Daolyth's Diary - August 1113

The rain has stopped, which lifts my spirits somewhat, as does the thought that I shall only have more night outdoors. I found a toad in my boot this morning, which had clearly decided the warm, damp interior was the place to spend the night. It croaked at me as I evicted it from the boot, I presume in protest.

Something must be done about the Elves, although I know not what. By "the elves" I refer to those not of my family, but from the various other factions and places, who have yet to show the same committment to empowering the gemstone. There are some who help, but most do not understand its importance or why it should be the focus of their energies. If the Elves would co-ordinate their research and efforts into learning about our history, then Apsenniel would have the stone empowered in no time.

Instead, most of the elves have no clue, not one jot, about who they are or where they are going as a people. I would tell them that, if I thought I'd be allowed to speak at the council without being interrupted every few seconds or have someone co-opt my thoughts and speak on my behalf.

It is very frustrating.

And why does it always seem to be Elves who favour the cardinal element of Evil, who seem most motivated rather than the rest. They will, inevitably, set themselves staunchly at odds with Apsenniel, which will only serve to stymie her efforts.

I may speak to Fama, see what she suggests. She listens to me.

Daolyth's Diary - Post Moot - August 1113

It is still raining. My boots are sodden and I am making slow progress as the road has quickly turned to mud. I've considered cutting across country, but there is little point before the bridge. Most of my gear is sodden and I cannot get a fire to light, but it is not cold. The night will be uncomfortable but survivable.

So I am alone with my thoughts, the ones at the forefront of my mind and the ones locked behind doors hammering to be set free.

I can understand why Lio-Ara fears what lurks within there and how I might view her as my memories return, but I do not think they will reshape me the way she thinks.

Although I do not presume they will be easily mastered.

But, I can put them to use and they need not all be painful.

Huinesse (or Sinelen to use what I suppose is his real name) had a son. What sort of father was he? What can I learn from those memories to help me be a father?

I do not believe for a moment that I will ever be a person who can live a life of peace and raise a family in such a fashion. I'm destined for battle and the end which inevitably accompanies that. I am certain Huinesse felt the same way, although it did end as he expected. How did he function as a parent given the life he lived? How did it make him feel?

Apsenniel, Lio and Lenia have all said that it is who I am now that matters and I can forge my own identity. They do not care about the man I was. This both relieves and saddens me, because I must know and master the memories of the Elf, Sinelen, also known as Huinesse.

If I do not, then I fear they will overcome me in circumstances I cannot control.

I already told Lio'Ara that I would demure from pursuing my memories if she thought it would genuinely cause her pain. I do not wish to cause pain to those I care about. I want to protect them. Not harm them. If Apsenniel felt the same, I would step back from this path, because I know she is worried about the harm it may do me. But that is my harm to master and face. However, if she felt it would harm her, I would walk away from those memories, even though I know it would cost me dearly.

I cannot leave the memories as they are though. If I do not pursue them, I must ensure they are locked away so that they cannot escape by accident and I do not know how this might be done.

Daolyth's Diary - Post Moot - August 1113

It is raining on Amnor, although I know it to be just rain. Azurlon has fallen and there is no need for further warning's as to Tatalus presence in Lantia. We know where he is and who else he has taken from us.

I have a long march ahead of me back to the Preceptory, but have not the energy nor the will to force it over two days. Instead I will endure the tedium of the journey over three days to deposit my belongings before heading north again to Hengist's hut. They suggested at Armengar that I take a ship round the coast, but I've had enough with ships for now. The sooner my transport circle plans are implemented, the better.

More faces to carve, more friends gone. Had Giblet not stepped into the transport circle on the Friday and all but begged me not to go after Tara, Everard, Mako and Tig, I would most certainly have joined them in death. As would everyone else in that group.

More faces, although I know not who would have carved them.

Instead just those four, plus one more of Nix. Bold enough to stand off against Bezerker of Squad D for the right to spend time with Mayhem. I would not say I consider her a friend, but she personified much of what it meant to be Lion.

At least I will not have to carve Seraphim's face, although why he feels indebted to me I cannot comprehend.

I have much to think about and the time at the hut will buy me that, as it justifies my absence from Camelot and council duties for a little while. But there is the matter of Azurlon refugees to deal with on my return and I must find homes for them before winter comes.

The walk will buy me time as well. No messages on the road. No leys. No imps. Time to think of what Hengist would do and about the choices I've made.

I'm reasonably certain he'd support my decision. A chance conversation at Nixmas achieved more with the Dwarf stone in the space of a few months, than we've achieved with the Elf stone in over a year. Thanks to my friendship with Yarl, pebbles began rolling and by the time of the moot, the dwarves had the avalanche they needed. I think Hengist would consider that more than sufficient committment towards awakening the Human stone and he would rather see me apply my energies where they can do the most good.

