Posted: 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.
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.