13. Dawn.

The sun sets, and rises on a new day.

12. Succession

" I believe you have the potential to be what your tribe is meant to be. A Silver Fang should be noble, graceful, inspirational, fearless. They should be the shining silver pinnacle of what every Garou should aspire to be. Their subordinates should admire them, be utterly loyal to them, be willing to die for them, and cherish them."

-- Hutch, Suppessive Fire

I had a dream last night. One where I was standing at the edge of a cliff.  Before me there spread a vast ocean-- dark and deep-- whose waves roared like thunder and struck the rocky face like shattered ivory, soon to be lost beneath their swift and ever rolling crests. The seaspray broke upon the shore; tickled my face as the wind blew it past.  


...I shied from it, and tried to wipe the dampness from my face, denying it a place within me. But the more I wiped it away, the more fiercely the wind and water churned... until eventually, a wave rose, and swallowed me whole... sweeping me out to the sea.


And  that was when I heard them speaking. Howling. 

A chorus of voices, calling me in all directions.

 I tossed and bucked against them,  trying desperately to claw my way to the familiar surface...but I could not.  


The water, as heavy and cold as the weight of duty, swept into my lungs and filled them; yet I, while breathless, did not drown. Instead, I plummeted ever downward to see the face of death, where he waited for me.


His ghostly hand was knotted around a gnarled staff. I bade him spare my life, that I would do whatever he wanted-- but he took from his sleeve a silver klaive, and thrust it into my chest...as I lay dying, gasping for breath in shallow spurts...the creature then spoke.

"The wheel" he said "Still turns."

The wheel turns. It isn't going to stop turning.

 I

 The only question is... Shall I be the one behind it?

11. Heavy lies the crown

I read once that Nobility does well and is ill spoken of...They lead kingdoms and empires, septs and packs, doing all that they can for the benefit of their people whilst becoming known as tyrants or  madmen. These are the sufferings a leader must endure in this age--burdens that are theirs and theirs alone to bear. And so, I found inspiration--a poem about what it must feel like to be a ruling Silver Fang-- from my own perspective...

A Galliard I am not... but nowhere is it written that words are for them alone.

The stars are very beautiful, above the palace walls,
They shine with equal splendour, still above far humbler halls.
I watch them from my window, but their bright entrancing glow,
Reminds me of the freedom I gave up so long ago.

The royal circlet of bright gold rests lightly on my brow,
I once thought only of the rights this circlet would endow.
But once I took the crown to which I had been schooled and bred,
I found it heavy on the heart, though light upon the head.

Although I am the head of state, in truth I am the least,
The true Queen knows her people fed, before she sits to feast.
The good Queen knows her people safe, before she takes her rest,
Thinks twice and thrice and yet again, before she makes request.

 They will be all my children, all that I swore to defend,
It is my duty to become both Queen and trusted friend—
And of my children high and low, from beggar to above,
The dearest are my Heralds, who return my care with love.

The dearest are my Herald, swift to spring to my command.
Who give me aid and fellowship, who always understand
That land and people first have needs that I may not deny—
So I must send my dearest friends to danger—and to die.

A friend, a love, a child—it matters not, I know indeed,
That I must sacrifice them all if there should be the need.
They know, and they forgive me—doing more than I require,
With willing minds and loving hearts go straight to grasp the fire.

These tears that burn my eyes are all the tears the Queen can shed,
The tears I weep in silence as I mourn my Heralds dead.
Oh gods that dwell beyond the stars, if you can hear my cry—
And if you have compassion—let me send no more to die!

((OOC- i didn't write the poem, they're song lyrics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQtyZf1gzcM&feature=related ))

10. Longing

I came home to my tent today... which, wouldn't have been different than any other day, except that it is the first in some time that I have spent completely alone. Alone in the sense that there will be no one to imagine beside me.

I used to do that, you know... 

curl up with my coverlets draped over my shoulders... 

imagining that the warmth I felt was you.

I write this now, knowing that your arms are no longer there to shelter me.
That I cannot lay my head on your chest-- listening to your heartbeat, as I once did.

You said I was strong... for enduring what I have endured, and continuing to fight for the cause. But-- that strength is not my own. It is on loan from you, and from the happiness you have given me. Such that I would break the litany a thousand times, if it meant I got to remain with you forever.

