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Author Topic: Child of the Mountains - Rodica Stolojan  (Read 1540 times)

greeneggs

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Child of the Mountains - Rodica Stolojan
« on: September 12, 2016, 01:23:33 PM »

"In the time it takes me to write this, I will have wondered what has become of my time, or if I am wasting it all together.  I was told however, that it is wise to keep a journal.  Mostly for memory purposes.  And of course, if I want to write about the new moves that I have learned through the time that I spend with the man who is teaching me to be better with my blade, Teodor Dragomir.  It means alot to me that Teodor would teach me and is teaching me.  I learn whatever I can from him.  And that 'winning' a fight is not always the answer or necessarily right.  I know that succeeding at a fight is more of the lines of survival.  But it is a dance with a blade.  It is using your whole body, including the sword as another arm.  Using all the time, and noting the moves of the enemy.

"I will never forget the mountains of my home town.  They call to me even in the late nights with the snow covering the scripts of this book.  It is in the cold night that I feel most alive, and most with thought.  Mostly I am alone, but sometimes the other guards come and visit with me.  Times used to be hard on me, and my family, especially with the loss of one so close to our hearts.  That taught many of us valuable lessons.  Lessons to never forget those that you love.  To always keep them close to your heart in whatever means you can.

"I've had many brushes with death, I've seen friends die since that time that I left home not so long ago when I first turned eighteen.  Rivers that ran red with the blood of my country men.  Things that would make, a person cry and not want to leave their abode.  Things that I cannot talk about even in this journal because of promises made.  I think my turning point was when I saw Private Jorga, die with three recruits he brought into the forests that gloomy night.  I had a bad feeling about it all...Zeidenburg is normally safe this time of year, save for the rebel activity.  When I saw the first of the Invidian Calvary that trotted from the trees on their fine horse back, I was impressed.  Taken back.  But it was not long before words started to spew from the mouth of that officer of whose face I vividly remember but no name was ever found.  The rain didn't seem to wash the blood away after the battle, nor the blood of my brothers off of my hands and face when I fell in the mud.  After that night, I would never feel the same.  I felt powerless against all these forces constantly pushing on me.  I had to take steps to get and become stronger.



"I am a Vallaki Guard and my town is not a nice one on most days.  It is a town that survives on it's brute instincts.  Most of us grew up with nothing at all, but I was different than that simply because I grew up in a small town.  But some of these children have nothing within the city.  I have to give them hope, to strive for something greater than they are.  To be something great, to be a legend and to be one of those stories that may be passed down for generations to come by doing wonderful things.  But, that may mean my time comes swiftly to end me before I am old and gray.  Or that I may be a private for eternity.  I want to give these people hope more than anything.  Because that's what we need.  Hope to start the day, hope to end it and shut the windows.  Hope a vampire does not slaughter their children.  Hope that a werewolf does not eat their cows and chickens. 

"This is our town and nothing will harm our people.  That is what I want them to feel.  If something does, then I hope..and I pray that this thing, whatever it is runs off and never returns again, or we get to the bottom of it, and slaughter it.  It is unfortunate most days we are not equipped like the outlanders.  But most of the outlanders are witches, and produce vraja from their hands.  I've seen it with my own eyes.  We cannot combat the creatures of old Noapte without the outlanders.  But it is not our duty.  Our people know to stay in, within the night time.  Our people know what will happen to them if they don't.  The fear is there.  But here I stand, out in the night, protecting our people because I love them.  Everyone of them, from the oldest man to the smallest baby.  I would get to know them by name if I could, but I am often on patrol when I look at them.  They may just see me as another guard but at end of the day, I want to be that smile that they are assured of, that nothing will get them in the night.


"Decebal is a good man.  I've been through much loss lately.  And I need a good man to lead me in ways when I cannot see properly of what is in front of me.  There is much I could say of him here, but I don't want anyone who happens to read my journal to think I am all too mushy.  Most people in life find love.  And when they are apart it simply grows.  That is the way things work, or so I am told.  We will see where it goes and how well it appropriates. 

"Since Teodor, I've only ever just swung my sword, and practiced as much as I could since I was a little girl.  I had no idea there was different stances that one could take.  Guards or so they are called.  He has taught me much since that day that I first came to Vallaki and met him.  This one is called "Boar's Tooth".  He has instructed me with the right foot forward, which is odd to me because usually I am of the left foot forward. But I have tried it with the left foot in practice, and it is simply not balanced right when I do this with the left food.  The sword point is down and the blunt end of the weapon is direct to the sky.

