The Games we Play

The Games we Play

Postby Kestrel » Tue Nov 07, 2017 3:05 am

The letter was waiting expectantly on his desk when he attended to his morning duties.

It was out of place among the likely controlled chaos. It was expensive paper, soft to the touch, and sealed with an unmistakable bird in crimson wax. His name was written in her practiced penmanship. There was no question as to the hand that penned it.

The delivery had not been noted, neither by himself nor the attendants eager to prove themselves useful, hence it had probably been in the dark of night.

Whether he opened it immediately or let his curiosity stew, regardless of his personal feelings when he unfolded the paper, the message remained the same.

To my Darling Glenn,

I apologize for the effortless familiarity captured within my address, but I am not quite certain of your new title in Rasazan. I have, of course, distantly followed your path through life without my influence, but perhaps not as closely as I should have been. I assure you, my spies will see to this grave miscalculation. We will see if you can ferret out who they are. Another game between the two of us. We were always so eager to play them, weren't we? Perhaps that was the curious reasoning for my flight from Myrken; the only one clever enough to engage my restless mind had given in to despair at the lost love of his people.

I was mostly content to allow you to live your life unaccosted, but a recent failed proposal from a minor Lord brought you to mind again. He lamented that you and I had not been in contact in quite some time and wondered whether we were still engaged. His hands were rumored to wander where they were not desired and he had difficulty with understanding language when a Lady declined, so it was with great sadness that he and his head have sadly parted company in a nasty hunting accident. There was nary a dry eye in his village, I assure you. Though the women appeared to be paradoxically cheerful in response to the news.

Alas, my company moves on with their restlessly wandering mistress. Perhaps I will meander closer to Rasazan in the coming months. Though, given that I privately take my guidance from the Crown, that is uncertain at best.

I hope this correspondence finds you well. That may be difficult to believe, given how we left things. Whatever your feelings, our names are forevermore intertwined, made so by His Majesty's noble seal and the scratch of quill to contract. Neither of us, it seems, took steps to dissolve our long-ago arrangement. Wiser minds than mine might find some greater meaning behind that negligence. Logically, I suspect it is merely because it continues to benefit us both. Or perhaps it is because, in secret, we pine for the other like flowers wilting without rain. Matters of the heart were never my strong suit, much to the chagrin of anyone foolish enough to have expectations to the contrary. I do not take care to listen to my heart when my head makes considerably stronger points.

As I've said, our agreement continues to benefit me, A Lady of noble blood seeking to avoid her Ladylike duties, and thus, our lack of correspondence appears suspicious. If you've no mind to communicate, I accept those terms but will continue to send missives of my own even without response. At least one of us must keep up appearances, dear.

Yours,
Egris
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Re: The Games we Play

Postby Glenn » Wed Nov 08, 2017 1:36 am

Egris,

Your final paragraph presents to me a unique opportunity. It is in your interest to write. You will write, then, no matter what I say, even if I say nothing at all. What would make you cease? Insult heaped upon insult? No, you are used to those. You foster them with your nature. You are only comfortable in your own skin when you push back against the tide and draw the ire of those around you. You would welcome my insults with an easy certainty, life conforming to belief. What is more comfortable than that? Me besmirching your good name here in Rasazan? You'd enjoy that, I imagine, would make full use of it. How about open affection? No, I think you'd make a game of it and frankly, despite your early tutors obviously honing excellent letter-writing skills, no one wants to see your romantic poetry.

So here I am, able to say anything at all, a thousand games to play, endless chances to vent all my frustrations on a person endlessly capable of weathering that storm, and I think, most likely, I may disappoint you. I already have, of course, being a fire that slowly burned out (there are jokes about men and stamina to be made here; might I suggest you call in a lieutenant, read that aloud, and tell them to him, for they are beneath you).

I think back to our talks and they were not talks at all. They were a fevered attempted to proselytize, to convert you to the creed and dogma of Myrken Wood, to plant a seed (a dire metaphor considering) of love for it, not me, that might grow. I think, subconsciously, I found myself flagging, realized I had lost the people and that more importantly, I had lost myself (even as I once again found the ability to truly understand the notion of one's self). I used every moment remaining to try to foster an appreciation within you so that you might carry things forward with some sentiment for the people and the land in your heart. It was a half-hearted effort, for my heart had been halved (if not decimated), and against the foreboding walls of the Kestrel, such a siege was more than futile.

It was ill-conceived.

