Written By Aureth
July 24, 2017, 2:38 p.m.(11/23/1006 AR)
I don't have a favorite memory of my bird. My bird is a fucking jerk. With the worst sense of humor of any bird anywhere. And yeah, he's laughing at you. I'm pretty sure.
He just started following me around one day when I was eating lunch by the construction site while we were still building the Shrine. He stared at me for long enough that I found it unnerving and I finally gave him the rest of my food.
He's followed me around ever since. He brings messages to people because Tristan taught me how to get him to perform but I have the constant nagging feeling that he's like ... going to get bored one day and peck my eye out. He's rude to people's cats, he tries to ride people's dogs, and he basically just won't leave me the fuck alone.
He has a way of squawking at the least opportune time to interrupt any given conversation to remind us all that he's there and he'd like any carrion we happen to have on our persons. He also likes muffins. Considering the amount of food this little bird consumes I really have no idea how he remains so healthy-looking and streamlined instead of being a fat puffball of feathers.
His name is Binky because I can't say "asshole" in front of the faithful.
Remember my companion, hah. Try and forget the little shit.
He just started following me around one day when I was eating lunch by the construction site while we were still building the Shrine. He stared at me for long enough that I found it unnerving and I finally gave him the rest of my food.
He's followed me around ever since. He brings messages to people because Tristan taught me how to get him to perform but I have the constant nagging feeling that he's like ... going to get bored one day and peck my eye out. He's rude to people's cats, he tries to ride people's dogs, and he basically just won't leave me the fuck alone.
He has a way of squawking at the least opportune time to interrupt any given conversation to remind us all that he's there and he'd like any carrion we happen to have on our persons. He also likes muffins. Considering the amount of food this little bird consumes I really have no idea how he remains so healthy-looking and streamlined instead of being a fat puffball of feathers.
His name is Binky because I can't say "asshole" in front of the faithful.
Remember my companion, hah. Try and forget the little shit.
Written By Aureth
July 24, 2017, 12:27 a.m.(11/22/1006 AR)
I have, in fact, reached the age of 38 alive.
And yes, if you want to send me booze, I will put it in my liquor cabinet so that Magpie can steal it.
And yes, if you want to send me booze, I will put it in my liquor cabinet so that Magpie can steal it.
Written By Aureth
July 13, 2017, 9:35 a.m.(10/28/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Fortunato
Super wealthy and rolled in shit-- that's your type?
A mystery explained.
A mystery explained.
Written By Aureth
July 7, 2017, 1:03 p.m.(10/17/1006 AR)
Please stop saying the Queen of Death. You wouldn't call me the Archlector of Aureth, would you? No. You'd call me Aureth, or you'd call me an Archlector, but you wouldn't call me the Archlector of Aureth, because that's clearly wrong. Don't call her the Queen of Death.
She is the Queen of Endings and the Mother of Beginnings.
Her NAME is Death.
She is the Queen of Endings and the Mother of Beginnings.
Her NAME is Death.
Written By Aureth
July 5, 2017, 10:17 p.m.(10/13/1006 AR)
There is no Fate.
Death does not choose your end.
She chooses your beginning and embraces you upon your ending. She will gather your soul unto herself when you die, howsoever you die. But she does not choose your end. She does not determine your life.
You do that.
No god is responsible for your choices; only you are.
Death does not choose your end.
She chooses your beginning and embraces you upon your ending. She will gather your soul unto herself when you die, howsoever you die. But she does not choose your end. She does not determine your life.
You do that.
No god is responsible for your choices; only you are.
Written By Aureth
July 2, 2017, 11:09 p.m.(10/7/1006 AR)
There are some people who have a fundamental quality to them that shines through everything they do and say. It's not that any person may be reduced to a single word, or a single concept, because souls are complex creations and lives spin layer upon layer over that basic fabric. But sometimes, the solid core at the center shines so brightly you can't help but see it.
When that core is basic goodness, it can serve as a reminder that even at our darkest, humanity is still worthy of faith.
I find it rather soothing.
When that core is basic goodness, it can serve as a reminder that even at our darkest, humanity is still worthy of faith.
I find it rather soothing.
Written By Aureth
June 23, 2017, 1:15 p.m.(9/17/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Eirene
Sasspants.