I write this... because I stood five feet from you this day, and felt a vast emptiness within my heart. Emptiness born of the fact that I love you, you love me, and the both of us are powerless to do anything about it. An experience as painful as it is magnificent.

I don't know what I am going to do when your relationship with Elizabeth turns romantic again-- and I am certain it will, because you have been good to her of late in enough ways that she will inevitably warm to you...

I suppose.... I suppose I will try to smile and bear it... watch you go on to take your mate, have your children. All whilst denying these same things of myself-- that you might be free from the guilt and fear of betraying me...

Your conscience was suffering... I could not bear to see you suffer... 

...could not bid you stay.

Dusty has already sent out a request for a suitable partner on my behalf... 
I haven't the heart to tell him it won't go anywhere.

I talk to Richard, but I've no intention of being with him in the way I suspect he wants me to be.

And that count of the winter court?

Speaks Softly?

I do not want for offers... I feel badly for these men. At the heart of it I know I am only going through the motions. A thousand kinfolk, a thousand other Garou, a thousand handsome counts, could not change my mind... only assemble in a sea of faces, and still, I would see only you.

My heart is yours, my hands, my face-- and every other part of me.... and I am of half a mind to keep it that way. Untouched. Pristine.... that I might at least die with the confidence that I waited-- choosing you above all others in this vast and beautiful world.

You would want for me to move on, I am certain. To do the duty I will inevitably neglect... for reasons both selfless and selfish... but I intend to hold out for as long as I can.

Precious little compares to the sorrow I feel when I look to my side and see the twisted, girlish fantasy of a love that was never meant to be. When I lay in bed knowing that there is nothing I would not give... to feel your arms around me, your lips on mine... Nothing I would not sacrifice to watch you fall asleep...

one last time.

I am Sovereign Heart.

Destined to stand alone in all things.

Bound to willing sufferance for the benefit of those in my care...

I am a daughter of kings, and one day, as you say, I will be a great Silver Fang.

... but I miss you, John.

09. Perfect.

 I am a stranger in my own home.

There is this feeling I have had lately. Terrible and disturbing. It burns slowly, and hurts in a place I cannot describe. It is hatred, vengeance, spinning like a sword on a wheel.

I want to punish them. I want them to suffer as I do.

I want to tear through like a kamikaze pilot, dealing as much damage as I can before my life is taken from me.  To cull the evidence of my own imperfection.

I hate thier pretense. I hate their dishonesty.

Why can't they tell me why they hate me?

Why can't I forgive them?

Gaia, help me. Show me the way... show me how to fix this. How to make it all perfect again.

It's all broken and I don't know how to fix it.

It's all broken.

It's all ...broken.             

08. Ripples

At the Winter ball, I spoke with a countess on the subject of the triat, and she tested me. She asked of the war against the Wyrm, and seemed confused-- for she thought we were trying to destroy it. When i told her that to do so would not be advisable, that it cannot be destroyed, that it is our duty to bring it to balance-- to combat it where it is too strong... when i told her that all beginnings must have an end, and that without the wyrm creation would go on unchecked-- without the weaver, it would lack purpose... she said to me

"You are wiser than your elders"

Of course, I was taken aback, I thanked her, and said that they are indeed wiser than I, and more experienced. But she held firm. She said I was the only Garou she had met that truly understood.

I did not press her further... and she did not seem averse to this...

But, back to the heart of the matter... the reason I am writing... I remember her asking me a question.... one I have reflected on more and more since my conversations with Sheep Killer, Patterns of Light and Shadow, and Nemo-Rhya.

She asked me: "What ripples do you make, Sovereign Heart?"
To which I responded, "Very small ones, for now, My Lady" trying to sound modest.

But she laughed and said there was no such thing.
And she was right.

Patterns of Light and Shadow,  Double Aught, Walks the Wire, Slaughters the Fable, Moon-Duster, Falcon's Screeching Beak... Nemo, Shadows of the Past, my beloved pack mates--even my dear cousins, Joseph, and Gareth. All of these noble warriors have touched me. All of their ripples have coincided with mine....

...some have run to the Galliards to speak of my wisdom or honor.  Others have shown silent support for my cause by teaching me what they know.

I feel that I am getting closer. That I am walking the right path in order to restore my tribe to its former glory.  To showing the world that we are true and just leaders, ordained by Sun and Moon...to show my tribesmen that leading does not always mean wearing the crown yourself.