I came here to find what was lost. I came here to cordon myself from my old life, from those I may harm with my flailing explorations. I have little, therefore, I can present to you, little intrigue, little gamesmanship. No danger but one. I wonder if it is a danger enough that it could halt your letters when nothing else could.

If you correspond with me, you correspond with someone who will try to gain nothing from you. You correspond with someone who does not want the benefit of your name, your house, your influence, your wealth, your prowess, Though we are attached, there will be no attempt to force attachment. Though we are obligated, there will be no attempt to seize obligations. You cannot promise favors to sway me. You cannot shield yourself from honest thoughts with expectations of dishonest posturing.

What does the Lady Egris Verreaux do when presented with that eventuality for the first time in her life? Let us find out together.

Glenn
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Re: The Games we Play

Postby Kestrel » Fri Nov 10, 2017 8:45 am

Glenn,

I hope that you can recall the utter exasperation held in my sigh reserved exclusively for your more foolish of actions. I trust that you will have the decency to picture the expression that was inextricably tied to that sound. I have always been more comfortable with in-person communication, given that written letters do not allow for my more subtle communication to resound with the same magnitude. Besides, I can punctuate my speech with the back of my hand or the tip of my sword, if I've a need.

I must admit that it was whim more than scheme that first took my fancy to set aside a few moments (along with my better judgment) to send word to my wayward and illegitimate fiance. I took to the task with remembered enthusiasm of our unspoken bond; as if the more complicated aspects of our shared past could be entirely forgotten. As though we were still steadfast allies, even if by convenience alone, fighting the good fight together. Thoughts of the disappointment your complete withdrawal caused have softened with time. Only the memories of my foolish affection remained.

The harsh Myrken welcomes no one without putting them first through their paces. My quiet suspicions are that it is a town that has known such pain and deceit, it viciously safeguards itself against anything unfamiliar. While others saw me as an interloper and enemy, the governor saw potential even as I threatened him with annihilation and imprisonment. It was something to be admired. I am so rarely surprised. Which made a far more abyssal wound when you simply grew distracted by the resounding silence in your own mind. Your former lady love continued to drive you to ruin beyond the grave. You left me unfinished; a half-completed concept meant to replace your leadership with my own. Floundering in my attempts, I reached for your hand and found myself abandoned. I suppose it was more disillusion in myself that I need another at my back at all that drove me to leave. Perhaps it was an attempt to gut you in turn; I should have known that you would barely notice my absence. I overestimated our shared affinity and my own abilities.

I suppose I should have known that my fire in my soul would be stifled without the excitement of travel. Politics instead of warfare. My blood sings with conflict, but not playing nice; despite my time in court among those that play the game. When The King gave me an opportunity to spend my days on horseback with my dear Peropis and the company of men who hold me to no expectations. You seem to think that would be suffocating; no expectations, no posturing, and no obligations. What you seem to forget is that I surround myself with people who believe much the same.

Though I warn you that your claims ring false. My name, no doubt, ushered you into your position as a one-man army against corruption in Rasazan. I reject the notion that you want nothing at all from our association. Perhaps your genuine ambitions are a mystery even to yourself. If you truly cared nothing for my correspondence, you would have neglected to reply in kind or you would have avoided goading my temper into sharp focus with the callous indifference you presented in defense.

What will The Lady Egris Verreaux do indeed, Glenn Burnie?

Egris
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Re: The Games we Play

Postby Glenn » Mon Nov 13, 2017 1:20 am

Egris,

You attack on many fronts. It's hard to know where to begin. How about this? I would like to say that there is a marked difference between soldiers with no expectations and myself, but to do so would be presenting them as uneducated, unthinking louts, and that would hardly put me back in your good graces. It would paint me as some sort of elitist boor, detached from the real things of the world. I'm sure that's only partially the case. I would say this instead; they have no expectations for you because they have none for themselves, save for survival. They have no expectations for what you are, as opposed to everyone else in your life, but they also have no expectations for WHO you may be. That, I think, is a failing and does not do you justice. Therein would be the difference between me and them. Do you see it?

As for my abandonment of you, it was absolute. I make no promises to make amends save for that I have not run from your words. I make no promises that I am not still broken, save for an assurance that I have been working on such a notion for some time now. I do not run from it, as I do not run from you. Either it or you may best me in time, of course, but it will not be from lack of trying on my part. It is, of course, too little and too late for what had been. Whether that truly bothers you or not, well, that is something you know and I will not guess at. I've admitted my part in it all.

