I refuse to dissolve into the abyss without one last fight… even if, in the end, we all must surrender.
Every action now feels an utter downward pull, as if under the geass of some monstrous gravity or katabasis. My magic has caught up to me. I am caught in the quicksands of time, and all paths lead to death. If I seek to escape, I die; if I accept my place, I die; if I write out here the convulsions of it all, I die. And yet this writing, this last gasp of storytelling, feels the slowest course, the last thing I can hold on to. Down I go.
Where to start? I wasn’t strong enough. Of course I wasn’t. Always I have felt fated to fall as I have, being but a beetle bound in a web vaster than I can know, and as though all of my struggles achieve no more than to entice my arachnid host. And once I have been cut supposedly free, the dread still lingers — do I trail those bonds behind me as a lure? Is my scent still fresh on the legs of my captor? And the deepest doubt of all: how could I ever know? I can’t. I sought to slake myself on the blood of freedom, yet draught after crimson draught, my mouth remains dry, and to myself I wonder whether I have done any more than fall into some subtler trap.
But, I think, escape could be won by someone stronger than I, a proper heir for the rebellion. Our fate doesn’t have to be beneath the black empire, or its ruler.
But enough of this rambling fat. You don’t know what I speak about, but you will.
I have battled five times with her — with Yufemia Shadow-crown, that dread empress of ultimate wrath, and I have won only twice. But twice is enough. She can be defeated. There lies already the hope of victory.
I must write quickly. It seems my last meal was poisoned — already the tremors are overtaking my tarsi. Do forgive me if my scrawl is illegible by tale’s end.
I have to write quickly. My own lymph — my ink of choice — will clot and I have only so much strength to draw another wound. Oh, to think I’d ever curse the healing of the vespers.
I have to — you know, I’m just repeating myself. There’s a technique I’m going to use, fit for the task of writing an entire book on my deathbed. Yufe’s own Moment of Clarity
Do forgive me I skip over too much of my story. I am going to try to cleave to the most important events — my five fights against the empress, and those events of my life which gave me strength and motivation to do so. I pray it will at least be informative; she is not all of the rot that has set deep into this country, and I am not its paragon of valor; but she remains the most malignant, threatening tumor, and I remain a locus of conviction.
I am writing the foreword and an outline first. Should my body fail me before tale’s end, I trust my blood-sisters to produce the rest. Make it inspiring, limn me a hero. It matters not if it isn’t the whole or accurate story; hope is more important.
Yufemia certainly won’t care about accuracy when her chronicles insist you the monsters, and rots your image.
Even after years of watching and thinking about her, I am not sure what all Yufemia cares about. But I know she desires deepest of all victory and a favorable image.
And, reckless idiot my nymph self was, it was the first thing I took from her.
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Snuggly Serials 