11.19

11/19/15

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I wonder when you gained my loyalty.

Was it the moment I met you? I don't think so. You had far too many questions, far too many glances askance, too many gaps and gasps in the records I could read on you. Like everyone else, you drag around an invisible suitcase of excrement wherever you go. Everybody's got a suitcase, by the way. Some are lighter than others; some people have got wheels on their suitcase, but everybody's got one.

After all, nobody's perfect. I know that fact far too well, though people think I haven't noticed, that I'm not aware, that my brilliance makes me stupid in not seeing the things that other people see. But I see. Sometimes I see far too well, and that makes it hard to trust.

I've had far too much practice, you see. Meet someone new, size them up--will they hurt me? will they hurt those I'm loyal to?

Perhaps you see the dilemma. Not everyone does, of course, so I'll explain myself. Of course they can hurt me. Of course they can hurt the ones I'm loyal to. 

I'd say 'the ones I love' but others think that phrase should be reserved for family, for a spouse; they talk in whispers how it's only romance and family that matters, in the end. But you make your family, and that's what I've done. But when I say it's loyalty, no one thinks anything of it.

Once you're in with me, usually you're stuck with me. That probably annoys some folks, but I don't mind. Barring deep deep betrayals and/or the willful destruction of the happiness or the joy of those I'm loyal to, you're stuck with me. But you cross that line, and you're gone. You were smart enough to see that from the get-go.

Loyalty (love) is like that, you know. It's letting people in, letting them hold the knife and trusting that they know better than to plunge it into your vulnerable and exposed heart. (Mine's always been on my sleeve, my mother says, and that's what has made the masks, the disguises, the illusions, necessary.)

They're always so clever, just like I am, but the illusions don't matter to those who see through them.

Like you. And the others I've let see me.

So it wasn't the moment I met you.

But it was soon after.

(And yet. And yet I still hide. From those I'm loyal to. From those I could be loyal to. From myself.)
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Trammeled

7/26/14
Mostly fiction-ish, maybe a little fiction-y.
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They'd failed at leaving her behind.

She'd slain the beast and finished off the fell creature.

And yet she lived.

This time, though, they'd succeeded in leaving her behind. If she hadn't been abed, unconscious, she would have found a way to follow them again, to follow him, to doom and death. To die in battle, most likely.

Killed in battle--seemingly the only glory and renown to be found in this life--and it was to be denied her. Yes, she'd gained renown, but that hadn't been what she sought. Still wasn't.

Granted, one did not have to live by the sword to die by them. Words could kill as easily as swords, except one kept on living. She was proof of that. That traitor's greasy words had slipped from his tongue, wormed their way into her heart as they had her uncle's mind. She'd watched him weave a net around her uncle, ensnaring him with poisonous lies. He'd watched her, too, stalked her steps and whispered frosty phrases. Her brother, honor-bound by the hall's laws, had been rankled at his inability to stop him from the traitor's evil deeds. Yet he had his deeds and his swords, his horses and his men. What had been her solace?

However, the man who had helped stop the traitor's wormy words had nary a glance for her. Had the traitor's words damaged her more than than stabbing the evil beast had? Was she not worth anything more than her position and her ability to run a household? What was wrong with her? Would no one love her as she was, and not as who they wished her to be? Could no one look past her circumstances and see her? She was the daughter of kings and could be a queen, if only given the chance. Though it seemed as if no chances would ever come her way.

She could not stay in this room any longer, with its windowless walls. How could she look East and wait for doom to fall, if she had no window? She resolved on asking the warden if she could leave. What harm could there be in asking? She was stuck, trapped in by other people's words, other people's actions, dying daily, bit by bit, long before the forces from the East swept out from the Black Gates and came to kill them all. Even winning wouldn't change the fact that she'd been trammeled in, as if she were some wild thing that garnered no pity nor love from anyone.

And if she couldn't get the warden to release her, she'd appeal to whomever commanded him. If she remembered correctly, that would be the Steward of the city. Meeting him would probably change nothing. Of that she was sure.
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The Healers' Prisoners

10-25-12

Fiction-ish.
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This time they'd succeeded in leaving her behind.

Granted, she'd been unconscious when they had done so, and there was no way she would be able to wield a sword for a while. But to be left behind when everyone else went on to glory and to death--well, it tore at her heart.

Uncle would say that she had gained glory enough--but she hadn't gained death, which is what she'd wanted. The glory was just a by-product that came from dying in battle. Rather to die there than burnt alive when the enemy descended upon the city.

She stood on the wall, gazing toward the East, waiting for the Warden to introduce her. There they were--and there he was--traveling to the black gates. It was bitterly unfair that her part in the story had ended short of what she'd hoped to accomplish. The battles went on, and she still lived.

And then he spoke.
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Die Glänzendsten

3-13-12

Fiction-y, fiction-ish.
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She was luminous.

At least, everyone said so.

"You shine so brightly," they said.

"You remind us of the sun," they said.

"You are luminous," they said. "Terrifyingly so."

 The fact of the matter was, it was lonely being luminous, let alone being terrifying.

###

He was luminous.

Well, not really. He didn't actually glow--that was scientifically impossible--but everyone knew it all the same.

They didn't speak to him because it was unnecessary. They tolerated him because they wanted the light. All but a few people wanted the light; those few actually cared about him, and it was so strange and wonderful that he didn't know how to respond except with childish foolery and odd behavior.

He knew that all other lights looked dim compared to him. It's not like he did it on purpose--it was his gift, his curse--he breathed brilliancy.

