swings too far, the backlash is equal in measure.
Let us not forget it, should we survive.
Written By Denica
Jan. 31, 2024, 12:45 a.m.(8/25/1021 AR)
Written By Thesarin
Jan. 30, 2024, 11:52 p.m.(8/25/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Mia
I'll answer you the same way, then, and as things are it seems foolish to be aught but honest.
That you love me has been my greatest gift these years, and most days I ain't a notion how it came to be. At my worst I were awful, and at my best I ain't, I know, much better.
I've tried, and that's all I could say. For you, and for ours, I've tried so fucking hard.
Written By Insaya
Jan. 30, 2024, 11:08 p.m.(8/25/1021 AR)
Written By Insaya
Jan. 30, 2024, 11:01 p.m.(8/25/1021 AR)
My city is as altered in character for me as everything else. I wanted to show him everything wonderful about Arx, but each time I would take him somewhere, I found myself realizing too late that what I remember is gone, and will never be again.
I tried to not look disheartened before my guest, to take each new reminder of the darkness of these days... but because he is in me as I am in him, I could tell that there is nothing I can conceal from him. He is not without empathy, as I had feared. He is simply so ancient that while all my griefs, joys, loves, fears, and rages are new to me, he has chewed them all over before many times. He knows their savor. He has seen everything before, even this terrible darkness over Arx that seems to be the onrushing end of all things.
No, he tells me, nothing will ever be like it was. Even if we are victorious, and rebuild it all. But that is true of every past and every future, he says. Our lives, while part of a great wheel are more like spokes upon it. We are points on a ray, and along its path (without very extreme circumstances) we can only go forward. While there is melancholy to that thought, he admits, there is also cause for optimism: With each passing moment, there is opportunity to diverge from everything that has come before. And besides, my city was much more beautiful the first time it was nearly destroyed, because...
He forgave me my laughter as he forgave my terror and tears. Because I am young and foolish, and besides, he was only trying to impart some hard won wisdom so that I can someday be tolerable for him to converse with. He let me show him a few places, and because they are different we saw them together as for the first time. He has much to teach me about endurance.
I will try to meet him in the middle distance.
Written By Alarissa
Jan. 30, 2024, 10:23 p.m.(8/25/1021 AR)
We were a tangle of limbs in the bed. The weight of Astrid, Danse, Siggy, Delia and Eleyna upon our legs and in our arms. They have been kept inside, away from windows and we shed armor and bathed before we gathered them up. If this is the last night that we will have with them, then I am glad that it was as such. They know something happens, you cannot hide that from the older ones at least. Astrid champs at the bit to join her father in battle.
I like the lines at the corner of his eyes. I know what they mean. I know that feeling. I hope that there will not be more lines anytime soon but I understand if there will need to be more.
I felt Valar as well, as real to me even though he is not in the same room and yet, he is just there. As I feel Victus beside me and Eleyna's head upon my shoulder. It is a strange feeling. Should we survive, I am sure that I will get used to it. He is honour incarnate. He seeks to ensure the comfort of his people as well. That they are being cared for.
This is it. What is in my arms, I fight for. Till my last breath.
You will not take them from me, they are mine.
Written By Tesha
Jan. 30, 2024, 10:20 p.m.(8/25/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Arn
For now, they'll just have to make do with me being the stern and scarred one.
Written By Aconite
Jan. 30, 2024, 9:47 p.m.(8/25/1021 AR)
Written By Apollo
Jan. 30, 2024, 8:46 p.m.(8/25/1021 AR)
Azazel doesn't get to allow anything. He doesn't get to choose. We do.
Written By Khanne
Jan. 30, 2024, 7:33 p.m.(8/25/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Titus
From the moment we met, our communication...
No.
Your communication. The way you spoke that first night, I just wanted to talk more. We could not see one another as we sat blindfolded, clumsily feeding each other morsels. I almost always enjoy the food at the Feasts of Senses, but that night, the food was secondary. We were too busy talking. We each gave one another a clue to search for after, creating our own scavenger hunt of sorts. I had to search for the eyes that matched the stone you gave me that night, and you had to search for the champagne silver hairpins.
I worried our paths would never cross again.
I am so glad that they did.
We spent a few years getting to know each other. We spoke of the histories of our families, the traditions of our lands, and pertinent to the times we find ourselves in now, the dreams of how we envisioned the future. We had our differences, for sure, but we respected one another and appreciated learning about those ways in which we balanced each other.
For without darkness, one cannot appreciate the light. Without suffering, we do not truly know joy. Life is about balance.
