Written By Edris
Jan. 23, 2024, 6:32 p.m.(8/11/1021 AR)
There will be more to write in coming days, especially of those who have fallen.
But as we waited at Sanctum's walls I finally saw with my eyes those I had mostly known by their song. I saw my love and liege take to the skies.
The Keaton and I bury a cousin true and steadfast and I still find it hard to comprehend. The Duchess so bright and who saw so clearly also gone.
Because of her sacrifice and all who came to honor oaths old and new, it was not long after the battle that I could sweep each of my young princesses in my arms and rock my prince to sleep.
Her Grace and I carry the rear guard as we move swiftly to Arx to meet the next battle. What has been delivered to us we must pour out now with the fruits of every other hard won victories and pray that we along with all our human brothers and sisters and those not of our kind but willing to stand with us as close as any kin will be enough.
We can. We must. We will.
Steel bends.
Honor holds.
Oaths endure.
But as we waited at Sanctum's walls I finally saw with my eyes those I had mostly known by their song. I saw my love and liege take to the skies.
The Keaton and I bury a cousin true and steadfast and I still find it hard to comprehend. The Duchess so bright and who saw so clearly also gone.
Because of her sacrifice and all who came to honor oaths old and new, it was not long after the battle that I could sweep each of my young princesses in my arms and rock my prince to sleep.
Her Grace and I carry the rear guard as we move swiftly to Arx to meet the next battle. What has been delivered to us we must pour out now with the fruits of every other hard won victories and pray that we along with all our human brothers and sisters and those not of our kind but willing to stand with us as close as any kin will be enough.
We can. We must. We will.
Steel bends.
Honor holds.
Oaths endure.
Written By Edris
April 20, 2022, 9:22 p.m.(7/3/1017 AR)
It took me until midmorning yesterday to realize why I had been so restless since the day before. And when the illumination hit me, it was like a hard and true strike to the chest, the kind that steals the breath and all sensation, until one's mind catches up and the body remembers to breathe again.
Already when I think of you, I have a hard time remembering the face of the woman you became, rather than the child I grew up with. Is that what time does? Or in trying to set aside the last time I saw what was left of you, I have lost the immediate years before? At least I have not lost your voice. The strength in it, when you stood up to those you felt were treating another unjustly. Your laugh, when we raced each other up boulders, or I fell on my ass. I remember your voice too, the last time. The worry in it. Asking me if it would not be better for you to accompany me back.
By the gods, I would give my life then to have given you a different answer.
But today is not the anniversary of that day. Frost and I rode out to the clearing along the wall, when I realized what day it was. We found a wildflower patch. As he ate (more than a few) I wove a crown. Like I used to, for you, during the years of my favorite memories of you.
I wonder, what you would think of what I have become. I bear no name that you would recognize; neither the one we were born to, nor the one that you died bearing. A knight, as you were so proud of, but not a shining one. There are many children that I love as I would have loved my nieces and nephews that will never be, but none that share our blood. Would you understand the decisions I've made? Could you accept them? Would it make you sad, how I have navigated the world since? These days I wake less from the old nightmares. Though there is much that feels barren and frozen, now and then I feel the presence of a snowdrop, a crocus. Every triumph, success, or pleasure doesn't drag along with it the strong feeling of thinking about all the better women and men who died and were far more worthy than the one who survived.
When Frost had eaten his fill and my crown completed, we returned to the city. Perhaps this is what healing beyond the scar is supposed to feel like. I gave the crown-of-flowers to the first child that I saw that reminded me of you. I saw her laugh as she plucked one flower carefully from it, to tuck it behind her little brother's ear. We are never the same after each loss. Perhaps what was diminished in me will never be restored. But there are other flames that can be protected so that they burn bright. Sometimes, this is enough to make it through the darkest day until the next. May it be by my sword or service that one day no more brothers and sisters shall be separated by the actions of those that took you from me. Perhaps then I will learn what it truly means to heal, for good or ill, when it is done and I can no longer use that threat as an excuse for continuing on.
I hope my response to when that is finished will be what would have truly made you proud.
Happy birthday, Elin Moore. I love you. May I help build a world so that the next life you inhabit will be better than the last.
