Written By Ainsley
Feb. 18, 2017, 7:57 a.m.(12/11/1005 AR)
Yes.
While I am grieving the man I loved, who died fighting corrupted shavs, tell me how I do not care about the common people of Arvum. Tell me this while I was on the walls doing my best to protect the city while he was out there dying. Tell me this while I patrol the walls. Tell me this before even asking me my opinion.
Decide it for me, because you who has never met knows my heart and my mind.
While I am grieving the man I loved, who died fighting corrupted shavs, tell me how I do not care about the common people of Arvum. Tell me this while I was on the walls doing my best to protect the city while he was out there dying. Tell me this while I patrol the walls. Tell me this before even asking me my opinion.
Decide it for me, because you who has never met knows my heart and my mind.
Written By Muiryn
Feb. 18, 2017, 7:49 a.m.(12/11/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Neve
Some advice for future-fathers, or fathers of girls too young yet to slam doors in your face.
Have a daughter in your life, and patience hasn't got a chance.
She'll come to you with something ask for your opinion, your advice as they do. That's all good and well obviously. So you think on it, make your reply good and concise, and she'll listen very nicely..
..then go out and do precisely what she wants.
Have a daughter in your life, and patience hasn't got a chance.
She'll come to you with something ask for your opinion, your advice as they do. That's all good and well obviously. So you think on it, make your reply good and concise, and she'll listen very nicely..
..then go out and do precisely what she wants.
Written By Muiryn
Feb. 18, 2017, 5:56 a.m.(12/11/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Rowan
I can see the storms like crashing lightning over your horizon.
This city, these times and those horrors will pound away like water on the rocks. Changes come, kid, nature has it's way -- you know that better than anyone. Just make sure you keep your dignity, take the higher road. Take it like a man. The man I know you are.
Just a broken heart, kid.
This pain will pass away.
This city, these times and those horrors will pound away like water on the rocks. Changes come, kid, nature has it's way -- you know that better than anyone. Just make sure you keep your dignity, take the higher road. Take it like a man. The man I know you are.
Just a broken heart, kid.
This pain will pass away.
Written By Julea
Feb. 18, 2017, 3:55 a.m.(12/11/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Audric
Since I arrived wide-eyed, and drunk in Arx, a small town village girl from the valleys with no clue, the Captain General has always been good to me. He took me under his wing, clothed me, helped me acquire a Patron, gave me work. And he saved my life. Not many people probably know the last bit. Of course, like with anything with him, it came with a price. But if it wasn't for him, I'd of never of been able to afford it.
I would not name many in Arx my friend, but Audric is one of them. No, not a friend, he is family to me. Which means that I sometimes get to yell at him, and he gets to yell at me. And at the end of it, we're still okay. There's a lot that is going to change over the next few months, and I hope that this is not one of them.
Nothing but Elysia itself is better than a friend who is truly a friend.
I would not name many in Arx my friend, but Audric is one of them. No, not a friend, he is family to me. Which means that I sometimes get to yell at him, and he gets to yell at me. And at the end of it, we're still okay. There's a lot that is going to change over the next few months, and I hope that this is not one of them.
Nothing but Elysia itself is better than a friend who is truly a friend.
Written By Muiryn
Feb. 18, 2017, 1:57 a.m.(12/11/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Calathane
See you when you get back, kid. Take your time now, and good luck.
Written By Calista
Feb. 18, 2017, 1:19 a.m.(12/11/1005 AR)
I cannot help but continue to think about how things could have been, how they should have been, and how they are now. Her last words here echo in my mind;
"I ache."
Her heart was bigger than anyone knew. The love I felt for her was not just out of respect. We were to be family. She was to marry my brother and together they would unite the Lyceum. She should still be here, he should still be here.
Instead there is a hole in my heart. There is a void in my soul and every time I pass his room, I press my palm to the thick wooden door and draw in his scent that lingers in the Villa. My brother. He is gone. We do not know to where, for how long, or if ever he should return.
I ache, still.
I cannot begin to fathom the loss of those who perished in recent battles. Did we not just speak yesterday? At least it seems so. Did you not just tell me how grateful you were for my brother who saved your brother and now they are all gone.
Gods give me strength - I am losing my faith.
"I ache."
Her heart was bigger than anyone knew. The love I felt for her was not just out of respect. We were to be family. She was to marry my brother and together they would unite the Lyceum. She should still be here, he should still be here.
Instead there is a hole in my heart. There is a void in my soul and every time I pass his room, I press my palm to the thick wooden door and draw in his scent that lingers in the Villa. My brother. He is gone. We do not know to where, for how long, or if ever he should return.
I ache, still.