You mistake my intentions here. One cannot battle against corruption through inaction alone. One can, however, delay it sharply through inaction. Do you picture me as some sort of shining force, overturning a system generations old? Is your story thus? "At least," she says, thinking of what might have been, at what she occasionally thought back upon fondly. "At least," she holds to her heart, for while he had been too broken to assemble the never completed pieces of her heart, he stands there, in her beloved and forsaken home itself, a bastion to tear down the old wickedness called necessity in her ever regal name.

Something like that? No. I need to eat. More so, I need to keep my mind busy, to quell the torrent of thoughts as I learn to master them once again. I want nothing that anyone in Rasazan has to offer. So long as that's the case, none of them can touch me.

That, of course, would bring us back to questions of What and Who.

Glenn
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Re: The Games we Play

Postby Kestrel » Sat Nov 18, 2017 4:22 am

Glenn,

The most successful attacks are on multiple fronts; do not forget.

I surely will not.

You must keep your verbal sparring skills honed lest I lose interest in your weary correspondence. Perhaps that is your ambition; that I will tire of these letters and leave you to your supposed healing. Be wary that your attempt to roll over and play dead not be seen as invitation to visit in person to claim your head in trophy of my victory.

You recall the feeling of my victory, do you not? Do you remember the feeling of invisible shackles around your thin wrists; the intangible dagger pressed into the soft flesh of the column of your throat? Do you remember the peril in the flash of my grin? You made an excellent mouse to my cat.

You chose to craft your letter with an ill-conceived argument about the expectations heaped upon me and to hail your own lack of them as superior to the absence of those from my men. I assure you, the difference does not lie in your position nor education. The assumptions of my men are those given to any leader - that I will put the greater good above all else and that I will strive to bring them alive through conflict to that end. Their trust was carved out in bloody battles and ripped from the lives of the fallen. If you think that survival is chief on their minds, you do not know much about the common man who pledges his life to a cause. The survival of what they love is placed above their own. Their wives and children have full bellies because of their service. They escape poverty with their lives as payment.

It would not make sense to a man who, arguably, has placed his own needs above all else. Have you loved anything or anyone before? You spout repeated claims to love your late lady wife, but I have not seen much evidence in support. You slither about in her absence claiming victimhood instead of honestly mourning her. Perhaps though, that was just something you hid from me, an interloper in your city. Maybe I had not earned any honest emotion at that time and again now, but I can only speak to my own presumptions.

Perchance I am being unfair, given your perceived attack on men who would gladly die so that others might live. They are my family, brothers in arms. I would stand with them against impossible danger in hopes of saving even one. They are more family than those tied to me through bloodlines, breeding, or contract. Given that I will obviously stand against any recognized affronts and revisit the slight tenfold in response, we should speak no more of this topic. I will vow to return the favor with regard to your wife. Do we have an accord?

You make no promises of amends for your absence and yet, you owe them. Broken or not. For who among us is not broken, Glenn? Those cracks in your carefully crafted visage do not make you unique, but human. We all carry the sins of those imperfect creatures that came before us. We should endeavor to carry the scars of our past with nothing more than pride. You must collect your fractured pieces and forge them into something stronger. Difficult to do all by your lonesome.

If I have mistaken your intentions, then you seem to have mistaken me for another woman entirely. Do I seem the sort of wilting flower to clutch at my heart, bat my eyelashes, and dream romantic speculations of your assumed objectives in the festering pool of Rasazan politics? I've no time for such frivolities and my assumptions in regard to you are rarely favorable, I assure you. I do think you the type to picture yourself as a pillar of formidable ideals standing against the sea of corruption surrounding your precarious position. Slowly, the choices will become more difficult and you will dissolve. They all started much the same way. The only way to save yourself is distance or a pair of shrewd eyes to give warning.

I will offer my services as spectator, being a woman who holds you both with dear affection and honest animosity. I do not fear to expose your softer places, Glenn Burnie.

Yours always,

Egris
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Re: The Games we Play

Postby Glenn » Mon Nov 20, 2017 1:32 am

Egris,

You know Razasan, of course. The reasons why you are there and not here are naturally myriad, but one is a matter of necessary preference. It is necessary as you have little choice in the matter, and that may well have shaped the fact that it is undeniably your preference (and the corresponding traits within yourself), but it, in the end, undeniably your preference. You know Razasan and you remember it and you will understand then that my sword is rather rusty when faced with such directness. Everything is tangled and knotted here. You are cold and crisp (though you are hot iron and not cold but that is another discussion entirely). It has been a year of reawakening. You have my leave to continue to stab me while I wipe the sleep from my eyes.

