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  1. Journals

Calliope - Session 60

Song
Session 54 to 60 - The Run
June 22, 2021
Forgive Me Not
[Written back in Pamplaxia the evening after Bormorygmos’ death.]

(Tune: a lamentful, yet hopeful, Siren mourning song)

Forgive me not, the words I said,
The blows that came to be.1
I know your heart would not be led,
By someone such as me.2

Yet for all our trouble, tried and true
For all the ire and pain,
I promise I’ll remember you,3
Until we meet again.

And at that time, a brighter day,
When both our hearts are still:
I hope my guilt might cease to weigh,4
And both us have the will

To forgive each other then.5

Footnotes

1 Borborygmos is dead. Braz… I don’t think he wanted it to happen. As hard and as well as he fought, and as much conviction as he showed in his final moments with his uncle...


2 I tried to help, but I was useless. My spells just didn’t work. I was so close to death, hanging on by just a thread of magic...


3 I sang for him, as Braz spent the little time he could to say goodbye. I gave him coins too, though perhaps that is an old-fashioned funeral-rite now. I don’t think… I don’t think everyone understood Braz’s need to mourn. We all saw Borborygmos at his worst: an enraged zealot. But there was more to the man, I am sure of it.


4 It feels such a taboo to even think about it but I wonder what I would have done to save my flock? Perhaps not what Urma has done. Or Borborygmos. But then, I have the ‘benefit’ of living through the Titan’s rull, so I know where the folly of following them leaves us mere mortals. But I understand her choice. And I suspect, as much as none of us would admit it, that each one of us might hold that sort of weakness. For our families, villages, partners… 

No, not weakness… love.


5 Braz gave up his name. He is no longer a Vaca. A name is a funny thing: it is nothing, and everything, all at once. I don’t know that Braz can trick Fate in such a way but… it was brave of him to give up his legacy, his connection to his family and village, to try.

June 29th, 2021