Still, even his closest friend, when frustrated, thought that sometimes he wasn't human. He was, unarguably so, but that just meant it hurt all the more when they didn't speak to him because he glowed.

It's not as if he dabbled in radioactivity. Yet.

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200

1-31-12

I mean, technically it's still Monday for me, but I like consistency. Ha. We were talking at lunch today about how all of us were the epitome of predictability. I think the only one truly and deeply saddened by that was Blondo. I had a good day, though. Castle night is always the best.

But I thought that my two hundredth post needed something better than just an update. So...

Fiction-ish. [Notice, not fiction-y. There is a substantial difference.]
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He was perfect.

But he hadn't seen her. He'd just walked out the door, mortified, past her and out to who knew what refuge. Her sister didn't know what she was passing up when she rejected him.

She did, however.

Granted, maybe he wasn't the best to look at, and maybe he did drone on, but he wanted to think, wanted to learn. There was something in him that spoke to her on a level that no one had ever spoke before. She wasn't as pretty and cultured as her two older sisters, nor as pretty and flirty as her two younger sisters. She had her brain, but what good did it do her in this situation?

She'd thought too much and acted too little, and now she'd have to pretend that she'd never noticed him at all. Pretend that everything was just fine with him going off and marrying her sister's best friend. Marrying him would have been all right, you know. She was made to be a clergyman's wife, she was sure of it, but who knew if the chance would ever pass by again?

Was she always meant to be stuck in this house until he returned and turned her out of it?
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There you go. Hope it was decent. Night, all. I've got an 8:00 AM class.

Grown-up

12-11-11

Fiction-ish.
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In an odd way, she had to be thankful for the war. She wouldn't have met Him otherwise.

Well, that was probably inaccurate. They would have met in some different way; she didn't doubt that at all. It was part of what made Him magical in the first place. But she didn't know the story of what would have been, of what if and what then. She only had the story of what had happened and how that story had affected her life.

Because of those stories, those adventures she'd had in meeting Him, she'd grown up seeing the magic in the small things, of afternoon tea, of snow across the lawns, of moonlight and sunlight through the leaves. She knew to look for the magic in her world, hiding as it did behind and between what everyone else called real life, and found it in pure laughter and simple belief and quality time with her brothers and sister. She'd somehow retained the ability to love and to laugh and to trust without fear.

She knew that her experiences as a child had been real, even if her sister denied it now for what everyone called reality, what others called adulthood. Yet she knew it had been truly real because she hadn't lost the joy she'd found in her childhood, nor her ability to believe in the unseen. For it--the joy--was lurking, after all, in the silences and spaces of her world. And, behind the joy, He was there.

He'd been right, you know, when He'd said that she'd find him in her world. She had, of course, and nothing had been the same ever since. She'd learned to expect nothing but good from Him, even if it was disguised in hardship and sorrow, or in the commonplace and the routine. Still, she wanted to see Him again, even for the briefest of moments. To stand where she had stood, to see what she had seen, to do what she had done--she'd trade all those to be with Him again, to be in His presence again.

One day she would be. Until then, however, it was given to her to love and to live and to tell others of Him. Now to go wait for her brothers' train; they would be arriving soon and then the children would be off on another adventure. How she wished she were still their age and could go with them!
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Oh, this should be easy to guess. But this has been in my head as well. Fiction-ish, of course, but still in my head. Now I need to study for Ancient Classics, even if the test is on Tuesday.

Rebel

12-7-11

Fiction-ish thing.

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She'd been classified as a rebel early on. Living under a dictatorship and having parents who would do anything (almost quite literally) for freedom and democracy and all those lofty ideals was almost certainly part of the reason. So, if anyone ever asked her what she thought (but no one ever did, not about that, anyway), she would have jokingly blamed it on her upbringing.

Most young adults did that, anyway. Blamed their upbringing. If she were in fact a normal young adult, she would be right on track, right in step with every one else in the galaxy. Not a rebel in that way. No, certainly not. She was a rebel, but for all the proper reasons. Right?

She'd always felt different, somehow. Sure, her legal status and her private tutors and her early advancement had made it difficult to make friends her own age, but that wasn't it. She had to be proper, do the right things, say the correct words in all the long speeches she ever made, but that wasn't it. There were...secrets, and somehow, and for some reason, she herself was at the center of it. It was uncanny how she knew--it was like she could sometimes see people's thoughts, but no one could do that. Right?

Father had never said anything, but, then, how could he, with all the spies about? The same went with Mother--there was always this sadness about her, something wrapped about her as tightly as a cloak or the humidity on a heavy summer's day. She'd always felt that her parents had known something about her that they refused to tell her. Had just assumed that they'd tell her when she was ready, when they were away from the government's spies, when she could be trusted with whatever it was. She was family, after all. Right?

But part of her had always whispered that there was more than just statecraft and deceptions and slipping past the government's spies, but she didn't discover that until she'd lost her family and met them.

They were two of the strangest men (if you could call them that) she'd ever met--a dirt-grubbing farmer and a loud-mouthed mercenary, both of whom she was sure would either be killed (the farmer) or betray them all (the mercenary).


She'd been wrong, on both counts. But mistrust was hard to unlearn, and loving people after having lost everything you'd ever known and loved--well, it took time. Time, a bounty hunter, a little luck (though the farmer claimed there was no such thing), strange revelations, and the end of a war, but it finally happened. She'd regained a family through unorthodox means. It wasn't proper at all; if her parents--well, those she'd loved as parents--would have been thoroughly scandalized by it all. But you know what? She didn't care. She was a rebel, after all.
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It's probably patently obvious who this is, but yeah. Fiction-ish.