Lady Minister Guildmistress Sasspants Brigadier General Eirene Malvici.
Lady Minister Guildmistress Sasspants Brigadier General Eirene Malvici.
Written By Aureth
June 19, 2017, 2:26 p.m.(9/7/1006 AR)
Just for the record:
My bird is way more likely to eat you than you are to eat him.
My bird is way more likely to eat you than you are to eat him.
Written By Aureth
June 18, 2017, 6:37 p.m.(9/5/1006 AR)
Narciso Artiglio was beloved of the Queen of Endings. His death hurts. I cannot, will not, privilege my grief over that of those who knew him, loved him, better, longer, than I did. I am sorry. I know that there is presumption in loss, because grief is, always, about what you've lost. And the world, and the priesthood, have lost.
Death will take good care of him. I am without doubt.
But it hurts, as bright promise extinguished must.
He would have been the best of Harlequins.
Death will take good care of him. I am without doubt.
But it hurts, as bright promise extinguished must.
He would have been the best of Harlequins.
Written By Aureth
June 9, 2017, 4:35 p.m.(8/15/1006 AR)
The town criers are running about the town with copies of the latest round of proclamations, some to be recorded in the White Journals, and since I was here, anyway, I thought I might step aside and record my own impressions.
I, too, was gratified and relieved that House Thrax has decided to no longer use the diseased bodies of infants as weapons against their fellow men. I was also very pleased to hear that Thrax now recognizes that flaying the skin from human bodies is unusually cruel, nasty and brutal, and shall not be included in the annals of their military punishments anymore.
I am so glad to join in those lauding House Thrax with laurels and accolades for stepping forward and acknowledging that disgusting barbarity is, in fact, disgusting barbarity, beneath the dignity of humanity, and stands against the honor of Gloria, the charity of Gild, and the righteous justice of the Sentinel.
I too shall pat them on the back and thank them for their recognition that flaying people alive is, in fact, a horrible act.
I am heartened that this decision comes so soon upon the heels of their recognition that women, in fact, count as people, and should be allowed such revolutionary rights as property and inheritance, in addition to doing all of the administrative and financial and legal work that they have been doing in the Mourning Isles for generations anyway.
I look forward to how impressed we shall all be when House Thrax makes its next revolutionary discovery.
I, too, was gratified and relieved that House Thrax has decided to no longer use the diseased bodies of infants as weapons against their fellow men. I was also very pleased to hear that Thrax now recognizes that flaying the skin from human bodies is unusually cruel, nasty and brutal, and shall not be included in the annals of their military punishments anymore.
I am so glad to join in those lauding House Thrax with laurels and accolades for stepping forward and acknowledging that disgusting barbarity is, in fact, disgusting barbarity, beneath the dignity of humanity, and stands against the honor of Gloria, the charity of Gild, and the righteous justice of the Sentinel.
I too shall pat them on the back and thank them for their recognition that flaying people alive is, in fact, a horrible act.
I am heartened that this decision comes so soon upon the heels of their recognition that women, in fact, count as people, and should be allowed such revolutionary rights as property and inheritance, in addition to doing all of the administrative and financial and legal work that they have been doing in the Mourning Isles for generations anyway.
I look forward to how impressed we shall all be when House Thrax makes its next revolutionary discovery.
Written By Aureth
June 4, 2017, 9:46 p.m.(8/4/1006 AR)
I predicted that a few weeks would pass, and it would be easy to, again, struggle against the petty irritations and stupidities of the world.
And I was right.
But still: life goes on. Each breath is precious. We continue. We go on.
Some of us go on being stupid. But isn't it refreshing how much energy we have for stupid shit, so near to our salvation?
Praise be to Lagoma for how quickly we adjust to our new normal.
And I was right.
But still: life goes on. Each breath is precious. We continue. We go on.
Some of us go on being stupid. But isn't it refreshing how much energy we have for stupid shit, so near to our salvation?
Praise be to Lagoma for how quickly we adjust to our new normal.
Written By Aureth
June 3, 2017, 12:42 a.m.(7/28/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Juliet
I will not say not to mourn for Juliet Fidante, for grief is always for what we have lost, and with her loss, we have lost.