"Teodor uses a greatsword, and the techniques are much different than that with a bastard sword, mainly due to the weight.  I've discovered though, that in practice with the dummy, I can step back and distribute the weight evenly with a shield in hand.  Balancing both sides of my body.  It feels right.  And when I am ready I spring forward at the dummy and tear it asunder.  It is a manual motion and a smooth motion.  I know I am getting better at it the more that I use it.  But Practice is still in order before I can master it, practice not only from a dummy, but from a man with talent.  Teodor.  I never knew there were different guards one can use when switching defenses.  Perhaps I will learn more in time. 

*******

((Photos courtesy of Deviant Art. Photo one (1) by angelganev, Photo two (2) by zureul, photo three (3) by hadvm, Lisa. ))
((Photos for visual effects, not actually in the journal.))

greeneggs

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Re: Child of the Mountains - Rodica Stolojan
« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2016, 04:13:49 PM »


07 October 771
"The night comes swiftly as the grave for my people.  And yet, I'm starting to feel somewhat responsible for the deaths that I have seen lately.  Is keeping my mouth still really doing more good than it is harm, or more harm than good? I often question if I'm making the right decisions or if I am making bad decisions.  But I stick to them because if I don't the people will not look at me the same for being indecisive and fickle.  It is good to stick to what you say.  Punishments as well.  But yet, people, outlanders alike look at me like I am the enemy, like I am the unjust one.  But they do not understand and they probably never will.  I wish I could tell them, but I can't.  I wish I could make them understand but it is not in my power.  I often get a sense of powerlessness to certain situations.  And I fail and make mistakes.  But I am only human and that in itself is the lifetime of excuses. 

"I have seen my men die, daily and nightly on the wall, no matter how hard I try to show those of the outskirts and those of the city that I am just and that I am good, I seem to be failing slowly.  Because eventually there is someone they know that must be punished and I am the one to do it.  I wish I could help them to to understand the laws of the land and that nothing can change them and no matter of sacrifice on their hand will deny that.  I have sacrificed my life and the very lives of my men for this city.  I will never forget the first time I saw glowing eyes in the dark.  The murderers laughter in the trees just off the wall.  The demands, my denial.  Then the threats came.  Not to myself but to my men and my people.  How can a person who murders so freely blame the murder on me? How is it my fault when a man decides to end a life like some dark fate that my people cannot escape?  Even I know there is a time to talk and a time to fight.  But now, the more I say it is not my fault the more I am starting to believe it is.

"There is a weight on my shoulders, that no matter who I kiss or what I do on my off time cannot remove.  It feels like the weight of the city rests on a jar of dirt on my head, and no matter how much I try to hold it up a little by little, the jar of dirt starts to spill on my head, dirtying my hands and my very sanity.  And it is because of this dirty and blood that I have found, I am becoming someone different than what my family believes they left their little girl with.  The lives of my men are at stake and the lives of my people.  I could write this until my fingers fall off but it will never change the fact of that.  And that is something I am learning.  That my decisions effect not only my Privates and Recruits but the very lives of the people in the city.  They all depend on me to keep them safe.  But there is a very careful balance between the laws and my people. 

"There is one woman, that I failed.  I failed her and I can do nothing and could do nothing to stop it.  It was either treason....or save her life.  And I could not bring myself to do the latter.  I could not make myself even to budge against it.  I told her that I put myself on the line every single day and like any Barovian trying to save their city so too would she.  And that I was sorry.  I didn't throw her life away, I sacrificed her for what I thought was the right choice.  As a guard, there is only but sacrifice.  Perhaps I wanted this woman to know that deep down inside, what it felt like to be terrified for the loss of you and your comrades.  But it was not right of me to choose her life and death for her.  That was the unfair choice put before me by force.  I will never forget it, the look of horror in her eyes and the failure in my own mind as she was dragged out to her supposed death.

"I feel there is a darkness deep inside everyone that can snap at a moment, but I have not snapped yet.  I love, I sacrifice, I will die for my city and for my country.  And I hope everyone learns from me, and from my own sacrifices and fire in my heart.  One day, when I become someone great if I make it that far.  There is that hope in me still, I have not given up and let the dark prevail. 


"When I was a girl, things were so simple.  But now that I am a woman and have seen death, I have experienced love.  And I have brought death to others, I feel quite differently now.  I don't feel as innocent and naive as I once was now that I look back at myself.  If I reflect on myself....I was really a stupid little girl trying to do good.  And now I am an older little girl who has gotten a bit smarter, but still trying to do good.  I cannot deny the fact that there are true evils in our country.  And I will not and refuse to deny that my men have died in the line of duty, slaughtered by beasts of the night.  No matter how I try to prevent it, nothing happens and all I am left with me holding a man's head in my lap as he consoles me his last wishes on a final breath. 

