Written By Aiden
April 14, 2017, 5:20 p.m.(4/10/1006 AR)
- I was accepted as a clerk of the court. The Chief Magistrate believes I have a future ahead of me, if I work hard.
- I received more presents from a good friend, I wish I could express myself more.
- I met new friends!
- I asked a Whisper friend of mine to attend a theatre show with me.
- I was promised a picnic!
- I sent presents to friends.
- Family believes in me to send me to the Wall and inspire the archers.
- I helped train Lady Charlaine's icebear and word is getting around that I train animals!
Bad Things That Happened:
- My mail keeps getting intercepted and I keep getting threats. Threats against my friends and against me.
- I was in the Badger house when more Bringers attacked. I have been unlucky in going out places.
- I wasn't able to help a lady in a top hat on the street. I wish I could have given her money.
Written By Ariel
April 14, 2017, 5:18 p.m.(4/10/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Asger
Written By Orazio
April 14, 2017, 5:05 p.m.(4/10/1006 AR)
When I was a much, much younger man, I served as a soldier in the military of Southport. It was expected, certainly, but it was also a source of pride for me. The Saik and the Malvici enjoyed a cordial relationship, and it was considered an honor to train and fight alongside the warriors of the Malvici. From those brave men and women, I learned about many things. Among them, Gloria; the goddess had been a distant, barely understood figure in my youth - the Saiklands are small enough that the border skirmishes rarely touched us. But I remember Sister Grace. She was godsworn, and provided most of the spiritual guidance for my division. She had also been a soldier in her own youth, and proved that one can be devout and also swear like a tavern full of angry sailors. Grey-haired, uncompromising when it came to what mattered, but willing provide counsel when one needed it, and a clonk on the head when one needed that.
I needed both, from time to time.
But although I saw her perform many rituals, prayers, and functions over the years of my service, a sequence of events stands out in my mind, and has always been one of the ways that I came to understand Gloria. It was a far patrol, and we came upon a trading caravan that had been attacked by shavs. They had been butchered, one and all, their bodies laid out in gruesome display, corpses desecrated. The caravan had only one real guard; the rest had been simple traders and their children. The sight filled every soldier with horror...and with fury. Our Captain sent out our scouts, and we followed the trail of the shavs for days, back to their camp. We descended like the wrath of Gloria herself, young men and women filled with fire. The fighting was fierce, but the shavs were ill-trained for a real fight, and we cut their warriors down. I remember, in the midst of the fighting, a young shav girl - maybe just past her first decade - picking up a flaming branch from the bonfire and racing at one of my comrades. We both turned. We both raised our blades in the heat of the battle. And Grace, who had been fighting just as fiercely along with us, struck them aside, before kicking the branch out of the girl's hand and knocking her to the ground and out of the fight.
"But why?" we cried out, after we were victorious, and the noncombatants had been driven from Malvici lands. "They were our enemy, even the child!"
"She weren't your enemy, unless you think a child's a fair fight." She spit to one side. "What I've seen of your bladework says you got an argument, mind."
"Our cause is righteous! Look what they did to our people."
"Ayup, and that's why we fought them. But let me tell you something, from Gloria, to me, to you: Righteous ain't a thing you /are/. It's a thing you /do/. The only thing separating you boys from those shavs is that you've got the Pantheon to guide you, to demand better of you, and they got their damned heresies and blood sacrifices. The moment a soldier ain't god his or her honor, they're nothing but a butcher or a thug. Is that what you wanna be?" She was holding that great blade of hers in a way that suggested it was not a rhetorical question, so we both shook our heads. She grunted. "Then mind what you do, because black acts are black, no matter what name you hold."
Some years later, I was still in Southport, serving the Faith and remembering those words when Southport marched to war against Tor. As the reports came in from the battlefields, and as the soldiers of Southport sought out counsel, prayer, and absolution for the orders they had received under Lucien's command, I learned what it meant for a commander to believe that there was no honor in war, and that nothing mattered but stacking up enough bodies to achieve your goal.
If one believes that there is no honor in war, and thus no honor needed by warriors and commanders, then what is left?
Written By Ariel
April 14, 2017, 4:05 p.m.(4/10/1006 AR)
stars and moons
lost infinitely together.
In peaceful harmony,
beautiful and elegant.
Dancing as they would,
timeless and classic,
haunting and amazing.
Written By Driskell
April 14, 2017, 3:39 p.m.(4/10/1006 AR)
The tides move in and out, the waves crumble the cliffs and the mountains jut up with fiery rivers to create land.
Written By Dominique
April 14, 2017, 3:17 p.m.(4/10/1006 AR)
Written By Edward
April 14, 2017, 3:12 p.m.(4/10/1006 AR)
Devils of the worst timing;
Necessary evil.
Written By Harper
April 14, 2017, 2:03 p.m.(4/10/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Juliet
Wait a minute -
So, Scholar says the word is accentuated and suggests I use it in a sentence. I got this. I accentuated her really good with bruises, and I gave her a shove when she smacked the flat edge of her sword against my ass.
Though Rando says her form's improving.
I'd hate to see what her form looked like before.
