The Writings of Artemis D'Assanthe

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Copper Dragon
Posts: 537
Joined: Tue Dec 01, 2015 12:11 pm
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Postby Copper Dragon » Mon Jan 02, 2017 10:20 pm

Diary
Of the 20th day of Uktar, 1363DR.

Miss Élisabeth Duval passed away.

Not today. Only the news reached me on this day through ser Merney. Its details he did not disclose, but he did not need to - she was young, clever and of firm convictions: those like her only meet the God of Death violently. Those like ser Merney meet the pain of loss silently, but sharply.

But I had to set this aside. I was promised to a secluded congregation whose discussion couldn't entertain delays - a discussion on the demonic return. The Chantry; the coast; the plains; they spawn more eagerly and so we must plan more eagerly also.

Plans we made, and we have many directions to watch avidly, although we never act alone. Those Knights of the Most Holy Order, the long-absent Warcaptains, and the militant arm of Impiltur are all in motion. I ask myself how they prepare whose far-away forebears felt the yoke of this enemy; I ponder if in our own way we Adventurers are as ready as these present day, trained local defenders - or less than them. Or more than them.

An arrogant thought? Mayhaps, though that is not mine intention.

It is the same thought that leads me humbly back to Merney's plight and miss Élise's death. The thought that no matter how we have been braced against terror, pain or death, it will find us with such suddenness that we are almost powerless against it.

Almost.

Soon I will visit miss Élise's grave. I wish to and he asked me.



Of the 21st of Uktar, 1363DR.

It is good that during the day I do not have much time to dwell on personal feelings. But now that I hold the quill leaning over this page, I feel like a fool.

He had a wife; of course. He is over thirty summers old, was not born a peasant and did not live his life as a hermit. He made a vow before law and god. That I did not dwell on the possibility before, that he did not speak of her earlier, that she passed on... That their marriage had not been annulled...

Fool girl. Fool, fool girl, courting with married men.

Weddings are beseeched to be blessed often for 'as long as love lasts', and some only for two summers or ten, but some are sealed until death. He says that his will soon last naught, for he has sent letters with the request for it to be cancelled a time ago, but that only makes me an accomplice in two crimes rather than one - in breaking a vow and destroying it - or so it feels to me.

A part of me fidgets with this unjust guilt, another part of me broods jealousy towards a woman who is not alive; and one more part of me wants to feel afraid that I recognise myself in the description he gave of her, if not fully then in some measure. I want to write how all three parts are just waiting for a wounded tantrum -

And yet that is not Artemis D'Assanthe.



Of the Feast of the Moon, 1363DR.

We visited miss Élise's cairn down the coastal road. The wind was cold but merciful, the sky grieving and grey, and fitting the Moonfest. The tree by which she lay was lonesome save for ser Merney's presence and mine.

It was not lonesome for long, and the day for remembrance took more than one turn. There were men who would have befouled Élisabeth's last resting place for nothing else but coin, and the sword that she had carried and which adorned the gravesite was, it seems, a coveted treasure. But that is not what will stay with me the most, nor the unbridled raw sorrow that leaked from that longsword as if compelled by Moonfest's powers; it was the hedge-knight, the Damaran who stayed his blade. The man who made a different choice today. A better choice.

Should one day a dear reader come upon these words and feel the significance of them to be lost on them... I can only ask for their forgiveness. I have no ink precious enough to explain it with, only a humble tear of hope.
Plays:
Artemis D'Assanthe, Dawnmaster
Udhana, the Kinless
Dhovainithil, Silver Elf
Jhasira of the Bai Kabor, Dawnbringer (deceased)

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Copper Dragon
Posts: 537
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Postby Copper Dragon » Sun Feb 12, 2017 6:44 pm

Diary

I have not written in some time.

I should have, much has happened in the span of two months. Yet where would I have begun?

That he declared his love to me, in the midst of his great, gaping grief on the 2nd of Nightal? That he whispered it, and I back?

He lost one friend to death, then a loyal steed to the same; he lost a sister not of his blood to her search for answers and solitude, and the other to self-doubt, isolation. That which he tried to build up around him with increasing success, a warm new life, was being torn down brick by brick in plain sight. But a soldier does not admit weakness, he tries to drown it - in ale or in blood.

As I penned: much has happened around me and around us all in the past months, too many to tell even without touching upon him. Of course, it is to him that my private thoughts will return most frequently; this, dear reader of mine journal, you will have to forgive as the inevitability of Lady Love's kiss. I will only record what bears significance for my present state. Briefly.

4th of Nightal, he drank; I did not let him sink into its cool darkness but prodded him to dance with me instead; and he danced and smiled and laughed. 6th of Nightal, we tracked down orcs into the mountains, defeated them, and amidst the violence there were moments of his kindness, as he helped me cross bridges over the ravines. 9th of Nightal, he handed me a key. The 10th, flowers.

Each day felt like a year; odd certainly to any outside observer, but in the end perfect to me.

Then, the days flooded us... and upon them rode It.

18th of Nightal. We all stood by the gates of Sarshel Elethlim's city. Together and tall, we had braced for the Second Arrival - the roaring avalanche that was the Flaming Prince's coming.

