Larping Into The Night

My name is Ciagan de Rhys, once before Ciagan Tamerlaine, before that Ciagan Red. Ciagan is said to mean ‘little fire’, named for my great-grandfather, that most excellent troubadour of love, who was named after my great-great-grandfather claimed to have seen firebirds in the Sumaah who had as bright red hair as he did.

I have jokingly been referred to as the ‘expert on Love’, a title I took on gratefully, touched by the honour. At the Summer Solstice 386YE, I was named as Dawn’s Champion of Love by the troubadours of Dawn, and I hope at the Autumn Equinox 386YE that the Dawnish National Assembly will vote that this is true.

I have spent many hours considering what this title means to me and what it means for me, most notably because while the title ‘expert on Love’ does fit what I am, a scholar of that which is called love, in many ways it also does not. Can I be the Champion of something I am not sure I truly understand or ever will? I am a scholar of love, but what love, or True Love, actually means is something I continue to discover and learn. 

“What most Dawnish folk agree on is that True Love can be different for different people. Just as the glory that a tourney knight seeks to win is different to that of the troubadour, the weaver or the enchanter, so each person will pursue their own vision of True Love. Thus most folk are content not to worry overly-long about the nature of True Love; instead and rather to encourage each person to set their own ideals and to commit to them utterly.” 

At the very least, what I am doing is on the way to the Dawnish ideal. But I am yet to find ideals I wish to commit to utterly. 

Wisdom knows all knowledge is incomplete, I suppose. 

I was raised by two traditional Dawnish noble parents.They taught me to stay chaste until I found my True Love (perhaps a more outdated view now, but they truly believed in the importance of that). That I would find my True Love, that they would be a Dawnish person that I felt a romantic attraction to, and that one would complete a Test of Ardour for the other, and we would marry.

However, I was also raised by my sibling, who thought that one could have multiple True Loves, in all sorts of ways, that anyone could be as glorious as Queen Igraine and love and marry many all together.

On my first Spring Solstice, I stood in a tent of strangers at the first Symposium on Love and declared that my True Love was my sibling, Mac. It was platonic love, it was True Love. My belief was that each person had one True Love. For some that True Love would be platonic, for others romantic, for others perhaps even a True Love for an ideal or a nation. But that there could be one and only one, and while it would not stop you loving others deeply and meaningfully, the True Love was inexplicably different. I came to that Symposium having only ‘loved’ one boy before, and while I do still believe that this was a valid ideal to take and set, I think even at the age of twenty four, as I was then, I could perhaps have taken a little longer in my life to explore.

I met Ser Isaac Auster of House Wyldrose-de Courtenay for a brief moment in the Hall of Worlds, and for quite a while believed that I had fallen in love again, perhaps indeed that I had found my True Love. However, I soon came to realise that what I was feeling instead was a love closer, yet different, to what I had felt for Mac. It was a mistake that looking back on I can perhaps laugh on, the naivety of youth and inexperience. Strong feelings does not romance make.

What happened then, at the Summer Solstice 385YE, was I met Aodhán de Courtenay. I felt feelings I had never felt before, feelings that scared me, feelings that I did not understand or did not wish to understand. Pride is a Virtue I find difficult to follow. While I may uplift others to greatness, it is not something I find easy to do for myself. When I eventually realised that what I was feeling was what I would consider True Romantic Love, I hid it, as I could not even bring myself to imagine that I would be loved in return, for who could ever love me? 

As we prepared to enter the Winter Solstice, Aodhán asked for a Test of Ardour, and after much confusion and missed meaning, I agreed and the test was set in Summer. At the same time as this occurred, I learnt that there had been a confusion of feeling, very much caused by me, between myself and a dear friend. I will admit, there was a time I believed I loved that Lady of music, but upon meeting Aodhán, the Love I felt consumed me. I did not believe I could ever or would ever love again, other than the True Platonic Love that I believe had developed between myself and Ser Isaac. Aodhán and I had perhaps some less traditional views too towards monogamous relationships and marriage. My ideals changed. A person can be lucky enough to find True Love again after death, and in certain cases, True Love may be found in multiple people at the same time, in different ways.

Yet once again, my ideals are changing, are not set, are confused, as the person I love with all of my heart prepares to move away, to go to another nation. So I am left with questions I do not yet have an answer to. Is what I feel for Aodhán True Love if the fear of loving him flickers at the concept that he will not be in Dawn? Will things change if the hearth magic of Dawn is no longer upon the both of us? Will I truly never be able to love again; is that even what True Love is? What shall happen if I fall in love again with someone who may wish to marry me? Would it ruin the relationship I have with Aodhán if that were to happen? There is a good chance that no such love will ever be felt again, but considering all I have learnt, and all I have considered with my Conscience’s Feather over the dark between Summer and Autumn, I also believe that it would be a mockery to pretend that I know or understand how True Love works. 

And so. I propose here and now that my ideals of love are such:

Love and True Love act in ways unknown and different to each individual person

For myself, Love is a surprise, something that comes on quickly but also quite slow, and often unexpectedly

I am open to love and True Love from all sources, and know that should it occur, it will not change the love I feel for Aodhán and anyone else that I love 

Each relationship, should I have more than one, will be unlike the other, and I will not be able to judge what that means until I am within it

I shall commit to these ideals until I am sure, with Wisdom, that they are false

I still need to spend some time considering what the difference between love and True Love is for me, as right now it merely feels like something I know inherently. But what I do know is I am the Champion of Love. I shall guide those to make my own ideals as I guide myself to make my own ideals too. 

The Earl-Enchanter Ciagan de Rhys, the Little Fire, the Dragon of House de Rhys, Night Witch, Expert on Love, Champion of Love 386YE-387YE, Bard, Loyalty dedicant, member of the Shuttered Lantern and the Moons and Stars Cabal, friend to all nations.