Words.

Words are names for things, and names are words for people. I cannot remember words and names anymore, not here. There aren't words here.

I still remember her smell, though. Earth and spice, a hint of sweetness. Like dry pine needles on moist ground. Like fragrant herbs cradled gently in careful paws. It fills my nose and brings unsought tears to my eyes, tears that would distract me from my guard, the long watch, the patient defense of the Great Spirits.

I brush the tears aside and think of duty. Duties back in that other place, a place I can hardly remember now, duties that seem a lifetime ago. Was it only years? Duties to comrades in arms who have forgotten me, to a Great Tree, a moonhart, and to all she sheltered. Then as now, though that place and this are so different. Here, there are no words, no names. Spirits are as they are, without names to shape them, words to limit and contain them. Here, power, consequence, virtue, duty, these primal things simply are, as substantial as a tree. There is no need to name what one can touch, here. Names are only for what one has lost, left behind.

I tried to reach her once. Summoned my remembered ways of folding the weave itself, reaching through it. I smelled her; she was standing by that Great Tree where we so often met. I smelled rain, and pixies, and her. I strained for words to give her. That Jaguar had need of her, to aid in the defense. That I had need of her. That I still loved her. That I would prepare the way for her.

I don't know if she heard. Maybe I never found words to send. Once, I thought she was coming, but it wasn't her. It looked like her, but it didn't smell like her, and it left soon after. Maybe she changed. Maybe she thinks I left her, no longer care about her. Maybe she knows I cannot remember her name, or even my own. Maybe I never reached her. Maybe she no longer loves me.

Maybe that's for the best.

Again, I brush the tears aside. I was chosen where few are chosen, for a sacred task; as my duties in the other place, only more pure, with more meaning, without words and names. Jaguar tells me I am ever true, and I am proud. For a moment, it makes me think only of my duty.

But I always smell her name again.

I will be here forever. Just me and my tears and her smell and my duty. I suppose I'd better get used to it.

I might submit this as a bardic, but I doubt they'd consider one from me, so I thought I'd post it here.

It came to me all at once and dragged me out of bed to write it. Writing it down was very cathartic, almost had me weeping as I poured it onto the screen. It felt like a funeral, like accepting. Letting go, finally, of the last and final thread.

If you wish to comment on this, please be respectful and don't be mean-spirited, as you would at any other funeral. If you can only do this in one place, do it here, just once. I won't ever ask anything of you again.

Unless you're coming back to play, I doubt they would accept it I am sorry to say (I would love to have Brylle and yourself back though!)

That said, I like it. I could very much imagine Gwyl jotting this down on his spirit journey, dazed and a little confused, but still sure of a few things.

It almost hurts to read it now, because it really means you won't be comming back.

I wasn't anyway. This wasn't Lusternia I was letting go of here. That happened a while ago.

If you're going to ask what this is letting go of, don't. Those who need to know will already know. I think.

It hurts me to read it too. But it's the good hurt that tells you that it's the last one before healing.

*nod*


It is still sad. I am sorry for your loss, I am sorry for everything that happenened.

I'm not entirely gone. I'm there more than it appears. I just spend time in my manse, looking at recipes and keeping up the order shop.

That's as good as gone to the most of us though . But good to see you did pop in tonight.

Honestly, I've gotten a little tired of the constant dealing with conflict. So I'm trying to find myself a new way of living there. It's hard because Brylle's character was always dedicated, selfless service to the Commune and Mother Moon.

A few of us have been talking about...wait no that's kinda conflict :s. Nevermind.

Everything is conflict, it just depends how much of it you want.

Catharsis. I miss Gwyl and Brylle because thoughts of them evoke memeories of a point in the game when everything was still fresh and exciting. Plans and plots were schemed, friendships had not yet been betrayed, and enemies had not yet been made.

There's a lesson in that for all the MUD organizations throughout the internet who demand unquestioning loyalty and to be put first in all things (i.e.: 90% of them): she who gives selflessly without ever taking back must sooner or later run out of self to give.