12-03-2011, 11:12 AM
The Journal of Craer Naharev
I write this as an introspective reflection of my character’s journey in the Conquest of the Horde. From his point of view, Craer Naharev, techno-mage, scion of his house, and steward of House Blackstone, comes a tale that bespoke naught of knowledge and power; but rather, explores a theme of austere simplicity: what it means to be human. Scribing his journey, the journey, to live, to seek, to learn, to love, and yes, to die; I hope to put into this inadequate canvas of words a conjured soul. I end my preamble with my thanks to you who bother to read it, and my gratitude to those who assisted me in developing my character.
As one of the first and currently, only, project of writing that I had ever undertaken within these forums, I beg your forgiveness for any errors and mistakes that I might make.
I would strive to make a minimum of an update per week, though I seek the understanding of the few whom might follow this.
And finally, I look intently forward to any criticisms, feedback and suggestions; should one prefer to contact me privately, you may find me on 'Craer' in-game.
Content:
Innocence Lost (No Link, First Post)
Sanity Lost
Interlude: Aendron
Fel Hath No Fury
The Hunt
Sojourn
The First Entry: Innocence Lost
Sweet desert rose
Each of her veils, a secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this
Sweet desert rose
This memory of Eden haunts us all
This desert flower
This rare perfume, is the sweet intoxication of the fall
Each of her veils, a secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this
Sweet desert rose
This memory of Eden haunts us all
This desert flower
This rare perfume, is the sweet intoxication of the fall
†
I think that there are few things more lonesome and silent than the hollow ringing of the sonorous chimes that echo through the castle. The deserted hallways that stretched boundlessly in its cavernous emptiness, hallways that I had tread for years, responds only with the pregnant expectation of an old friend that had endured wordlessly the same old drivel. All is barren, and all is bare, with naught but the whistling and ephemeral winds to provide any sort of conversation. As I walked down the length of these halls, I could not help but imagine it as I had dreamt; words and laughter traveling down, coy footsteps accompanied by mirthful giggling, and delectable scents of mouth-watering fares.
I would see the kitchen boy scampering down the hallway, reeling in sight of me, before grinning from ear-to-ear as I brush his hair lightly with my hand. A flicked coin playfully caught, a mischievous look, a giggle and on his way he runs. The mind’s eyes, it is said, works magic beyond the most skilled of mages.
This desolation cries a different truth; for all that I might seek otherwise. The walking dead, rather than the innocent child, walks these halls. The only laughter is that of malice and the only words is that of cruelty. Tavren seeks to arm these dead, and so I shall abide; the treasury trickles in few coins these days, and I speak dark words to fill it. A prisoner, two, cowers in the dungeons, cowers to my words, and I only ponder if the House could profit from them. The stench of innocence lost permeates the estate as the product of my deeds.
I pen these words with a troubled mind, my quill weighted in my hand. It is a chink in the armour that I sought for myself, a glimpse into what I fear to mouth. Yet for my life I write, for my sanity demands no less, and my hubris wonders so. What would my name be in a hundred years? What would the world say of me – or would it even? A diligent steward, perhaps, a successful one, I hope, or maybe – and this is a thought that lingers perpetually in the back of my mind – the fool responsible for the House’s demise. Or perhaps, I might be branded a monster, a vile abomination of avarice and apathy. It is an irony, then, that the greatest epithet that I might value, and pray for, with all my heart, might be the simplest one. Call me human.
. . .I write wearily.
Relevant, then, is that which haunts my dreams and mind. I would not trouble you with the foggy memory of me trudging through the muddy field, headed blindly for the ashen remains of a modest cottage. I still shy from piercing the smothering blackness that guards my memories to recount the hours that I crawled from corpses to corpses, cradling bloody remains in my arms, crying until my throat hoarsened and my voice cracked. I had picked through debris, scraped skin and bloody nails, seeking solace in the silent embrace of what had been, of what had lived. They still do; of course, in the depths of the palace of memories that I had so painstakingly forged to protect myself, my deceased parent's faint voices nary an unintelligible whisper that nonetheless still pricked my heart.
What struck a chord, however, were the contrapuntal feelings that had assailed me. On one hand, an obstinate and stubborn refusal to leave – I was not prepared to accept it, and leaving would have meant capitulation - , and an abject terror that screamed at me to flee lest the murderers return! It took a while, hours like I had said, but the latter won out eventually. The vagaries of fate, I railed, and rail, for in my timorous flight I borne upon me naught but the terror that my parent’s killers still lingered around. Imagine then, my undiluted horror when I had heard the rustling of the leaves, the wet smack of bare feet upon mud approaching, growing louder, growing closer. In my hand held the kitchen knife that she – my mother – had shoved hastily into my hands.
Imagine then, first my perplexity, then my growing alarm, at the distressed shriek that shattered the numbness of my thoughts. It was buried to the hilt, my hand drenched in crimson, the arterial fountain gushing against my chest. Her heart-shaped face was frozen in a mask of pain, nothing a child, her simple dress stained with blood. The piteous scream continues to resonate in the chasmal cavity of my mind.
So it was that when I eavesdropped upon Damielle's words – and through fairly abominable means! - , I found its tonality laced by an echo of the scream. It was an innocent cry, an accusing cry, one that woke in me equal measures of disgust and trepidation, measures that are hardly even alleviated by the hundreds of evil deeds that had littered my life. It was as if having something blinding shoved into my face that in marring my vision made me see the folly of my actions. How laughable, how condemnable, was it that I could see in my possessive attempts to extend my control over on her to be anything but evil. It was purely semantics and folly that I could think that this method of protection would bear any fruits that would not be rotten to the core.
And so I in growing dismay heard her words, words of condemnation, pleading words, words that sought freedom and liberty to live her life as her life was meant to be lived. It was a depiction of desperation that Damielle had begged for Amanda’s - my own secretary against myself? - aid, but there was no mirth in that for me, only a hollow perturbation. But what was even more striking, I think, was the latter’s defence of me. I dare say that I smiled genuinely, though it was a smile blemished by guilt, for the first time in quite a long, long time.
I think, as I write these words, that it might very well have been the latter rather than the former that had made me do what I did.
Freeing Damielle was perhaps one of the most satisfactory acts of vindication that I had ever done, and it was a triumph of trust in another’s inalienable right to live his or her life over whatever imagined responsibility that I might have held. A persisting thought continued to breed in my thoughts, even till now, of course, that it might have been an act of great folly and weakness that runs counterpoint to what had kept me alive all these years, but I suppose that after three decades it is time to pay my dues to the cloistered iota of decency in my soul.
I do not know. And I might never know till the day of my death.
. . .
You know how the priests of the Light pray for the absolution of sins? Theirs is of boundless forgiveness, of the benediction of the soul, warming and soothing. I had oft found serene solace in the silence of the chapel.
. . .
Why. Why is it that nobody has the humane decency to pray for the great sinners. I wonder, amongst the hundreds of priests that pray for the common folks, whether even a single one had prayed for the forgiveness of boundless evil.
After all, who else would need forgiveness more?
. . .
Weep, for we live in a world of slaughtered lambs.