on gilded paper wings

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Blunt Truth
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on gilded paper wings

Post by Blunt Truth » Wed Oct 18, 2017 11:38 pm

"You'll never make it,"

Elijah grins as he perches a hand upon the heavy axe at his hip, watching me slide into the heavy leather harness of my latest prototype. Long spindley metal rods support carefully glued paper feathers that rustle softly against the kiss of wind rolling across the cliffs. I look down to see the jagged and unkind face of the rocks, to the churning waters below. There's no rocks down in this bay (I checked) and the way down is approximately twenty feet. None of this really matters however, because even rooted as I am now I can feel the wind grasping to pick up beneath my wings.

"You won't be laughing when I'm in Kara-Tur," I proclaim to him, the words taste sickeningly heavy in my mouth as my trembling fingers grasp at leather straps. "At least put on the safety rope 'Lisha, so I can give your Father back a body."

"No rope! Last time it got tangled and messed the whole attempt up." My ankle hurts just thinking about that tumble. I turn back from the hidden concern on my friend's face. my tiny hands gripping the pull cord to the avian paper wings. I know what I'm doing. Elijah's words are lost in the now howling wind that is just as eager as I am. His steps approach, hand reached out to stop me. To hold me down. The sky is brilliant blue today with soft rolling clouds, the pillows of angels. Today I'll join them.

I jump.

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Blunt Truth
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Re: on gilded paper wings

Post by Blunt Truth » Wed Oct 25, 2017 9:17 am

I look up from the endlessly long stone table to the man who looks more like a melted candle. Waxy and distorted flesh that looked like it belonged in the reflection of a warped mirror than on a man. Yet there he sat across from me with a smug smile that was unintentionally lopsided. The nattering whine of a sound from under the table came off like a high pitched, blaring sound that made my teeth hurt. I can't remember where I am or why I'm here but I can assume it is nothing good based on the wizard's far to self-satisfied melted smile.

Killing him now would expedite things; he confessed to his sins already. I could clear the table before he could get off an incantation and crush his windpipe in my grasp. But there are others in the room, at least three, four a potential threat. Incapacitating is the best I could do before they intervened and even then there's the --

No. With my exhale I expel the violent options from the table. I try to take another look at the man across from me.

His burns are many and severe, fingertips blackened. It must be painful.

"...haven't been this scared since the drow..."

The table keeps talking to me. While it does I feel for the vial of pain relief gel in my satchel, my attentions entranced by the webwork of waxy flesh on the melted man. I should give this to him, maybe it will help.



I play this moment over and over in my head now as I lie in my bed looking at the ceiling.
"You're evil."

"You make everything worse."

"Why can't you leave us alone?"

"No one ever cares about what a paladin thinks anyway."

What am I doing wrong? Senarios are played in my head over and over as I try to find the reasons why the people I'm trying to protect dig into my heart with steel knives. The scorn is like a heavy tumor in my chest that grips and tightens onto my ribs. But I show it to no one. Not even myself as I keep my face scrunched in a frustrated frown at nothing and everything.

A soreness aches along my shoulder and back. I wish I hadn't given him my last vial of medicine.

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Blunt Truth
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Re: on gilded paper wings

Post by Blunt Truth » Wed Nov 01, 2017 5:34 pm

They never tell you about the changes.

It's all about the cause, the Proving, the tests, the training, the scriptures. It's about taking your oaths in front of a room of vetted veterans and old priests where time refuses to enter. Seconds go by like hours and the whole place smells stale of sage, and wine. Even when you swear the oath there are no brilliant lights or angelic choirs. There's no switch to be flicked where you suddenly know and understand everything.

In fact I didn't notice anything different until I was taking walks through the tall grass outside the church and never sneezed or felt light headed. Then I was taking runs for longer and longer before I felt tired but I never got to the point where I felt exhausted. Even the old injury on my side and shoulder felt better and better until I barely thought of it. I haven't gotten sick or even the slightest hint of a cold in years. This simple 'wellness' had come in and replaced all these little details with a blank, healthy slate.

I used to be afraid of heights, ever since that flight experiment went wrong in my youth. I stood on the top of the Thousand Staircase as wind whipped and howled across the cliffs, but I didn't find myself afraid. Every step down it seemed more and more peculiar I was not gripped with fear of slipping. Another step, as easy as that. When I grappled with the vampires at Castle Minmir and watched their jaws unhinge to try and latch onto me I felt nothing but determination and conviction.

