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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Jul 6, 2015 20:51:18 GMT -8
╰★╮ ☆ ╰✰╮ ✮ ╰✯╮ ╰★╮ ☆ ╰✰╮ ✮ ╰✯╮ ╰★╮ ☆ ╰✰╮ ✮ ╰✯╮ ╰★╮ ☆ ╰✰╮ ✮ ╰✯╮ ╰★╮ ☆ ╰✰╮ ✮ ╰✯╮
╰★╮ ☆ ╰✰╮ ✮ ╰✯╮ ╰★╮ ☆ ╰✰╮ ✮ ╰✯╮ ╰★╮ ☆ ╰✰╮ ✮ ╰✯╮ ╰★╮ ☆ ╰✰╮ ✮ ╰✯╮ ╰★╮ ☆ ╰✰╮ ✮ ╰✯╮
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Aug 12, 2015 17:51:47 GMT -8
The book is already half filled and the initial pages segue as though there should be a book that came before.
Most of the journal's pages are written in an old and uncommon tongue.
But scattered throughout, the entries slowly begin to shift to the common speech of man - more frequently the further into the journal you go.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Aug 12, 2015 17:53:45 GMT -8
12th of August
Humans are strange. How sad they make themselves, how tormented and morose, and for such flimsy ideas such as love and grief. Their hearts are far too fickle for them to hold any deep and abiding emotion beyond despair, I have come to find. Though why despair should linger within them is a strangeness in itself to me. Yet they despair - for any and every thing that they might. For love. For sadness. For desperation. For desire. For failure. For ambition. For insult. For being too young. For being too old. For being alive. For the idea they might die.
Do they not realise how vibrantly their souls burn within them in the shortness of their lives? I wonder, if they were able to see it as I do, would it change them from their despairing ways? Such desparity only taints and tinges their vibrancy until it becomes a shadow of the beauty it once held.
It is hard to think of my own self in such ways betimes. Was I ever so fickle? So despairing as that which I observe? Surely I felt myself different and above the rest, human or not, and did not spare much thought for anything beyond what I might learn and how far my abilities and talents might grow in my short and mortal life. And now? After my life has become so long and the nature of who I am so diverted - do I really feel myself so foreign and far removed from them? Am I different now? Or was I merely so different before?
More importantly however, than questions of my own human soul - will I be successful in my current endeavor with one such despairing soul? And will he prove too fickle in the end?
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Aug 14, 2015 15:24:33 GMT -8
13th of August
Harming the things you seek to heal is, apparently, not the best way to go about it all. The poor swan, if I'd known, I wouldn't have shot it down. At least I was able to ensure it was healed in the end -- it simply hadn't been by my hand. It was curious though, to note the ways the magic seemed thinned and faded from how it had been before, when I sought control upon the healing spell moments after I'd maimed the swan. Is that what makes it so much harder, then? But why can't my brother learn the healing magics as well? What is the difference between his schooling and mine own, that causes it to be outside his grasp and within mine own, even if a trying effort to attain? Could they inst~
It may be best to simply stick to the scroll's instructions and partake of the lessons offered by Meri for now.
It is a poorer mood than when I left him that Cailean seems to have taken this eve. What happened in that short span of time, between shop and home, to cause him such melancholy and moroseness underneath his smile? Tis a brave face he wears for me, even so. Is it for me though? Or is it for his own heart and peace of mind? Do I do more harm than good in remaining at his side like he asked? Perhaps I should never have offered to at the very start.
At least he has not spoke of marriage this day. What sort of desperation must plague his heart to seek such a thing with a lass he does not truly know? And one he kens is fae. And why does the prospect hold appeal when it should hold nothing but the look and sound of insanity to me? Perhaps I do more harm than good upon my own heart and soul in being here. Perhaps it is merely the idea of family that causes such appeal. Where is my brother now? I sense that he is near yet have not yet found him. And I know he frequents this isle if for no other reason than Cailean seemed aware of whom I spoke when I named my brother to him.
But there's a thought. Could be, the goddess smiling down on me and watching to safeguard me from my own impulsiveness. For I doubt that he would hesitate now, to seek out my brother's blessing as I bid him do, should the chance arise. How conflicting a thought - to be greatful that he lays hidden (probably shacked up with some fair lass!) hidden so that he cannot be approached, but then eager to find him, to lavish affection and eager love for the time spent apart. And, I suppose, there is a portion of my heart that waits eagerly for the outcome of such a conversation were it to occur ...
Perhaps I should be more waried and concerned for the state of my own heart in the midst of this. He is the sort that makes a girl burn. I may play my hand in things as charitable to heal his soul, or greed-inspired for want of the baubles he's sure to lavish upon me or the accounting of his soul as mine own in the hour he dies ... but it is not the whole of the thing that caused my offer. Nor more I think was it the whole of the thing that caused him to pursue it, and I to agree.
