Written By Josephine
Jan. 16, 2020, 9:03 p.m.(7/27/1012 AR)
I do not think that I am coming back from this. But this is how it is. One should not outlive their children and I have buried five of them.
There is much left unfinished, but it's not longer mine to finish. They are a torch for another to take up and stride forth with.
I have one regret. Wrong, I likely have many regrets but this regret struck today and for a moment, I almost didn't ride out.
I will not be there to help her bring her first into this world. Bittersweet as that is. But I have left her something for that child. I have left instructions for my family to carry out.
Every child born of The Roseward will be given a piece from the Arcuri family. Commoner or noble, this is how it will be. I have spoken. A toy, a piece of jewelry, a pendant, something. To celebrate their birth, from highest to the lowest of us. Because we are the Arcuri. We are the smiths of Lenosia.
Because our filigree is the finest and the metals and gems sing beneath our fingers and sweetly so.
I give you this Lora. My legacy to your people long after I am gone.
There is much left unfinished, but it's not longer mine to finish. They are a torch for another to take up and stride forth with.
I have one regret. Wrong, I likely have many regrets but this regret struck today and for a moment, I almost didn't ride out.
I will not be there to help her bring her first into this world. Bittersweet as that is. But I have left her something for that child. I have left instructions for my family to carry out.
Every child born of The Roseward will be given a piece from the Arcuri family. Commoner or noble, this is how it will be. I have spoken. A toy, a piece of jewelry, a pendant, something. To celebrate their birth, from highest to the lowest of us. Because we are the Arcuri. We are the smiths of Lenosia.
Because our filigree is the finest and the metals and gems sing beneath our fingers and sweetly so.
I give you this Lora. My legacy to your people long after I am gone.
Written By Josephine
Jan. 5, 2020, 10:42 p.m.(7/6/1012 AR)
It has been a long time since I have had to approach something as if an apprentice. A very long time. And yet there are a band of us who are seasoned smiths and this is what we find ourselves doing. Back to the start. To the beginning we go. I wonder if I'm too old for this.
Written By Josephine
Dec. 29, 2019, 10:52 p.m.(6/19/1012 AR)
They're finding you.
Little by little, piece by piece they find you and excise you. Do you feel that grip weaken? Feel those threads as the sever and you are denied what you are trying to take? Does it make you squirm? Does it make you rage?
They come and they tell me. They re-assure me that they have found each of your lairs one by one. They have visited that tree. They diligently strive to see you made as impotent as possible until there is one little bit of you left.
When it's that last piece. That LAST part, I want to be there.
I am Lenosian, and though I do not not claim the name Velenosa, I cleave their family motto to my heart. None may harm us unpunished.
I will be there when you take your last breath in whatever form you have taken. I will burn that stygian in Lagoma's flame and put my heart to rest. Deliver you to the Queen like you should have been so long ago.
Then I will visit my daughter and tell her she can rest. Tell her of those who strode forth to bring her and others to rest and close that window or door on our life.
I will burn you to ashes Butcher. To ashes.
Little by little, piece by piece they find you and excise you. Do you feel that grip weaken? Feel those threads as the sever and you are denied what you are trying to take? Does it make you squirm? Does it make you rage?
They come and they tell me. They re-assure me that they have found each of your lairs one by one. They have visited that tree. They diligently strive to see you made as impotent as possible until there is one little bit of you left.
When it's that last piece. That LAST part, I want to be there.
I am Lenosian, and though I do not not claim the name Velenosa, I cleave their family motto to my heart. None may harm us unpunished.
I will be there when you take your last breath in whatever form you have taken. I will burn that stygian in Lagoma's flame and put my heart to rest. Deliver you to the Queen like you should have been so long ago.
Then I will visit my daughter and tell her she can rest. Tell her of those who strode forth to bring her and others to rest and close that window or door on our life.
I will burn you to ashes Butcher. To ashes.
Written By Josephine
Dec. 29, 2019, 10:51 p.m.(6/19/1012 AR)
They're finding you.
Written By Josephine
Dec. 15, 2019, 10:14 p.m.(5/19/1012 AR)
I came into my forge, day after day, to see the dust and the shavings, tools placed where they were last used. You needed time. I told Laurel and Trina to leave it be. We would wait.
