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confessional
Jul. 31st, 2018 12:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tofsla1. A letter sent on the road
Lady Idony,
Your warning is not unexpected. I heed it and thank you for it.
I admit I barely know how to feel. I've been with my cousins in the South and half of them are wrecked over it while the rest are upset but debating options. We'll just have to see what path the war takes when it hits, won't we? I fear I'm still not certain who will fight at who's side, which I suppose is rather the point of this entire mess, but I don't have to like it. What a thing it is to see war coming and to know that the generals of several sides are reluctant but obedient . . .
Regarding the ambassador & family - I've spoken to them little enough, but I doubt anyone receives a posting like this one, with this timing, if one isn't some sort of edged weapon. Well, unless someone wants them gone, I suppose. It wouldn't entirely surprise me if both these things were true.
For now, I'll wish you good sparring partners while I'm travelling.
With respect,
Kerr Oake
2. & a letter written late at night
Thank you for your visit today, truly. Laurence is all anxiety, but no more so than before, and I've coaxed him into going to bed, which leaves me sitting here and feeling--well--
I apologise for the confessional words I'm about to write. I'll say in advance that you needn't trouble to respond or attempt to advise me; these are simply words I must write to someone or else go mad, and you understand the truth of them in a way few others would. So:
Laurence is going to die. He'll die on the battlefield of a war he'd only be fighting to remain a dutiful son, or he'll be assassinated as an inconvenience, or perhaps arrested for treason, at which point nobody will take any care to see to it that he survives, which amounts to the same thing. If the thing is to be averted, it must be averted by my actions, and I cannot say I am equal to the task. I doubt any one person could be. But few enough people have the resources to spare for this. We are noble, yes, but we are not essential, except to one another.
He is the most precious thing in my life. I saw that you understood what we are to one another, today. We made no effort to hide it, and the thing itself may be strange and new but he held my loyalty and my life before this began.
I say these things in the hope that you will find me realistic rather than fatalistic. I have not given up; I have not decided that we should enact some great tragedy. But I sit now in contemplation of the difficulty of the task, and he sleeps peacefully beside me, and I would not trouble him further today. I exorcise my thoughts, only, and I gift them to you because I respect you, and because I do allow myself this one piece of fatalism: if I fail, I wish someone to know that I tried to save him.
I have never been other than loyal in my affections.
Tentatively your friend,
Kerr Oake
Lady Idony,
Your warning is not unexpected. I heed it and thank you for it.
I admit I barely know how to feel. I've been with my cousins in the South and half of them are wrecked over it while the rest are upset but debating options. We'll just have to see what path the war takes when it hits, won't we? I fear I'm still not certain who will fight at who's side, which I suppose is rather the point of this entire mess, but I don't have to like it. What a thing it is to see war coming and to know that the generals of several sides are reluctant but obedient . . .
Regarding the ambassador & family - I've spoken to them little enough, but I doubt anyone receives a posting like this one, with this timing, if one isn't some sort of edged weapon. Well, unless someone wants them gone, I suppose. It wouldn't entirely surprise me if both these things were true.
For now, I'll wish you good sparring partners while I'm travelling.
With respect,
Kerr Oake
2. & a letter written late at night
Thank you for your visit today, truly. Laurence is all anxiety, but no more so than before, and I've coaxed him into going to bed, which leaves me sitting here and feeling--well--
I apologise for the confessional words I'm about to write. I'll say in advance that you needn't trouble to respond or attempt to advise me; these are simply words I must write to someone or else go mad, and you understand the truth of them in a way few others would. So:
Laurence is going to die. He'll die on the battlefield of a war he'd only be fighting to remain a dutiful son, or he'll be assassinated as an inconvenience, or perhaps arrested for treason, at which point nobody will take any care to see to it that he survives, which amounts to the same thing. If the thing is to be averted, it must be averted by my actions, and I cannot say I am equal to the task. I doubt any one person could be. But few enough people have the resources to spare for this. We are noble, yes, but we are not essential, except to one another.
He is the most precious thing in my life. I saw that you understood what we are to one another, today. We made no effort to hide it, and the thing itself may be strange and new but he held my loyalty and my life before this began.
I say these things in the hope that you will find me realistic rather than fatalistic. I have not given up; I have not decided that we should enact some great tragedy. But I sit now in contemplation of the difficulty of the task, and he sleeps peacefully beside me, and I would not trouble him further today. I exorcise my thoughts, only, and I gift them to you because I respect you, and because I do allow myself this one piece of fatalism: if I fail, I wish someone to know that I tried to save him.
I have never been other than loyal in my affections.
Tentatively your friend,
Kerr Oake