I cannot begin to fathom the loss of those who perished in recent battles. Did we not just speak yesterday? At least it seems so. Did you not just tell me how grateful you were for my brother who saved your brother and now they are all gone.
Gods give me strength - I am losing my faith.
Written By Cara
Feb. 18, 2017, 1:19 a.m.(12/11/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Pietro
My dearest Pietro. I loved you as much as I loved your brother, though in a different way. You were the light that first brought a smile to my face after I fell into darkness.
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.
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 Tikva
Feb. 18, 2017, 1:11 a.m.(12/11/1005 AR)
I have heard it a few times since coming here. Silks. Offhanded, like it is not even an insult. Like it is simply the way things are.
It interests me. Silk is beautiful, it is fine, it is slick under my hands: a soft, sliding fabric, exquisite against bare skin. It's light. If woven well, it can be deceptively strong. But--
For the most part, while a display of elegance, of beauty, of style -- it is useless. It won't keep you warm. It isn't armor. It may serve gloriously in appearance as clothing, but for the practical elements of a garment, it is, if anything, of less value than sturdier, warmer cloth.
We owe protection and justice to those whose honor we hold. A liege owes his vassal this, and we as offshoots, as threading branches of the liege's power, how can we owe less? It is the first Law of Limerance. Yet if you say it to many of the common people of Arx whom I have met this week ... I believe they might laugh, and I can offer them no blame for so doing.
Wealth is not merely wealth to be spent or squandered. It is privilege. It has purpose. It should have purpose.
We should not be silk. We should be steel, to guard and protect, rivets and supports down to the struts.
I'm sorry, Limerance, that we are failing you.
It interests me. Silk is beautiful, it is fine, it is slick under my hands: a soft, sliding fabric, exquisite against bare skin. It's light. If woven well, it can be deceptively strong. But--
For the most part, while a display of elegance, of beauty, of style -- it is useless. It won't keep you warm. It isn't armor. It may serve gloriously in appearance as clothing, but for the practical elements of a garment, it is, if anything, of less value than sturdier, warmer cloth.
We owe protection and justice to those whose honor we hold. A liege owes his vassal this, and we as offshoots, as threading branches of the liege's power, how can we owe less? It is the first Law of Limerance. Yet if you say it to many of the common people of Arx whom I have met this week ... I believe they might laugh, and I can offer them no blame for so doing.
Wealth is not merely wealth to be spent or squandered. It is privilege. It has purpose. It should have purpose.
We should not be silk. We should be steel, to guard and protect, rivets and supports down to the struts.
I'm sorry, Limerance, that we are failing you.
Written By Eirlys
Feb. 17, 2017, 11:38 p.m.(12/11/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Elrych
I am not sure what I expected but I feel like he understands me, not just the fighter but the female parts of me. He is easy to talk to. I would like him to meet Fiachra and Alis. I like spending time with him. Maybe he and Fia could go hunting or we all can.
Written By Kima
Feb. 17, 2017, 11:16 p.m.(12/11/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Costas
Speak the truth, grow still, until the water is clear between us.
Written By Cecilia
Feb. 17, 2017, 10:11 p.m.(12/11/1005 AR)
Pine resin, saltpeter, burnt lime, willow, alcohol, incense, sulfur, wool...
I am thankful all this is inexpensive, at the very least.
I am thankful all this is inexpensive, at the very least.
Written By Drea
Feb. 17, 2017, 9:36 p.m.(12/10/1005 AR)
Even when things are bad, things are good. With every conversation I have with someone new I see the good. Maybe it's a fault, maybe I just need to get more people to see this too. There is always a light glimmering in the distance, and an end to a dark tunnel. Although we are just going into it...I see the light already. It's all on what we do...our choices.
Written By Calypso
Feb. 17, 2017, 8:47 p.m.(12/10/1005 AR)
Loosing soldiers never gets easier. Anyone who tells you otherwise is demented and heartless. I sent letters home to every single family who suffered losses. I expressed my gratitude for their sacrifice and my sorrow for their pain.
Every life is a story. The small moments that make up who we are are so incredibly precious. Every smile. Every fight. Every moment spent loving, or feeling sadness or joy. Laughing at nothing of importance and yelling out frustrations. The spectrum of human existence is vast and each life experiences it in their own unique way.
Beyond my own soldiers, I am devastated by the loss of my friends and peers. I don't know that there is more I can say about each of them specifically, but I will say that I will not let a single one of these deaths be for nothing.
Marquis Vincere Igniseri
Lord Pietro Igniseri
Duchess Nadia Nightgold
It is by steel that we will win this, and by the might of mankind that we will find victory.