Then I came in and it was clean. The floors swept, the tools where they belong. Things organized and things in their place.
You are appreciated. You are valued. You are worth the world to me.
Then I came in and it was clean. The floors swept, the tools where they belong. Things organized and things in their place.
You are appreciated. You are valued. You are worth the world to me.
Written By Josephine
Dec. 10, 2019, 12:49 p.m.(5/8/1012 AR)
I wonder what the thoughts are going through the minds of the farmers and farmhands who grew the grapes and tended to them. That spent the season picking them and the vintners who worked hard to see them crushed just so and the recipe carefully followed to ensure the finest bottles were produced when they were done fermenting.
Finding out that the years worth of their hard work went to fill a pool for people to play in.
I'll be stocking up my shops bottles for when I have guests in the forge with fine bottles of Lenosian red. That way I know it's not rebottled pool wine.
Finding out that the years worth of their hard work went to fill a pool for people to play in.
I'll be stocking up my shops bottles for when I have guests in the forge with fine bottles of Lenosian red. That way I know it's not rebottled pool wine.
Written By Josephine
Nov. 26, 2019, 8:37 p.m.(4/9/1012 AR)
No, a thousandfold.
Written By Josephine
Nov. 26, 2019, 8:36 p.m.(4/9/1012 AR)
The Marquessa will be repaid tenfold.
No.
A hundredfold.
No.
A hundredfold.
Written By Josephine
Nov. 25, 2019, 5:14 p.m.(4/7/1012 AR)
I still turn and call her name out.
I should know better. A tool too far away and cannot leave the bench, she was always within earshot. Marcen has left for Lenosia with her. He's taking her by boat now that spring has come and the waters will be safer. Would that I had the strength of heart and will to go on one of those accursed things, I would go with him. But if I left, I don't know that I would return right now.
But Laurel is there when I call out and she is learning to anticipate what I need. What tool for when and what my tones indicate.
I haven't talked to the stones since she died. They talk to me and I have listened. But I haven't replied. I don't know why. They try to cheer me up. Working with dragonweep has been easier, even if there is far less of it to work for and I found myself rummaging around for the weeping gems in the burying bucket so I could try and make them happy and console them.
So that is it. Marcen goes back to his family. He'll always be a son to me, but I understand that he needs to go home to his. At least he'll be with her. I'll go to Lenosia soon enough. At some point. Maybe. The weather needs to be nicer before I go though.
I should know better. A tool too far away and cannot leave the bench, she was always within earshot. Marcen has left for Lenosia with her. He's taking her by boat now that spring has come and the waters will be safer. Would that I had the strength of heart and will to go on one of those accursed things, I would go with him. But if I left, I don't know that I would return right now.
But Laurel is there when I call out and she is learning to anticipate what I need. What tool for when and what my tones indicate.
I haven't talked to the stones since she died. They talk to me and I have listened. But I haven't replied. I don't know why. They try to cheer me up. Working with dragonweep has been easier, even if there is far less of it to work for and I found myself rummaging around for the weeping gems in the burying bucket so I could try and make them happy and console them.
So that is it. Marcen goes back to his family. He'll always be a son to me, but I understand that he needs to go home to his. At least he'll be with her. I'll go to Lenosia soon enough. At some point. Maybe. The weather needs to be nicer before I go though.
Written By Josephine
Nov. 17, 2019, 10:08 p.m.(3/19/1012 AR)
It is hard to sit here.
Her skull is done, the shimmering white of the chalcedony and inside of that skull that I have carved, the amethyst crystals rising and falling in jagged peaks. The polish cloth removes traces of dust even though there is none that remains.
Brenlin lives. It mocked me from out his mouth, her voice in a strangers mouth. Yet he lives and that sliver of him is dead. I heard it die, like I heard her die and I took solace and glee in it's agony. Till the very last whisper of it's hungry self gave up and the stygian pitted and perished in the flames of Lagoma's mercy.
The only mercy that I will give it.
They have found it's cradle.
Burn it all. Send it to the Queen.
May she be more merciful than I would.
