Guile Journal #10: Notes from Starboard

Entry #10

All has gone well thus far. The weather has been mild, save for the strong winds, carrying our ship along with a much-desired swiftness despite our severe shortage of crewmen.

I keep mostly to myself outside of the hours of patching sails, cleaning decks, keeping watch, and practicing my fencing. Now that I must carry out all the duties normally allotted to three crewmen, what little spare time I’m allowed is primarily dedicated to my plans for what to do once I go ashore.

Of course, Nilsa’s safety is first priority. My betrayal at Laskun has determined her future to be my responsibility. Once I have ensured her wellbeing, I intend to use my share of gold to organize a rescue party and enter the Forest of Wyrms in search of Divna. If she still lives, (which I pray she does), locating her will be just like my old days as a Huntress, only that I’ll be out saving lives rather than ending them.

Unfortunately, my focus is dulled by a strange series of incidents... thinly veiled threats or bad omens, I’m not sure which. For the last couple of mornings I have awoken to find freshly killed corpses of ship rats and sea birds, placed right outside my cabin door. Despite my anxiety I try to play these apparitions off as though they don’t matter, and hope that whatever has made an enemy of me is a mortal man, rather than some vengeful deity. 

Omens are not the only thing that have muddled my mind. Though I feared Tearl turning turncoat, it appears her heart remains somehow tethered to Antonio, despite everything that has happened. My own heart, it seems, shares the same fate. I have heard many tales of the powers of seduction, as Mother Maria was a master of it, but this is the first time I’ve seen eros wielded for the forces of good. It is hypnotizing and magnificent.

Of all the Holy Mother’s powers in my arsenal, love is the least of them. I am more certain of this now than I ever was, for if I knew the first thing about how to wield eros I wouldn’t feel the strange jealousy I do. I wouldn’t have these thoughts of Antonio... vain imaginings of being his alone... creeping into my mind and infiltrating my dreams.
But intimacy between Antonio and I would require getting rid of Blight, and getting rid of Blight would mean losing my power, and without my power there is no point to our intimacy in the first place. I would not be able to storm his kingdom as his valiant lover and return him his rightful place on his throne. Without my magic, I would only serve as the achilles heel that Jasper wishes me to be.

It is like the old adage goes:
“There is no greater freedom than the absence of eros.
There’s no greater power than a heart enslaved.”

Antonio doesn’t wish me to be powerful, bless him, he only wishes me to be free. Given how much he has not only accepted me, but supported me despite my malady, the least I can do in return is respect his methods.

Appreciate what I have, cut my losses, and look to the future with clarity. If I keep pressing forward like this, then perhaps these impossible dreams will one day abandon me altogether.