#journalpost

january edit

👉🏻 refrain from buying new clothing i have a lot of clothes, too many maybe and most i don’t even wear so i want to do a complete revamp of my wordrobe and sell a few of my clothing pieces and invest in pieces i will actually wear and that will last decades (i’m going to try buy second-hand)

👉🏻 no new perfumes unless i have finished a perfume from my ‘finish list’; flowerbomb, valentina, mon guerlain, and le parfume i love perfume and i don’t want to give up something that brings me so much joy and so this is the compromise and i also want to sell a few fragrances that i am not completely in-love with because i have close to 100... and i know i don’t need that many because i don’t use that many

👉🏻 skincare and beauty product categories are to be finished before repurchasing; if i’ve finished a cleanser and i still have a bottle somewhere, then that has to be used and finished before repurchasing anything, this applies to makeup too

👉🏻 no throwing away products just to buy something new! if i’d rather trash something than finish it, then i don’t really need that in my life (for example, if a shade of blush doesn’t suit me and i get rid of it then i can’t buy a new blush until then end of the month; this stops impulse buying and promotes try-before-you-buy and in turn more overall mindfulness to consuming products also will spark creativity)

👉🏻 focus on refining and perfect my routines i want to focus more on sticking to what i know and i want to be all quality not quantity (do i really need a ten-step skincare routine? or a bunch of hair serums? big no to both)

👉🏻 cannot buy anything on credit, on loans, no favours, no borrowing, no payment plans, no golden handshakes; if i can’t buy it out right on my own with my own money then it is not meant to be

👉🏻 take-out no buying food unless we’re actually leaving the house to go eat out; i still want to go on date nights with my boyfriend and not say no to dinner with friends

Unlike Truls who came squealing into this world, Eira’s entrance was an alarmingly quiet one. Swiftly they took her away from me to untangle the cord around her neck - and here followed a stretch of time measurable only by the rapid beatings of my heart and Drae’s anxious begging, til a soft baby wail did pierce the night, and we all smiled at one another through sweat and tears, drunk with happiness & relief.

At last they brought her to me, and the hearth’s rekindled light bathed her in a rosy glow, shinning gold in her small tuft of raven black curls, sparkling in the pair of dark button eyes that blinked and squeezed as one wail after another tore out of her small chest. She was a wee thing and I was enraptured by her delicate, minute beauty... was Truls ever this fragile? I hugged her to my breast and sniffed the sweet aroma that mingled with all other less pleasant, yet necessary scents that labor did involve.

Thus arrived Eira Penelope Lionsbane, Phoenix born.

Penelope for Draegoren’s deceased mother, a noble and gentle soul that I warmly remember from those far childhood years of scraped knees and unruly scuffles. Wild and strange as I was she still seemingly found something there to adore and cherish. 

Eira - for a name heard in a Norn’s Legend, proudly shared in Vanjir’s on my first Scion camping there. I should have forgotten it, yet like a melody, the sound of it ever lingered in the back of my mind, occasionally summoned forth by a star igniting in the darkness over a far lonely trail, or the unexpected sight of mountain blooms, peaking out as the snow recede by Zephyr’s end. When Eira was born, I remembered it again.

I dreamt that my primary school was merged with my current secondary school. And they were having a sort of Renaissance Fair…

Boys were all wearing tuxedo, by girls are all wearing 18th century gowns. We were in an air-conditioned basement hall. And having some sort of competition slash announcement.

When I left the hall in my own outfit, I saw my primary school's choir teacher's dead body as an exhibit just outside the stair. She died by drowning and was covered in a net too large for fishing.

the dry mouth i’m getting from this diet is bothering me more than the feeling hungry part. it’s such a strange texture in my mouth. i know it’s a typical reaction but damn is it the most unusual sensation. maybe it’s something that needs to happen so it reminds me of the process. you know, that process of feeling hungry all the time, all the sugar cravings, the carb cravings, then feeling tired, tired to your bones, but you can’t sleep because you get restless because your body thinks you’re still hungry, but you’re not hungry, you know you’re not because noone needs to eat a whole garlic bread on their own, or a packet of timtams, or down a cake... 

it’s the process of training your body to crave things that are good for it, it’s the process of understand what discipline is, and remembering that there’s a difference between treating yourself and emotional eating, but the process always ends in your stomach getting smaller and suddenly you’re not so hungry, suddenly you’re not so tired, suddenly you start feeling in control and suddenly your hormones level out and you’re able to sleep regularly and better

After a rather stern-faced earlier childhood, I happily inform these pages that at long last, baby Truls started laughing - started a mere couple of hours ago as Tholyak overturned a rainwater barrel... rage towards the useless beast aside, I am afraid I am already addicted to that clear, rolling chime. I’ve been telling Drae it’s the trading of his stuffy Krytan halls for the fresh mountain air that incited this. Clearly, the boy is taking after the right side of the family.