Let us make some more assumptions. It is simplicity itself to forge a bond with someone in the heat of battle. When it is a matter of daily survival, bread will be share and wine will be savored. Fellowship there and then is easy to come by. Peace is more difficult than war. Call me ignorant and coddled (you know I am neither though you can only imagine what I've seen), but idleness can drive one to madness. There's no time for such frivolities in war. Moreover, there is a hierarchy; there are orders; there is purpose. In peace, there is none of that. There is, instead, a grasping, gasping struggle to find one's place, to create artificial meaning and invest some semblance of Truth to it. If you stop and ponder it for too long, the entire thing falls apart and you with it. There's no time for such foolishness in war.

Imagine what might have happened if you had bound my ankles and dragged me behind to fight beside you. I'm sure I'd have none of these thoughts. I might not have any at all. Some might call that the greater good.

Putting aside what you may offer me, it is your humanity that interests me the most, Egris. Yours is literal, direct, unrelenting. You drive forward. I wonder what you drive towards. Oh, you have specific goals (even and especially one such as you you receives orders, after all), but what is the end goal of all of it. What if you succeed and succeed and succeed again. Do you want for power for the sake of it? Do you want to show all of them here what they have squandered? Or do you wish to be accepted back with open arms? One more success and they must take you back, they must hold you tight to their bosom?

I take no pleasure in this, Egris, but as it comes to me, your assumptions and lack of regard are built upon an impressive pillar. You think much of me even if those thoughts are not pleasant. I fear that I am unworthy even of your disdain. I am incorruptible here not because I am a bastion of morality and ideology but because I want nothing that they can offer me. Let me leave that there for you to make what assumptions you may.

You wish to be my conscience, to be the voice in my head to make me doubt and, at times, dance. It's not a bad stratagem, for you know how lonely I am for such a thing, how addicted to that surety and that company I may have been once. I don't fear dissolving though. My concern is in becoming a corporeal force in this world once more. The exact opposite.

What sort of defense is getting one's sword stuck in him so that she might not be able to stab him again?

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Re: The Games we Play

Postby Kestrel » Tue Nov 21, 2017 4:24 pm

Glenn,

Pardon the nature of this correspondence. I reveal more of myself than I truly intended. These long nights reveal much about oneself. You provide a willing distraction.

I have known Razasan in my youth, but I've not been back for quite some time; I prefer the company of hounds to snakes. I am willing to concede that things in the golden city may have changed, but I certainly have my doubts. I am not startled by its lack of directness; the game has always been more about whispered words, double meanings, and what lingers behind closed doors. The game is won by craft and patience; I have the former but not much of the latter. I admit to finding myself surprised that you are lacking in this capacity. Who has been letting you sleep, Glenn Burnie? Awaken, so that you might provide me entertainment in my travels.

We find ourselves idle upon the road this night; the first deep snowfall halting the horse's treacherous path forward. The men roast flanks of their hunts on the fire and tell one another stories more at home in fiction than fact. Others burn off any aggression with sparring, their blades ringing from the boughs of trees above them. I am quite annoyed to say that tonight, you've earned the favor of my company as I write by candlelight. I adore my men, but agreeable companionship is sorely lacking in the conflict my restless heart seeks. You've never disappointed in that regard.

Stop smiling; it is surely a passing fancy and no further compliments will be leveled upon your smug shoulders.

Ho ho, dearest fiance. Do not tempt me. I would see you bound and dragged off to fight alongside me in these petty, foolish wars just to see the expression on your face. Battle-hardened might be fetching upon you. Say the word and we will ride into town to collect you, thrown over Peropis' haunches like a sack of grain. Your hands will dirtier in war, but it will be a far more rich life than the one you currently claim. If I thought you would do anything but sulk, I would recruit you forcibly and without delay.

I have thought many times about my end goal. What am I chasing? What do I want? In truth, I do not know myself. You honestly think I seek approval from those I abandoned long ago? I cannot be completely certain, but I suspect that I merely yearn for the chase. Who needs a conclusion when one merely yearns for the excitement of the chase? Therein lies my interest in you, I suspect; a man who wants little to do with me, but who continues to write dutifully in response.

It is far past time that you become corporeal again. I may find you distinctly annoying, but you are worth more than most. Leave your regret behind and get to work making something more of yourself.

Sheathing a sword in oneself in hopes of avoiding future blows seems a poor strategy, given that the first might very well yield a mortal wound. Do be smarter, my dear.

Yours,

Egris
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Re: The Games we Play

Postby Glenn » Wed Nov 22, 2017 8:36 am

Egris,

Some small thoughts:

You do not have my pardon (asked for, I think, preemptively). I enjoyed your last letter.

