Written By Cara
May 26, 2017, 12:51 p.m.(7/13/1006 AR)
The poor pup looked so dismayed, too, with them stuck to his fur like that. Oh well. Back to the drawing board.
Written By Cara
May 23, 2017, 3:52 p.m.(7/7/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Laric
I'm just imagining the face he's going to make when he realizes I wrote about this in a white journal and I can't stop giggling.
Written By Cara
May 9, 2017, 3:25 p.m.(6/7/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Driskell
I expect it will grant a great deal of comfort to our descendants to know that even in bygone ages, humanity never fails to disappoint.
Written By Cara
April 29, 2017, 5:03 p.m.(5/13/1006 AR)
I have a new appreciation for what my own mother went through, which I am sure is the point of her reminder to write it down, and so:
Yes, Mother, you were right.
Written By Cara
April 29, 2017, 4:22 p.m.(5/13/1006 AR)
It is ever important to remember to respond with grace and calm demeanor, for certainly to do otherwise is to invite scorn and malice. On the other hand, grace and decorum in the face of provocation can be spun as inaction or lack of will -- and will certainly be painted that way by one's detractors.
I muse on this subject often: to be politic, or to be honest. My brother never shied away from brutal honesty, something which I confess I often envied in him, even as I put pen to paper writing apologies and soothing hurt feelings.
Perhaps my tolerance for those who lie to me, who attempt to bully me, or to otherwise coerce and control me without the proper bounds of fealty between us has grown tattered of late. There's a limit to what any person might endure without comment. I pray I do not meet that limit somewhere public, and do something disgraceful like hurl a teapot at the head of a High Lord, or dump wine onto an idiot's lap.
It would not do for it to be revealed that I am only human, too, after all.
Written By Cara
April 13, 2017, 1:24 p.m.(4/8/1006 AR)
And there is no moral justification for peeling the skin from a living man -- none whatsoever.
Until his liege has answered to what he has done, condemnation must be shared equally. If I ordered my general to such abhorrent desolation, I would be responsible for it as much as if I had wielded the blade myself; if he acted without my consent, I would be just as responsible should I fail to stand in judgment over it.
I value highly the contributions the Thrax have made to our unified war against the destruction of all reality, and look forward to the response of Thrax's leadership to the atrocities committed in their name.
Written By Cara
April 8, 2017, 10:15 p.m.(3/26/1006 AR)
I came to the Wake of Lights tonight to release three lanterns, one for each of my dear ones who has been lost in this war against the Silence. I expected to cry, to feel deeply, to be moved -- and I was, for the beauty of it was profound. So many voices, rising in unified mourning, in hope and love for those lost.
And then She came.
As the lanterns rose into the sky, a figure appeared, a woman, growing taller and taller with each passing moment. She seemed almost made of shadow, and she rose, higher and higher into the sky until she was adrift with the lanterns that we had released. She spun and their flames soared into her, caught and held within her form.
And then She spoke, to her priest, Master Aureth. She placed her hand upon his chest and sent all the power of the flames she had absorbed into him.
We worshipped Her, and She came.
I felt, watching her, as though my own soul was called toward her, trying to lift free of my mortal form and join her. It was the most peculiar sensation I've ever experienced.
It was transcendent.
I will never forget it.
Written By Cara
April 7, 2017, 2:29 p.m.(3/24/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Peregrine
Written By Cara
March 30, 2017, 2:09 a.m.(3/7/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Dafne
I am, though, very proud to call her 'cousin', and even more glad to call her friend.
Written By Cara
March 27, 2017, 1:04 p.m.(3/2/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Valkieri
Written By Cara
March 19, 2017, 3:30 p.m.(2/14/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Valkieri
I've seen what's in those woods, and I would not wish it upon my worst enemy.
Though I suppose my worst enemy is what is already coming here, so the point is rather moot.
At any rate, Valkieri has promised me that he will not do something as gauche as perish, which I trust should be sufficient. We've all had enough of grief for a span. Never mind Gemecitta needing one of its Dukes; /I/ need my brother. He had best come home intact or I shall be extremely cross.
