Questions. Historians are all about the God damn questions. Where to begin? How to end? What’s important? What’s not? They’re like manic depressant hamsters running back and forth in their cages until they’re finally so tired they just say ‘fuck it’ and start writing something down.

Sometimes they even stumble on the truth.

They face a desire to embellish or coat the facts in a more enticing format that ultimately makes them deceiving. The masses rely on the integrity of the author but if you’re naïve enough to think that someone’s being honest with their writing, you should stick to picture books and reality TV.

Military action can go many different ways from the cliché well oiled machine to the more common barbaric rabble.  My particular force leaned toward the former and each unit operated like perfectly tuned independent cogs of a ten story clock. 

Ten thousand soldiers marched from our lands all the way up to the outskirts of Ambrose’s borders.  Wilmot’s Corner had always been my planned launching point because it was the final trading post before entering a different province.  We would follow the Iron River further north toward the Vallen Foundry which produced almost all of the armaments for the Northern Lords.

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Sands: February 3rd, 1895

I am old. My dedication to the Society has taken me far beyond the prime years of youth and deposited me squarely in a pile of spent souls. Everything I have done has been for others. From the generous contributions of my family fortunes to my academic studies and even my once vibrant health sacrificed to frailty in the field, my existence has teetered on the whims of others.

As the head librarian of the Deadly Nightshade Botanical Society, I find myself weary while writing in my journal.  Exhaustion nibbles at my drive and it only worsens as I look at all which must be done still. The other scholars move with haste all about me in the same frantic hunt for knowledge that I was known for when I was their age. Now,I can’t be bothered by any but the most  important of tasks.  Perhaps this is what it means to grow old.

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