You will, instead, pardon me, for in our time in Myrken, I thought more about who I might make you into and not who you already were. This was, as much as anything else, a grasping attempt to hold on to who I was. It failed. I fell. Here, at the bottom, however, I have the luxury to look up and try to see you for who you are, for how you were, for who you wish to be. This may not be entertaining for you but I think it may well be distracting.

And so the small thoughts become large. I freely admit my faults.

You may drag me off. I'd have my uses, I'm sure, but I must defer. You see, I do not think I would like to follow someone who does not know what she wants, whose only purpose is seeking out a purpose or perhaps just enjoying the experience along the way. That's well and good for some cloistered aesthetic or cowardly hedonist. Not you.

We are mortal. Our lives will end before long, whether it be due to battle or sickness or intrigue. That is a reason to savor every moment, to squeeze out value from it, which I admit I am not doing now. I think the destination matters, however, even as much as the journey. The destination gives the journey richness and meaning. It gives it purpose. It is the only way we can truly exercise control over our lives. We will die. We may get sick. We will falter against powers stronger than us, against nature itself, but it is within our power to make the decision to fight, to make the decision of why we fight. Do we seek out an never ending litany of monsters and challenges? All to prove that we can best them, to prove our worth to others or ourselves? To grow stronger so that we cannot be hurt, so that nothing can touch us? If so, then we do it for the sake of itself, and that is running from purpose.

If you wish to entertain yourself with my willingness, know that I am willing to help you discover that truth within yourself. If you wish to see my worth, see it there. And know that even stabbed, I will stagger as long as need be and bleed all over you the whole way.

Glenn
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Re: The Games we Play

Postby Kestrel » Tue Nov 28, 2017 4:05 pm

Dearest Glenn,

You may certainly look up at me from your at least partially self-imposed place at the bottom (do you think you are at the true depths from which you might sink? Alas, there is always a little farther one can fall), but I assure you that it will be far more difficult to make hardened conclusions given your proximity, or lack thereof. Our letters leave the other with a fractured sense; they are merely how we wish to be seen and not the entire story.

Of course, even these few scrawled words can reveal much about us without even intending to.

I will accept your polite suspension of my company for a time, but you should know by now that my patience is limited. The day will come when I arrive with my men in the dark of night without warning, to avoid all the fanfare my return would surely provoke, throw you on the back of Peropis like a common sack of grain, and abscond with your person sans apology. All the wagging tongues my kidnapping would inspire would ensure your position within high society for years to come. Because, given our history, I would, of course, release you from my company sooner than later given your tendency and ability to seek out every frayed nerve I have and strum it into annoyance.

You illustrate my point nicely, given your dispute designed both insult as well as flatter. I would argue that there are certainly moments where one should appreciate the journey rather than the conclusion; life is one of those. You wax poetical about the enjoyment of your destination, but that lies in death, you might recall. Death or insignificance, at the very least. I think that you should learn to enjoy the adventure. Sometimes, one has to take life as it comes. What lies over the next hill? One never knows, but I am eager to find it. I am shocked that I, who seek to plan almost every detail of my civilized life, have to debate this with you. Are you enjoying your odyssey through Razasan politics, Glenn? Or are you only seeking what comes next?

...On second thought, perhaps that makes sense. I've been in your position in a manner of speaking. The path forward is unlikely to be enjoyable; just concentrate on whatever goal you've set for yourself. Which is what, exactly?

And are you entirely certain you do not want to be abducted?

The offer will always stand.

Yours,
Egris
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Re: The Games we Play

Postby Glenn » Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:26 am

Once upon a time, I danced. Oh, get that look off your face and bear with me. I didn't do it often and I didn't do it well, and yes, I did it with her back before she died. This was even further back though, before the dark elf took her hand. This was before she was cursed for the first time by my weakness and hers, back to the beginning almost. It was a wild thing. Barn dances. That was not when I felt closest to the people of Myrken, the farmers all clung together whipping their bodies about to music to forget (and occasionally defy) all of their pain and loss, their own mortality. It was not them enjoying the journey, but instead them escaping the destination.

If I danced later, it was towards the end, when a rigid, insane order had overtaken her. That was entirely different. Formal. One step here, one step matched. One step there, one step matched, the world moving exactly as it ought to.

