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Written By Juniper

Oct. 13, 2019, 5:37 p.m.(1/5/1012 AR)

When the shadows rise, it's easy to see the light in others and lose sight of the light in one's self... like stars, we see others against the black, but don't recognize our own glow. It isn't gone. It's there. But it takes a shift in perspective to recognize it again. I have helped others make that shift. It took someone else's kind and guiding hand to do the same for myself, and I won't forget the lesson.

Written By Sabella

Oct. 13, 2019, 4:54 p.m.(1/5/1012 AR)

I always love the first of the winter snows when they roll around! There's no better weather for curling up in front of a fire and writing letters or journals! And everything looks so pristine for the first few hours, like the world has been wrapped up in a bright, glittering white blanket. As if the world is saying slow down, hush, look it can all be made well again!

Of course, then the wagons and carriages go out and boots tend to turn the snow a bit gray or worse, but! It's still quite wonderful to behold and it inspires so much creativity in both the old and the young who go out! I adore seeing everyone's take on snowpeople and watching the snowball fights--from afar! While aeterna surely does not stain it still feels absolutely horrible on the skin when wet.

I am sure this feeling of winter bliss will last until about the third snowfall. Maybe the fourth! And then I shall be complaining about the cold like my dear husband already is!

Written By Shae

Oct. 13, 2019, 4:05 p.m.(1/5/1012 AR)

Relationship Note on Amari

Amari, I require an adventure, big or small, just something to break up all this staring at books, scrolls, parchment. Even if it's rescue some kittens, or a pygmy goat that got stuck in tree. Something. Please.

Written By Rastifer

Oct. 13, 2019, 4:05 p.m.(1/5/1012 AR)

Returning to Arx has been nothing short of an incredibly strange experience for me. The city is not like I remembered, and everything moves so quickly.

Written By Shae

Oct. 13, 2019, 4:03 p.m.(1/5/1012 AR)

Not much progress has been made in my recent forays into the Great Archive to search for information. I wonder if the Winter weather, is starting to get to me a touch. Or if it's because I have not been spending as much time as I usually do in the Kennels, training and tending to the hounds. Or spending time outdoors with my own hounds and animal friends. Perhaps I need something to distract myself with for a little bit, help give myself a break from all the research I have been doing lately.

Written By Sigurd

Oct. 13, 2019, 3:36 p.m.(1/4/1012 AR)

Relationship Note on Willow

When we speak I am reminded of the great differences between your leadership style and my cousins, not Lydia, but Nadia. It was a different world then and things have changed so much during that time.

In this changing landscape I am well pleased that you are still with us to keep us always moving forwards and looking out for us.

Written By Sydney

Oct. 13, 2019, 2:44 p.m.(1/4/1012 AR)

Drank too much by far. I have a bad habit of drinking too much when I'm uneasy, and around folk that intimidate me.

Said some things I regret, said other things I don't, but the saying of both is what makes me unhappy, as I'd not intended to put voice to any of those words. I let liquor loosen my tongue, and just like father dearest, let everything come sliding out all at once, the good, the bad.

It's not about the fact that it happened, it's about the fact that I didn't control myself, and I used the drink as an excuse. Still doing it, apparently. Just read what I already wrote right there at the top.

I don't like this posthumous father-daughter bonding exercise.

Written By Norwood

Oct. 13, 2019, 2:42 p.m.(1/4/1012 AR)

Much if the gray hair upon my head have distinct names. Lately Lord Eddard Clement has contributed the most of them.

Written By Sorrel

Oct. 13, 2019, 2:41 p.m.(1/4/1012 AR)

Relationship Note on Galatea

One of the lovely things about being a scholar is working with other people who are likely smarter than I am, sharing information and coming up with new theories and new avenues for research.

Written By Sorrel

Oct. 13, 2019, 2:38 p.m.(1/4/1012 AR)

Relationship Note on Karina

Her artwork is exquisite, and I like to stop by her shop on Thrax Row just to see her new works.

She takes commissions, too. Her portrait of me that I gifted to my husband Prince Galen was received with great excitement.

Written By Cambria

Oct. 13, 2019, 1:57 p.m.(1/4/1012 AR)

At or around the age of ten, I developed a fascination for the villains within the stories of which I often read. Since then, I have found the malignity of evil always more fascinating than the beneficence of good. Fictional or dramatic heroes have been to me ever since but pale and uninteresting shadows of their villainous counterparts.

Written By Hadrian

Oct. 13, 2019, 12:25 p.m.(1/4/1012 AR)

For the first time I attended one of the Beards & Brews gatherings in the Ward of House Redrain. I went expecting little more than a bit of entertainment. Chuckles for sport, but an inevitable early departure.

What I found was a welcoming, vibrant group of people eager to share among themselves a playful bit of antics and respectful discourse about one of their favored paraphernalia. Baroness Acantha Clearlake and Lord Arik Halfshav were phenomenal hosts, stellar entertainers, and fostered a place of merriment and enthusiastic appreciation for facial ferrets.

In the end I didn't win the category I'd entered, but won a new category that was made for me. I'm not sure whether I should feel honored or pitied? Either way, it was amusing regardless of whether it was a verdict decided out of pity or respect. It was fun! I took home a prize that, I imagine Lord Arik hopes, will usher me along to developing an abundance of face foliage.

