The stumblings of a squire

[Wart]

[A mousy binding in changing boxes across the College. Most names are darkly blotted by ink...]

Hziran 23rd, IY 7789...
I saw it again in a dream; high in the ruins, fretting amongst the easy shades – the song thrush, the nightingale, easy drifts to delicate sleep. If all that I wished for was rest—to look up and see green and sip from easy pools—should I never have left that tower? All the air was thick with Spring, all the boughs were heavy with the sweetest fruits.
Hziran 24th, IY 7789...
Was ever a squire burdened by broken swords and cut cheeks! I've spent my blood to serve, but it'll be a small drop in the pool. [...] is what the world has made him, but would that I had met him earlier, in better days, before they were all lashed into their shapes [redacted, a mess on the page]

[...]

There was a halfling in the underground, stuffed away in dusty antiquity. Faith has made him live like a mole, and I envy him -- pray that I can trust something here so much. The war is heavy and the old world's engines turn on us hot-blooded. Time will out-crumble us all.
Hziran 25th, IY 7789...
[...] was made balladeer. She is the best of us, and I pity her. She isn't like our warmongers (who, if I call tiresome, I risk blaspheming against [...] only in these wordy confines), but by necessity does what she must to pluck at paradise. The executioners will have no place when we forget the weight of our swords.

[... ...] has not softened on the business of sacrament, but I hold out hope to chase the truth down a ruddy red draught.
Hziran 26th, IY 7789...
Shortly we're to war. A knife between our teeth and the best dog on top -- there's chivalry there, a blackened brand, but it'll snuff men out in the bargain. When I pass, it won't be with overmuch regret, but leastways done stubbornly as not to disgrace, steel in hand and a last lash against the Enemy for a bloody knell... then to the poppies. Good fellows there. I fear that fate less than listing away the long days for a nothingness – standing in the sands and staring at the wastes before me, and a year later staring all the same but now the sand has risen knee-high in the College and the roses are stubbly gasping red and no ground has been gained but plenty lost . . . If I've written my dream I ought to write my nightmare.

Before my time comes and I repose, I'll ask [...] to share this book (ideally swelled by then with some spare thoughts) to whosoever might find in it some worth – perhaps, even, to continue it themselves.
Hziran 27th, IY 7789...
Now away to take the haft over the pen. Poor fate -- or worse prophecy. I can't be so sure.

never shall we wilt

[...]