The Path of Tulurane

[Avant]

[Written on the back of a schedule sheet at Black Brush Station, Central Thanalan]

 

Hyur

 

When the Elezen tribes

were young on the world,

you drifted

like blown dandelions.

 

Thoughtless and reckless,

useless to the needs

of a sleeping

land.

 

And then,

in an instant,

you are choking

every copse,

 

carpeting every meadow.

The yellow flower of you

under every

foot.

 

While we are grown

to steel,

you are steeped

in spirits.

 

While we are

formed

to our holy

discipline,

 

you are revelry and war

and gnawing

on the bones

of the world.

 

And now we are friends.

Wound round

with one

belt.

 

Rueful of our

indecorous pasts.

At every compass point,

each other.

 

How clever,

the Elementals,

to so thoughtfully punish

us both.

 

Ser Avant du lac le Tulurane, Errant

 

 

 

[Avant]

[Written on a bill of lading at Moraby Drydocks, Lower La Noscea]

 

Puzzle

 

In Gridania

I am laying by the lake.

Not my own,

but another,

stealing a shape

from its stubbled shore.

 

The sky breathes hot

against countless leaves,

a shifting puzzle

of living

and dying

without solution.

 

In the moment

it becomes both at once,

and then neither,

and then a silhouette gate

to the lewd

and naked noon,

 

It is hard to imagine

that I am without,

gazing down

at the sky

inside its

puzzle box.

 

Certainly

it is a lake on display,

and a thief on its shore.

All captured in a net

of living

and dying.

 

Ser Avant du lac le Tulurane, Errant

 

[Avant]

[on fine paper with copper leaf trim, crumpled, in a corner by the striking dummies, Falcon’s Nest, Coerthas]

 

With honor and greetings
from the Dowager Regent,
House Tulurane
Dame Naloine
Entrusted of Gridania
Lady beneath the Boughs

 

It has come to her

excellent attention

that the scion

of house Tulurane

has taken up

dancing.

 

With her voice:

“Doth they throw

money at thou

as well?

Return anon,

ungracious child.”

 

With honor and regards
from the Dowager Regent,
House Tulurane
Dame Naloine
Entrusted of Gridania
Lady beneath the Boughs

 

 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Avant