Written By Charis
July 5, 2020, 5:33 a.m.(8/7/1013 AR)
It's been many a year since my needle was unsteady in my hand. My apologies to Jayus for the shaky seam, the loose thread. They were provoked.
Written By Charis
June 27, 2020, 3:24 a.m.(7/19/1013 AR)
What's "perspicacious"? I asked the butcher two shops down. He said it sounded sweaty.
Written By Charis
June 24, 2020, 9:55 p.m.(7/14/1013 AR)
There's a difference between suspecting something and having it confirmed. Confirmation feels about as I remember it to: burning lungs, the sting of sweat in the eyes, flesh and bones all aching fire. But now, years past the prime of certain choices made, there's no laughing recovery or easy sleep to follow. Tomorrow will be worse, I know, as the strain sets in, and it's my own damn fault for overdoing. Overreaching. Some temptations aren't there to be chased; better to admire from afar.
Gran used to say: years bring regrets, and if you're fortunate you'll have fewer of them than you do birthdays but don't go expecting that to be the norm. Let this journal mark half a regret and I'll pray it won't blossom into a full one.
Gran used to say: years bring regrets, and if you're fortunate you'll have fewer of them than you do birthdays but don't go expecting that to be the norm. Let this journal mark half a regret and I'll pray it won't blossom into a full one.
Written By Charis
June 11, 2020, 4:14 a.m.(6/15/1013 AR)
Someone finally asked after the lute I hung above my door. Serving the greater, the mighty, they often see the wares alone, less so the one who plies them or what she cares to decorate with. I told her true when she asked, I play only a little, it isn't my lute, but kept its origins for myself.
Instruments, like voices, and faces, come alive in firelight. Music, laughter, smiles, they keep the dark at bay and we used them all, because though we kept our weapons always in reach, there's precious little a blade can do against the creep of //maybe// that hides in shadows. Maybe there's something there, maybe there isn't, and every small sound conspiring to make it seem more and more a likely thing. Even the pitched screams of Abandoned breaking an ambush upon our heads never had as much bowel-watering terror in it as a lightless night of maybes.
It's a cold thing to leave friends and lovers unremembered though. To not speak their names and keep their memory alive. There's offense in it and with this, I make a first pass at penance.
It was Jancy's lute and I'll make amends for not saying so when asked, for it shouldn't ever be forgotten. She spoke less than I did--less than I do-- but she didn't need a voice, with that lute in her hands. I learned a few chords from her but what skill she had, it was in bone and blood and her very soul. I'll never match it nor ever again feel the world pushed away by the strength of her songs.
Emrys had the voice, like dark honey, and a grin to match. He claimed the gap between his front teeth was a luck mark and why he was triply blessed, in voice and face and the strength of his sword-arm. Other gifts he had too but such things aren't for the whites and he'd prefer I only hint, besides. That's how a legend's grown, he'd say, you seed it with a wink and a whistle.
Gil...
Gil led us. Led us out and led us back, until there was no us left to lead. The gods forgive me, that that's all I can write of Gil now.
Instruments, like voices, and faces, come alive in firelight. Music, laughter, smiles, they keep the dark at bay and we used them all, because though we kept our weapons always in reach, there's precious little a blade can do against the creep of //maybe// that hides in shadows. Maybe there's something there, maybe there isn't, and every small sound conspiring to make it seem more and more a likely thing. Even the pitched screams of Abandoned breaking an ambush upon our heads never had as much bowel-watering terror in it as a lightless night of maybes.
It's a cold thing to leave friends and lovers unremembered though. To not speak their names and keep their memory alive. There's offense in it and with this, I make a first pass at penance.
It was Jancy's lute and I'll make amends for not saying so when asked, for it shouldn't ever be forgotten. She spoke less than I did--less than I do-- but she didn't need a voice, with that lute in her hands. I learned a few chords from her but what skill she had, it was in bone and blood and her very soul. I'll never match it nor ever again feel the world pushed away by the strength of her songs.
Emrys had the voice, like dark honey, and a grin to match. He claimed the gap between his front teeth was a luck mark and why he was triply blessed, in voice and face and the strength of his sword-arm. Other gifts he had too but such things aren't for the whites and he'd prefer I only hint, besides. That's how a legend's grown, he'd say, you seed it with a wink and a whistle.
Gil...
Gil led us. Led us out and led us back, until there was no us left to lead. The gods forgive me, that that's all I can write of Gil now.
Written By Charis
April 2, 2020, 5:15 a.m.(1/15/1013 AR)
I am long out of practice for the sort of talk which comes here in this city. Or maybe it's the setting. Talk, easy talk, the sort that flows like a spring, it doesn't come to the rattle of cart-wheels on the cobbles outside, or dogs barking, or coins sighing out metal whispers in a purse thrown on a counter. Maybe it's where I am.
They'd say that no, no Charis, you weren't ever good for talk, but I know they'd say it laughing. I was good for laughing then too.
The work comes in though. It's quiet, it's heavy like the blanket of snow outside. A comfortable weight. A comfortable silence, close to the sound a rich bolt makes when passed over on the shelf for the one next to it; it'll have its turn eventually. There's no firelight in the shop, no pine to breathe in... no roots at the small of my back either, or pebbles in my boot, chapped nose, chapped lips. Red's not a colour to flinch from, any longer. It suits those I serve very well. Brings out the gold in them, skin or eyes or hair or just the way they turn their head to say the quick, clever things folks here are prone to voice.
Jayus favours me here and has been good to my needle. I'm fortunate in that. Maybe he'll help inspire my tongue next as I settle in, so I'm not left the fool empty-handed, unarmed, in the sorties that come about within these walls.
They'd say that no, no Charis, you weren't ever good for talk, but I know they'd say it laughing. I was good for laughing then too.
The work comes in though. It's quiet, it's heavy like the blanket of snow outside. A comfortable weight. A comfortable silence, close to the sound a rich bolt makes when passed over on the shelf for the one next to it; it'll have its turn eventually. There's no firelight in the shop, no pine to breathe in... no roots at the small of my back either, or pebbles in my boot, chapped nose, chapped lips. Red's not a colour to flinch from, any longer. It suits those I serve very well. Brings out the gold in them, skin or eyes or hair or just the way they turn their head to say the quick, clever things folks here are prone to voice.
Jayus favours me here and has been good to my needle. I'm fortunate in that. Maybe he'll help inspire my tongue next as I settle in, so I'm not left the fool empty-handed, unarmed, in the sorties that come about within these walls.
Written By Charis
March 25, 2020, 4:14 a.m.(12/27/1012 AR)
Relationship Note on Zara
My Aunt Dorcas, she'll be beside herself to know her advice not only worked but worked well enough that her highness, the Gilded Dragon herself, made kind and generous offer of patronage. To dress a personage such as Princess Zara is beyond all hope and expectation. Were it not for Dorcas' advice, I couldn't have managed the interview, whatever the quality of the trinket I gifted her to speak for me as an example of my needle's ability.
As I told her, the full price of my first sale has gone on to Gild's shrine, in her royal name. It didn't take very long. See my previous entry, about the wealth here.
As I told her, the full price of my first sale has gone on to Gild's shrine, in her royal name. It didn't take very long. See my previous entry, about the wealth here.
Written By Charis
March 25, 2020, 4:01 a.m.(12/27/1012 AR)
This is a very wealthy city. Wealthy in silver, wealthy in words. More words than silver, perhaps.
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