Written By Dafne
Feb. 19, 2017, 8:40 p.m.(12/14/1005 AR)
I often write and think about death. The poetry of it, the mystery of it, the tragedy of it--but not tragedy in the real human way. Tragedy in a grand sad beautiful way, the sort of tragedy that makes you tear up at the sorrow of it all--but not the messy sprawling real way.
Because--it's mostly been at a remove from me, hasn't it? My mother died when I was born, but that's distant and far-off, like a song. I never knew Zaccheri all that well, even when he married Sylvie, because he was a lot older. It was something I could treat like a story.
And now it's here and real and I don't know what to do. Vincere, who sent me concerned messages when I hurt myself with experiments, and Pietro who sent me messages and hugged me and danced with me at my first ball when I was too shy to talk to anyone. And here I am, sitting very quietly at the Assembly and staring at walls, because last time I was at an Assembly and boiling over with anger, Pie was there to rant with me and joke with me and make me feel heard.
And I--I
I just can't.
I never wanted to believe in ghosts more.
Because--it's mostly been at a remove from me, hasn't it? My mother died when I was born, but that's distant and far-off, like a song. I never knew Zaccheri all that well, even when he married Sylvie, because he was a lot older. It was something I could treat like a story.
And now it's here and real and I don't know what to do. Vincere, who sent me concerned messages when I hurt myself with experiments, and Pietro who sent me messages and hugged me and danced with me at my first ball when I was too shy to talk to anyone. And here I am, sitting very quietly at the Assembly and staring at walls, because last time I was at an Assembly and boiling over with anger, Pie was there to rant with me and joke with me and make me feel heard.
And I--I
I just can't.
I never wanted to believe in ghosts more.
Written By Dafne
Jan. 18, 2017, 12:57 a.m.(9/10/1005 AR)
I wish my sleep were troubled only by bumps in the night and unquiet ghosts and the occasional heady passion--but.
There are other matters that trouble my sleep.
We had a treaty with the Nox'alfar. For centuries we honoured it. Until we--not they--smashed it to fragments. It was for us to make recompense. Instead we mocked and blamed the delegates from the people we wronged.
Treaties are sacred when signed. We cannot decide that breaking a treaty is of no matter, simply because we find the contents distasteful. The whole fabric of the Compact is made up with the stuff of treaties, of promises made and words kept.
If we treat agreements with outsiders so lightly, why should we honour our treaties with each other? Why keep to our defense pacts and our marriage agreements when the Regency Council holds our agreements so light? Why should the five of us cleave to each other when treaties matter no whit? Shall the Lyceum retreat to our lands and laugh as Arx falls? Will the North wander off on whatever they do, because Prince Darren seems to think he always knows best? Will the Oathlands continue to make mockery of oaths? Will the Crownlands fall with no one there to help? Will Thrax sail away?
I am increasingly beginning to believe we are the villians of this story.
There are other matters that trouble my sleep.
We had a treaty with the Nox'alfar. For centuries we honoured it. Until we--not they--smashed it to fragments. It was for us to make recompense. Instead we mocked and blamed the delegates from the people we wronged.
Treaties are sacred when signed. We cannot decide that breaking a treaty is of no matter, simply because we find the contents distasteful. The whole fabric of the Compact is made up with the stuff of treaties, of promises made and words kept.
If we treat agreements with outsiders so lightly, why should we honour our treaties with each other? Why keep to our defense pacts and our marriage agreements when the Regency Council holds our agreements so light? Why should the five of us cleave to each other when treaties matter no whit? Shall the Lyceum retreat to our lands and laugh as Arx falls? Will the North wander off on whatever they do, because Prince Darren seems to think he always knows best? Will the Oathlands continue to make mockery of oaths? Will the Crownlands fall with no one there to help? Will Thrax sail away?
I am increasingly beginning to believe we are the villians of this story.
Written By Dafne
Jan. 15, 2017, 10:24 p.m.(9/4/1005 AR)
Lady Aislin very helpfully personally gave me a copy of her book on the Nox'aflar. They sound thrilling.
However, I thought they'd be taller.
However, I thought they'd be taller.
Written By Dafne
Jan. 1, 2017, 11:23 p.m.(7/18/1005 AR)
I have never been afraid of what lurks in the dark. I have always thrilled to it. Whatever goes bump in the night.
And now I am afraid of it. What lurks outside this city, in the darkness of the forests.
I have learnt too recently just how defenseless I am.
And now I am afraid of it. What lurks outside this city, in the darkness of the forests.
I have learnt too recently just how defenseless I am.
Written By Dafne
Dec. 11, 2016, 11:18 p.m.(5/11/1005 AR)
My dear kitten did spend an awful lot of time staring at nothingness. Rubbing against nothingness. Purring at nothingness--
Maybe it's true.
Maybe cats can see ghosts.
Or maybe just Nightshade can.
Maybe it's true.
Maybe cats can see ghosts.
Or maybe just Nightshade can.