I take a step forward, Egris, and you take a step forward. You take a step back, and I take a step back. I take a step forward, and you suddenly drag me three steps back. Now why would someone do that? Were we sparring, it could be to draw me off balance, but no, I don't think so. I think I drew you off balance, simply by stepping forward when you were expecting me to step back. I think you've retreated. A tactical retreat, I am sure, for you are you, or at least that's what you tell yourself. It's a retreat nonetheless.

You harp upon kidnapping me. Now, perhaps I've awoken some desire within you for that and you just can't get the notion out of your head, but that would be flattering me and insulting you and I just managed to do that in the last paragraph. I do not value my life much currently, but I value it just enough not to repeat that behavior two paragraphs in a row. Of course, what I'll suggest will be far worst. I think you have gone back to the notion of dragooning me because it's a veiled threat, one that shows you have all the power, an attempt to distract and scandalize me, when you are in fact, afraid of what I was touching upon.

Do you desire my company that badly? Truly? Am I the missing part of you whose absence causes your heart to skip every other beat? Because the alternative makes me wonder if you didn't just retreat, if you not actually, dare I say it again, afraid, to truly examine your own purpose, what you actually want, what you want your life to ultimately mean.

See, we're dancing. I can hear the music. Dissonant, formal, and imperious, just like you.

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Re: The Games we Play

Postby Kestrel » Tue Dec 05, 2017 2:58 am

Beloved,

I must have hit a nerve, given that you forgot to address me by my given name. How familiar we are with one another.

Your experiences with dancing are not unlike my own given that you seem to mostly have avoided the activity when possible. Most of the dancing at court was in service of the game; who danced with who was important, who avoided who was infinitely more so. But each and every dance was akin to sparring. Lessons learned I'm afraid. Most of my interactions are similar; my guard is rarely down around those I cannot fully trust. The list is supremely short and you do not number among them. You are, however, my treasured sparring partner. Perhaps that can shift in time, but I doubt that you have the attention span or the ability to trust anyone.

See how we can both deviate between insult and compliment in a single breath? It is dizzying and leaves one out of breath. Not unlike your barn dances, I would think. Are you leading, dear, or am I?

How many times can you imply that I am a coward before it yields an appropriate response, Glenn? Your thrown gauntlet can only be ignored for so long. Your assumption is appropriate that my vow to kidnap you was more of a threat in nature, but I wasn't aware that was a secret. I must admit, it would have been amusing to see you attempt to live among soldiers. More importantly, it also would have been nice to have some non-tedious conversation at the royal feasts I am forced to attend. My men do not accompany me due to lack of title. If I have to discuss the decorations or gowns one more time with a ladywife of some Baron or Lord, I may keel over from sheer boredom. I sometimes hide in the privy until they lose interest.

If you surmise that I retreat in effort to hide the parts of myself that I am uncomfortable with your shrewd eyes seeing, you must be aware of your own use of veiled implications of my apparent adoration for you as your own parry. Is it merely a feint? Or do you worry about what you might have to do if those feelings were present in another for you? Do you fear honest affection in others after her? Letting another in after it was used so cruelly against you before must be a considerable risk. Do you know how to care for another without knowing their every thought and emotion?

Or maybe in yourself. Do you hide your feelings for me in concealing insults like a child pulling pigtails? There's no shame in admitting it, Glenn. We are formally engaged to be wed, after all.

Let us speak next of your own purpose. Healing and remembering oneself is not true purpose. It is a vital step to the continued path. When the way is clear, where will you go? Where is your vastly important destination?

How many steps forward or back is that, my dear? I've lost count and I believe I am the one leading now. Are you taking care to keep up?

Imperiously yours,

Egris

post-scriptum: I will be near Razasan in a month's time. I'll expect a dance.
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Re: The Games we Play

Postby Glenn » Thu Dec 07, 2017 1:43 am

Egris,

So much to cover. Let us start with a few short responses:

We will dance. I will step on your feet. There may be blood.

Your time in the privy is part of your reputation. Iron spine. Weak stomach.

You would look striking in pigtails. Shall I get my hopes up for next month?

That out of the way, allow me to point out a simple, straightforward truth. I gave you two options. Either it was A (let us call this "The Kestrel's cowardice of purpose") or it was B (for Burnie, who you, in this scenario, obviously adore). While you give mention to A and try to turn it back upon me (paragraphs to come), you spent most of the time focusing on B. In doing so, you've danced us out of the bar and halfway into the field. I think there's now a cornstalk up your nose and you're waving in the wind like a scarecrow.

And all the while, you don't face your purpose even once. You played too much a hand to get me to blink first. We will return to this below.

