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by The Free Tonhi » Sun Aug 30, 2015 1:36 pm
by Sunset » Sun Aug 30, 2015 8:27 pm
by Roania » Mon Aug 31, 2015 4:55 pm
by Roania » Mon Aug 31, 2015 7:02 pm
Mballa,
I am surprised you chose to approach me with such formality! Have I given you cause to think my friendship is no longer yours? If so, I apologize. I am always most deeply obliged to you for your friendship, your support and your guidance, and I appreciate it all the more that you have given it in my darkest hour. And as we are friends, I hope you will forgive my rebuke, which I shall couch In such of my art that is left to me.
The Sparrow
Should Not
Tell the Minnow
How to Swim
It does, as usual, lose something in the translation, but my mood is far too black for calligraphy and the stamps are...well, they appear to have broken. I shall have to replace them when my wife has recovered. I have never proposed to...
...not understand, but how could they? I have sought solace in the lessons of my predecessors, but tomes and scrolls and recordings can only offer me so much. I need...
Pain. All I feel is pain. When I close my eyes I see it again and again, I hear it again and again, and all my power and servants could not prevent this. I have not the power to protect? Well, I have the power to destroy, then. And why should I not? I have been raised to this point without any desire for the throne and against my will. I have twice tried to give it up, and twice been refused. And all that gives me solace, gives me pleasure, soothes me, is my beloved. For trying to take her from me, for wanting to take her from me, for hating her... for hating her love for them... she came to me of her own will! I did not steal her from them, as they would from me!
Well, and why should I not show them the pain I feel? I have been kind. I have been understanding. I have tried to be merciful and generous, not as I see it, but even as your people would see it. And this is their reaction. You would tell me that many are innocent. I would ask you of what crime? I have charged them with nothing. I need not. I will not. And I... I won't need to. I know I won't. My wife will be returned to me. I am certain. Certain as I am of the stars and the spirits and the Light.
...have of me if they succeed in their monstrosity? I cannot do as some would do and step down over a loss or a half-loss. I have no successor worthy of the name or capable of rule. Nor could I leave this galaxy until I do. Well, and then? Why should I live in a world without my wife, if it means those whose hatred created this also live freely? I.. I cannot. I will not. I refuse. I refuse to do so, and my will shall be done, and seen to be done, though all the winds blow against me.
I do not ask for your understanding. I do not ask for your forgiveness. Nor do I ask for your acceptance; nor your passivity. I will do as I must, you and yours will do as you must. I would regret it, but I must be strong. Strong and sharp and ready to cut when the time comes.
But enough! It will not come to pass! It cannot come to pass. It must not come to pass. My wife will return to my side, whatever I must do to ensure it. Yes, I would quite willingly call upon S.H.O.D.A.N, were she willing. I would bargain with the Dark, or even pray to the Dead God themselves; why would I reject the aid of a woman whose only fault is she was created rather than born? Is that heresy? Then let it be heresy. Nothing else matters.
Asen Damalin, thrice-cursed.
by Scolopendra » Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:29 pm
Damalin,
The sparrow apologizes, and accepts the rebuke. Not just anyone gets that from me, so take it for what it's worth.
Though let the sparrow tell a story. No parable teaching how to live, no fable with a lesson. Just a story. Something that happened.
There was, years ago, a little girl who'd never asked to be born, but her birth forced her parents together, and they held that against her. Like all little girls, she was occasionally bad. Her parents, already never too pleased with her, would always be sure to whip and whup her into shape. She tried to please them, as all little girls try to do with their parents. They had already decided that they could not be pleased unless she was perfect, and if she wasn't, then she was to be hated for how she weighed them down. So she grew sad and angry in equal measure, sad as she was only a little girl and angry as even little children have a sense of justice. The little girl became an older girl, and as that went as nature goes she realized that she did not love those who her parents thought she should. That only made her, in their eyes, evil as well as inconvenient. So they tried to whip and whup her into the shape they thought she should have, that their scaly old books said was the right way to be.
But they'd whipped and whupped her before, and it had only turned her heart hard. One day, it simply broke. She couldn't be sad anymore. She wouldn't let herself be. From that day, hate was the word on her lips and the fire in her belly. She didn't 'love' after that. She pretended to, but only to use her lovers as a weapon against her parents. She stayed true to the law, but not to the writ, explicitly to give her parents cause to beat her down so she could bare her gritted teeth and spit her blood back at them. Maybe she should've told others, maybe she should've done something else, but maybes and should-haves are nothings. Eventually she escaped them, but not because she was rescued. The law merely said she was free of them. So out she went into the world, a heart of hatred for a cruel world and a heart of pride for having survived it, and she went and got in fights and killed some people in a legally sanctioned fashion. Her parents died, luckily not by her hand, and as per their scaly books they got put into the ground less than a day later. The young woman didn't put down her sword, not even when those who'd given it to her told her to, as she'd have to grieve, right? She corrected them. Her parents were dead thus she had no parents, and so still to this day they rot in the ground unmourned.
She'd like to add 'forgotten,' but she's only really any good at faking forgetting.
As I said, it's just a story. It's a thing that happened to a little girl, like things happen all the time everywhere. It's not the girl's or the sparrow's place to tell the boy or the minnow that she knows the truth. She probably doesn't. No one does, most like. All she, or anyone, can really do is hopefully let one of the very few people in the universe she gives a proper tinker's damn about know that he's not alone. She can't feel your hurt, but maybe she's felt something similar.
You don't need to ask my understanding, forgiveness, or acceptance. Like you said, you'll do what you do, and I'll do--and grant--as I will. I choose to listen, if you choose to speak. If I understand, I understand. If I forgive or accept, it is only because I will it.
And if I can help, I do because I wish to. I will inform S.H.O.D.A.N. to talk to you.
~Mballa
by New Naggoroth » Mon Aug 31, 2015 10:47 pm
by Roania » Tue Sep 01, 2015 9:48 am
by The Free Tonhi » Tue Sep 01, 2015 10:40 am
by Tarasovka » Tue Sep 01, 2015 12:29 pm
by Zepplin Manufacturers » Tue Sep 01, 2015 2:04 pm
by Dread Lady Nathicana » Tue Sep 01, 2015 5:43 pm
by New Naggoroth » Tue Sep 01, 2015 9:17 pm
by Dread Lady Nathicana » Wed Sep 02, 2015 3:22 pm
by Kajal » Thu Sep 03, 2015 12:48 pm
by Roania » Fri Sep 04, 2015 10:52 am
by Oyada » Sat Sep 05, 2015 7:15 am
by Scolopendra » Sat Sep 05, 2015 9:15 am
by Roania » Sat Sep 05, 2015 7:34 pm
by Sunset » Sat Sep 05, 2015 9:41 pm
by Oyada » Tue Sep 08, 2015 3:06 pm
by Roania » Tue Sep 08, 2015 3:44 pm
by The Boundless Legion » Tue Sep 08, 2015 4:36 pm
by Zepplin Manufacturers » Wed Sep 09, 2015 7:04 am
by Dread Lady Nathicana » Sat Sep 12, 2015 10:02 am
by Sunset » Sat Sep 12, 2015 3:56 pm
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