Archivist's note:
It is clear from contemporary records that Amrunrosse was fastidious about keeping her journals on her person or otherwise well secured, yet in the recent reorganization of the archive we have found loose signatures tucked among unrelated treatises on the applied arts of entropy as relates to the keeping of vegetable gardens in various climates.
Each is no more than eight pages of vellum, stitched with waxed linen thread and apparently in good condition, aside from having been at some point separated from the rest of its volume. The handwriting appears to be consistent from one entry to the next, though there are huge swaths of the work still missing.
What remains has been bound together in a probable chronology, and wrapper leaves were added around each original signature to hold such notation as is possible. The entries are undated in the original hand, but as many of the incidents are cross-referenced in the public archives, so a loose chronology may be posited.
This entry is unusually candid, for Amrunrosse.
It is usually advised that the student of history take her offered chronology and editorial commentary with a hearty grain of salt - but unlike most of her narratives, this passage has a rather narrow focus. In all the records we have of her hand, public and private, there is every evidence of a profound sense of her own centrality to events - and in this one, her tone is unusually sober.
Like most of the bardic-trained, it does seem she was drawn into many of the pivotal events of her time. In this particular reflection she seems to have at least briefly gained a greater sense of perspective on her own involvement - and the inevitable consequences of her political meddling.
Nonetheless, this morose account is interesting to the student of history, as it reveals an unusually deep admiration for the contemporary Lady Commander Arquenniel Tinwe'sa of the Freeport Militia's elite Third Brigade.
The weight of her mantle is great. Not that she has made it any easier.
Ari is far more coherent than she has been in some time. She also spits acid and makes a great amount of extra effort on us all. I should have had her struck down in the depths of the D’Vinn stronghold as I had planned.
She needed the rest, and now, so do I.
What am I come to? She is my dearest friend - I do not deserve it. She seems to have to greater peace on why I did what I did, though I do not.
I have given her the only gift I can, right now. We have her beloved. He is ready. I can finally give the authorization for his resurrection.
May it bring her peace.
Arquenniel.
There is a complicated topic. I cannot fathom why I brought up the glass powder-poisoned rum. I suppose I must like her, and I also wanted to illustrate that information is key...and I think I utterly failed and now have to watch my step even more than usual. Even so, that was a fool move. I put a lot of faith in our acquaintanceship, and being useful to them.
I do not know how long I can survive in Freeport after this.
I owe Lucan for having a place to call home, and while I accept work for any who will pay and who doesn’t offend me...this is different. This is actual treason. Damn Fafnier anyways! If he had listened, he and his people wouldn’t have been killed, and I wouldn’t have tried to find ways to bring some sort of attack back home. And it wasn’t even her fault! It was his! I like her. I don’t know how this will go.
Were circumstances different, we could probably be very good friends. But she is a Knight, and that is what it is. I think she has no idea the history they had - how Pallidmortis ran it...
He is free again. Loose in the world, and making trouble for Freeport. I have heard nothing on him yet, though I have exchanged my time behind bars to be on call when they take him.
I hope she listens. I hope she sifts through all of the records. Old contacts are a valuable thing to a tyrant. Old friends can very easily be current friends. She needs to identify these people. I would do this, but...it is what it is.
I miss my normal duties. I miss gathering information. I miss having the ability to love those in my heart. How can I relax, when the duties are always so demanding?
I will continue to hold myself apart. Not much longer.
It is nearly time to pass the mantle back.
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