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 Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:03 pm
The Sharpening of Claws
Hunt: Solo
178 Words
My time in the wild taught me many lessons, lessons that some I would call my peers among the nobility take years to learn, and some not entirely. When preparing for the winter, one is expected to be greedy, hoarding everything that one can aquire and keep and amassing a great store of food and supplies. Greed has its place.
But restraint also has its place. Just as battles must be picked, so too must prey. Sometimes, it is better to release that which you have caught than to take it in and kill it. Some prey do not need to be killed, just as some enemies can be spared.
My noble peers believe it to be a matter of quid-pro-quo an exchange of services, but I am aware that it is not the case. What can a freed rivakka do for you? It is only happy to have survived another day and to slip into the water unhindered. It does no favors. All it does is survive.
But, sometimes, that is all that it needs to do.
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Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 11:57 am
Of Beasts and Betters
Laesara and Malikai
246 Words
Hastar are beautiful creatures. All creatures are, but none bring out the honest good and evil in people quite like a hastar. A hastar reveals what is buried deep inside the heart, beneath the layers of lies and deception, forgetfulness and forgiveness.
To be near a hastar is to know yourself.
To ride one is to be absorbed in oneself, free – for a time – of all the cares that bind you, the true you, to the ground.
To ride with others is to know their true nature. Not all are as cruel and heartless as they appear. So, too, are some not as kind as they appear. Both cruelty and kindness are revealed in the soft breath of the hastar's lips, the toss of their mane, the movement of their body as they run, and in their saddles, bit, spurs, and reigns.
I wonder what others see when I ride?
The hastar shows that few are, deep in their hearts, as they seem on their skin. And this beautiful creature shows, too, who is truly honest with oneself. If someone's manner does not change when they ride their hastar, in the quiet moments in the stables or in the thunder of hoof and claw, when they think they are unobserved, then they are a rare treasure - Rarer than diamond – for you know them more intimately as themselves than they themselves do. And you know, then, with certainty, whether they can be trusted.
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Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 1:25 pm
Learning how to Fall
X, X
There are times when you must take calculated risks that build up to an end goal. There are other times, when you take risks just to see where it will take you. Risks have consequences. The question is, is the goal worth it?
Malikai certainly thought so, when he got back on the hastar. He decided to take a risk instead of running away. Was his choice the right one? Will he be paying for it later? Time will tell.
Risks, after all, take time to resolve themselves once taken. There is a delay, sometimes brief, sometimes sizable, between the action and its consequence.
My actions have consequences, and I will weather them as they come.
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Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 4:15 pm
Breath of Winte
Breath of Winter and To Hunt the Wind
Laesara, Roserynn, Malikai
199 words
It is not how one acts when one is with family, secure and safe in a pack, but how one acts when alone that defines you. Though I was separated in the winds of Ayr, I comported myself with dignity and grace, not foolishness and fear, and because of it I was reuinited with something I had lost.
Others I know would have died there, lost and alone, in the mires and swamps in the windless spaces between the spires.
But I did not. Dirty and haggard, I prevailed. I grew. I did not come back from Ayr the same girl that left for it, and that is for the best. All that was weak in me was shed like feathers, and all that remained after the blasting winds was what I needed to be.
I do not deny that I am imperfect, but none of us ever will be perfect. Each of us is continually forged in the furnace of life, endlessly tried and tested until what remains is us. No lies, no falsehoods, only us and what we want to do with the world.
Thus unencumbered by our own delusions, we can bend it to our will.
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Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2015 6:12 pm
From the Depths of the Past
Weapon Choosing Solo
From unexpected places come the most defining moments of our fates. I had thought myself a mage, studied magic from the moment I could understand the words in the books. Magic, to me, had always been beautiful, a part of me that would not change.
And yet, a piece of glowing bone leaping elegantly from the water, like a fish, changed my fate. It fit into my hand as if meant for me, and as if I was meant for it. What is the nature of bound weapons, I wonder, that they so conveniently find their owners, and reject all others? Why do some take any who come, and some only bind to the Magescian that they decide is theirs? How did this one come to be waiting in the depths of the ocean for me? Why me? How did it know that I passed above it?
Bound weapons are truly elegant mysteries, integral to our society – to our very world – as a whole. They are ubiquitous, and yet we know so very little of their nature... or do we? What trade secrets do the crafters of the bound weapons have? What do they know of what it means to be an Orderite that the rest of us do not?
In some ways, I envy those craftsmen their ability and their freedom to create such wonders. At the same time, secrets are powerful, and perhaps, in this case, there is a reason they are so well kept...
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Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2015 6:17 pm
A Single Origin
Leader Meeting Solo
I have always been attached to the concept of Noblesse Oblige, where one must be worthy of following. So, it was certainly fascinating to meet someone literally born to rule. Her power was palpable, but one wonders... is she worthy of her title? Of her worship? Of her respect?
Of course, I only met her briefly and spoke of myself... not of her. But, one has to wonder, is she happy in her role? Is Aevah Avi, handmade by Seren herself to rule and lead our kind, happy to do it.?
Perhaps one day I will find out.
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Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 1:08 pm
Iron and Soul
Malikai and Laesara
225 words
I have written on how fate finds us in the most unexpected of places, or perhaps how we find it. Such is the path of love and life, of kin and country and kind. You cannot truly choose any of them – what you are, where you are from, these are determined by forces beyond your control. Born into them, stumbling into them, they are the burden you must carry.
It is where you go that you can choose, confined though it is by the factors above. The next step, and the next, are all conscious choices. Some things, still, cannot be controlled. Malikai did not expect to find his weapon amidst my father's collection, and I did not expect him to become as adept as he did.
