The Tome of Angelina

Entry I — The Pen and the Blade

There is no greater insult in the heavens than to say one is predictable. And yet, I find comfort in Angelina’s predictability.
She meets conflict with open eyes and an unsheathed sword.
She does not plot, nor connive, nor spiral into the dramas that plague Krorone or Bhita. Her creed is simple: strength with purpose. Strike cleanly. Hold honor like a blade.
She is, in every way, the antithesis of what I am.
Where I am script, she is scar. Where I am quiet deliberation, she is divine conviction.
And yet... I do not scoff at her the way I once did.
There is truth, I think, in how she moves. Not the truth I seek—but a truth she lives.
She told me once, “Your words will be buried beneath ash if there’s no sword to guard them.”
I did not respond. I didn’t know how to.

Entry II — Clash in Doctrine

We spoke at length, once, in the aftermath of sealing off the fey.
She called it a necessary intervention. I called it butchery.
She stood over the battlefield like a statue carved from resolve, blood drying on her gauntlets. She said, “What you call tragedy, I call clarity. These mortals needed strength, not your riddles.”
I asked if their suffering taught them strength.
She said nothing for a long while. Then: “It teaches survival. And survival is the beginning of strength.”
In that moment, I saw the flaw in her logic.
But also, the flaw in mine.
I wonder now if she saw the same in me.

Entry III — The Sword masters and the Silent Accord

When she founded the Orders—Blade, Guard, Grip, Sheath—I was invited to witness the consecration. I declined.
Now I regret it.
The mortals who followed her did not revel in war, as I feared. They studied it. Honored it. Sharpened themselves upon its edge like whetstones.
I watched a Warden of hers once walk away from battle, sword still clean.
When I asked why he spared his foe, he quoted her teachings: “War is not wrath. It is duty. And duty does not always kill.”
I thought then that maybe she had grown wiser than I gave her credit for.
Or perhaps I had grown more foolish.
That evening, I reread my oldest texts.
They felt... incomplete.

Entry IV — Her Fall

I felt it before I saw it.
A shattering in the upper planes. A silence so sharp it left a ringing in my mind.
Angelina had fallen.
I will not write of the War of the Celestials in detail. The others have carved their propaganda deep into the stone of memory. Let their versions stand.
But I will say this: When she fell, I did not mourn the warrior. I mourned the balance.
The world is less precise without her.
I hear the clang of untempered steel in the prayers of her scattered disciples.
They still wield her name—but not her wisdom.
No one has truly carried her legacy.
And I… I am too much a coward to try.

Entry V — The Hollow Axis

It has been centuries.
And yet, I still write toward her, as if she might read these pages.
In her absence, Bhita runs unchecked. Krorone’s darkness lingers longer than it should. Ilmos has grown more detached, and Felotl—well, Felotl was always a variable.
But me? I am lopsided.
I drafted the Divine Accord with her objections in mind. I made doctrine with her fury at my side.
Now, my pen moves unopposed. And it drags.
The war she carried kept us clean, in a strange way. Her sword cleaved not only flesh, but ego. She reminded us that ideas without form are useless—and that strength without meaning is damnation.
I write rules now no one enforces.
And worse… I hear myself becoming what she once warned me against.
A scribe without challenge.
A god without mirror.

Final Entry - The Unsent Letter

Angelina,

Your absence has reshaped more than I expected. The silence you left behind is not quiet—it is structured. Heavy. Intentional.
Even now, I find myself tracing the edges of it, like a rune half-carved into the foundation of the world. I used to believe that we were opposites by necessity—pen and blade, mind and muscle, deliberation and impulse. But the longer I study what has happened since the War of the Celestials, the more I realize: we were not opposites. We were halves.
You were the hand that acted. I was the mind that hesitated. And between us, there was balance.

When you fell, they called it slight justice. They whispered about recklessness, unchecked aggression, a sword too eager to swing. But I remember your restraint. I remember that your blade was only drawn when your voice had gone unheard. And I remember that, in the end, it was not your wrath that frightened them. It was your resolve.

There are fractures now—subtle ones. I won’t name them. I won’t describe what I see, or where I see it. I’ve learned to write in metaphor. It’s safer.
But I will say this: Your fall did not end something. It delayed something. And the delay is ending.

I have spent an eternity preserving their boundaries. Upholding systems I did not build but was entrusted to maintain. Now, I question whether I was made to protect something that no longer deserves preservation. But I will not say this aloud. Not even to myself. Only to you.

But if this world is to mean anything… then I must be willing to act. Or at least, be ready.

Pen in one hand.
Blade in the other.
Just in case.

Hydall