Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.

-Marcus Aurelius

Constantinople, 983 AD
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I arrive at the meeting in her evening "entertaining" haven. My soldier's boots and garb seem well out of place. ( Read more... )

Before God I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but Peace.

-USMC Rifleman's Creed

Earlier:

I'm loading this "magic gun" and wondering to myself if these people have any idea why the hell I'm ( Read more... )

"As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countance of his friend."

-Proverbs 27:17, The Bible

I have called the miracle.

I am burning.

I have named the architects of my demise...I am Damned...but in my Damnation I find purpose.....

They have no idea. They thought I the dangerous one. My friend....no.....brother and sister will see to them. I acted ( Read more... )

For a good cause, wrongdoing is virtuous.

-Publilius Syrus, Maxims

Kneeling at the alter, I go through the motions I have for hundreds of years. I speak the tongue of the Latins in the way it was spoken at Rome's height in supplication before I begin. The oddly shaped scourge in the brazer has sat just long enough to make the metal hot. I gird my ( Read more... )

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.

-Sun-Tzu

I sit waiting for this device of modern artifice to break through the sky and take me to exchange an ancient blessing for an ancient oath...

I think only of victory. Either the Saint will defeat her in the end, or I will give him ( Read more... )

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.

-Seneca

I sit as Judith tells me the missives that have reached me and I take interest at the lack of respect in some of the communiques.

I sit, thinking of the legacy I will leave before the end of a century. I leave sins that are of the last two centuries as stewards...the oldest three ( Read more... )

“No hatred is so bitter as that of near relations.”

-Cornelius Tacitus

I hear my eldest Paladin’s voice as I near the atrium. I tell him I will tend my garden before I sleep. He does not know I did not make him a tool of political gain because I value his honor. My mask with him must remain as well, but his loyalty I do not question...I am the ( Read more... )

"Do you believe in fairies? … If you believe," he shouted to them, "clap your hands; don't let Tink die."

James M. Barrie, Peter Pan

There are times I am reminded that I am a good person every odd day. As much as my acts say so…this was not one of those days.

I had gone to see a movie with Sunny at some point but I took her back to her place. It ( Read more... )

Wretched and pure
Tricky and dangerous
Do not question
Or challenge your fate
A promise written in blood
Take life for pay

Yours is not to ask why
Yours is to do and die
Professional killer

KMFDM, Professional Killer

I felt it swimming around me, as real as the skin on my flesh....Fate....

I'm in a well appointed study I have come to via a portal. It's not ( Read more... )

Every little thing she does is magic
Everything she do just turns me on
Even though my life before was tragic
Now I know my love for her goes on

Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, The Police

Memory is a funny thing. This place reminds me of all this.

I’m standing out by a cold, rocky beach outside of DC along a back road by the Ocean Gateway and I ( Read more... )