And yet he did.
He lost control. He took control. The key to life is to know what you can control, and what will forever elude you. Live with what cannot be changed, affect what you can, and life becomes a far smoother ride.
Still, it is the nature of things to try to control the uncontrollable, to force the inevitable to a different path. And sometimes, oh rare sometimes, it succeeds. That is why we still try. That is why life is rough and tumbles us head over heels. I would have it no other way.
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Posted: Tue May 12, 2015 4:21 pm
An Electrifying Sunset
Hunt
Laesara and Janathiel
177 Words
To think that, by the roiling sea, by the storm-swept waves, I might find both friend and foe? Both raw, both revealed, the core of their natures exposed in their most primal state? I wonder, though, if it was so unusual. We were in our natural element, after all.
We – Janathiel, the dragons, and I, were all the might of a storm unleased. It's thunder was hoofbeats, its wind was my wings, it's rain blood and it's lightning dragon-born. And in this storm, we danced until only we two remained.
We were impatient, we were rewarded. Another incongruity, but sometimes it pays to be not patient but prudent, and also to free oneself from the shackles of travel and comfort. Yes, rewarded, for a ruined dress is not worth nearly as much as a heart of joy, the wind singing in my hair, or the feel of a dragon's still-sparking soul in my hand. Any scolding to come pales in comparison to the priceless treasures I received on that day...
Though I did like that dress.
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Posted: Tue May 12, 2015 4:37 pm
My Fair Lady
Hunt
Laesara and Roserynn
Surprise. I have rarely felt it from my weapon. But when the dragons attacked, and Soldaster of the Vayne family stepped up to assist... nay, to do most of the fighting, Jiae felt surprise. Why? Because he seemed timid when we met him before? Or because of his clan? Jiae should have known that the greatest strength – and danger - is often hidden behind an unassuming face, and that the magic of life and plant and poison is far from weak. Yet, I was surprised too. Such a show of strength was completely unprecedented and appreciated. But why did he make such a show? Why did he take the lead here?
Was it perhaps to impress me? Of course it was.
My tutor-ee of then should have taken a lesson from Soldaster's heroics. He should have watched. Instead, he played the bumbling fool too far and forgot to be competent. It was an act that he had become far too thoroughly. One must always remember that an act, a mask, is only on the surface. To become the face you show to the outside world, is to be completely honest... or completely false, even to yourself. Neither truly works for one of my class, and a balance must be found between who you are, and who you wish others to see you as being.
I knew of my tutor-ee's true nature. His weapon did not lie – she was fierce and cunning and would not have tolerated the soul of a fool. Cowardice – self preservation, rather – has its place in the world. But, having everything to gain from the fight, he misused it, and I shall remember it for him when the time is right. It is influence I will likely never need.
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Posted: Tue May 12, 2015 5:57 pm
Dangers of a Lighted Land
Hunt
Laesara, Raemos, Odette, Alduin
143 Words
I made a friend on this ill fated expedition, and an observation:
Curious that an Oblivionite could do what a group of Orderites could not. I am sure it was only a matter of experience – he was older, and scarred from battle – but it is worth questioning all the same. Are they stronger for having been born in darkness? Or do they simply seem as such because we see them from the light? Do we seem stronger, to them, for being born of light? For having souls?
My interaction was not enough for a proper musing. Interesting, though, that he shares a last name with the young tailor in the city, and a first name with the brother she talks so endlessly about. If he is, indeed, this person, she should not throw his name about so casually.
A mere thought.
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Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2015 10:56 am
Arrival of Dawn
O little egg
Thy hopes confined
Potential unlimited and patience sublime:
You burst free from your restraints
Blazing out amidst the darkness
Like the dawn of a Summer day.
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Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2015 11:13 am
Dawn's Break
O little one
Turn thy blazing eyes on me
for in them I see a reflection of my future glory
Though bound to your core
You are truly free
Exulting your victory to a light-tattered sky.
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Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2015 11:23 am
A Revealing Sunbeam
O little friend
We are as one
Our hopes and dreams shared
Onward shall we march
Step by step
into another, blazingly aestival, day.
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Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2015 4:43 pm
Fools Water
Hunt: Peisio Dragons
Laesara and Aestival
What is so truly different between water and blood? They mix so well, so purely, that it can be difficult to say. If water is a part of blood, and if both are needed for life, am I so different from the dragons? Do I not also take joy in death? Do I not also crave the blood of my enemies? Do I not, similarly, devour their remains? I wonder what this means for me, as I prowl through parties and skulk in riches and wealth...
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Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2015 6:02 am
DrippingEncoded Journal entry
It is the truth of it, is it not, that the Orderites are as much weapons as the Oblivionites, born to fight and war and destroy. Though our goddess gave us souls, war is woven into our very being. As they are born to kill, so are we.
The blood moon makes us accept it, forces us to see the truth in our nature, the vicious monsters we all are. And then it leaves, and we can put our masks on again. But, for nobles, behind the mask we are still beasts, still tearing each other apart. But it is not blood we seek, but favor and wealth.
I lost someone important to me, and they left an empty hole in my heart – very deep and dark and sad. I have lost another before, but it is not so completely. After all, they live, I know they have hope for a good life and I can watch them from afar... the pain is eased, the hole is filled, gradually. But this was a sudden loss, a tearing away, a rending of something so ubiquitous I had forgotten it was there. My past was unteathered, crashing into my present with fragments of nostalgia.
Sometimes, such a hole must be filled with wanton violence. With blood. And here I have eased my grief, in the blood of my prey. It fills me, and I am whole... But he will always have a place there, no matter what I do.
Malesmech... you have earned that much.
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