I feel that the hearts of the nation have begun to stir, and that they want to join together for the good of the mother. I grow more confident that we can and will unite in time to stave off the apocalypse. I only wish I could give others the same hope.

I wonder... as a child of  Falcon, how will my actions now affect the future? What ripples am I truly making? How will those ripples affect the pond, when I am no longer here to make them?

A good king, a true king, rules firmly and fairly. He serves his people foremost.

The king who does not do this, who believes he is entitled to his power. Who abuses it, and uses it for his own means, is a tyrant. If you live alone, and your actions affect only you-- then you may do what you will... but when you have power, or influence your every action will be as a drop of water in a still pond.

That drop will splash against the surface and make ripples.

And what are we all, but drops of water in a pond?

07. Restraint

Mother, oh mother--  you have cruelly forged me thus;

To forsake my maiden virtues, and deny that which I love.

It used to be, that the Law existed in sharp contrast. Tenants and precepts divided harshly, along irrefutable boundaries-- to be preserved and never transgressed.

I have come to know a different law. One of skin and bone, of blood and flesh. A law by which all mortal hearts abide. It is the place where the lines blur, and where what once seemed so clear, becomes muddied and unfathomable.

With a heavy conscience, I admit that I can no longer distinguish what is right from what feels right. 

What is wrong about the way I feel.

I remember... hearing a tale. Though, I do not know exactly who told it to me. Perhaps it was one of the Galliards I have encountered in my time on the Sept. Perhaps it was a dream... One wherein the Mother was trapped, singing a song in words I could not discern. A melody as tuneful as it was wrought with sorrow.

I now know how she must have felt. Wrapped in eternal darkness, with no hope of escape.

The night before we went to battle... I led you, stumbling and drunk, off into the wood...

We sat and talked as we always have... about strategies and battles, about your concerns.

Your anguish and your fear...The parts of you so seldom seen;

Things that are a part of us all.
Hours passed.
And then, the sun was on the horizon, bleeding into the sky...
The haze of your liquid vice had faded.

And as I held you in my arms, you told me 

that you loved me.

I thought... "I should hate you for this", and a part of me did. It hated you to the point of loving you, for hatred is the love of anger. It hated you for making me so flawed, so imperfect... when I had fought to make myself a paragon of my tribe: both honorable and virtuous. It hated you more than anything else...because you threatened its very existence. Because you have always made me weak as surely as you have made me strong....

It hated you... because it knew-- despite everything...

  ...that I loved you, too.

That hatred has since been eclipsed by a fire and a passion that makes even the solar Celestine look like a dim candle in a windstorm...

I may be young, but I am no fool... I know that in being with you, my spirit courts its own darkness... that desire and morality are at war over my heart...an intricate dance of serpents, bound by the strings of the Nation I am sworn to avail.

Is it wrong that serving you has become as important as serving the Mother herself? Is it  wrong that I feel like a marionette; dancing around right and wrong with no true purpose except to appease those who are holding the strings? That I do not long for the embrace of the Mother, as much as I once did?

My love, where it that I could forsake all of this... fighting for Gaia, my ambitions, the ability to change. Were it that I could deny my status as a supernatural being and stand beside you for the rest of my life...I would find a place amongst the kinfolk, trusting in you to defend me as you always have, as you always will.

But I cannot, and I will not.

Instead, I will retain the power of my many forms-- retain it, and fight beside you. Because it is the only way I can ensure that we both shall live. At your suggestion, I will throat to custom and take a mate this season...chosen from among those to whom love matters not; so that while my body can not be given to you-- my heart will belong to you solely.

I disbelieved you when you told me that my light would one day die, that my idealism would lose lose its luster...

...but even though I will vehemently deny it, my inner fire has already begun to flicker...

It used to be that I loved her. That I craved closeness to her like I craved redemption for the First Tribe. But now... now, I question her. I question her for forging me as a spiritual weapon, imbued with fragile heart; cursed with the capacity to love, as well as to hate; cursed, for they are one and the same!

I question her, for she has cursed me.

I do not know why this is happening to us-- I do not know what I can give you that will make up for what I cannot...All that I do know, is that I have never known love before you. That I will never know love again after you have gone. That love will then exist, for me, only in memory... a song composed of all the beautiful, violent words you ever said to me-- strung together, and overlapped-- indistinguishable to all but me.

A song that will play on my heartstrings, 

Into eternity, and ever onward.