Every life is a story. The small moments that make up who we are are so incredibly precious. Every smile. Every fight. Every moment spent loving, or feeling sadness or joy. Laughing at nothing of importance and yelling out frustrations. The spectrum of human existence is vast and each life experiences it in their own unique way.
Beyond my own soldiers, I am devastated by the loss of my friends and peers. I don't know that there is more I can say about each of them specifically, but I will say that I will not let a single one of these deaths be for nothing.
Marquis Vincere Igniseri
Lord Pietro Igniseri
Duchess Nadia Nightgold
It is by steel that we will win this, and by the might of mankind that we will find victory.
Written By Tikva
Feb. 17, 2017, 7:55 p.m.(12/10/1005 AR)
Because I was asked about it this week--
Fatherhood.
My husband, Kelleth Riven, died fighting the Shav'Arvani in the Gray Forest, south of the Twainfort. He never got to meet his son, Lord Tiber, who was born three long, horrendous, miserable months after his death. My son will never know what it is to have a father. He will know the love of his uncles, of course, as he knows the love of his mother, as he knows the love of his aunts, and of all the zillion other people he is sure to charm into loving him before he turns two years old this spring.
As it happens, like my son, I also never knew my father. I knew Count Tibault, who raised me, and I knew him as one knows an older brother, an eldest brother, and the closest friend of one's heart.
I can't really speak to what that lack will mean for Tiber, any more than what I truly understand it meant for me. I have never regretted an instant of my family, the Laveers. I do not regret my new family, the Rivens. I love both, no, all of my family!
But I did hope for a completeness for my son that he will never have.
Fatherhood.
My husband, Kelleth Riven, died fighting the Shav'Arvani in the Gray Forest, south of the Twainfort. He never got to meet his son, Lord Tiber, who was born three long, horrendous, miserable months after his death. My son will never know what it is to have a father. He will know the love of his uncles, of course, as he knows the love of his mother, as he knows the love of his aunts, and of all the zillion other people he is sure to charm into loving him before he turns two years old this spring.
As it happens, like my son, I also never knew my father. I knew Count Tibault, who raised me, and I knew him as one knows an older brother, an eldest brother, and the closest friend of one's heart.
I can't really speak to what that lack will mean for Tiber, any more than what I truly understand it meant for me. I have never regretted an instant of my family, the Laveers. I do not regret my new family, the Rivens. I love both, no, all of my family!
But I did hope for a completeness for my son that he will never have.
Written By Kima
Feb. 17, 2017, 7:54 p.m.(12/10/1005 AR)
If you had asked me about my thoughts on Prodigals, Abandoned, and Shavs even just a few short years ago, I would have offered a thoughtlessly scathing reply. I will be the first to admit that I was hardly the most tolerant.
It was only after I came to know recent Prodigals that I started changing my mind about the topic. These people, who had recently gone through the process of forsaking their previous lives for that of a citizen of the Compact, had very different ideas about it than natural born Arvani. More important, they had no illusions about the state of things outside the Compact's purview. Talk to newly arrived Prodigals and they will be happy to tell you that most of the people they left behind should stay out there. One might even say they left for a reason.
This came to mind the other day when I sat listening to two disparate Prodigals discuss the most recent Assembly. Both had come to Arx to bend the knee. The older man left his tribe some twenty years ago, feeling as though he had no worthwhile future amongst his more warlike compatriots. The other, a younger woman, was lured here by the kindness of a knight of Solace, and his recollections of the Scholars of Vellichor.
One of the things I have learned from them, when it comes to the Prodigal issue, is they place a high value on citizenship. That’s because they spent a lot to get it. Acquiring citizenship was a transaction for them, not an accident of birth. The older man in this left his home, and all that he knew, because he correctly saw where things were heading for his tribe. He was a guy that sold all his stuff, bought as many gambling chips as he could afford, and pushed them into the middle of the game table.
In Arvum, Prodigals are free to start their own story. Their past is no longer a set of boundaries on them. Just as important, they are free of the family and tribal restrictions. The young woman went into a career that does not exist amongst her people and even if it did, her family would not have approved. You can do those things where it is just you, striking out on your own. That’s the attraction of Arvum. It’s a blank canvass for those Prodigals that come here.
None of this means we should fling open our borders and let the world move to the Compact. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Borders and barriers are a filtering mechanism - though I won't go on about numbers and levels. It is outside of my area of expertise, and to pretend otherwise would be rank foolishness. Even so, I will conclude with this:
The people willing to go through all the steps it takes to become citizens of the Compact are going to be people who scrupulously observe the law. In fact, some of the Prodigals I've come to know since are almost hyper-patriotic for that reason. They take nothing for granted because they had to earn their citizenship. Their presence is a healthy reminder that citizenship has value.