Written By Cara
March 19, 2017, 3:19 p.m.(2/14/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Tikva
And the ginger pear tea she recommended is a wondrous lifesaver, too.
Written By Cara
March 19, 2017, 3:18 p.m.(2/14/1006 AR)
I read dreadfully overwrought novels, and I love them.
Give me swooning! Give me heaving bosoms, yearning to be free! Tell me of dastardly villains brought low by their own fiendish failure, and brilliant heroes overcoming all adversity to rescue their loves!
And if you put a bit about a dog in, too, that's just icing on the cake.
Written By Cara
March 12, 2017, 3:58 p.m.(1/28/1006 AR)
Vincere and Pietro will be properly granted their rest, brought home to us. In better circumstances they should go to their true home - Granato - but I selfishly am grateful that they will not be so far away.
I walk that way often, through the Plaza Unita, and stop to visit their statues. It's not the same. It will never be the same. But it is a small comfort, nevertheless.
Written By Cara
March 5, 2017, 9:35 p.m.(1/14/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Laric
Written By Cara
Feb. 27, 2017, 10:30 p.m.(1/3/1006 AR)
Written By Cara
Feb. 25, 2017, 5:02 p.m.(12/26/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Laric
Written By Cara
Feb. 18, 2017, 1:19 a.m.(12/11/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Pietro
For the rest of my life, I will turn, thinking how much I wish to tell you something, or to hear your laughter, or to get you to stop flopping onto the furniture --
But you won't be there.
I don't know what to do about that.
Written By Cara
Feb. 15, 2017, 9:14 p.m.(12/6/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Vincere
My love, this is for you. You are beyond reading it, I know, but I write it nevertheless.
It should have been our life.
I see the library you built for me, with the volumes ordered just so, and the way we never could quite agree on just how to sort them. By topic or by author? By age? Never the medicinals with the herbals, those belong with botany. Books stacked on the desk, waiting to be returned home, half interrupted and places marked where we were distracted with one another and left unfinished.
In the garden, Pietro's ridiculous gnomes have multiplied, and he and I hide them to distract and annoy you, because the frown you make when you are exasperated with us is adorable.
The fire dies low and we are too comfortable on your study's couch to rise and go to bed properly. I rest my head on your shoulder and whisper when I want you to turn the page of whatever it is we read together.
The children, running and tumbling through the halls, chased by their uncle -- until you poke your head from your study to give them a look and quiet them. At least until they are out of view.
Lazy mornings, broken by little whispers wondering, "Are they up yet? No, you wake them."
Silver hair and lines at the corners of your eyes, hands that ache in the cold, still strong enough to hold mine.
It should have been our life, my dearest.
Perhaps -- perhaps, we will meet again, and I pray for all the gods' grace that next time, we will have our time.
Written By Cara
Feb. 9, 2017, 3:23 a.m.(11/20/1005 AR)
I suppose I'm just a sentimentalist.
Though it may not have been strictly necessary to do so in such a public way, it was my thinking that to mend the breach between us and the Faith both required and deserved something of a larger display. I wanted it to be seen and to be understood, and so it was, and by the grace of the Dominus we are made reconciled. In such dangerous days as this, it is more important than ever that the Faith and the High Lords -- and the very Crown -- work together and rely on one another.
We cannot get through this alone. The enemies we face are simply too powerful for any one group or individual, no matter how heroic, to prevail.
Now, that being said, it seems that there is a wedding in my near future. I've been blessed with dear friends and family to help me overcome my reticence -- the heavens know my last wedding brings nothing but tainted memories to mind -- and I am pleased that there might be a small touch of something happy to celebrate in the sadness, though there is so much of it. So many dear ones are gone, missing or lost to us, and we are so diminished for their absence. I can only believe, though, that we must seize our happiness, no matter how brief, for recent events prove nothing if they do not prove how fleeting and precious such moments are.
May the gods watch over us, and send us their grace, for surely it is gravely needed now.
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.