A Knight's Vows.
Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 10:31 pm
The sun rises across the lake, spreading the glow of a day freshly born across the world. On the bluffs overlooking the water, a man places the last stone on a tall cairn and steps back, wiping his hands on each other.
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*Marcus looks upon the pile of stones with a critical eye. Each stone represented, to him, a person remembered from the fishing village- his home. Each was a personal monument, however simple, to the face of someone who died so prematurely all those years ago, during the night everyone called the Knight of the Burning Skulls, the night that changed his life.
He nods with satisfaction. It had been far too long, this honoring of his friends and neighbors lost. He may have led the survivors of that bloody night to the safety of Far Reach, but he owed everything to these people that were left behind. Their loss had set him on a path that had given him new purpose in the world.
He sets his hammer to the ground with a soft thump which, eerily, resonates further than the soft earth should seem to carry it. More than just the simple weight of a collection of mage-crafted wood and steel, it makes any close onlooker feel that it is more the weight of duty that makes itself felt. He kneels to one knee in front of the cairn with both hands firmly around the handle of the weapon. Such was the balance and craftsmanship of his black-lacquered plate that it makes no more than a soft rustle and creak of leather. He stares over his hands at the pile of stones, and then wider at the lake beyond, and begins to speak loudly and clearly of the same words that are also written upon the scroll of leather that hangs from his waist.*
"...I will show unwavering Valor by standing fast in the face of danger, when fear of mortality would destroy all resolve.
...I shall ever practice the codes of Chivalry, to better show my courtesy to those who are fair, and conduct myself appropriately as a Knight.
...Compassion will be my face to those truly in need, as a light might illuminate a dark path.
...I will pursue Justice for any and all who have been wronged by foul deeds, and against all those who would use the innocent to further their own ends.
...I shall give my Service by standing in defense for those who cannot protect themselves.
I, Marcus Gideon, swear that within these five oaths I will hold true: To uphold the honor of the Order of the Hearth-Knights and spread the Light of freedom, knowledge and compassion against the looming Darkness formed of evil and unrest. Here, before my new brothers and sisters of the Order, I have been consecrated. I am charged to do something rarely seen in this world.
I do not fight for Lords, Emperors, or even holy tyrants. I do not fight to add lands to a fief, or for bounty, or to coerce others to believe as I do. I am a soldier engaged in a war to make others free. I fight to give all people a freedom from fear, a freedom from tyrants, and the freedom to choose their own destiny. This is not my personal crusade, I am but a man, infallible and mortal.
However, my mission is not the work of any one person - it is of the Hearth-Knights as an Order. If I am to fall tomorrow, another will raise the banner high and carry on. We exist for the good of the people, and we will ever serve."
His oaths spoken, he makes to rise to his feet, but catches himself with a hissed intake of breath and claps his hand to his knee. It is a sad sign of the times that for a man who was thirty years old and barely past his youth (for he was of half-Guthrie parentage), he has been in the path of such violence that he should already suffer the occasional lasting ache and pain.
He purses his lips as though at an old troublesome foe, and the hand upon his knee is suddenly suffused with an otherworldly blue glow, strangely radiating warmth despite it's cool color. He holds it there for a few moments and then stands with a grunt. If a sore knee from time to time was the worst he had to put up with, so be it. He gives his leg a little shake to loosen up any remaining kinks, and turns to go back to town.
He carries himself confidently. He suffers from no wars waged with personal demons, and he is not haunted by the ghosts of the past (indeed, what more could a naive young blacksmith's apprentice have done to change things? One moment that would have have been so wasted had he thrown himself at his villages attackers was far outweighed by the lives of those he could affect now that his quest had given him the skills he so sorely lacked those four years ago.); no...they are merely there to remind him why he is on his current path, and the memories of them are to quietly urge him forward when he might stumble or falter. They inspired him, and gave him strength of the truest kind.
(OOG he travels a main thoroughfare in Haven back to town, so it's easily possible that others would encounter him)
-------------------------------------
*Marcus looks upon the pile of stones with a critical eye. Each stone represented, to him, a person remembered from the fishing village- his home. Each was a personal monument, however simple, to the face of someone who died so prematurely all those years ago, during the night everyone called the Knight of the Burning Skulls, the night that changed his life.
He nods with satisfaction. It had been far too long, this honoring of his friends and neighbors lost. He may have led the survivors of that bloody night to the safety of Far Reach, but he owed everything to these people that were left behind. Their loss had set him on a path that had given him new purpose in the world.
He sets his hammer to the ground with a soft thump which, eerily, resonates further than the soft earth should seem to carry it. More than just the simple weight of a collection of mage-crafted wood and steel, it makes any close onlooker feel that it is more the weight of duty that makes itself felt. He kneels to one knee in front of the cairn with both hands firmly around the handle of the weapon. Such was the balance and craftsmanship of his black-lacquered plate that it makes no more than a soft rustle and creak of leather. He stares over his hands at the pile of stones, and then wider at the lake beyond, and begins to speak loudly and clearly of the same words that are also written upon the scroll of leather that hangs from his waist.*
"...I will show unwavering Valor by standing fast in the face of danger, when fear of mortality would destroy all resolve.
...I shall ever practice the codes of Chivalry, to better show my courtesy to those who are fair, and conduct myself appropriately as a Knight.
...Compassion will be my face to those truly in need, as a light might illuminate a dark path.
...I will pursue Justice for any and all who have been wronged by foul deeds, and against all those who would use the innocent to further their own ends.
...I shall give my Service by standing in defense for those who cannot protect themselves.
I, Marcus Gideon, swear that within these five oaths I will hold true: To uphold the honor of the Order of the Hearth-Knights and spread the Light of freedom, knowledge and compassion against the looming Darkness formed of evil and unrest. Here, before my new brothers and sisters of the Order, I have been consecrated. I am charged to do something rarely seen in this world.
I do not fight for Lords, Emperors, or even holy tyrants. I do not fight to add lands to a fief, or for bounty, or to coerce others to believe as I do. I am a soldier engaged in a war to make others free. I fight to give all people a freedom from fear, a freedom from tyrants, and the freedom to choose their own destiny. This is not my personal crusade, I am but a man, infallible and mortal.
However, my mission is not the work of any one person - it is of the Hearth-Knights as an Order. If I am to fall tomorrow, another will raise the banner high and carry on. We exist for the good of the people, and we will ever serve."
His oaths spoken, he makes to rise to his feet, but catches himself with a hissed intake of breath and claps his hand to his knee. It is a sad sign of the times that for a man who was thirty years old and barely past his youth (for he was of half-Guthrie parentage), he has been in the path of such violence that he should already suffer the occasional lasting ache and pain.
He purses his lips as though at an old troublesome foe, and the hand upon his knee is suddenly suffused with an otherworldly blue glow, strangely radiating warmth despite it's cool color. He holds it there for a few moments and then stands with a grunt. If a sore knee from time to time was the worst he had to put up with, so be it. He gives his leg a little shake to loosen up any remaining kinks, and turns to go back to town.
He carries himself confidently. He suffers from no wars waged with personal demons, and he is not haunted by the ghosts of the past (indeed, what more could a naive young blacksmith's apprentice have done to change things? One moment that would have have been so wasted had he thrown himself at his villages attackers was far outweighed by the lives of those he could affect now that his quest had given him the skills he so sorely lacked those four years ago.); no...they are merely there to remind him why he is on his current path, and the memories of them are to quietly urge him forward when he might stumble or falter. They inspired him, and gave him strength of the truest kind.
(OOG he travels a main thoroughfare in Haven back to town, so it's easily possible that others would encounter him)