"Even the men I care for at risk, so I can never fully give them what I want when I do find someone I am fond of.  I am never done with my work.  There is always someone that needs something from me and more so than that.  But not that I do not want to help, sometimes I don't have time for myself.  And having a day off once in a while I believe is quite important.  I sometimes feel like though, when I have days off, horrible things start happening.  My allies fall or another tormentor of the noapte is trying to get into the city.  Or there is something wrong.  Or a recruit needs training or a private needs recommendations.  Am I doing too little or too much? But I feel that all these things are important and equally so, some more dire than others. 

"But it is clear to me, that I will never be normal again.  I am an officer of the Law and it is my duty, to be the hand of the Count's very justice.  Make me bad or make good, justice has no good or bad entities, as it is all equal in the eyes of Law.  The dead don't talk anymore.  But I'm not afraid." 


greeneggs

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Re: Child of the Mountains - Rodica Stolojan
« Reply #2 on: December 06, 2016, 04:47:47 AM »

[Rodica Stolojan looked down at a dirty brown book that she was writing her quill on.  Her one eye had made it increasingly difficult for her to write in many ways.  But she managed with a shaky hand.]

“My family is gone.  The beast is gone.  No matter what happened to him I can go to sleep knowing he will not hurt anyone ever again.  But yet, it does not make me feel better for what I have lost.  Nothing is satisfied there.  Nothing will ever be.  I am simply going to have to create my own family.  Create my own life somehow.  The guard are my brothers, my sisters, my mothers and fathers.  But nothing can replace that sweet smile of my little brother whenever he saw me, when I visited.  I will only remember his body ripped in half by an animal.  The look of horror on his face.  The slaughter all around me.  Blood staining the walls with numbers on it.  Guilt.  Guilt.  There is so much I could have done but was powerless to perform.  I was powerless to fight such a creature.  The only thing I have when it comes to that monster was contempt and hatred.  But in the end, of his life.  When I was staring at the beast’s death I only felt pity in my eyes and I was disgusted at myself.  Where is the line, humanity and beast? 

“I have nothing but honor for the guard.  For Sergeant Brusilov as well.  He brought me the beast that has haunted my nights, along with Mihai, Marcellus and Ravenna.  I am appreciative to all of them.  But to Sergeant Brusilov.  Perhaps if he was not there then they would not have brought him to me at all.  He is my hero in that sense.  He has brought a little bit of solace to my nightmares. 

“Markov is dead but I do not feel myself healing in my heart, nor do I feel my mind being at ease as it should be.  I remember the voices of my dead family - the voices of the guilt.  To kill the beast.  The feeling of hatred.  Perhaps I will go...insane over time.  Perhaps I will end up in Zarcroft and there I will die in my own soiling.  Is that what will become of me in the end?  I fear the future as I fear everyday that I step out into the outskirts.  I fear what I do not know, what I cannot control.  And that is everyday.  Every time I go on patrol to the Plum Bridge...everytime I go to the Luna Bridge.  My men bring me hope in a country that has very little.  Hope that things are not so bad in the end.  And I feel better.

“I have been promoted in the guard, to my happiness and regret.  I don’t know if I am thankful or wishing to yell at Sergeant Brusilov for giving me more responsibility.  I am only eighteen.  And with all this responsibility and...people under me I feel I’m about to burst at the seams.  Perhaps it is like a new dress, it takes time for it to sink in the skin.  But with this comes good things and bad things.  I meet so many people when I am about, on duty and off duty.  And all of them are wonderful people, well, the ones who don’t try to kill me.  I wonder if they see me as a person or simply believe me to be an entity that is the guard.  The decisions I make, some are mistakes and some are good choices. 

“My relationships are a mess, entirely.  I am fully aware that I will never obtain a man.  Why would any man want to be with a woman like me?  How intimidating it must be.  I cannot be with a guard, that is simply a fact that I must remember.  As much as I trust a select few, I cannot be.  Perhaps it is too much to ask for a man to go home to and to vent to.  That will tell me to toughen up because the next day could be meaner.  Sometime I want to be overdramatic and say that I’ve been cursed since I left home that day after my brother died.  Perhaps if I had not left home I would have married Valeriu and been happy with just a simple life.  No neuri, no vroloks or witches.  I ask myself if I wanted a relationship with a nice man, why did I join the guard in the first place?  I want something in this world and I am still trying to figure it out.  I feel each step will bring me to it,  in time.