That day, we all drank fire and blood and terror. But from victory's cup also. And the grand doors of relief and freedom opened, and through them we stepped, weary but relentless to complete our triumph and crown it with the final ritual that Sister Kelda had wished to perform for so long.

For that, it was the 6th of Hammer of the year 1364DR that we gathered in the Triadic Temple.

Should this have been where I began, this moment, this stance upon the precipice?

The time when I almost died; when I felt the passage of angels; when I thought I had to choose between my friend's holy mission and my earthly future?

For although we succeeded in the ritual it was not without cost, just as nothing worthwhile is. While Sister Kelda remained standing, the goodly priest of Tyr perished in the rite, and I... I was no longer here for a time. Had I attempted to persist further to help the ritual summons, I understand I would have perished as well, for my spirit was being pulled to His realm; this I knew with absolute certainty if almost too late. But I managed to resist the pull and to stay. And even that was not effortless - I had stretched myself too thin in the hope of reaching success. Sleep, a deep, unbreakable heavenly sleep claimed me, and it almost seems like everything that happened afterwards is just a dream.

Indeed, in some respects I wish it were.

Aryen has done well in making me feel otherwise; keeping me sheltered and warm, comfortable and confined in my thoughts' reach to only the immediate matters around me. The world out there was gently pushed aside. But then he came knocking on the cabin's door; Yserien; my friend, my sombre Elven paradigm.

And with him came everything, moonlight spilling onto this idle dark room.

Merney...
Plays:
Artemis D'Assanthe, Dawnmaster
Udhana, the Kinless
Dhovainithil, Silver Elf
Jhasira of the Bai Kabor, Dawnbringer (deceased)

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Copper Dragon
Posts: 537
Joined: Tue Dec 01, 2015 12:11 pm
Location: GMT +1

Postby Copper Dragon » Thu Mar 14, 2019 8:10 pm

Diary
A small dozen entries have been written dated between the years 1364DR and 1366DR, which seem to largely concern affairs of business and temple. It is hinted that the author's relationship with a certain hedge knight has been ended in mutual agreement, while in other entries it is made clear that the writer has travelled abroad for a time: to Elventree of the Dalelands and farther west, to Amn. The latter two locations are described with fondness, if little in the means of detail.
A more recent entry at last refers to Impiltur again.


Of the 17th day of Alturiak, 1366DR.

Despite having returned to Sarshel two months ago, I felt as though I've only walked a very narrow streak of the city for some time; the parts where coin flowed, and trade jangled, and fine etiquette sang. Today I opted to walk the streets as I used to, not with a purpose from one meeting to the next, but with my eyes open for the streets and the greatest commodity... Adventurers.

And by Lathander's laughter, what folk I met.

Seemingly Sayildi's establishment has managed to recruit a halfling, Badger, whose task it was to get more workforce. That he proposed a job for me as tavern wench, clueless of who I was, gave the most genuine amusement I had in tendays. It brought me back years, to that feeling of being an acolyte, unknown and treated like any other pleasant face you'd meet by the city gates. A part of me would take up the role of tavern wench just to taste more of that sense of 'new', were it not for my pride in the Lord's work, and my full contempt of the idea of working for a Calishite.

On the same day I encountered miss Trish Winterbrooke, a hin as well, sweet as strawberries and - from what I heard of her - a protective and capable huntress the likes of which Aleira Nemesk's Rangers would love to have in their ranks. Bless her, I hope I may see more of her sometime.

But neither of those was the greatest surprise of the day. I've met someone old and new; a familiar face and a complete stranger in one. After we parted ways on our solemn terms, one god or another deemed it fit to put the Slasher of Vlasta in front of me today. The Butcher... That was the old face, and the new one was Aerandir Elensar, and while they surely aren't the same, they are irrevocably intertwined.

The name tastes like snow on my tongue, meek but cold, much like he was today. He's shed his old name and his past, and was given by grace of the Impilturan Crown a new name, a new chance to prove his worth,... a new beginning, as the Morninglord would will it, and much like I pleaded back in the day. What he has done with this new frame, however, doesn't please me at first sight. He walked and stood and talked in a new frame, yes, but an empty one indeed, with the canvas of his soul bleached, as if afraid that painting on it would inevitably be a painting in blood and old mistakes. Guarded, fortified, distant; those emotions in check for fear of sullying the carefully erected new image. But how can you embrace something new, by denying what was?

It is a lesson we continually strive to learn, and must make our own if we are to be our better selves than yesterday. That which we bury deep will always come to rotten our soil; that which we try to outrun will always follow us doggedly; the weaknesses we deny in ourselves, will make of us their slaves. A lesson much needed to stave off inner conflict.

And I have realised that, want as I might, I will not purge the deepest darkest vices from Merney's, the Slasher's, Aerandir's,... or anyone's spirit. Like the Morninglord raises the sun each day out of His own strength; they will need to face the darkness themselves, and lift from its endless pit the sun, themselves.

And I pray he will.
Plays:
Artemis D'Assanthe, Dawnmaster
Udhana, the Kinless
Dhovainithil, Silver Elf
Jhasira of the Bai Kabor, Dawnbringer (deceased)


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