For some reason, I've taken to think of the good one can achieve in the world as a crack one is trying to lever open. In some places, you can apply force and the crack will widen, allowing good to pass. In other's, no matter how hard you try, the crack will not move. In yet others, applying force just causes damage no matter what you do.

I feel very much like I have been applying a lot of force to part of this crack and it will not move and now I must other stop or cause damage. I choose the former and will save my energies for where I can do more good.

Such as the potential alliance with the Vipers and my duties as the Voice of the People of Lantia.

And in the fullness of time, as a father.

As for the Elves, I fear that they are truly a lost people. The cadre of famine has fallen out of balance and is too greatly weighted towards evil now. There is no shared understanding of our purpose. The Elves do not listen when I speak and most seem only to care for their own interests or those of their faction and so we underachieve. Others have appeared to continue to drive forward the agenda of supremacy, which combined with the Elves favouring Evil, cannot lead to any good end, with so many indifferent to the other aspects of the cadre or any greater purpose. Certainly not an end compatible with my nature.





I am sure that the view my ability to provide power to rituals as an asset, but one that is taken for granted rather than valued. Certainly I cannot enter into a ritual circle with people who are willing to compromise me for their own ends. Rarely have I been so unnerved inside of the seal and never felt so violated by what occurred there.
 
I will continue to protect those that I care about, in the hope that they will keep the Elves on the path of light, but I have come to accept that this is not a task in which I am willed to succeed by those I want to protect. I accept that my faculties in this regard are limited, which is reasonable grounds not to call on me, rather than it be simple contempt for my concern. I will do what I can when and I can and no more, filling my days with other tasks so I do not have chance to dwell on this.

Still, I am saddened. I would have followed them to ends of the egg each day, facing any danger, if only they'd let me know.

And so I shall find other things to protect.

Hopefully with greater success then those I failed in the past, so utterly.

I had not wanted to confront these memories alone, but now it seems I must.
Idhrenniel waits and  those memories stand before me like a yawning chasm into which I must throw myself and yet I stand at the edge afraid to step forth.

Instead I shall walk in the rain.

Post Dobluthe - May 1113 - The Shores of Amnor

It is quiet here and I find myself enjoying seeing the hut in the new warm light of spring. Although I had hoped not to have to return here so soon again after Arrakech.

I'm carving a memorial to Jericho, the Wavesinger, into the walls of the hut to go alongside the others I added but a few weeks ago. Berzerker, Ripgut, Janus, Filff, and Prince Nethaniel. The intersection of our lives was all too brief, yet I cannot doubt my feeling of kinship too them. The natural instinct of the pride. The collective might of our fury.

I did not expect to return so soon.

And Winter's face shall soon follow Jericho's onto the walls.

I spoke with Queen Lenia, Crown Prince Caleb and Althea about this place. About whether there was someone else more capable to take up this task and why Hengist told me about this place?

“Because he knew you'd do it. Knew you'd carry on.”

Hengist was an extremely devious man, but even I have to wonder how he knew. I'd ask, but I expect all the Crowns will say is that the King was quite adept at judging characters or something similar. Of all the people I'd have thought he'd pick for this task, I would not have thought the “happy news elf” was amongst them.

And yet he did. So here I am.

Building a cathedral to our pain. Establishing a monument to transcend that loss into loving memory. A more likely architect for such an edifice there is not.

I am trying to focus of the events at Dobluthe in the sense of the grander scheme of things. The recovery of the Elfstone, the success of the dwarves and the destruction of Albion, but my mind cannot hold the thoughts in place. They drift away and are replaced by other memories.

Dreams.

The first night here I dreamed and I was terrified. Having no recollection of what dreams were, I woke in terror at the barrage of images and sensations that assailed me. They seemed all too real. All of the faces going back over the centuries. A millennia of pain replaying gradually inside my mind. Death after death after death....

The same dream every night.

Some faces stand apart from the others. There is no clarity and yet in the recesses of my conscious, their significance speaks to me. The sensation of betrayal that I have felt since Caras Estarwae remains and grows stronger with each passing dream.

And within all of this, I hear him calling me. Demanding that I let Darkness come forth and have his revenge. The offer is seductive. An easy escape from pain. But Apsenniel was right. I am not him and he is not me. What he was made to do against his will, is not my fault. Nor his. But I understand his anger. His rage. But I do not yet understand his loss or who he was.

That I felt there was a darkness within me should turn out to be a literal truth feels like a joke gone awry. Never would I have conceived that something so terrible would exist within me.

Yet here at the hut, I find my measure of peace in the solitude and the sunset.Perhaps Hengist sent me here as much for that as anything else?

As the sun sets, I feel the metaphorical tick of my pattern. I never noticed it before and now it is almost all I can think of when I rest. How long do I have? Years? Decades? Or is it only months now?

So I watch the sunsets and find peace carving into wood.

And so the Darkness within slumbers.