Written By Dafne
Dec. 4, 2016, 11:45 p.m.(4/18/1005 AR)
I have finished it! My first, short novel, about a lonely girl and the haunted mirror. Also three murders, one suicide, two imprisonments, and one incident 'too scandalous to specify outside the Lyceum.'
Next I will have to make it better. And publish.
Next I will have to make it better. And publish.
Written By Dafne
Nov. 27, 2016, 11:03 p.m.(3/25/1005 AR)
I've taught Nightshade to carry messages. What a clever kitten she is.
Someone asked me if he hallucinated the arrival of kitten-post. That made all the effort worth it.
Someone asked me if he hallucinated the arrival of kitten-post. That made all the effort worth it.
Written By Dafne
Nov. 14, 2016, 12:29 a.m.(2/12/1005 AR)
THE SECRET BEHIND THE GLASS, by D. Z.
When she was eight, Rosicitta was sent to live with her grandmother.
Her mother was dying, after all. Dying slowly, and coughing up blood in the night, sticky scarlet staining snowy sheets. There was no time for children, especially not for a wide-eyed, skinny-legged girl who liked to peek in every dark corner to see what was hidden there.
So she was sent to live with her grandmother. Her grandmother lived in the original family manor, somewhere in the wilds outside Gemecitta, where the land was barren and still marked by the pale smudges of marble where the land had been quarried to half to death. Now, only a few, skinny goats grazed on weeds between the marks of marble, and clouds scudded in the stormy sky overhead.
The old manse had one wing that had been abandoned, left for the owls and feral cats, the stone tumbling and eroding into a ghost of its former glory. The wing that remained was built oddly, all twists and turns and dark shadowy corners, and rooms where there should not have been rooms.
Then there were the drapes.
It was in her grandmother's sitting room, a pair of immense curtains of black velvet, drawn closed as if over a window. Only there was no window.
"What's that?" she asked her grandmother, because she was too young to have learnt there are things you should never ask questions.
"Evidence that little girls should not ask questions," was the decidedly unhelpful answer.
And so it went. Her grandmother never answered questions about it, never let her go near it, and the more Rosicitta's curiosity grew, night by night, day by day.
Until the day her grandmother stayed the night with their nearest neighbours--some twenty miles hence. And, that night, with the servants safely abend, Rosicitta snuck out, a wide-eyed, skinny-legged girl clutching a candle, and went through the twists and turns and by the rooms where there should have been rooms, and into her grandmother's sitting room.
And, with a trembling hand and a pounding hand, she drew aside the curtain.
She saw nothing at first. No window, no portrait--only a mirror. An old mirror in a golden-framed, reflecting the shadows of the room behind her. And the skittering flame of her candle, and her own face by its light, pale with fear, and her own eyes, pale blue, floating before her--
Her skin prickled, as if someone was watching her. As if someone was staring through her from the mirror, right through her--
She tugged the drape shut, turned, and fled.
(Er. I'm stuck there. What is in the mirror? Should have a murder and an old bloodstain, I think. Skip ahead ten years and give her a lover. Maybe some handsome prince, with a strong jaw and golden hair. Maybe the cook's shy son. Maybe a Thraxian pirate, all rough and crude, but with a magnetic gaze that makes her tingle all over because she knows it is so wrong--
WHAT IN THE WORLD IS IN THE MIRROR?)
When she was eight, Rosicitta was sent to live with her grandmother.
Her mother was dying, after all. Dying slowly, and coughing up blood in the night, sticky scarlet staining snowy sheets. There was no time for children, especially not for a wide-eyed, skinny-legged girl who liked to peek in every dark corner to see what was hidden there.
So she was sent to live with her grandmother. Her grandmother lived in the original family manor, somewhere in the wilds outside Gemecitta, where the land was barren and still marked by the pale smudges of marble where the land had been quarried to half to death. Now, only a few, skinny goats grazed on weeds between the marks of marble, and clouds scudded in the stormy sky overhead.
The old manse had one wing that had been abandoned, left for the owls and feral cats, the stone tumbling and eroding into a ghost of its former glory. The wing that remained was built oddly, all twists and turns and dark shadowy corners, and rooms where there should not have been rooms.
Then there were the drapes.
It was in her grandmother's sitting room, a pair of immense curtains of black velvet, drawn closed as if over a window. Only there was no window.
"What's that?" she asked her grandmother, because she was too young to have learnt there are things you should never ask questions.
"Evidence that little girls should not ask questions," was the decidedly unhelpful answer.
And so it went. Her grandmother never answered questions about it, never let her go near it, and the more Rosicitta's curiosity grew, night by night, day by day.
Until the day her grandmother stayed the night with their nearest neighbours--some twenty miles hence. And, that night, with the servants safely abend, Rosicitta snuck out, a wide-eyed, skinny-legged girl clutching a candle, and went through the twists and turns and by the rooms where there should have been rooms, and into her grandmother's sitting room.
And, with a trembling hand and a pounding hand, she drew aside the curtain.
She saw nothing at first. No window, no portrait--only a mirror. An old mirror in a golden-framed, reflecting the shadows of the room behind her. And the skittering flame of her candle, and her own face by its light, pale with fear, and her own eyes, pale blue, floating before her--
Her skin prickled, as if someone was watching her. As if someone was staring through her from the mirror, right through her--
She tugged the drape shut, turned, and fled.
