still mind, swift movement

anaïs nin, quote. / marlon james, "black leopard, red wolf" / yevgeny yevtushenko, "fury poem" / anne sexton, "again and again and again" / audre lorde, "sister love: the letters of audre lorde & pat parker" / gabriella flori, "simone weil: an intellectual biography" / alice munro, "the beggar maid" / nikos kazantzakis, "the rock garden" on the depths of rage, of hatred, on how anger transforms and scars the self.

john o'bryan, "stains on a name" / flannery o'connor, "a temple of the holy ghost" / andrei tarkovsky, "journal 1970-1986" / akwaeke emezi, "freshwater" / hilda doolittle, "hermetic definition" / florence + the machine, "rabbit heart (raise it up)" on sainthood, the erasure of the self for the purpose of becoming something greater, making a martyr out of oneself whilst still living, being both the sacrificial knife & the innocent lamb.

you are a white bishop. there is something you believe in, be it an oath, a phrase, a promise. it's what keeps the bishop on the diagonal path it takes on the board. you live by this creed and infect others with it. you are empathetic, able to feel others' pain like it's your own, and offer advice or help to them. but be careful, because every bleeding heart runs out of blood eventually. every leader crumbles to the next generation eventually.

irelia's handwriting speaks to her practicality. it's legible and could be considered pretty ( she doesn't think it's particularly neat ) but most importantly it can be done swftly with brush and inkwell. her father taught irelia her calligraphy skills. when she was younger, her handwriting used to be much neater. but after irelia began her schooling at the placidium, she had less time to actually practice pen to paper writing. her handwriting is perfectly passable for a honororary member of the ionian council. notably, when irelia would write in va-nox, her script is harsher from her pen being pulled across the parchment in a much rougher manner.

⠀⠀⠀⠀" there... is nothing to discuss, ren. there is no us. " not when both of their memories are so blurred, like calligraphy that's been muddied by water. " are you staying for long? i'll buy you another drink as long as you don't speak of the past. " the peace offering is made with a small, wry smile. they may as well be different people. but the past will always run after her, all she can do is be honest about it to herself.

Mythmaker Irelia Fan art, by yoha Xu

⠀⠀⠀⠀i don't believe many of her verses would be different enough to be worth talking about, aside from perhaps nightblade if she's gone enough in her madness and grief that she doesn't care about human lives anymore... in which case she won't care enough to pull the lever.