Her skull is done, the shimmering white of the chalcedony and inside of that skull that I have carved, the amethyst crystals rising and falling in jagged peaks. The polish cloth removes traces of dust even though there is none that remains.
Brenlin lives. It mocked me from out his mouth, her voice in a strangers mouth. Yet he lives and that sliver of him is dead. I heard it die, like I heard her die and I took solace and glee in it's agony. Till the very last whisper of it's hungry self gave up and the stygian pitted and perished in the flames of Lagoma's mercy.
The only mercy that I will give it.
They have found it's cradle.
Burn it all. Send it to the Queen.
May she be more merciful than I would.
Written By Josephine
Nov. 13, 2019, 12:02 a.m.(3/9/1012 AR)
I held her while she died. Watched that thing come out of her. The healer could not have known it would be like that. I suspect, that no matter what we did, she would have gone to be with her brothers and her father. I am sitting at the bench here in my shop, doors closed and the shop devoid of everything. I am making a piece for her and the gems are silent.
Wrong, they aren't silent. They are singing with me while I work. Singing that song. The metal, the stone. Both together in sorrowful harmony. When Marcen brings her back to Lenosia to be with her father and siblings, it will go with her. I have made a piece for each of them when they've left me. Whether I get a body back or not. They do not get to take it with them, but it remains with them and I am sure that they know.
Filigree. She liked that most of all. There are times I wish she had inherited that which I have. But she did not. But she was skilled in her own right. In her own ways. She liked the color purple too. She always lingered at the amethysts. Such a keen eye for them. She was my eldest. My finest. My favourite. No parents are supposed to have favorites but we all do and she was my favourite.
Is.
That was not the way someone should die. She did nothing to deserve that.
Every last breath that I have will be spent seeing that thing put down and I will burn through my fortunes if I must. She is my daughter, my star, my baby and she has been taken from me.
It's a dark world after all.
It will be darker for you when I find you.
Wrong, they aren't silent. They are singing with me while I work. Singing that song. The metal, the stone. Both together in sorrowful harmony. When Marcen brings her back to Lenosia to be with her father and siblings, it will go with her. I have made a piece for each of them when they've left me. Whether I get a body back or not. They do not get to take it with them, but it remains with them and I am sure that they know.
Filigree. She liked that most of all. There are times I wish she had inherited that which I have. But she did not. But she was skilled in her own right. In her own ways. She liked the color purple too. She always lingered at the amethysts. Such a keen eye for them. She was my eldest. My finest. My favourite. No parents are supposed to have favorites but we all do and she was my favourite.
Is.
That was not the way someone should die. She did nothing to deserve that.
Every last breath that I have will be spent seeing that thing put down and I will burn through my fortunes if I must. She is my daughter, my star, my baby and she has been taken from me.
It's a dark world after all.
It will be darker for you when I find you.
Written By Josephine
Nov. 3, 2019, 10:58 p.m.(2/19/1012 AR)
I know not what this silence is, or who it is or really anything and at this point, I do not care. I can say, that I have never thought that I would make something to which people would quite literally die to protect, much less something that someone would send people after to steal.
My ribs are very unhappy and Brigida lifts her staff if I think of getting out of bed and gives me a look that she gives to wayward acolytes who are not following her instructions.
My ribs are very unhappy and Brigida lifts her staff if I think of getting out of bed and gives me a look that she gives to wayward acolytes who are not following her instructions.
Written By Josephine
Oct. 28, 2019, 12:53 p.m.(2/6/1012 AR)
Good. His name was Good Ansel.
There is nothing good about that dog. I couldn't get it out of the shop at all. It terrorized Demetria who fled to the work forge. There was white hair everywhere and we had to shut down for an hour to thoroughly clean it so that Demetria could come back out to work. There's a tear in the pantleg of a guard and the hem of my skirt.
Gracious, what is that thing? That's not a dog. That's a demon.
There is nothing good about that dog. I couldn't get it out of the shop at all. It terrorized Demetria who fled to the work forge. There was white hair everywhere and we had to shut down for an hour to thoroughly clean it so that Demetria could come back out to work. There's a tear in the pantleg of a guard and the hem of my skirt.
Gracious, what is that thing? That's not a dog. That's a demon.
