Thoughts on recent losses
by Ser Graf Dog-Mortimer
On the day that v’Ar died, someone told me comforting lies. They said that if you look up at the sky you’ll sometimes see a star that burns brighter than the others and that’s the patterns of the fallen running through the afterlife with their ancestor and all the people what died before them. I looked up and I wondered if one of them was really v’Ar and if it was why I couldn’t see him.
Nethras told me that Asura is with her, running the world of the ancestral plane. I won’t see him in no starry sky. But he was a star. A star who burned bright and fast and strong.
A lot of Keswick was so firmly aligned to King Wyndrake that they have mostly gone back to staying home and being Albion in a more private way. We don’t get the strong showing at court, people have their own ways and preferences. They pray and hold true to oaths to land and ancestor but they don’t see the need for pageantry and outward shows of honour for the most part and I get it but it makes it hard to give positions of land rank. And to me ranked roles ain’t no more important than someone who is more invested in mining or farming or bringing up the children. I had only just brought Asura in to do some of this work and to be a beacon for others to show them their path could take them beyond home. Because he embodied what being a Knight of Albion is for me.
It’s not about holding a title, it’s not about having Ser in front of your name. It’s about doing what Albion needs. And everything I asked him to do he did.
He was my squire because when Brandon stopped coming to court I saw promise that I didn’t want us to lose. I didn’t have to ask a lot of him cos he just went out and got stuff done. From the day a man possessed by Erdreja asked him for a story and granted him a ritual that changed his pattern, through to him spearheading the party that met Aethelred under Milford and making sure a record of the event was made. I don’t think there was a question of if he would make knighthood, just when. He got there fast. And when he fell he went out being a hero and made me angry.
I was angry because he didn’t follow the call to return to Albion at the end of the fayre. I was angry because nobody was up to rescuing him. I was angry because I had hope and plans for him that I’m sure would of aligned with his own. But he took a shortcut home to be with Nethras and we gotta deal with his absence. But as my own ancestor teaches, wrath is the sin of the barbarian so I didn’t hold it long. Because in his shoes I might of done the same. Just save one more. Just help that little bit extra before going home. It’s always worked before, what’s the worst that could happen?
And Talia went with him – others too – but these ones had strong links to me. I had high hopes for Talia as well, just like Scarlet did. Asura and Talia both seemed young and keen and like they had got so much ahead of them but we should remember not to assume. I wanted a longer friendship.
This is life. I stopped carrying a physical reminder of all the fallen who I called friends until their death because it all got too heavy – metaphoric heavy and actual heavy. And just like v’Ar they ain’t in the sky where I can see them but sometimes when I look up I will remember anyway and when I go and join the hunt on another plane I hope the same will be true for me and friends I leave behind.
I know that sometimes from the outside I look a bit uncaring when we take losses. I did not cry for the lost at the second moot. But it is because I know that these ends will always come and so long as we do right by the fallen we will – at least mostly – get over it. I push for them to be laid to rest and for us to perform speak-with rites if we have things to tie up. I try to offer a little bit of comfort and to think of practical things and just sort of keep on. Because for all the people who sneer at me and say a beastkin life is short, I am feeling the things that come with age sometimes these days, and I’m still here but a lot of others ain’t. There is wisdom and there is weariness and there is a bit of being kind of jaded. But there is always tomorrow and I find new friends and stars rise up and shine all the time. I got hope with my regrets and people like Asura and Talia deserve to be remembered. So remember your own losses and share their stories. Their physical form won’t run across the sky but a tale in a library or a song at a campfire can run through many minds. Tell everyone what they meant.