And it feels good. Intoxicating like a runner's high. I don't enjoy hurting people, but I do enjoy cutting away at the corrupt rot and hate that stews in this island like month old porridge. Making the small and daily steps to improving our world for ourselves and future generations feels healthy and whole.

Did I earn this?

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Blunt Truth
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Re: on gilded paper wings

Post by Blunt Truth » Tue Nov 21, 2017 6:42 am

It's not enough.

Piles upon piles of documents written upon vellum sheets consume the surface of my desk. Transcribed onto them are neat, surgical lines of verbose legal dialog stamped wax seals of various authorities. Text keeps me holy. It keeps us accountable for all our deeds for their will always be evidence of our footprints here and where they took us. With the paper as my witness and the ink my hand my righteous deeds will always be true; backed with introspection and proof reading. These stacks of parchment are the validation of my efforts and I take comfort in knowing the truth will always be written.

But it is not enough.


"You're ready?"

"'Course. Whenever y'are 'Lisha."

My vice on my hammer does not tremble. The Holy Scripture flows from my mouth like the smooth glide of red curtains pulled on a theater's opening night and like that night my performance is without flaw. Abjurative runes embrace my weaponry in white fire and my heart is filled with a sense of certainty. I am the Inquisitor, and I fight with the blessings of the Triad. The man across from me widens his stance, steadying his sword and board. His shoulders are lax but his eyes have locked onto my own footing and angle of my weapon.

While the arena's theater is empty I feel the overbearing pressure weighing down on my soul. I am an Inquisitor who fights with the blessing of the Triad. I can do anything. I have to be able to.


Hendrick puts me on the ground faster than I can utter a psalm. But he is professional and clinical, the square of his hand pulling me back onto my feet as he elaborates on his observations. I am an Inquisitor, baring the will of the Judge on my back and His blessings in my fist, his songs in my throat.

We go again. And again. Each time with my own insistence and each time he puts me on the ground. By the fourth time my head is spinning and my arm has gone stiff.

It isn't enough.

This revelation hits me every time I am knocked off my center, and the comforting weight of my pauldrons are the downfall that pulls me to the earth. And each time in the final moments of my consciousness as I consider the sky and the birds (or absence there of) the defeatist realization grips my heart and cements me to the ground.

It isn't enough.

Now it's the small hours of the morning and I am still writing and writing and writing. I have built strongholds out of paragraphs and motes out of signatures as high as my pile of ledgers to protect me from that poisonous truth thought. When my hands are stiff and tired I practice my combat rolls in my full regalia, I load my pack full of rocks and do push ups until it is enough. I work until my muscles rebel against my will and even then it is not until even that is defeated do I stop.

It has to be enough.

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Blunt Truth
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Re: on gilded paper wings

Post by Blunt Truth » Tue Dec 05, 2017 8:25 am

My quill works to the unsung tempo of the hymn I have suck in my head. The familiar and catchy tune to a children's version of the crusader prayer we would sing in choir. Even my foot taps to the cheerful beat as I draft the documents for war. Terms of engagement, rules of warefare, battle zones, neutral zones, prisoner policies, my hammer laments that it does not receive the same measure of attention.

it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough

I do not enjoy writing. I recall a time when my mother was furious with me; I was given the option to write a phrase until I ran out of chalk, or receive a meeting with her cane to my hands.While I spent all hours of the night writing the same phrase over and over I felt the same knot in my heart I feel now while I transcribe the legal jargon out onto parchment.

iyou're not good enough.

But I work anyway, satisfied to write in single spaced uniformly sized font in neat blocks of validation and closure. Salvation through labor and my labor is in heaps of paper and ink.

it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it will never be enough

I can almost remember the words to that song now as I sit in a pew before an altar to the Judge. There are offerings ranging from extravagant to humble, written confessions of deeds folded into clumsily sealed letters. Candles flicker like my grasp on the waking moment as I will myself from my thoughts to the now.

My lips move in the familiar form, prayer slipping from my mouth to the shrine like it was a love meant to be. I pray for guidance, for strength, for wisdom and patience. A song I am all to familiar with, a routine that's become my life. My soul begins to feel a little lighter as hope and faith confirm their grasp.

I am an inquisitor of the Even Handed, blessed with the favor of the Triad.


it's not enough.

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