But despite the violence of her ending, I know that her soul has been gathered into the hands of the Queen to be protected and cherished.
She was ready to lay down her life for the Compact and for the Faith. She looked into my face and swore to me she'd bring my friend back to me alive.
Whatever else she was in life, she was a hero, and a Paladin, who loved her god well. To whomever killed her, know that the Thirteenth sees you, as does the Sentinel.
Mother of Beginnings, for you have gathered this soul into your hands, this soul who helped slay your enemy with her whole heart: I look forward to what shape her next life may take.
But despite the violence of her ending, I know that her soul has been gathered into the hands of the Queen to be protected and cherished.
She was ready to lay down her life for the Compact and for the Faith. She looked into my face and swore to me she'd bring my friend back to me alive.
Whatever else she was in life, she was a hero, and a Paladin, who loved her god well. To whomever killed her, know that the Thirteenth sees you, as does the Sentinel.
Mother of Beginnings, for you have gathered this soul into your hands, this soul who helped slay your enemy with her whole heart: I look forward to what shape her next life may take.
Written By Aureth
May 28, 2017, 4:36 p.m.(7/17/1006 AR)
The faithful came together today and got down into the soil to plant trees. We gave thanks to Petrichor for the land and to Death for new beginnings.
I am reborn in the service of my goddess and of the Faith, and the world is reborn from the ashes of a war, a threat on its existence, in new life.
I give thanks, also, to Death, the Mother of Beginnings, for the two lovely children who were born to Princess Cara Grayson in the Rebirth Grove. I can think of no more auspicious omen for new lives than to begin in such a way, surrounded by hope, and love, and faith, while we scattered blessed water across the roots of these newly planted young trees.
Gods bless you all. It's a beautiful day today.
I am reborn in the service of my goddess and of the Faith, and the world is reborn from the ashes of a war, a threat on its existence, in new life.
I give thanks, also, to Death, the Mother of Beginnings, for the two lovely children who were born to Princess Cara Grayson in the Rebirth Grove. I can think of no more auspicious omen for new lives than to begin in such a way, surrounded by hope, and love, and faith, while we scattered blessed water across the roots of these newly planted young trees.
Gods bless you all. It's a beautiful day today.
Written By Aureth
May 28, 2017, 3:01 a.m.(7/16/1006 AR)
Tomorrow, we will pray in thanks for new beginnings.
I have a barrowload of trees for the occasion and I'm looking forward to seeing you all getting down in the dirt and mucking around with me.
Don't worry, we'll have at least one person there who knows how plants are supposed to work.
I have a barrowload of trees for the occasion and I'm looking forward to seeing you all getting down in the dirt and mucking around with me.
Don't worry, we'll have at least one person there who knows how plants are supposed to work.
Written By Aureth
May 21, 2017, 12:20 p.m.(7/3/1006 AR)
Today, we will break ground upon a new shrine for the Queen of Endings and Mother of Beginnings in the Sanctum of the Lost. In honor of the event, we'll be hosting an event full of drinks and snacks, with a comedy contest. For prizes for the comedy contest, Magpie Grayhope has created special rainbow mystery bags! If you happen to see this while you're perusing the Archive before the event begins, please come and join us today. It should be a fun time with lots of decent liquor and good company.
Come raise a glass to a new beginning!
(For those who may be concerned, I have to admit I'm not going to be giving drinks to the builders until they're ready to call it quits for the day.)
Come raise a glass to a new beginning!
(For those who may be concerned, I have to admit I'm not going to be giving drinks to the builders until they're ready to call it quits for the day.)
Written By Aureth
May 17, 2017, 4:08 p.m.(6/23/1006 AR)
There are many who find the worship of Death intimidating because of their fears of the end. I don't know that these words will address those fears, but I find, as I wait in the front of the tailor's shop while my new Archlector's longcoat is being sewn and altered, perfected to fit my height properly (because I guess they expected I'd be taller -- must be the undead army), that my thoughts continue to come back to grief.