And delayed laughter aside the little mongrel’s been thriving indeed. The former coal dark mop of his birth gave way to brighter, golden curls, not as dark as his father’s but I suppose they might darken to match that shade as he grows. 

There’s a  game that I play in my mind sometimes as I hold his tiny form, imagining what he would be like as a boy, a lad, a man... yet these thoughts create a fathomless ache as they are conceived. Imagining the journeys he’ll one day undertake, the roads that’ll carry him over. Perhaps much sooner other roads might snatch me away from him just as well. Can I prevent it? I am unsure, but I shall delay it as I’m able. 

Thus far a simple shawl tie trick that I observed and copied from Amnoon’s denizens let me comfortably carry him on my back as I go out and about. He’s become somewhat of a matter of interest around the neighborhood - that is, the sprawling expanse surrounding Vanjir’s stead, for its numerous encampments and more longterm residencies. Most of the locals, unsurprisingly, never quite noticed how ‘puny’, their word, human cubs were. Though then they would note that the racket made by a disgruntled Truls was just as unsettling.

Mostly, however, he proves himself a pleasant company, his twinkling amber eyes reminding me of my father’s as he drinks this new surrounding world of steep emerald slopes with serene curiosity. I had a small outdoors crib crafted for him to lounge upon as I set to my Phoniex-time plans for expanding the stead with a nursery. Aided by Drae and at times the odd friendly visitor, we’ve been making fair progress... after so many months of idleness, the strain of a manual task, difficult as it might still be, is a blessed transition.

The snow recedes from the mountaintops as the days grow longer, the pines rustle as the evening wind weaves through the grove. Out there, Tholyak lazily grazes on the green pastures bellow the stead, and further down bellow the lake shines as it gathers the last of the sunset’s glow… a picture, drawn by the most beautiful colors I know, and it’s most beautiful hues are found here beside me, Drae’s bedraggled curly head resting upon his pillow. 

I’ve come home. My heart still soars in places higher than the surrounding peaks, though it is stays quite aware of the plunging drop of loneliness and longing that built these heights. I missed him. Homecoming is beginning to be as sour as it is sweet as I hold the thought it is but a matter of time until once more, the roads come between us.

Though I am far from the desert, the memories still linger freshly in my mind. Sights, smells, voices… all my illustrations, descriptions and sketches fail to capture the wonders of those lands Hamish & I traversed.

South of the great bone walls that define Joko’s Domain, the very grains of the earths turn a blaring yellow, Junundu Wurms raise their brightly hued heads in sulfurous pits between the crags. Sighting the Raptured Heart defeated any sense of awe I think I might have felt in all my years of wandering, indeed - we nearly died trying to get near it, then nearly died as we fought our way out, that image of the abyss forever seared into our minds. We journeyed further yet, witnessing relics of the Forgotten along the path. Eventually we even infiltrated the shadow of the Bone Palace itself.

Weathering hazardous trails we managed to reach our final destination - at long last we walked beneath Vabbian sky, and the land we found was a bittersweet song to it’s ancient, tarnished glory. Enormous statues of Joko lay their oppressive shadows on every emerald courtyard, and while the azure domes of the Kodash Bazaar still rule the very horizon, the old market beneath them lies shattered by Kralkatoric’ss passage. 

It is a sad, vicious scar upon the province that was once known as The Garden of Lyss, and Hamish & I could not negotiate a way through it - thus denying my decades old dream of treading upon the marble stairs of the Halls of Chokhin. Perhaps somewhere beyond the Brand The Mirror of Lyss still collects the light of the star drenched sky each night. I would like to believe at least some of the old beauty lingers.

‘Your spirit seem familiar, somehow…’  a ghost whispered, stirring my imagination about the past and the tales of my ancestors. That war-weary Ascalonian, that gentle theatre loving Vabbian merchant.

My private following venture to Istan unfortunately proved fruitless, a storm left the - admittedly rather questionable vessel I boarded in a poor condition, that and an unforeseeable stir among the local corsairs saw that we didn’t make it near the shore. Through staying on deck in the driving rain I did steal a glimpse of the city that is now called Palawadan , but is still remembered to some under a different name, and a freer sun... a dark, soulless husk, a shadow against the building storm.

It’s hard to believe all this was but… eleven days ago? That I’m finally back. 

Day by day I’m regaling Drae & Koph, and well, any who would listen with tales of Elona. Henrik all but kicked us out of Vanjir’s Stead the other day for claiming I was starting to give him a headache.