Daolyth's Diary - April 1113 - Mithras Preceptory in Mauritania

We have survived Arrakech and I am taking time to rest in the Unicorn's Preceptory before returning to Lantia and checking the leys to confirm all the Lions returned home safely. The transportation from the island prior to it's disappearance did not go according to plan and I was surprised to be one of the first ported from that place. To my relief, Apsenniel was transported also, but we arrived in Mauritania of all places and with a rather disparate group of individuals, some of whom proceeded to transport out to Teutonia.

An odd conclusion to a sometime's harrowing campaign.

Yet it proved a valuable experience for me.

Saturday afternoon's resolution of the alchemical problem made me realise that I don't value my own intellect enough and that many people are idiots and need to leave me in peace. When I have quiet and space to think, the speed at which my thought processes can move amazes even me. I wish I had the ability to think on my feet as some do, but I wouldn't trade the ability to think things through absolutely for that. So that suits me best. Give me space. Give me peace. Give me all the research material without anyone fiddling with all the papers or misunderstanding what I am saying and I will get whatever it that needs be thought about, done.

I like the feeling of certainty at responding to the question "how do you know this is correct?" with the answer "because I did it."

Why have I not noticed this before?

Amidst the battle on Saturday night, Apsenniel and I found time to speak about the events at Caras Estarwae. The substance of the discussion is less significant as to how I felt afterwards.

I realise that whatever I will be in this life, it will never be someone who has a home and leaves a life of peace and quiet. I will never have a family other than that of my Order, my faction and my bloodline. As much as the idea of an existence indulging myself in hours of idle and engrossing research might appeal, the only reason it does appeal is because of its scarcity. I could never live that way indefinitely. It is not in my nature. There is too much to see and do in the world. Too much that needs to change. To be challenged.

I need friends and comrades for this. I need troops at my command. That is the sort of family I need.

The discussion with Apsenniel also made me realise I was wrong, hugely presumptively so, to think that I should be the only one to worry about the other's safety. To be the only one to put themselves at risk for the other. It is not my decision to make and prejudges that another should see me as less worthy, just because I want them to do so. I have to live and die by the actions as others as much as they do mine. 

I feel my confidence returning. A certainty I've not felt in some time.

Daolyth's Diary - High Feast of Surya

I am not proud of what I have done nor will it bring me any joy, but watching Apsenniel put herself in danger for my sake has become more than I can bear. I so desperately want to keep her safe and yet the thought of her imperilling her life to save me because I have fallen to keep her safe......it destroys me. I do not doubt that she would attempt to overcome any obstacle to rescue me and that...........is not acceptable. Not at the cost of her life.

Speaking to Red about Arrakech, I realised how much in danger we will be. How can I keep her safe, if she insists on coming after me while I try to discharge the duty Red has asked of me? I feel such fear at that thought. I cannot sleep.

When I entered the dream of the golden elf, I saw a world so bright, so beautiful, it overwhelmed me. I realised how far from her I am. How far from walking in light I am. Nin rochben en dae she calls me, yet I am weak. When I look at Rurik, at the Paladins, at Tyriel, at Lazarus and at Duibhre, I see capable people worth saving. That isn't me. I'm a shield, nothing more.

The fortune Taci'bien read for me told of betrayal. The pain in Apsenniel's voice when she thought of how she might hurt me, what others might make her to do me. That again was unbearable. Why should she be tormented by such thoughts when she has burden's enough already? I do not believe that she ever could do such a thing and yet...........and yet, she worries. It is too much.

It took a lot of alcohol to do what I did. Although not too much to make it impossible. Fitting in some respects that Taci'bien should be the means by which I debased myself. She seemed to enjoy herself enough not to notice my discomfort or feigning of delight. Liora seemed utterly oblivious. They hurt me, but probably less than I deserved. The experience was disturbing. Not even possessing the gratification of the women we'd buy after battle when I served with the Wolverines. I like Taci'bien and there is a sickness in my stomach about how I have used her. But it is done now and I have only begun to face the consequences.

The look on her face when I told her. I do not believe this can be forgiven and it should not be. To put me beyond betrayal and Apsenniel beyond guilt. At least I can defend her now knowing she will let me be unless circumstances permit an easy and safe rescue. That is a measure of peace. And she will feel no sadness when I am gone. Another pain spared her.

Maybe my presence on campaigns will keep her away? That is a comforting thought, but an unlikely reality, because she will go wherever she is needed regardless. Still, it could happen.


I have snuffed out the only light in my life for the sake of it continuing to burn for a world that needs it.

I can live with the consequences of my actions as long as she continues to live.

I will defend her as a shadow and then at least I will be half of what she thought me to be. Of the shadows. But not a knight.

I will miss her terribly.

Daolyth's Diary - March - Northern Taureanna

Snow? In March?

I'm regretting not taking the option of the transport beacon direct to Caras Estarwae now. I'm stuck atop a flet in a blizzard. Fortunately this flet has a shelter and I have supplies.

But I can barely see the foot of the tree, let alone anywhere else.