Congratulations to Lord Mirk Halfshav of course, for taking the win in the category of Best Beard. At least his is natural, so I feel he deserves the win over my own effort. Next time though, I will be better prepared.

I'm looking forward to the next opportunity to chase after that pleasure.

Written By Hadrian

Oct. 13, 2019, 12:07 p.m.(1/4/1012 AR)

Relationship Note on Jaenelle

Whenever she calls me that eight letter word, I find myself becoming so very cheerful and giddy. It may become one of my new favorite vices.

Written By Preston

Oct. 13, 2019, 11:13 a.m.(1/4/1012 AR)

If when concocting bizzare poems, stories and lessons the people of Arvum could avoid making up things about the Gods, the Faith, its doctrines and its history, that would be a refreshing change of pace.

Written By Amantha

Oct. 13, 2019, 9:19 a.m.(1/4/1012 AR)

I'm glad I made sure the jails had enough blankets and the like on hand, ones that weren't damaged beyond use that is. We seem to fare better with frostbites as opposed to last year.

There was guard however who thought it was a good idea to consume alcohol to keep warm, beyond the obvious consequences it seems to also have numbed his sensitivity to the cold, perhaps because it makes you feel warm. Regardless he's been summarily written up and reprimanded beyond the punishment he made for himself. It probably wisened the like minded as well.

Written By Lucita

Oct. 13, 2019, 9:16 a.m.(1/4/1012 AR)

Relationship Note on Estaban

Four years ago I was watching Lord Sebastian carve those amusing snow and ice sculptures for our wedding reception, getting to know Lord Vomus and teaching him a few dance steps, and packing up the rest of my belongings to have them moved into Saik Tower after our wedding in less than two weeks. I remember the sounds of the builders as they added the last minute details to the music room Esta had built as a present for me, the bustle of the servants making sure the tower was clean and fresh, and the fittings of my wedding dress. Those were happy times that have turned into a sweet poignant memory without the overwhelming sadness I felt the first two years.

Written By Lucita

Oct. 13, 2019, 9 a.m.(1/4/1012 AR)

Snow again. At least it did not interfere with the Kennex Sea Shell event aboard the Cirella. That was fun and the lively conversations made it well worth the effort of going there. But with winter here, it is time to get used to wearing heavier boots when out trudging around in the snow, dealing with avoiding skirt hems dragging along catching on the ice and picking up globs of snow and mud, and doing things like carrying more fashionable boots, slippers or dancing shoes to change in and out of when attending balls and events.

Written By Celeste

Oct. 13, 2019, 6:30 a.m.(1/4/1012 AR)

While I missed the Assembly of Peers, it warms my heart in these cold months to see an open debate about the opening of an Embassy for two of our foreign dignitaries. The arrival of official representatives from both the Skykingdom of Cardia and the Eternal Empire of Jadarial has stirred the imagination of our citizens, from commoner to noble. Yet, we must proceed with this debate with a measure of a caution as well. Opening an embassy is no small thing. It is not just a building where a foreign dignitary holds meetings or resides. It is not just a place where members of a foreign power might come to gather.

An Embassy, by its definition, is an area inside our own borders that would effectively be owned and ruled by the foreign power that holds the Embassy. Inside its borders the Compact's laws and traditions hold no power. The Embassy would be ran in accordance to the customs, laws, and will of the Ambassador and their homeland. What goes on inside the Embassy would not be subject to our jurisdiction.

Let us take a moment to think about that, using Cardia as an example.

The Faith of the Pantheon last year declared an embargo against the importing of Cardian Steelsilk due to its manufacture using the labor of slaves. Cardia, as a nation, is heavily invested in the use of slave labor. Not just the practices of Thralldom of which so many of the Compact have already declared repugnant. Full, active, slavery. Give them an Embassy in Arx, and do you think it would not include slaves? Are you willing to invite them to openly display their slaves, bring them to Arx?

By law, no House of the Compact may ever have more than 100 armed retainers inside the boundaries of Arx. Yet an Embassy would not, technically, be Arx nor bound by its laws. What stops an Ambassador from calling more than 100 troops to reside in the Embassy, or using them if diplomacy fails? Do you wish to put that large of a foreign force inside the city, let alone inside the Crown Ward? It is a short march from anywhere across the Sovereign Bridge to the Palace and any skirmish would be well over before any other house could respond. And that assumes that the bridge is usable by any of the Crown's allied forces. It's an impressive choke-point; ask any strategist.

Now, if your response to these quickly-thought-of issues with an Embassy is that we can simply restrict them in the granting, then I would say this: If the rule of the foreign power's law is restricted in any way upon the grounds of their established embassy, it is no longer an embassy. That would be a Consulate.

This may seem like a pedantic distinction, but the precision of language must be used when constructing treaties. Ambiguities only lead to friction.

Lady Celeste Pravus
Fourth Reflection of the Mirrormasks

Written By Zacharie

Oct. 13, 2019, 3:24 a.m.(1/3/1012 AR)

Note:

Should catch up with the niece and nephew, rather soon.

I know I have many of each so I shall specify. The one who arrived as a pair.

Written By Vanora

Oct. 13, 2019, 3:03 a.m.(1/3/1012 AR)

Relationship Note on Cambria

Rarely do I find the sections of the whites where people are reflecting on their knowledge to be terribly engaging.

Yours though, every single time.

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