What strikes me the most is not how different Tintar's reply is to Valkya's, or Valkya's to Tintar, or Jems is in response while trying to corral the world behind the cause... but how familiar and similar they all are to each others.

Every one of you claim some sort of virtue or truth. Either it's a claim to be acting for the good of Creation, or Change, or Strength, or the people... but every single one of you do something else entirely when power, convenience, or image is on the line.

Light speaks of growth, redemption, conscience, while enforcing obedience, hierarchy, and silence the moment someone steps out of line. You are "free" until you are inconvenient.

I've watched this play out firsthand in Eleusis as well, where lofty words about harmony and balance are used to smother dissent, excuse cowardice, and protect rot so long as it "walks the line" and speaks politely.

Chaos going on about ambition, adaptation, and tearing down stagnation, yet builds its own orthodoxy just as rigid, just as punishing, but just a bit louder about it. You are free to rise, yes, but only in the ways that are celebrated. Fail to conform to the correct flavor of ambition, and you will find yourself just as stifled, just as dismissed, just as quietly erased.

And then there's Mhaldor.

I hate to admit it, but at least Mhaldor does not lie about what it is.

It doesn't dress domination up as compassion. Doesn't pretend brutality is mercy. Surely doesn't claim freedom while demanding obedience. It's pretty straight forward- strength rules, weakness is culled, and survival is a measure of worth. Such a disgusting place, but it's honest. There's no bait-and-switch, no soft words masking a hard hand, no moral relativism. I like that.

That honesty is what makes the rest of you speaking so galling.

You children are "protected" when you're useful symbols. "Absolved" through sham trials that exist to soothe your consciences. Faith is offered as a balm while being wielded as a leash. Ideals are invoked not to elevate people, but to control them.

Tintar is right about one thing- people ARE stifled. But not just by the Light. Not just by Creation. Not just by Chaos. It happens everywhere power fears being questioned.

I'm a firsthand witness to it in Eleusis. I have seen it justified, minimized, and politely ignored. I have watched cowardice be reframed as wisdom, inaction as balance, and loyalty to the wrong people treated as virtue. And I know, with absolute certainty, that none of the cities speaking here are innocent of those same sins.

Please, spare us all the sermons. Spare us the invitations, the challenges, the promises of growth and enlightenment.

If you want respect, do not tell people what to believe. Show us what you do when belief costs you something.

Until then, you are all preaching different hymns to the same altar- power... pretending it is something holier.


Penned by my hand on the 18th of Glacian, in the year 993 AF.