There is a tendency to blame Death for the end of life. I find that I stand against that more and more often these days as her Voice. (Orazio says that is a title I have now. Her Voice.) To blame the protector who stands at the gates of the beyond and guards your soul from harm strikes me as a particularly ungrateful thing to do, but I understand that her role has been lost to us for centuries, misappropriated to the hands of another Goddess by those who recognized that the task must be done and could not remember who has done it; and I understand that the symbols of stark mortality that she claims for her own are not the sweetest, kindest symbols in the Pantheon.
The grinning skull; the spinning spider; the lost bat, whatever those are.
The end is frightening and cold and it can be horrible. Illness is a failure of the body. Injury is brutal and cruel. Death at the hands of another is harrowing, terrifying, murder a gross terror of the Sentinel. I've seen death. I've known loss.
I wanted nothing more in this moment than to look into my mother's face and tell her what exactly I was having commissioned. To know the pride of her heart and the outrage of her tongue because I'm sure I would have incurred both somehow. The end comes to us all in time, and hers was not a short life. It wasn't that recent an ending, yet still I could feel the sting of it anew.
I don't blame Death because my mother isn't here. I don't blame the Sentinel because human justice failed her. I don't blame Skald because someone chose to end her life. I don't blame Limerance because I give a damn about it.
Grief isn't about the dead. It is about what you have lost. It is about the great hole in your life that the departed have left. It is about what should be there, that you came to rely on in life, about the habits of your heart and of your existence that have been ripped from you. I have complete faith that my mother's soul was taken into the protection of the Goddess; that her brilliant spirit, kissed by Jayus, has returned the Wheel to be woven anew, sometime that Death has a need for clear eyes and total, unrelenting fearlessness.
But the hole in my heart remains. Because grief is fundamentally selfish. It is about what you had, which you can no longer possess. To give it up is to sacrifice, not your memory of whom you love -- which is a treasure to be honored -- but instead, your hurt. Your unwillingness to accept that they are gone.
Pray to Death for the souls you love. Pray to Her because she is their guardian and she will keep them whole and safe. Pray to Her because she is the ending and because she is the beginning. Because she made each soul from her own self and set it into the world, and because all things must end so that they can begin anew.
Pray to Lagoma for the bereaved. Pray to Her that they may shed that part of themselves that clings to bitterness and loss. Pray to Her because you must continue on, and accept that you no longer are who you were when they were with you, and must be someone different now. Someone shaped by who they were, yes. Someone who will never forget. But someone else.
Remember, the gods are a whole Pantheon. One without the others is not complete.
There is a tendency to blame Death for the end of life. I find that I stand against that more and more often these days as her Voice. (Orazio says that is a title I have now. Her Voice.) To blame the protector who stands at the gates of the beyond and guards your soul from harm strikes me as a particularly ungrateful thing to do, but I understand that her role has been lost to us for centuries, misappropriated to the hands of another Goddess by those who recognized that the task must be done and could not remember who has done it; and I understand that the symbols of stark mortality that she claims for her own are not the sweetest, kindest symbols in the Pantheon.
The grinning skull; the spinning spider; the lost bat, whatever those are.
The end is frightening and cold and it can be horrible. Illness is a failure of the body. Injury is brutal and cruel. Death at the hands of another is harrowing, terrifying, murder a gross terror of the Sentinel. I've seen death. I've known loss.
I wanted nothing more in this moment than to look into my mother's face and tell her what exactly I was having commissioned. To know the pride of her heart and the outrage of her tongue because I'm sure I would have incurred both somehow. The end comes to us all in time, and hers was not a short life. It wasn't that recent an ending, yet still I could feel the sting of it anew.
I don't blame Death because my mother isn't here. I don't blame the Sentinel because human justice failed her. I don't blame Skald because someone chose to end her life. I don't blame Limerance because I give a damn about it.
Grief isn't about the dead. It is about what you have lost. It is about the great hole in your life that the departed have left. It is about what should be there, that you came to rely on in life, about the habits of your heart and of your existence that have been ripped from you. I have complete faith that my mother's soul was taken into the protection of the Goddess; that her brilliant spirit, kissed by Jayus, has returned the Wheel to be woven anew, sometime that Death has a need for clear eyes and total, unrelenting fearlessness.
But the hole in my heart remains. Because grief is fundamentally selfish. It is about what you had, which you can no longer possess. To give it up is to sacrifice, not your memory of whom you love -- which is a treasure to be honored -- but instead, your hurt. Your unwillingness to accept that they are gone.
