Chains of the Poet

[cleio{M}]

"Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases;
neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives.
Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices,
to argue over them -- and then, the opportunity to choose."

A story is much like traveling a path yet to be overturned. Brambles and briars, thorns set at our feet to snare us before the journey even begins. This is my story, and my path of absolution that I am not sure will come. Listen to my story, lend me your ears and mind's eye, and perhaps.. for a moment we are equals.

I was not of flesh and blood of Gor; I was a woman of Earth set in a world of lax rules and rose-tinted glasses. The call of the Muses were my song and their wisdom was my words spun onto paper. The Arts were my Sisters and hearkened to me with but a song. I knew freedom by word and wit, by poetry and prose and the sinful art of dance that of this world beckoned the steel like none other - but I was Free. I knew not of the Laws beyond this world and the recompense that would come for what we of Earth knew as simple liberties bestowed upon us just like the air we breathed.

I knew wanderlust like no other; where there was a tale to be spun or the lessons of every day life to be found, I was there. Whether it was from within or the person I sat across from sipping coffee--or blackwine as you know it--or perhaps that random encounter on a park bench while watching others in their day-to-day activities, I yearned for them. I longed for their words, their stories, their life's essence in the most raw and passion-driven way possible, to immortalize it by the stroke of pen and watch those thick ebon lines and swirls dry before my eyes. Forever marked in history. Even if those papers burned the tale would live on in my mind, and in my heart. It was my duty, my obligation, my rule of Law to spread these fairy tales made reality with but a smile and song in my heart. This was my fire that led me astray from the spinning rock third from the sun.

How I arrived in Gor was a mystery even to me. I could reflect upon this for days at a time and wonder just -how- it happened, and how for so long I knew nothing of what could happen, what thin line I walked upon with each waking day or when I would lay my head to rest under that sultry glow of the three moons of Gor. To this day, I cannot tell you how it happened as much as I wish I could spin a tale for your pleasure and my own, yet I know now as tangible as the hand I write this with, I am here. Vibrant as ever like that first fateful day and now, a questionable nomadic bard of the Poet's Caste. They culled to my heart and soul and welcomed me in without a second thought as family and a purpose that they knew I would find.

Oh how they laughed at me when I went into a tirade over the customs of the land--robes and veils to name a few. I spoke of the lands of the East from my homelands, the way women were stiffled by such garbs and liberties I knew were a myth and a memory they could only dream of. How I would not do such a thing, nor the thought of my travels in such cumbersome garb. I took up the leathers like the wild and feral Panthers of the wood with a modest poet's flare, second-skin leathers and high boots that my feet might not tire traversing these untamed lands. A peasant's shirt much akin to my homelands ideals from bygone days and simple laced bodice underbust. I knew these things to be comfort, and my few lingering memories of who I once was. Fingers weighed by the trinkets of gem and silver and the soft windchime clatter of hammered bracelets at my wrists, the multitude of necklaces and talismans that I recognized as spiritual guidance and a means to center and ground the mind.

I was an oddity unto my own in this newfound world with little protection save my silver-tongue and the Turian knives I kept with me, one forever secured at the hip with my small satchel bag and the myriad in my boots. My back was forever weighed by the bag of my travels, fresh vials of inks and rolled parchment to weave my tales upon by the firelight or the smoke-filled din of the paga dens I ventured to. I can hear the gasps shock, the puzzling questions on so manys minds as to why I did such things. The lesson and moral to this story is the same - yearning for the unknown. I was a Child in a new place and it was a veritable picking ground for stories to reap and harvest. Just a quiet smile to those who would come to gather and drop their inquisitive minds at my feet just for the sake of a tale to be told, Men and Women alike. I should wonder if this is how the great Hunters of the land feel on their conquests of the woods to seek out animals of the hunt; they study their prey like some strange ritualistic nature, admiring their prey for their own power before they exert their own and rights of dominion in this land. I did not know these things, nor the Laws of the land save what little was shed into light upon me. My line-walking was ever growing thin by the day and would soon come to take claim in the form of a black cloak and that quiva at my throat. My tale had truly begun.

I had faltered, stumbled and fell forth into a whole new world after my years of travel and found the true underbelly of the beast that for so long I had walked behind. Now, I found myself before its path, and at the mercy of Men. Even now, I find the path difficult to stand upon and the weight that hangs heavy on my throat. The silver-tongue can only cleave for so long before it is robbed of speech and cut one's own throat.

I've cut myself, I have bled for my errors and tarnished others with the corrosive taint of this crimson-copper essence, perhaps further than they should ever had to have gone. I have won the ire of many for my own ignorance and blind travels in these lands without properly educating myself for the sake of a tale to tell, for what I am within and without, what my life is made of, and the fiber of the Fate's they have rightfully spun and crafted me into. I have brought shame without real knowledge of these acts, and without a way to amend my mistakes that hang out of my reach to repair. My inks have spilled, my papers torn and my mind walled behind steel doors without reprieve. I can only look to those three haunting moons above and hope, that mercy might be shown to a lost bard, and that the road of salvation can be given by the grace, and mercy of my peers. The woman of Earth is tangled in the Chains of the Poet of Port Kar, I humbly ask someone could show me the way to unraveling this weight and set right the path in a second chance.

In the words of a Wise One of my lands, Goethe - None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free. Show me the path that I might make things right.

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing..

Respectfully submitted,

~ Devika