Purpose first, then trust. I want what I always want, to push our people away from survival and towards the notion of living. This has never changed. I saw it in Myrken, generation after generation that struggled against forces beyond their ability to fight, mystical, bestial, political. I saw them turn towards ignorance and superstition because they did not have the luxury of learning, documenting, categorizing, of pushing past the darkness with the light of knowledge. I saw them unable to fight back, to only fight amongst themselves for the scraps that the world allowed them. I would have them learn, grow, would balance the scales and earn them, or their children, or their grandchildren, a chance.

Trust. Where I falter is in my previous failure, in madness and cost. I cannot try and get it wrong again. It's as simple as that. I need to know myself. I need to understand my failings. I need to ensure my motivations and my values are correct. This takes time, even though one of the things I push against is that we, all of us, have so little allotted. So I do not trust myself and I have not gained anything of value save purpose. This, however, makes trust very easy. When one has little to lose, it becomes very easy to trust. When last we met, I still had much to lose and moreover, I was desperately grasping it. It would have been impossible to trust you. Now, though? Now it is very easy indeed and I do.

And, to a degree, I think you can trust me as well. Who you are is self-made and admirable. What you are was well beyond your ability to control. It is alright that you are afraid to look in a mirror and discern what you want and what you strive for. I understand the difficulty in that. It is not unique to you nor does it make you a coward (even though you are afraid; I need not bait you). In this, however, you are fortunate, for while you may have a mirror or two, you also have something better. You have me.

Glenn
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Re: The Games we Play

Postby Kestrel » Fri Dec 08, 2017 6:15 am

Darling,

You have an entire month's time to learn how to dance and not step on my toes. You should utilize that. Or indeed there might be blood.

Is that what they say about me? I will continue to use that to my benefit. So what do they say about you? Or perhaps us? I've heard a few things. Everything from the greatest love story of the ages to one of us being a pretty plaything. I'm not sure why they think you're so pretty.

You must stop flirting, you're making me blush.

My question remains, who are you to drag them (you do number myself among them) kicking and screaming away from mere survival? We are happy here, existing below your lofty standards. Granted, I've never been one to accept my lot in life. If I did, I'd be married to a man who saw me as a broodmare with coin and a family who meant more than I do. Instead, I command men and women in battle, I have give to the shackles of family around my neck, and a far-away fiance who apparently devotes much of his time to worry about my purpose. As if I were one of those downtrodden you seek to protect. As if my gilded cage isn't far superior to the restraints of hunger and desperation.

You trust me?

I trust you to a point. Not entirely. You've not earned that and I've more to lose, I think. This is a fickle relationship, quickly shifting from friendship, we'll call it, to antagonism; one to the other, often in the same breath. One could argue that it stands on a certain foundation of mutual affection or... again, I'm not entirely certain what to call it. You, however, are keen on carving your way to the truth of every matter, damn the consequences. In the face of that, one should take care to guard something of themselves against you. The mirror of your gaze is harsh and fractured, damaged by a woman who wielded the same tools. We are all crafted, a sum of all our parts, of our previous experiences. I can no more separate my point of view from the breeding than you can.

I know that you will decry my attempts to shift focus onto your shoulders, but it is a topic of great interest to me. I spent my entire childhood alone and got to know my pitfalls as thoroughly as I am comfortable with exploring. Myself is a tedious topic. The intricacies of one Glenn Burnie, though. Now there is something that may peak my interest on these days when I've nothing to do but travel. Besides, we both excel at shifting attention elsewhere, I think you know.

Fortunately Yours,

Egris
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Re: The Games we Play

Postby Glenn » Mon Dec 11, 2017 1:18 am

Egris,

That gives me plenty of time to have metal tipped shoes commissioned. One must support the fine tradesmen of Razasan after all.

When I arrived, certain parties (Kostroma, Surdemer, others), thought I would reach high and far and quick. The first had indicated back in Myrken that I would do well here. Politics and policy and court. Had I done as much, yes, maybe they would be talking about me. Had I sought power for the sake of it, maybe they would be talking about you. Had I forced my way in and through and up, maybe then would be talking about us. I wanted none of it. I did none of it. I went another direction altogether. No one much talks about me, except for as a minor annoyance. Some talk of you. Far less than you'd indicate talk of us. I am a disappointment to most (Most) storytellers and gossipers here: interesting for a moment, boring for the eternity that follows. Either you know better or you know worse.