Ultimately, my contention with those who argue the opposite is that there are those who place no value on citizenship. Those people tend not to put value on people. To them, people are just undifferentiated raw material, inputs they can manipulate. Whether the material comes from home or elsewhere is irrelevant because everything normal people associate with being human is of no concern to the managerial types. They see people the way normal people look at furniture.
It was only after I came to know recent Prodigals that I started changing my mind about the topic. These people, who had recently gone through the process of forsaking their previous lives for that of a citizen of the Compact, had very different ideas about it than natural born Arvani. More important, they had no illusions about the state of things outside the Compact's purview. Talk to newly arrived Prodigals and they will be happy to tell you that most of the people they left behind should stay out there. One might even say they left for a reason.
This came to mind the other day when I sat listening to two disparate Prodigals discuss the most recent Assembly. Both had come to Arx to bend the knee. The older man left his tribe some twenty years ago, feeling as though he had no worthwhile future amongst his more warlike compatriots. The other, a younger woman, was lured here by the kindness of a knight of Solace, and his recollections of the Scholars of Vellichor.
One of the things I have learned from them, when it comes to the Prodigal issue, is they place a high value on citizenship. That’s because they spent a lot to get it. Acquiring citizenship was a transaction for them, not an accident of birth. The older man in this left his home, and all that he knew, because he correctly saw where things were heading for his tribe. He was a guy that sold all his stuff, bought as many gambling chips as he could afford, and pushed them into the middle of the game table.
In Arvum, Prodigals are free to start their own story. Their past is no longer a set of boundaries on them. Just as important, they are free of the family and tribal restrictions. The young woman went into a career that does not exist amongst her people and even if it did, her family would not have approved. You can do those things where it is just you, striking out on your own. That’s the attraction of Arvum. It’s a blank canvass for those Prodigals that come here.
None of this means we should fling open our borders and let the world move to the Compact. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Borders and barriers are a filtering mechanism - though I won't go on about numbers and levels. It is outside of my area of expertise, and to pretend otherwise would be rank foolishness. Even so, I will conclude with this:
The people willing to go through all the steps it takes to become citizens of the Compact are going to be people who scrupulously observe the law. In fact, some of the Prodigals I've come to know since are almost hyper-patriotic for that reason. They take nothing for granted because they had to earn their citizenship. Their presence is a healthy reminder that citizenship has value.
Ultimately, my contention with those who argue the opposite is that there are those who place no value on citizenship. Those people tend not to put value on people. To them, people are just undifferentiated raw material, inputs they can manipulate. Whether the material comes from home or elsewhere is irrelevant because everything normal people associate with being human is of no concern to the managerial types. They see people the way normal people look at furniture.
Written By Demura
Feb. 17, 2017, 7:15 p.m.(12/10/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Leona
There is a strength about his woman and I like it. I also like the fact that she works around my brother, Rymarr. I very much look forward to meeting with her in the future, passing back and forth ideas, and perhaps even coaxing her to relinquish some of her knowledge to me.
Written By Demura
Feb. 17, 2017, 7:14 p.m.(12/10/1005 AR)
Refugee or not refugee. These are issues that those in control of their assets should be dealing with and no one else. Their decisions are their own and should be respected as such. If the wrong decision is made, then there is a choice to be had from the outside, but not a moment before.
My own holding is at the tip of the central prong of the Lycene, bound to not see very many of these refugees if any. However, I can fully understand why they would be welcome in their escape from the Bringers. We could get into a debate about their beliefs and be vetting them to bend the knee, but that detracts from what is really important. If they are willing to abide the law and contribute to the land for the benefit of all, then they are absolutely welcome.
My own holding is at the tip of the central prong of the Lycene, bound to not see very many of these refugees if any. However, I can fully understand why they would be welcome in their escape from the Bringers. We could get into a debate about their beliefs and be vetting them to bend the knee, but that detracts from what is really important. If they are willing to abide the law and contribute to the land for the benefit of all, then they are absolutely welcome.
Written By Leona
Feb. 17, 2017, 6:58 p.m.(12/10/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Hadrian
He interrupted a perfectly good conversation about politics and the protection of the city to try to make random trade agreements. I'm not sure if he was defective or drunk or just very, very confused but this man is not someone with whom I want to spend a lot of time. As one of my companions said - it would be most unfair if everyone in the Malvici family were as exceptional as the Lady General Calypso.
Written By Mae
Feb. 17, 2017, 6:21 p.m.(12/10/1005 AR)
Can I declare myself a shav refuge and get some of this charity? Maybe some new boots? My feet are cold.
Written By Rymarr
Feb. 17, 2017, 6:02 p.m.(12/10/1005 AR)
Sanity at last. Gods, thank you.
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