(Er. I'm stuck there. What is in the mirror? Should have a murder and an old bloodstain, I think. Skip ahead ten years and give her a lover. Maybe some handsome prince, with a strong jaw and golden hair. Maybe the cook's shy son. Maybe a Thraxian pirate, all rough and crude, but with a magnetic gaze that makes her tingle all over because she knows it is so wrong--
WHAT IN THE WORLD IS IN THE MIRROR?)
Written By Dafne
Nov. 14, 2016, 12:05 a.m.(2/11/1005 AR)
I don't understand why it seems everyone wants to tutor me in sword play all of a sudden.
Written By Dafne
Nov. 13, 2016, 10:06 p.m.(2/11/1005 AR)
I found a kitten.
I would have never found her if I had not been in the gardens, lying in the bushes and trying to understand what it felt like to be dead, a corpse discarded in the underbrush--er. That is a very relevant thing to--never mind.
I found her there, huddled behind a planter, a tiny scrap of black fur shivering in the cold. Too young to leave her mother, I thought, but no sign of mother or siblings. So I kept her warm--she was tiny enough to shove down the front of my bodice, but it's likely a good thing Sylvie didn't see that--and the cook and I fed her with milk and a bit of beef stew mushed into mush. After eating, she purred loud enough to shake the house, bright-eyed and lively.
She is black all over, like the deepest depths of night. I've named her Nightshade.
I'm sure someday she will be sleek and deadly.
I would have never found her if I had not been in the gardens, lying in the bushes and trying to understand what it felt like to be dead, a corpse discarded in the underbrush--er. That is a very relevant thing to--never mind.
I found her there, huddled behind a planter, a tiny scrap of black fur shivering in the cold. Too young to leave her mother, I thought, but no sign of mother or siblings. So I kept her warm--she was tiny enough to shove down the front of my bodice, but it's likely a good thing Sylvie didn't see that--and the cook and I fed her with milk and a bit of beef stew mushed into mush. After eating, she purred loud enough to shake the house, bright-eyed and lively.
She is black all over, like the deepest depths of night. I've named her Nightshade.
I'm sure someday she will be sleek and deadly.
Written By Dafne
Nov. 6, 2016, 11:03 p.m.(1/18/1005 AR)
I have always thought we lived in a world of great shadowy secrets, with intrigue and tragedy lurking around every corner.
Now I am quite certain I am right. It feels different, feeling it to be concrete truth instead of fancy.
It's...
Scary.
And not entirely in the good, gooseflesh heartrace cold savage thrill way.
Now I am quite certain I am right. It feels different, feeling it to be concrete truth instead of fancy.
It's...
Scary.
And not entirely in the good, gooseflesh heartrace cold savage thrill way.
Written By Dafne
Nov. 6, 2016, 11 p.m.(1/18/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Cara
Cara is a Rubino by birth and thus, not exactly my cousin, but almost. Our family is confusing.
She is very sensible and intelligent and knows a good many things.
Also, she is beautiful and sad and very tall, like a tragic heroine.
(Woe is me. Proper tragic heroines are never as short as me.)
She is very sensible and intelligent and knows a good many things.
Also, she is beautiful and sad and very tall, like a tragic heroine.
(Woe is me. Proper tragic heroines are never as short as me.)
Written By Dafne
Nov. 4, 2016, 6:21 p.m.(1/12/1005 AR)
I went to the graveyard last night.
I found no answers. I don't know what I was expecting. I don't even know which questions I was asking. Explosions? The questions of life and death and the delicate veil between?
I only know that I--enjoy graveyards. Sylvie thinks me mad, I know. It is--well, sometimes they are peaceful, yes. It is peaceful where no one can speak, when the souls that rest beside you, rest in companionable silence. But sometimes there is a stillness to them that goes beyond peace. It's an electric hesitation, a pause, as something waits...something lurks...something is almost, but not quite there.
And that something prickles at my skin.
Perhaps I should make this a poem.
I found no answers. I don't know what I was expecting. I don't even know which questions I was asking. Explosions? The questions of life and death and the delicate veil between?
I only know that I--enjoy graveyards. Sylvie thinks me mad, I know. It is--well, sometimes they are peaceful, yes. It is peaceful where no one can speak, when the souls that rest beside you, rest in companionable silence. But sometimes there is a stillness to them that goes beyond peace. It's an electric hesitation, a pause, as something waits...something lurks...something is almost, but not quite there.
And that something prickles at my skin.
Perhaps I should make this a poem.
Written By Dafne
Oct. 4, 2016, 12:44 a.m.(10/1/1004 AR)
Relationship Note on Valkieri
Have irritated Lord Valkieri at least twice today by my count, although there could be some debate where it was separate irritations or one extended irritations. If I irritate him fifty times by month's end, will treat myself to new volume of poetry.
After all, Lady Cara is right. Irritating him is medicinal.
After all, Lady Cara is right. Irritating him is medicinal.
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