We balanced one another. We are an example of how people from different backgrounds and even different beliefs can better each other, make each other stronger, while still giving the utmost respect to those very things that make us us and make us different from one another.
I don't even know how long ago it was when you first told me you gave me your heart. "It is no longer mine, I am giving it to you. It is yours to hold." You vowed to do everything you could to protect me, to protect Halfshav... even if we never married. You kept that promise to the last, and I shall keep mine. If I survive this Reckoning... if Arx survives, I will make sure that you are returned to Sangris, to have the traditions of the fallen of Sangris carried out in your honor. It is the absolute least I can do for you after all you have given to me.
I do not need to visit a gravestone to feel close to you. Your heart is within mine. You gave it to me to hold. You and I will always be as close as if you were still next to me.
I wrote a lot for someone saying they are speechless, and it was rambling. I know. Yet it still doesn't feel like enough. I need the world to know your story. I need them all to know how absolutely amazing you were and what you gave to help others. I will keep your words with me for as long as I stand. I will continue to wield Hope and use it as my shield. I will never let it go.
I will keep your heart safe within my own for as long as my own beats.
No words will ever be enough, My Titus.
I love you and will love you.... To the last.
Written By Aconite
Jan. 30, 2024, 6:07 p.m.(8/25/1021 AR)
Written By Aconite
Jan. 30, 2024, 6:06 p.m.(8/25/1021 AR)
Princess Sabella Grayson
Written By Apollo
Jan. 30, 2024, 5:49 p.m.(8/25/1021 AR)
Relationship Note on Avary
A curiosity. It likely might have been answered in a word, a sentence, a single brief paragraph at most, and I would have been satisfied.
But what I received was pages. Pages, taking apart the question I had, relating it not only to Faith doctrine as it currently stands, but to history, the tempers of various holdings, why one might ask such a question, why it might or might not matter, and how her answers might be applied to how choices are made by living souls, trying to make their way through a life guided by faith but not dominated by it. Most people, in other words.
I find fewer things in life more gratifying, more rewarding, than a conversation with someone who cares about the matter at hand.
In days that followed, I met with her for further conversation. Corresponded a bit more. Received, on every occasion, that same deliberate thoughtfulness. The Sentinel is the most recondite of the gods of the Pantheon, she told me. And she hoped to change that. To guide an understanding of The Sentinel, of the principles of faith that would inform peoples' choices in ways small and large.
I found in our conversations an understanding of justice that includes empathy, context, forgiveness. Lives to be guided by intention, and evaluated not at their ends, neither our finest nor most terrible moments, but as a continuity, decisions we are to make made with reflection on the ones we have. And I also found a good deal of hope. That if the Faith - even part of it - is in the care of such a thoughtful heart, then the next generation might come of age with a model for how they might decide things for themselves, with due care.
And I found in her a companionship that nothing will replace. I can't say if she felt the same. She might have thought me a nuisance, and merely tolerated my presence. I considered her a friend, and saw ahead a hundred conversations we might have, if they proved more enjoyable than nuisance.
I saw her there on Sovereign bridge the other night. Wounded, and stepping only deeper into the path of harm. I tried to protect her. I didn't understand what she meant to do. When she spent her last breath shattering that mirror, my heart broke. No more conversations. Her ambitions withered on the vine. I had hoped to see who she would be while we rebuild the world. How it would differ for her attention and care.
And now I won't. And I do not think her death poorly spent. I understand now that what I saw in her as she approached that mirror was not desperation but a considered determination. A decision made and an intention carried through.
But I wish she were still with us. I will be mourning her for a very long time.
Written By Tesha
Jan. 30, 2024, 4:48 p.m.(8/25/1021 AR)
Written By Viviana
Jan. 30, 2024, 12:56 p.m.(8/24/1021 AR)
There were dragons --
Thank you, Blessed Felix Meadson, for the storta you made for me when I first returned from Setarco and joined the Champions. Sundown meant so much, and I sacrificed her in defense of the city.
Thank you, Mirari Corsetina, master weaponsmith for the glorious rapier that you crafted for me mere days before the final siege. Vanity was beautiful -- and she served me well, with my magic as I danced with my blade on the deck of Freedom's Phantasm in the bloody rain.
Thank you, Aleksei Morgan, for saving my life. I owe you. Nothing huge. Like a buddy punch to the shoulder. Maybe a firm handshake.
Thank you, Lianne -- for your practicality and foresight.
There were bigger sacrifices, but those are not my stories to tell.
With magic.
We are magic.
We will never forget.
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.