Written By Juliet
April 14, 2017, 1:43 p.m.(4/10/1006 AR)
Today I hadn't gotten enough of a beating, so I visited the training centre. Met an iron guardswoman by the name of Harper Ashdown, who was happy to accept and/or offer a spar. I landed a hit when she overbalanced.
We'll just keep quiet about how many hits she landed.
Still, messere Ferrando says my form is improving.
Maybe I won't utterly embarrass myself when the time comes.
Written By Calypso
April 14, 2017, 1:29 p.m.(4/10/1006 AR)
This is the first time many of the people of Arx have been face to face with war. It is not a glorious, honorable thing by nature. Lives are lost in brutal ways. Large bolts are flung in to crowds of people, hoping to kill as many as possible. Sword tips are poisoned with corrosive substances to make sure if the blow does not kill them, the sickness that follows will kill soon after. Barrels of pitch are poured down the sides of our walls and lit on fire by our archers. Boiling oil is poured down from above on to the enemy below. The cavalry is sent out to trample to death those who do not have horses to ride. It is a brutal, necessary thing. People die by the thousands.
Our success in war is often measured in body count. Who suffered the greater loss of life. We're we able to keep more of our own alive longer than they were. The hope is to cut down the enemy numbers to a small enough force that they either retreat or surrender.
In the two wars we fight now, we do not have the luxury of an enemy who retreats or surrenders. They are under the control of entities who do not have respect for life and press them to fight losing battles until they very last of their forces has fallen.
This all said, life is the most precious thing we have. Everyone deserves to live and live well. We soldiers march off and sacrifice the lengths and quality of our own lives to see that those we fight for are given the opportunity to live and thrive as fully as possible. And sometimes that means we have to measure our lives verses the lives of our enemies.
War is messy, complicated, brutal and tragic. But necessary.
Written By Gisele
April 14, 2017, 12:04 p.m.(4/10/1006 AR)
Written By Fortunato
April 14, 2017, 11:37 a.m.(4/9/1006 AR)
You sleep, you wake up, you realize you've been frantically treading water for days. Shame associated with this. You forget how to swim, your only thought moment to moment is how not to quite drown. Keep moving, keep breathing.
Shame associated with this, but shame is a trap. Weights on your legs. Paths toward the undertow. No. Find driftwood, find mooring. Center. Move on. Unshackle. Move on. Change a little bit each time. Try to keep the summed shift upward.
Fires in the dark, stars in the bleak. Every moment we have is dear. Take a deep breath, find your center. Bodies accumulate. Do not forget the preciousness of life. Find your deepest strength and forward.
We're here to live. We're here to persist.
Written By Peregrine
April 14, 2017, 11:15 a.m.(4/9/1006 AR)
We know our lands, we Shav'arvani. They are our city, the wild places that are not touched by walls. When the dark ones, the sick ones, the broken ones came for us I saw them coming and we were ready. We pushed them back. When they came again, I saw them again and we were ready. We pushed them back. We bled but they did not win our lives.
Then they came hidden. I was not there. I did not see them. I found what they did to us after.
I found my son in pieces around our home. My Osprey who would be chief after my father, after me. I found my husband's hand and his hair and his blood. My Temmas, who was quiet to my loud. I held their pieces and carried them to the fire and gave them to the spirits. I wore their blood as the smoke went to the sky.
I have heard the wailing of your parents and your brothers and your sisters, Arx. They sound like my wailing when I found mine there in pieces on the ground. It is the sound my heart made when the fire was lit. We scream with the same voice.
You were us once. We were you. You lost this. You lost the way. Some are finding it again.
This is good.
Written By Thena
April 14, 2017, 11:02 a.m.(4/9/1006 AR)
You think you're going to start afresh and then you end up knifing ruffians in the part of town you came up in with your cousin and a Culler and a street rat you've probably run into before (though it's hard to tell, he's quite unremarkable) and, well, Sparte, and all the areas just get really gray.
Written By Sparte
April 14, 2017, 10:53 a.m.(4/9/1006 AR)
Written By Reese
April 14, 2017, 2:42 a.m.(4/9/1006 AR)
Shadow was quite hurt when he came to me, but Princess Ailys patched him up good. He likes the garden, he likes the Nightgold whiskey and he likes the cake. I gave him lots of tea. It will help. Maybe he will be back. I can't blame him.
Sir Silas made the cake. He made our war table for Grayson house (and what a table it is), he made the piano, he made our teas and so much more.
The Graysons are strong. We are united. Our meeting went well.
Princess Reese
Written By Ann
April 14, 2017, 2:34 a.m.(4/9/1006 AR)
1 bath
2 men
3 of us but only 1 getting clean
2 bad
... I had heard that the Grotto was only good for orgies. I may report this is not the case. It is also good for scholarly discussion. And genitalia jokes.
Written By Sameera
April 14, 2017, 2:23 a.m.(4/9/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Orazio
Written By Sameera
April 14, 2017, 2:21 a.m.(4/9/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Aldwin
Written By Sameera
April 14, 2017, 2:20 a.m.(4/9/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Edain
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.