Silly Fae you are, Cedar. Silly tree. Do not you yet know better than to play with fire? It will be your own fault when it rages white hot and blistering and the entirety of the wilds within your heart is nothing left of it but ash.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Aug 19, 2015 12:01:23 GMT -8
17th of August
Was there ever a creature less suited for the loving of another than I? How eager I was, in my idea of mending a soul. How eager too, to have lonliness quelled. Yet have I instead only caused misery to be added to the wealth of despair that lingers? Have I made his count of sorrows only grow?
Love is an emotion meant for the vibrancy of life. It keeps families together, brings new life to the world. But I am not life, am I? So I should not allow love ... aye? Me, a handmaiden of Death - there is no room for such fancies within my world. And the trying, well ... that was a foolish thing on my part. Had I truly thought he'd not find cause for worry when the day finally came that I returned to him from my task, bloodied and battered, and wearied within my soul? If only the day hadn't come so soon as it had - mayhaps then it'd have gone better ... No way to change such though. No way to undo what's done.
And to think he'd spoke of marriage to me. 'Twas as much a foolish idea as any that he did, when we'd so little of each other known. But now - when the idea's no longer there ... it seems ... less, somehow to lay with him. And I can't help but wonder, if I'm not merely making his despair grow.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Aug 21, 2015 6:52:05 GMT -8
20th of August
We've moved. Was only so long that I could stand the dankness of the hovel he called home. To be stuck within, surrounding by scum, misfortune, and stone. There was a part of it, true, that appealed to the darker recesses of my heart, but I've done well, I think, retaining the pieces of me from times before - and to live out amongst the wilder nature of the isle does far more to ease my soul.
I hadn't expected that he would so readily give up his home however. Should it be concerning to me that he did? Of course, the place I'd chose was far better than that which he'd made his own - but ... isn't a home a thing held tight within a human's grasp, never so easy to be walked away from? Do I remember wrong? Or was it only that I was that way?
Though I am delighted that he saw my point of view and packed his things to move them across the isle ... there was a part of me, slim but present, that felt disappointment and wariness settle in. It'd have been easier by far, if he'd not wished to move as I did. If we kept seperate homes across the isle, lessening our chances and causes and need to find each other with regularity. He seems distanced and unsure in his future wants and plans with me -- would it not have been better to let those futures go? To slide from our grasp into nothingness instead?
This will be the great lesson, Little Tree. One you'd heard a time or two before but discarded in your arrogant assurity.
A deal made between man and fae can be just as harrowing for the fae ...
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Aug 23, 2015 11:47:44 GMT -8
22nd of August
There is blackness on my skin and it comes with a burning.
Worse yet, it comes with a sickening feel within the gut.
Will it be by undoing? My ever curious nature. My need to learn the specifics of a new creature or substance I come across. Will I learn to rue that part of me? Much like I have begun to rue the fact I'd gathered a sample of the ichor the Thing spewed forth as a blood? I couldn't have known I should learn better wisdom and not let my eagerness for learning carry me away. You'd think I'd have learned this lesson already being as it nearly lead to me dying some 300 years ago. Not that I'll ever admit as much to Batman. Goddess knows he'd never let me hear the end of it.
But here am I, worrying over myself when Cailean is worse off than I. I suppose ... it's only that I ken the way to heal him fine. But for my own self, I've no notion what I must do.
He was a braw warrior against the Thing though. I couldn't have asked him to be finer! The way he slashed through the creature -- the way he withstood and held his ground even after it'd sliced him wide along the gut. It was a moment admirable and worthy of praise and a sight I'm not like to forget, and not merely for the Thing that had attacked. Perhaps I should tell him as much, not just make doe eyes at him for it. Men like to be told the ways they're braw and I doubt Cailean is much different in that regard.
He wakes now -- I will do so, and see too if I've yet mastered the healing spell. I can only hope that I have.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Aug 23, 2015 21:25:44 GMT -8
((copy of a missive scribed for Cailean to the Guard of Aberwyth and the Aberwyth Council))
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Aug 26, 2015 12:09:57 GMT -8
25th of August
It worked! The healing spell finally worked! Just when I'd worried that my place within death would keep it from me, and if not that then the uses of my magic - I healed Cailean. Hard work and concentration, a flexible mind and openness to advice ... I don't believe I would have succeeded had I not made ample use of those things. And I felt such happiness to be able to heal him all the better than I could do with my own hands. It was a marvelous miraculous thing.
In what other ways like that might my magic be used? Can you purge another of disease? Can you help them regain limbs lost? To think I have lived so long with my mind dormant to the ways magic is used to heal, and why? A sense of arrogant pride that lingered from the human I was? Because I could heal with great success with only natural means and hard work? If I'd only learned sooner, I could have healed Cailean straight away, made him stronger and haler for the fight with that Thing.
Yet, in thinking of it ... my mind turns from healing magic even so.
I have seen, once or twice, a trick used by others. That let their magic forge for them, a blade sword. Where they had not been great warriors with great strength, they became in a pinch, able to fend for themselves ... if I had known how to do such, would I have been better aide against the monster we fought? I have never considered the need for fighting beyond my spear or bow. I have never held much talent or patience for such things.
