Caducity

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Blunt Truth
Posts: 23
Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2017 6:24 am

Caducity

Post by Blunt Truth » Tue Jun 12, 2018 8:37 pm

My sabatons meet marble in a succession of heavy thuds that carry across lonely corridors and quiet chambers. It has been a long time since I have been here, yet I feel myself move through the library with such ingrained memory it might as well be my home.

But it is not.

Familiar books and flagstones greet me in silence but they are now home to fixtures I do not recall, scars not there before and placards of names I do not recognize. Bones reskinned with foreign flesh in the form of pungent cut flowers, decorations and grandeur.

I come to my destination; the Book of Lawgiving, old but still servicing the needs of the Radiant. Names of both villain and ally line each page in tidy entries of varying fonts and inks surely not as tidy as I would prefer but it is the unique way each is penned that brings me some comfort in the loneliness here.

I produce my own feather quill, braced against the steel of my gauntlets as I began to add another addition to the tree of my labors. My thoughts wander as my hand works through the motions of the day to day grind, and I cannot help but feel wrong. In other chambers I can just barely make out quiet conversations of strangers making their respects and squires speaking intently of matters at large yet their presence brings me no solace. Their sounds of existence are frustrating obstacles as I strain to listen for the familiar pattern of clanks that march like drum beats forward, in hopes they would herald the Hoarran or the Mulhorandi or the Helmite.

Ink makes clean lines of text in tidy blocks as my work progresses in the overwhelming silence. Duty is the only cure to a heart that aches and I take to it with naive hope that in the throes of my dedication I would stop trying to strain for signs of familiarity. This hall was my home, these books are my labors and I have been received by the new generation of knights with kindness and warmth. But in their faces I do not see my friends. Instead I met them cold and unyielding, with knots of tombstones burning in my stomach. How could these people replace those who stood before them in my heart?

I go through the motions. I advise, I patrol, I pray, and I write. In these labors I will know peace.

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Blunt Truth
Posts: 23
Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2017 6:24 am

Re: Caducity

Post by Blunt Truth » Mon Jun 18, 2018 6:24 pm

The view of the Nexus Falls greet me as I march through my morning routine in relative silence (if we are to pardon the dull roar of the torrents of water) and I find myself risen before even the ogres and bugbears. I pull down my tent and roll up my bedding, pulling cords tight around the mass of fabric that at times masquerades as my house. A dull pain weaves through the bones of my hands, making my chores slow to finish.

I find the cause to the symptom as I wash my hair in the nearby eddy. Grey streaks pepper the muted brown of my hair. It comes in thick bands in haphazardly coordinated spots on my scalp. The eddy moves at a lazy pace but my reflection is still not perfect, so I pray that I do not look so old as it suggests. In my youth I looked more to my father, a mulan man with softer features and crisp light eyes. But now with my grey I see my mother, the thinness of her face, the broadness of her shoulders, and the scowl lines painted lightly 'round the mouth.

By now I've been making faces at the old stranger in my reflection for sometime and I pull away, silently hoping there were no nixies spying on my oddity. Fingers brush through my hair but it does not distract myself from the tangle in my chest. I am too old now to take a husband, not that I would find one so easily and especially not now with time's mark 'pon my face. I am still too busy to start a family regardless if I had one. I do not regret choice to pursue God over the more earthy pursuits, I have found my tasks enriching and rewarding. I have earned the grey in my mane and the lines on my face.

Still. If I could, I would be a gardener instead of a soldier.

I go to visit him at his resting place among the Knight's Rest. Hunks of marble and crushed pieces of metal are the cairn for the Akanaxian, a stark difference from the dusted statues and smooth surfaces of tombstones of knights long departed. This site always brings me disquiet yet I feel like I do the corpse 'neath the earth a service with my visits. I clean away flower offers (as I know he never cared for the trivial thing), and leave thermos of coffee and standards of his home. When my heart is heavy as it is on days like today I light a small fire at the base of ruined tombstone, and I talk.

Theoros had always insisted, 'what is on that mind of yours?' And often I would refute him, dancing around subjects I found uncomfortable to hold with even the one closest to me. I had thought there would be more time for that manner of talk. Though now as I sit before his grave, grey in the mane and weary I realize there was never really much time at all. So I talk to the stones of his marker, the bones beneath the earth. Of what I couldn't tell you; I wax on what comes to my mind to the silence. Sometimes I have nothing to say at all, so I pray or clean my armor in his company.

This is no comfortable villa in the country filled with children and love. But I find a glimpse of the peace I had yearned for here in these quiet hours.

For me, that will be enough.

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