Bogatyr

"All of us alive and lifeless are from one," With tender dotage, Adolpha chewed over the contents of the missive. Her disposition to love had engendered her to see in all the divine graces where no man is suffered to want or toil but is ancient, unmutable, and unchanging, and in this letter was no different. The wash of piteous sympathy, borne on wings of religious self-surrender, salted her face and pickled her expression. "We know, from Saint Jude, a lifetime of beatings and kicks is as nothing to a mere moment with God. In a land where darkness has long presided over man and beast alike, hatred has rusted the tongue of every arrogant five-copeck tyrant, priest, and kindly woman. Has the heart forgotten its capacity to love? The layman to cultivate himself in kindness? For that is to cultivate yourself in God, for God is Love and Charity itself in that he permits us to live even in spite of our own evil, born or acquired."

عليها السلام

Iskander Basrid, Count of Susa, held his chin up high, and his flagon of mead higher!

Cute concept, interested in seeing this religion develop.

The Count of Susa, Iskander Basrid, turned his nose up at the dressing-up of rigid court formalities. Nonetheless, in steadfast support of his dear ally and the spirit of dedication, he sealed his approval through a flat but agreeable smile.

A depiction of the basilica butchering, styled after an icon of Saint Lothar of Balian, in Akriti-Raevir style. XIII: BEWARE OF THOSE WHO PROFESS TO BE HOLY WARRIORS AS A CLOAK FOR THEIR INIQUITY —Bl. Father Humbert, O.S.J. TO HIS HOLINESS, Sixtus V, Vicarius Filii Dei, present Pontifex Maximus of the Church of Canon. Holy Father, being that you have been, by the grace of God, appointed pastor over His Church and committed to the care and custody of His flock, I beseech you that you might heed the worries of your mildest and littlest subject. I trust that at this time, you will be aware of the tragic and irreverent transgressions which transpired that day, the eleventh of Godfrey’s Triumph, MCMXXXIII. Having bade my time in speaking out against this event, in part from deep and inconsolable sadness, I will recount this sequence of events with said sadness and regret, the quality and intensity of which bleeds much as ink on this letter. On this day, the sanctity of the hallowed Everardian Basilica was permanently violated and defiled when a pregnant woman supposed to have been an unholy interloper—having sought a vampiric mediator by whom she might be cleansed and made deluded and afflicted with the various and multiply wretched effects of black-magic and diabolic evocation—invaded the temple. According to the accounts of inquisitors from the Haenseni national guard on-scene, this woman evaded the brigade during pursuit and took flight for the basilica. It was at this point that the woman—and child in-utero—was butchered and spilt blood in the crossing between the church’s sanctuary and presbytery, a murder dealt by the before Haenseni guardsmen. The nature of this moral quandary is double: the slaughter of a fetal child and the spilling of blood on consecrated grounds. While acknowledging the conflict which is posed by the woman’s, though more urgently, her child’s, circumstances at her butcher, we must reconcile the sanctity of life with the violation of sacred grounds. It would have been of paramount importance to make extra efforts toward the preservation of this child, irrespective of its mother’s unique conditions, which are guided by the innate value of fetal life. Notwithstanding the unlikely hazard that this child might have been born grotesque and misshapen, this value is underscored by His word, “And I have also breathed life into your heart, and the hearts of your children. And I have given you life: I am your father, and the father of all things.” (Virtue 1:5-6). But, the premature loss of life is tantamount also to the profanation of the basilica and its defilement and subsequent contamination to iniquitous—that is, vampiric—blood, and the misdemeanors of the garrison soldiers and accessories at-scene who condoned the slaying and neonaticide. As a bastion of communal reverence and divine connection, which uplifts, heals, and inspires the human spirit and the worship of God, its protection and safeguarding becomes paramount in defending the essence which nurtures spiritual journey to and from God and sustains the bond of our shared humanity. We refer back to His word, which quotes, “So I am the Most High, and in pursuit of My Virtue, I bid my faithful this: You shall not blaspheme My Word, nor any thing that is holy.” (Virtue, 1:8). But, in this moment, the sanctitude of the basilica is permanently and irreparably debased, and more blood soaks the soil, feeding the evil therein. The efforts against an agent of evil and the wages of sin being death here, then, neither give grounds for this rash attack nor absolve the parties involved. In any case, and in the words of Bl. Father Humbert the Slave of God, “To... murderously pursue war without any attempt at a peaceful solution, surely makes men sons of Krug, not of Horen.” I plead for your counsel, now, Your Holiness, Holy Father: how can this be allowed, with full conscience, to continue? So great is this affront, yet the guilty continue at liberty and with weapons in their hands—weapons which continually threaten the integrity of Canondom. And, what is more, this transgression was scantly the first of its like, and will scantly be the last. At the expense of painting myself as an apologist—how much more blood need soak our altars? How many more infants carved out of their mothers' wombs? Do Thou, O Lord, have mercy on our dearly departed, for the sake of us sinners all who greatly hope and trust in Thee. For Thy mercy can turn bittering weeping to joyous fanfare, for Thou alone judgeth the living and the dead. No more to you at this time, but God keep you in his holy governance. This missive is ended with He alone, who is the alpha and omega, and who is blessed throughout the ages. Remaining the least of your children, Iskander Basrid, Count of Susa.

Iskander Basrid's jaw clenched tighter than a hangman's knot, every so often grinding his teeth and enamel with the effect of being, at once, highly disoriented and deeply upset by the logorrheic, parabolic nature of the text. He was, however, intensely sentimental, a quality he demonstrated best by his veiled amusement seeing out from the corners of his pursed lips. "It is my mother, and not some washed-up old man, who makes the white road more light, lean, level. You, my mother, illuminate my path with grace and resilience."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K7W6dztw-4&ab_channel=JeepsterRecordings IGN: armpit_s Character Name: Arnau de Pasqual Character Race: Human Discord Tag: ---