Perhaps it is time to try another new thing.
Perhaps it is merely the influence of my brother.
That I found Batman, asleep and sprawled upon the ground before my door, was an unsurprising thing. That he was only concerned more with whether Cailean were hale and willing to prove himself for my hand - and not more disapproving for the short time Cailean and I had known each other - was where my surprise lay. How dearly I missed him. Despite the blackness and terrors within the wilds, it made my heart glad. For if he is here, there is little that we cannot weather.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Aug 29, 2015 18:59:32 GMT -8
28th of August
The blackness is gone. And there's no burning left either. This gladdens my soul unlike anything I've yet known in my long life. I don't know truly was it Meri's doing or a prayer answered at the shrine ... but do think that either way, 'twas her goddess that healed me. Will have to go and show Meri her good works, let her feel the relief of knowing she did well. Maybe I'll even ask after the goddess she devotes herself to as well. Would be good, to learn more of the deity that blesses this land I now live within. May blessed Áine forgive me ... but ... she's not a thing that I can feel here anymore.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Sept 2, 2015 9:56:05 GMT -8
1st of September
Gave the vial away this eve. Was it wrong of me to do? I was the one who'd gathered the shade-beast's blood, did it not then fall to me to keep it safe as well? It'd been my intention to discover what secrets the blood held but ... I feared. How could I not, when the mere touch by accidental passage of hand had caused it's darkness to seep within my skin and burn my soul?
Was it wrong of me to fear?
There is little that brings such fear to my heart these days, but Death - Death I might always hold fear for, with the ease it can carry one away. And who knows such things of Death better than I? I'd managed not to fall in Death's hands before ... and landed within them all the same. And I found I simply was not ready yet to give myself wholly to its keeping. So then I fear. Yet I cannot help but ask myself if I should endeavor to not again.
Surely if there is a presence upon this isle in which it was safest to entrust the keeping of the ichor, the Wardens would be so.
I only pray it is.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Sept 8, 2015 19:31:32 GMT -8
((copy of a missive left in secret upon the Trap Shop's door; unsigned))
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Sept 11, 2015 19:17:55 GMT -8
11th of September
The shade-beast was slain at last.
Ella came for dinner at the tavern again, and she spoke as much to Cailean and I. Said 'twas she and her husband that saw it slain within the woods. And yet, where I'd wished for a lightening of heart and easing of worry from my mind, what she said next only made them heavier still.
She spoke of others of like kind. Of how more yet lurked within the very woods we live within. How though they'd seen the shade-beast slain, they'd been certain more yet remained, nearby. I did not think to ask the why for this assumption.I should have asked
So caught within my disappointed worry as I was, it didn't occur to me - but I can only imagine their reasons for thinking so are founded, for they do not seem the overly fearful types.
How many more then?
How many can live exist within the isle before it all withers ?and dies
How can the forest sustain us itself, much less those who rely upon it, with such horrors about?
And now, more than ever, is the forest's bounty required, what with the slowness of supplies to find the isle and make port.
Were they the cause for the darkness that began to creep across the isle? I do not find the idea surprising, if so. But what are they, truly? In some ways, they make me think of spectral terrors I have seen within my duties. But yet too, they seem more unnatural than even those. And, they are here, not there amongst the spirits. I suppose it is not outside possibility that they could become corporeal just as can a ghost, but ... what are they? And why are they here?
Cailean spoke of history repeating, during our conversation with the warden. It is a strange turn of phrase to have used, now that I reflect. Perhaps there is something that he knows of, which I do not. And within it, some further knowledge of the shade-beasts?
I should ask.
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Sept 17, 2015 9:35:56 GMT -8
16th of September
Brandt is here.
Of all the years I'd wished to see him, and all the times I'd hoped our paths would cross once more, why now?
I've Cailean ... and with him, there's no room for Brandt. So why?
Why must it be now, when I've another, that we find each other once more?
Will we forever be destined to never have the chance to truly be together?
It was a mercy that he'd given me. I am smart enough to realise it for what it was, and keen enough to see the love that mercy has come from. As much as it gladdens my heart that he will not pursue me - for however long I find myself with Cailean, at least - there's still a sadness for it that weighs me down, for I'd dreamed of nothing but the day we might find each other to be pursued again.
But it's right. I know this, as much as I think he knew that it was right for me. To remain with Cailean and not leave with him. I could have left with him -- I did wish to, but ... I've begun something bonnie with Cailean, aye? It's with him I have my hopes and dreams, now. And Brandt must remain What Ifs and little else.
I can only hope one day that too might change. He was the love I'd longed for these many years. How much I died to sit and watch him walk away ...
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Post by Lιттle Ƭree (Cedar Ashland) on Sept 17, 2015 9:52:18 GMT -8
((A copy of correspondence left the newspaper))
((Note left by the dried goods for Gerald to find))
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