Written By Josephine
Oct. 28, 2019, 10:44 a.m.(2/6/1012 AR)
The shops opened and the trickle has been steady but most certainly it has not been the same as when in the Velenosan ward. It is the outside wall and of a certainty, there's a reason that people tend to not travel there. More cramped. But the scholars trot by an press their noses to the window. We shall see if this was foolish or a stroke of genius. It at least leaves me closer to the guild and closer to the people I serve. And home. It is good to get home even through the snow. Far less a trudge.
Written By Josephine
Oct. 28, 2019, 10:42 a.m.(2/6/1012 AR)
I had Demetria send the next round of donations to the faith after the sales of the latest beads. When I have them all made, I should send a set to the Dominus and the Legates. Probably better symbolically than more Cardian Steelsilk. I am thinking a wooden bead carved with her symbols, the grooves filled with chips of blue gems, then lacquered to protect it. At least where the chips of gems are. I quite like the idea of the bead wearing smooth over time in contemplation.
I may not need Brigida for that after all.
I may not need Brigida for that after all.
Written By Josephine
Oct. 26, 2019, 9:52 p.m.(2/3/1012 AR)
It's far easier to star anew when you have nothing save the coin from the old.
We have started anew. What happened in my former forge cannot be forgotten and I found myself unable to work in it once the forge was re-lit and re-blessed. So Laurel and I. set off to find a new place. Fit for the Arcuri of Lenosia to ply their trade.
It's amazing what can be accomplished if one throws enough coin to see it done. The cases are built the forge is finished and ready to be lit and blessed. Family has been by to see the new stock placed away and admire the change.
I will miss the ward, of a surety. But I am the Guildmaster and as such, it's high time that I was in the merchant district. Hopefully the foot traffic to my shop will assist the other shops around me to find success that they were struggling for before. Delightfully, the archives are closer and to home as well.
Laurel and Ras are working hard, as is Demetria. We should be open within the day I think. At least I have shipments from Lenosia to tide us over till the forge is re-lit.
We have started anew. What happened in my former forge cannot be forgotten and I found myself unable to work in it once the forge was re-lit and re-blessed. So Laurel and I. set off to find a new place. Fit for the Arcuri of Lenosia to ply their trade.
It's amazing what can be accomplished if one throws enough coin to see it done. The cases are built the forge is finished and ready to be lit and blessed. Family has been by to see the new stock placed away and admire the change.
I will miss the ward, of a surety. But I am the Guildmaster and as such, it's high time that I was in the merchant district. Hopefully the foot traffic to my shop will assist the other shops around me to find success that they were struggling for before. Delightfully, the archives are closer and to home as well.
Laurel and Ras are working hard, as is Demetria. We should be open within the day I think. At least I have shipments from Lenosia to tide us over till the forge is re-lit.
Written By Josephine
Oct. 21, 2019, 1:25 p.m.(1/20/1012 AR)
I'm standing in my shop, cataloging pieces in the front and I get distracted by the lack of noise from my forge. All the gems and metals, half finished pieces gone. There's no gentle hum or joyful refrain if I should enter. It's not the same, and it's odd. Discomforting.
Written By Josephine
Oct. 20, 2019, 8:05 p.m.(1/19/1012 AR)
a few days rest fo ray heart the mercies say. I went back to the shop to meet with guard to answer questions and walking back in there was hard. Were it not for Demetria by my side, I do not think that I would have actually stepped foot back in. I do not know if I can step foot in there again. Laurel assures me that her and Ras will return it to pristine condition. I had Marcen bring all the gems and metals to the market to get rid of. I will see. I close my eyes and I see Demetria dead each time. Horrible. Terrible.
Written By Josephine
Oct. 12, 2019, 1:35 p.m.(1/2/1012 AR)
YEs, this is my yearly grousing.
Snow. Water from the sky frozen. Off with it, begone. No good comes of the sea, and no good comes of the snow.
Snow. Water from the sky frozen. Off with it, begone. No good comes of the sea, and no good comes of the snow.
Written By Josephine
Oct. 6, 2019, 7:54 p.m.(12/19/1011 AR)
Another jest told to the star iron and epiphanite.
What do you call an alligator in a vest?
An investigator.
What do you call an alligator in a vest?
An investigator.
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