As for who I am? I'm Glenn Burnie, of course (and doesn't that contradict the previous paragraph? Perhaps more accurate is that I am working on being Glenn Burnie once again). If they don't see the opportunity that life presents, I would be doing them and life itself a disservice by stepping aside. It's systemic for most of them, Egris. They never had a chance. Is that patronizing? Probably, but that doesn't make it less true. A notion can be two things, both equally unpleasant. If someone has not had the opportunity to learn to read, has been constrained by superstition from birth, has fought and struggled for a meal each and every day of his life, how is he going to find something more? (Your situation as well, in its own way, as you noted). I don't drag these people. I strike at the underlying oppression of life itself. It's why I'm doomed to fail. That's still better than you, Eggie, doomed never to even try. Still, that was a fair question.

I also think you're wrong about that last bit (not fortune or shifting attention). One can separate one's point of view. You understand it. You analyze it. You compare it, contrast it, pull it apart and put it back together. Then you choose. I understand how I ended up like I have. I have analyzed it. I have found deficits. I work to fix them before I strike back out into the world. Dare you do the same?

Without valediction,
Glenn

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Re: The Games we Play

Postby Kestrel » Sat Dec 30, 2017 8:59 am

Throughout the rest of the cold winter month, no further letters arrived.

No correspondence was placed with the greatest of care upon the empty plane of his desk, none were left tucked carelessly among his things as if something of an afterthought, and certainly none were waiting for him after having been slipped under the door of his probably modest dwelling. At this point, by the location of his letters, he could tell that there were three separate people who delivered them. The ones he found with a place of honor upon his desk were folded neatly; pristine and smelling of leather and horses. Likely a soldier who was known for his care, possibly Henderson. The ones shoved haphazardly among his belongings were oft wrinkled, stained, and smelled of tobacco. Most likely the dwarf spy. The letters to his home were left with a cloying perfume (obviously not favored by the Lady) clinging to its hide and usually had the corners turned up as if its guardian was seeking to gain a glimpse at the words contained within. That one was a bit of a mystery since she favored her female companions like Gloria Wynsee; unlikely to put on airs.

But alas, there were none to deliver.

Once or twice, he might have caught a glimpse of a curious lady of means watching him, that same perfume clinging to the folds of her dress as she clutched the fashionable necklace at her throat. Clearly, she'd heard nothing at all from the Lady as well and curiosity had driven her to seek him out. If she noticed his attention, the corner of her mouth would curl and she would nod before drifting away into the crowd again, attention waning.

-----------

It was just another night.

One in which it was so cold, one would swear the soles of their shoes might freeze to the very ground. The winter wind caught any little gap in cloth and would wink into a man's bones like it belonged. The streets were nearly abandoned. It wasn't long, and not far from his claimed residence that he would recognize he was being followed by a keen set of eyes. When he reached his door, he'd note a flash of flame from the alley across the way as The Kestrel's bearded dwarf lit his pipe and then melted into the shadows. The nod he gave just before leaving was some kind of signal, as if he were one watchman handing off his shift to another. Egris probably would have been annoyed, had she known. She was not something precious that needed protection. Her men differed in that assumption.

Inside his locked home, silence reigned aside from the snaps of the fire she'd built, the heat a stark contrast to the weather outside. His eyes would likely seek out the extrinsic objects lying strewn across the floor; a muddied boot here lying on its side, a crimson jacket tossed over a chair there. There was an unopened bottle of wine by the door. She'd certainly made herself at home. So much for propriety.

In his bedroom, the door left ajar, he would find The Lady Egris had continued her conquest of his living space. Candlelight framed her from several locations around the room. She had taken up residence in a simple wooden chair with her feet kicked up onto the edge of his bed. The sleeves of her shirt had been unfastened and rolled to her elbows. The first few buttons at her throat were undone enough to reveal the hint of cloth binding underneath. Her sword lay across her lap and she was busy applying oil to the hilt so it would gleam.

Her hair was longer and she was still filthy from her travels; mud and horse sweat.

It was clear that she'd come here rather than first announcing herself formally with her royal brethren. It would be frowned upon, but consequences be damned. He was probably the only soul in Razasan she'd honestly looked forward to seeing. Her allies numbered few here and her friends even less. For all their bickering, there was a certain affection between them. Even if it was as complicated as the woman herself.

Glenn was aware that for Egris, by necessity, every interaction was a chess match. So while this apparent air of allowing herself to truly let down her guard was possible, it was far more likely that every detail of this scene was through careful crafting by the ambitious woman. One could dare to hope for the alternative. The proud woman he found himself betrothed to let her eyes, dancing from the candlelight, lift from her weapon to catch on his own.

"Did you really just call me Eggie?"
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