Pray to Death for the souls you love. Pray to Her because she is their guardian and she will keep them whole and safe. Pray to Her because she is the ending and because she is the beginning. Because she made each soul from her own self and set it into the world, and because all things must end so that they can begin anew.
Pray to Lagoma for the bereaved. Pray to Her that they may shed that part of themselves that clings to bitterness and loss. Pray to Her because you must continue on, and accept that you no longer are who you were when they were with you, and must be someone different now. Someone shaped by who they were, yes. Someone who will never forget. But someone else.
Remember, the gods are a whole Pantheon. One without the others is not complete.
Written By Aureth
May 11, 2017, 1:09 a.m.(6/10/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Serafine
I'm better with my hands.
Written By Aureth
May 11, 2017, 12:09 a.m.(6/10/1006 AR)
Remember:
Tonight, there will be starlight. The air will taste sweet when you breathe it in. When you sleep tonight, you may dream.
Tomorrow, there will be dawn to burn away the morning mist. The city will wake with noise and color and life. There will be people everywhere, going about their lives, trying to rebuild, creating memorials to those we have lost, finding new ways forward.
Taste your food. Feel the cool water against your teeth. Notice the fabric against your skin.
You're alive.
I can't even muster petty irritation for the thousand idiotic things I heard or read or saw in the past few days. And I've seen plenty. But I can't do it. The world is alive. The city breathes. The Pantheon lives. Loss may have happened, but we are alive to grieve, to live on, to _remember_.
Life goes on.
And I love every stupid fucking banal moment of it.
I'll be pissed off again next week, no doubt, particularly if people keep saying stupid shit -- as people are wont to do -- but for now?
Tomorrow is coming, and I love it.
Tonight, there will be starlight. The air will taste sweet when you breathe it in. When you sleep tonight, you may dream.
Tomorrow, there will be dawn to burn away the morning mist. The city will wake with noise and color and life. There will be people everywhere, going about their lives, trying to rebuild, creating memorials to those we have lost, finding new ways forward.
Taste your food. Feel the cool water against your teeth. Notice the fabric against your skin.
You're alive.
I can't even muster petty irritation for the thousand idiotic things I heard or read or saw in the past few days. And I've seen plenty. But I can't do it. The world is alive. The city breathes. The Pantheon lives. Loss may have happened, but we are alive to grieve, to live on, to _remember_.
Life goes on.
And I love every stupid fucking banal moment of it.
I'll be pissed off again next week, no doubt, particularly if people keep saying stupid shit -- as people are wont to do -- but for now?
Tomorrow is coming, and I love it.
Written By Aureth
May 7, 2017, 7:27 p.m.(6/4/1006 AR)
We have saved Death's City.
We saved ourselves.
And we saved the Wheel.
I spoke my thanks to the dead, and I'll write them here again. The dead rose, they walked, they fought. We held. We held for as long as we had to. We fought into the long, endless night, and I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't stood with Duke Cassius, with Father Orazio, and with those scrappy little shits from the Lower Boroughs defending their homes.
And it ended. _It ended_.
Thank the Pantheon. Thank the Paladins. Thank you.
We saved ourselves.
And we saved the Wheel.
I spoke my thanks to the dead, and I'll write them here again. The dead rose, they walked, they fought. We held. We held for as long as we had to. We fought into the long, endless night, and I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't stood with Duke Cassius, with Father Orazio, and with those scrappy little shits from the Lower Boroughs defending their homes.
And it ended. _It ended_.
Thank the Pantheon. Thank the Paladins. Thank you.
Written By Aureth
May 6, 2017, 12:43 p.m.(5/28/1006 AR)
The dead will take up arms with you and stand against the foe on this day. Take heart that the gods are with us. Take heart that Death's gifts are bestowed upon Her City and that we will stand against all that come to break the Wheel.
Defend the City and the Compact.
Defend the Queen and the Pantheon.
Defend life itself.
Oh and please don't fuck with the zombies, they're sensitive.
Defend the City and the Compact.
Defend the Queen and the Pantheon.
Defend life itself.
Oh and please don't fuck with the zombies, they're sensitive.
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.