"Many people do not think that I feel, but I feel.  Some of us are just better at hiding it than others. "

greeneggs

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Re: Child of the Mountains - Rodica Stolojan
« Reply #3 on: February 27, 2017, 04:17:03 AM »
27 February 772,

Everyday seems a challenge to me.  An uphill battle but always a run to the finish.  To relax in my own bed in the officer quarters seems like a privilege that I do not deserve.  I listen to the men snore around me and write this by candlelight.  The wick burns slowly like my heart.  If I am not careful I could tip the candle and send myself into flames.  The faces that I've seen, of pain, despair and heroism are forever burned in my mind.  Walking alone on a desolate road down a path that I don't know I can walk down.

I see Brusilov's eyes and it kills me to see them.  I ache and I hurt for the veterans who have left us and those that have escaped us.  My heart is empty but yet I have so much to give.  I am growing bitter and with hatred toward those with happiness or who show some rhythmic motion if it.  What is happening to me?  Am I become simply another Petrovic or am I becoming my own...adult woman.  A woman that my mother and my brothers who have passed from this world would be proud of?  There is so much to lose and I know not how much more to gain.

There are so many lovely men out there in the city.  Liviu, Tarius (Whom has beautiful teeth somehow) and Zephyr among others.  All really lovely men.  But I know that there is no place of myself among any of them.  I did look at the Lance Corporal Kovac's chest and face once.  He is up in Krofburg.  I wonder if I grew up with him.  And in this section of a diary I cannot even write about Cezar.  I would likely want to wipe myself of the night sweats with this page if I did. 

I have a rage in me that sometimes leaves me and does come out at the most inconvenient times.  Perhaps I will overcome it or it will consume me.  I also found I enjoy interrupting intimate moments of couples.  Isn't that so rude of me?  Perhaps I am a bit jealous of those with so much happiness and contentedness.  I will try to reframe from doing this in the future and be happy with what I have, which is....my brothers in the guard.  That's all I need, right?

I will also, attempt to stop slaughtering the squirrels living in the Citadel Courtyard. 

greeneggs

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Re: Child of the Mountains - Rodica Stolojan
« Reply #4 on: October 15, 2017, 01:07:28 PM »

Whens he saw her blood coming out of her body, with her one eye, she knew it was over.  She had no function of movement, not even when she fell.  In those short moments she had left, that she found blood covering her one eye from her ear or some inner wound - she had many thoughts.  Many ending thoughts that she could muster in her time.  Because it was not even hurting anymore, none of the wounds....was hurting anymore so she felt she could think more clearly. 

Rodica was sorry for her husband-to-be, but she was sure he would find someone more suitable than a Vallaki Guard.  Someone who would survive longer.  And she was sorry she would not form a family with him.  The loss of a child was more than she could bare to have another.  Things, people around her died.  Her mother, her brothers.  Now her father would be alone, but perhaps he would have children with his new wife.  Perhaps he could start over with her.  She had failed at seeing and failed at trusting and let her guard down just this once.  Perhaps Rodica, wanted to die.  Perhaps she wanted it to end and the pain to be forgotten in the bliss of death.  She had felt it more than once and more than twice.  But now, she had died doing her duty.  Un-corrupted by the world.  That is why she had died.  She was unmoved by many things, like a stone.  Rodica knew that the other guards would have troubles much like she did, but unlike she, they would not be hindered or held back.  Perhaps that was so.  Perhaps, as she looked at her crimson blood running across the hard floor, her hand twitching in death, perhaps she would see her family.  Perhaps she would see her baby.

Maybe she would see those that she executed.  Maybe someday...but she would be peaceful in her death because she was doing just what she should have doe and was supposed to do in this city.  But her time was over.  Yes, her death had been premature, but perhaps she had deserved it.  Rodica made some difficult decisions and she was forced to do difficult things, for her Sergeant and for her men.  To keep them safe, to keep the people of Vallaki safe. 

So young, nineteen years of age, she would be dead.  Perhaps people would talk about her, and remember her, even if her body was mangled and torn beyond recognition.  Even if her body parts was spread throughout the country. 

Rodica was dead, and she hoped her men would have better deaths.  She hoped...they would remember...


There was so many things that she did, that people understand why she did them.  There were so many tears from others and herself that would be left unanswered.  But it alright now.  Things had a way of working themselves out. 

Her one eye went black, and then her hardships were over.
« Last Edit: October 15, 2017, 01:13:35 PM by greeneggs »