Already when I think of you, I have a hard time remembering the face of the woman you became, rather than the child I grew up with. Is that what time does? Or in trying to set aside the last time I saw what was left of you, I have lost the immediate years before? At least I have not lost your voice. The strength in it, when you stood up to those you felt were treating another unjustly. Your laugh, when we raced each other up boulders, or I fell on my ass. I remember your voice too, the last time. The worry in it. Asking me if it would not be better for you to accompany me back.
By the gods, I would give my life then to have given you a different answer.
But today is not the anniversary of that day. Frost and I rode out to the clearing along the wall, when I realized what day it was. We found a wildflower patch. As he ate (more than a few) I wove a crown. Like I used to, for you, during the years of my favorite memories of you.
I wonder, what you would think of what I have become. I bear no name that you would recognize; neither the one we were born to, nor the one that you died bearing. A knight, as you were so proud of, but not a shining one. There are many children that I love as I would have loved my nieces and nephews that will never be, but none that share our blood. Would you understand the decisions I've made? Could you accept them? Would it make you sad, how I have navigated the world since? These days I wake less from the old nightmares. Though there is much that feels barren and frozen, now and then I feel the presence of a snowdrop, a crocus. Every triumph, success, or pleasure doesn't drag along with it the strong feeling of thinking about all the better women and men who died and were far more worthy than the one who survived.
When Frost had eaten his fill and my crown completed, we returned to the city. Perhaps this is what healing beyond the scar is supposed to feel like. I gave the crown-of-flowers to the first child that I saw that reminded me of you. I saw her laugh as she plucked one flower carefully from it, to tuck it behind her little brother's ear. We are never the same after each loss. Perhaps what was diminished in me will never be restored. But there are other flames that can be protected so that they burn bright. Sometimes, this is enough to make it through the darkest day until the next. May it be by my sword or service that one day no more brothers and sisters shall be separated by the actions of those that took you from me. Perhaps then I will learn what it truly means to heal, for good or ill, when it is done and I can no longer use that threat as an excuse for continuing on.
I hope my response to when that is finished will be what would have truly made you proud.
Happy birthday, Elin Moore. I love you. May I help build a world so that the next life you inhabit will be better than the last.
Written By Edris
Sept. 27, 2021, 1:19 a.m.(4/11/1016 AR)
A season passes, winter to spring. As much as I hold an affection for the softness of snow and the glittering of ice, I am never sad to see winter's bite retreat into the whispered promise of new growth underfoot that seems to coil onward and upward almost before the eye. Sleepy blossoms awake and turn their faces towards the sun, their softer colors but the beginnings of the ripe lushness of summer and then into fall. The calls of more birds and things woken from their deep slumber add their notes to the songs of the woods and gardens, even in and surrounding the city.
But spring is no gentle season, though we romanticize it as such. Much of that new life will die before it reaches the sun, to return to the soil and nourish the older and established. Young hatchlings will ensure that is they and not the others in the nest that will receive what they need to grow strong--or become food for other youngsters as their parents nourish them before they can hunt for themselves. It is not just a time for lambs and chicks, foals and fawns--but cubs and yearlings emerging from their first winter sleep as well. Butterflies will wake and capture smiles, but the caterpillars to follow might mean that a child goes a little hungrier this fall or winter.
The most complicated of songs often have woven in them a fullness of being.
It is difficult to set aside even for a few moments the heaviness of what we prepare for now that the deep snows have receded; even with allies it is formidable to think through all of what must be done. But today I made sure that our Lady Heir and her mother had fresh sprigs of hyacinths to greet them at the breakfast table, and their smiles eased some of that, for a time.
But spring is no gentle season, though we romanticize it as such. Much of that new life will die before it reaches the sun, to return to the soil and nourish the older and established. Young hatchlings will ensure that is they and not the others in the nest that will receive what they need to grow strong--or become food for other youngsters as their parents nourish them before they can hunt for themselves. It is not just a time for lambs and chicks, foals and fawns--but cubs and yearlings emerging from their first winter sleep as well. Butterflies will wake and capture smiles, but the caterpillars to follow might mean that a child goes a little hungrier this fall or winter.
The most complicated of songs often have woven in them a fullness of being.
It is difficult to set aside even for a few moments the heaviness of what we prepare for now that the deep snows have receded; even with allies it is formidable to think through all of what must be done. But today I made sure that our Lady Heir and her mother had fresh sprigs of hyacinths to greet them at the breakfast table, and their smiles eased some of that, for a time.
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.