A penny for the moat, where all the ashen song be wrote—a tune for man, so long eloped in hours of decision and derisive hope. Flutter, flutter heart, beyond your base and noble part. All eyes behold the passing.

Life moved in circles. Such was the path. What came would come again, breath to breath, until each riddled out the truth within. War was a path to the next, as sure as any, but lies gained nothing.

Some run the cliffs, and set upon an eagle’s wings. Others mire in the den, and once within, can never leave again.

Everything burned, everyone lied, and no one paid for it but the ones in the muck.

Man tames not vengeance; vengeance breaks the man.

Without shame, without conscience.

Duty and honor are oft enough realm only for those with security to afford them.

Are we not all one flesh? One mind? A sword brings power. Knowledge brings coin. With either, one can make blood reckoned, can earn names. The only thing that differs between a noble man and a working man is that they have now, while the other does not have it yet. Such things can be taken. They are always taken.

Madness is a regenerating thing. Like a phoenix, when one strand dies, another burns anew.

Say what you will, dear sister, we do what we do for the promise of our youth. Yet it is always they who scar beneath the points of daggers.