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Written By Jamie

May 22, 2021, 11:54 p.m.(7/10/1015 AR)

A wonderful Celestial Ball thrown by Marquessa Quenia Igniseri - I find I am still terribly out of place among my noble peers. You can take a soldier out of the Greenwood, but he's still a soldier. Still, if it hadn't been for the lovely conversation between Princess Kace and Princess Graziella, I might have stuck out like a sore thumb. Thank all the Gods for the company of those two esteemed ladies this evening.

Written By Jamie

May 21, 2021, 12:01 p.m.(7/7/1015 AR)

Relationship Note on Simone

An intriguing woman with a spine of steel. Though I've known her for years, I've come to understand that I don't -really- know her. Her grace and charm carry me out of dark places and bring a little of the old Jamie back. My cousin by marriage, yes, but someone I may one day call a true friend. Somehow, I'll have to persuade her to forget this idea of political marriage, though. I can't imagine the woman who'd take the seat beside me, good man or no. Too many sleepless nights, too many dreams.

Written By Jamie

Feb. 20, 2021, 8:53 p.m.(12/21/1014 AR)

The journey from Greenhaven took a lot longer than I remember from my previous visit to the city. Perhaps the trip felt different because my arm is now in a sling and can feel a bit achy after hours traveling on horseback. Either way, I've arrived in Arx and look forward to some rest.

I've several people I need to see, but I will certainly make the hospital a priority if my arm doesn't stop aching by midday. A second opinion from a physician on duty might be in order.

Written By Jamie

July 29, 2018, 6:51 a.m.(4/14/1009 AR)

Most nights for me are a fight to settle my mind down enough to fall asleep. Like a separate entity out of my control, my thoughts are a whirlwind ranging from distant regrets of the past to anxiety over what tomorrow will bring. Ever since I returned home, I've felt like I live in this disconnected state, emotionally segregated from all others.

When I left, I was part of the brotherhood, a warrior, a Knight. I was young. Brash. Over confidant. Pleasant, to be sure. Loved by family and loving in return. I could feel. I could enjoy.

Combat. Loss. Sacrifice. It re-defined me. I became the Spear of the Greenwood. The Ranger of the Silver Order. I served and in serving, tempered myself and grew. Each day I would wake up and take the part of myself that I identified with, the part of myself that others back home identified me as, and I buried it. To leave it exposed to the atrocities I have witnessed would damage who I was irrevocably. At the end of the day, I would bring it back out again. Unpackage myself so that I could be free once more. Over time, this constant back and forth became more difficult... until one day, I didn't come back.

So I return home, lost and damaged - invisible scars cut deeper than any sword or arrow - to discover that the world I left behind continued to spin without me. It moved on. I see faces that I recognize, but do not recognize me in return though they see the face of their brother, their cousin. Have I changed that much?

The years I spent in service are lost to the changing times and bureaucracy as I discover my Knighthood stripped of me. That is the welcome I receive for years lost to war in the name of the Brotherhood.

War. It's something that is easy to read about in a book and look upon from the top of a hill. But standing in the mud and blood of friend and foe, or of seeing the burned down villages and the stench of corpses, many children... it stays with you forever, each moment, each pair of unseeing eyes further chipping away at the part of you that makes you who you are. It is not easy to make the decision to physically harm another living being - let alone take their life. Loose their spirit into the unknown.

Much of my struggle after returning home has been in learning how to become that person again. To become a man that wouldn’t look at a burned child and refer to them as a “critter.” To become a man that wouldn’t laugh at the struggles of another human being just to bury his own emotional turmoil behind a façade of the "professional soldier". I’ve come a long way and I try to tell myself I’m a good man and that the circumstances of my personality shift were unfathomable. At the end of the day, being torn in two different directions plays a large role in my restless nights and further reinforces this idea that I am caught in the middle of forces greater than I can truly appreciate.

It is things like this that I live with in my daily life, one of the many peculiar things about me that separate me from this world I was once a part of into my own purgatory.

I am a good man.

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