Love. It is an emotion that we all feel, even those of Sapience that
dwell within the bosom of Mighty Mhaldor feel it, despite what other
ideologies of this land might believe. For Love is an intrinsic part of
Suffering. Indeed it is a small leap of logic to understand that Love is
in fact a gift of Suffering.

For does not Lord Apollyon Love us all? He bestows His gift of Love and
Suffering on us all. Does not His gift of Suffering shine down on the
evil and the good? The strong and the weak? Does not the blessing of
Suffering rain down on the faithful and heretic alike? And is this not
proof of His universal Love of all Sapience?

For we are all born into Suffering, we are squeezed from the wombs of
our mothers in an incredible trauma of blood, pain and fear. Our mothers
scream out in the pain and Suffering of their labour and when we come
into this world, expunged from our warm comfortable sanctuary in which
we have floated for some nine months, are we not terrified? Do we not
feel the pain of being ripped away from that which we have Loved for
those first months? Do we not scream out in our Suffering of being born
into a cold and uncaring world? As we mewl our first pitiful cries our
mothers reach down for us after their labours and Suffering, they take
us up, bloodied and covered in mucous, they coo and coddle our small
naked bodies. Their hearts reach out to us in our Suffering and trauma
and they give us their Love.

In later years as we become more independent we start to question and
challenge. We begin to walk and talk and reason. We challenge our
mothers, we throw tantrums, we cry and scream when our mothers deny us
the small pleasures that we wish. We ask to eat candy and instead are
made to eat vegetables, it is for our own good we are told and we rage
against our mothers until we are punished and are made to Suffer. Why?
Why would our mothers who love us do such things? We only wish to eat
candy and be happy, but our mothers know best, they make us eat our
vegetables for they will make us strong. Our mothers endure our screams
because they Love us and they do in fact know what is best for us, but
at the same stroke they Suffer, their Love for us causes them to do the
right thing for our health, they do the right thing and it causes us to
Suffer and because of their Love for us our tears make them Suffer.

Many years later we come into the bloom of adolescence and sexual
awakening. We fall madly in Love with some other young pretty or
handsome thing. We swear our hearts, souls and bodies to the object of
our affection. Then when the gloss of the relationship wears off either
our beloved or we ourselves callously reject the other. The rejecter
feels some small level of Suffering for hurting the one that they once
Loved and the rejectee feels incredible anguish and Suffering for the
way in which they have been treated. But here is the rub, we do not
learn from this first experience, nor indeed from the second, third or
twenty eighth. Throughout our lives we fall in Love, are rejected and
Suffer.

Yet there are a few that may claim to have never have loved at all, they
dedicate themselves to themselves and they walk this world alone. But
despite this, we all fight. We all enter into combat, either adventurer
against adventurer or we boldly step into the lairs of beasts and
monsters to do battle so we might become stronger. With sword or spell
or fist we lay low our opponent, we inflict immense physical pain on our
adversary and in return we receive pain and Suffering. Eventually either
we or our opponents die and pass into the halls of Maya to be born again
and each passage through the Mothers hall weakens us a little and we
feel Suffering each time. Yet we learn from this death and we grow
stronger in spirit for we do not make the same mistake a second time.
Not one of us is spared the gift of Suffering, for indeed without
Suffering not a one of us would grow and this is proof of Lord Apollyons
Love for us all.

Without Suffering Love has no meaning. Without Suffering there is no
Love and so Love and Suffering are one.


Penned by my hand on the 8th of Phaestian, in the year 436 AF.