in the beginning, there was a letter.
Nov. 3rd, 2009 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
levityDear Your Majesty,
Words have power. Any religious leader, any dictator toppled by relentless criticism, any murder suspect saved by a speech from his attorney to the jury, will tell you that. I guess the Council could too, if they wanted to, seeing as they've had millennia and millennia of dealing with people to learn from. I guess that's why they're asking me to put everything in words, when they can just pick and play events out of my mind, unless they just really want to kill you and are relying on my absence of a work ethic for a more-or-less legal reason to do so. Tell us about the Shadow King. What kind of a request is that? Even for the Eleven it takes the figurative cake.
So here I am, writing the beginning of what no doubt will be a very long letter. This is me trying to do what they Council is asking me to do while having fun, I suppose. I also suppose I will have to put in disclaimers for illegible handwriting and run-on sentences and the like, but hell, the only ones who'll be reading this are you and them, and you already know what's coming and if they don't and were insufficiently prepared no one will blame me for giving them a headache. In terms of headache-giving, I have a lot to get back at them for. Those two sentences were pretty much a suicide attempt, albeit the suicide attempt of someone who knows she can't be killed. In a way, I am the luckiest person in all the worlds.
In a way not, as well, I guess.
I think I just went off on a tangent. If I wanted to, or had to, put up disclaimers, no doubt one of them would be for tangents.
No, this isn't me trying to be annoying. I can usually be that without having to try. My entire existence is the Council's equivalent of a fly on the nose.Words have power. Words have power, and besides, they're better than having Lia- or, gods forbid, the Council- drag scenes out of my brain. Words change things, and what this is is me trying to dilute the craziness of a crazy story, and it says something that crazy is the nicest adjective I have for it.
Vethil is telling me to get to the point without exactly telling me to get to the point. She's too polite for that. She's saying things like "Unnecessary verbosity is the sin of politicians and talk show hosts" and "Brevity is the soul of wit". (I told her that nothing that sounds nice is unnecessary, or to be more accurate everything that sounds nice is unnecessary but otherwise what would be the point, and that Shakespeare said that brevity was the soul if wit while writing plays ten miles long.) Yes, I am taking advantage of Vethil's hospitality and special family notepaper. I am stating that for posterity. You're not above believing I'd steal a wad of notepaper from Vethil de Saint-Meran and go on my merry way, despite knowing me for two years. Well, you're not above believing I'd steal Vethil's notepaper because you've known me for two years, but I can't be blamed. It's really good-quality notepaper.
Third tangent, I think, in one sheet of the aforementioned notepaper. I am beginning to see the truth in Vethi's words. I think what I wanted to say is that I am not doing this for the Council, their trials be damned. The Eleven are not only not human- they have no trace of what our language calls humanity in them. When fairness and justice go all the way wrong the result is the Council fo Eleven. But you know that. I know that. because they will be reading this letter they will know that too, if they didn't already know it to begin with, and the only thing I can hope is that since they started out as at least sem-human they retain some vestiges of the human ability to learn.
I am not doing this for the Council. I am doing this for you. The least I can do, I say now, after all you've done for me, but when this business is over and my poor hand screams in agony whenever I pick up a pen and you find yourself standing in front of the Eleven with a large sheaf of papers, each scrawled on like no paper has ever been scrawled on before- when that day comes, you will owe me a hell of a hell of a lot.
That having been said, I will get to the point.
Words have power. Any religious leader, any dictator toppled by relentless criticism, any murder suspect saved by a speech from his attorney to the jury, will tell you that. I guess the Council could too, if they wanted to, seeing as they've had millennia and millennia of dealing with people to learn from. I guess that's why they're asking me to put everything in words, when they can just pick and play events out of my mind, unless they just really want to kill you and are relying on my absence of a work ethic for a more-or-less legal reason to do so. Tell us about the Shadow King. What kind of a request is that? Even for the Eleven it takes the figurative cake.
So here I am, writing the beginning of what no doubt will be a very long letter. This is me trying to do what they Council is asking me to do while having fun, I suppose. I also suppose I will have to put in disclaimers for illegible handwriting and run-on sentences and the like, but hell, the only ones who'll be reading this are you and them, and you already know what's coming and if they don't and were insufficiently prepared no one will blame me for giving them a headache. In terms of headache-giving, I have a lot to get back at them for. Those two sentences were pretty much a suicide attempt, albeit the suicide attempt of someone who knows she can't be killed. In a way, I am the luckiest person in all the worlds.
In a way not, as well, I guess.
I think I just went off on a tangent. If I wanted to, or had to, put up disclaimers, no doubt one of them would be for tangents.
No, this isn't me trying to be annoying. I can usually be that without having to try. My entire existence is the Council's equivalent of a fly on the nose.Words have power. Words have power, and besides, they're better than having Lia- or, gods forbid, the Council- drag scenes out of my brain. Words change things, and what this is is me trying to dilute the craziness of a crazy story, and it says something that crazy is the nicest adjective I have for it.
Vethil is telling me to get to the point without exactly telling me to get to the point. She's too polite for that. She's saying things like "Unnecessary verbosity is the sin of politicians and talk show hosts" and "Brevity is the soul of wit". (I told her that nothing that sounds nice is unnecessary, or to be more accurate everything that sounds nice is unnecessary but otherwise what would be the point, and that Shakespeare said that brevity was the soul if wit while writing plays ten miles long.) Yes, I am taking advantage of Vethil's hospitality and special family notepaper. I am stating that for posterity. You're not above believing I'd steal a wad of notepaper from Vethil de Saint-Meran and go on my merry way, despite knowing me for two years. Well, you're not above believing I'd steal Vethil's notepaper because you've known me for two years, but I can't be blamed. It's really good-quality notepaper.
Third tangent, I think, in one sheet of the aforementioned notepaper. I am beginning to see the truth in Vethi's words. I think what I wanted to say is that I am not doing this for the Council, their trials be damned. The Eleven are not only not human- they have no trace of what our language calls humanity in them. When fairness and justice go all the way wrong the result is the Council fo Eleven. But you know that. I know that. because they will be reading this letter they will know that too, if they didn't already know it to begin with, and the only thing I can hope is that since they started out as at least sem-human they retain some vestiges of the human ability to learn.
I am not doing this for the Council. I am doing this for you. The least I can do, I say now, after all you've done for me, but when this business is over and my poor hand screams in agony whenever I pick up a pen and you find yourself standing in front of the Eleven with a large sheaf of papers, each scrawled on like no paper has ever been scrawled on before- when that day comes, you will owe me a hell of a hell of a lot.
That having been said, I will get to the point.
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no subject
Date: November 3rd, 2009 11:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: November 3rd, 2009 03:21 pm (UTC)