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Post by Septon Abelar on Mar 20, 2019 3:25:08 GMT 1
Septon Abelar has just finished preaching to an especially ragged group of beggars at the edge of an Oldtown alley, when he spots a familiar face across the street waiting for him.
Just as they said, he lives. Thank the Seven.
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Post by Titus Blackbriar on Mar 21, 2019 15:28:47 GMT 1
It was bound to happen. This is why he had travelled to Oldtown. To see Abelar, to speak to him.
Face to face.
He had not been hard to find. The Septon had been given free reign to roam since Lord Leo's trial. No longer welcome in Highgarden nor Gyldenhaal but free. In Oldtown one merely had to seek out the gathered masses in the streets. There where many preachers in Oldtown but none like Abelar. Titus had watched him the last days, each time his courage failing to approach the Septon, each time slinking away before being noticed. Until today. Now there Abelar stood before him, gaunt and harrowed. They stood there.
Face to face.
Titus remains unmoving until the beggars scatter, Abelar would have to be the one to come to him.
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Post by Septon Abelar on Mar 25, 2019 2:14:41 GMT 1
The septon approaches Titus slowly, careful to not swoop upon him as he might have done in months past. He raises his eyes to Titus's, trying to measure the boy's--no the man's--emotional state. He must hate me. I would hate me if I were him.
"Titus, I'm happy to see you're alive. And in good health, it seems. I'm sorry for what I did." He grimaces a bit. "I was blinded, and I sought my goal through any means necessary. I never meant for your father to die like that. For you . . . for any of them really. I didn't think." His eyes flicker downwards.
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Post by Titus Blackbriar on Mar 25, 2019 18:04:50 GMT 1
For a moment, Titus just stands there, staring at the Septon.
Seeking forgivness... he hadn't thought it. He hadn't dared. Titus had wanted him dead, hanged with the rest of the rabble. Then he wanted him alive but punished. A white robe exchanged for a black cloak. A life serving the realm on the roof of the world with nothing but the freezing night to hear his sermons. Because Titus knew that in this, as with all things, Abelar would be unrelenting, unrepentant.
Titus knew.
Yet the man before him, robe dirty and frayed, bare feet bruised and calloused seemed almost ashamed. A man broken, a man repentant. Whatever Titus had imagined this meeting to be, and he had thought of it many times, this was not it. Titus couldn't rage, he hated the septon but could not bare it.
Without speaking he embraces Abelar, bringing him in hard. The frail man like a rag-doll to the knight.
"I've hated you." he whispers, "I wanted you dead."
Past tense.
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Post by Septon Abelar on Mar 26, 2019 3:01:49 GMT 1
Abelar is shocked by the embrace.
His body begins to heave with sobs as he clutches Titus back. In a moment, the roles they have inhabited all their lives are reverse. It's Abelar who is the child, unable to hold composure the face of his own misdeeds. "I . . . " It's a futile attempt--the septon is still as unsteady as a boy overborne by the self-loathing of failure; the self-doubt, following a first, serious dressing-down. He wobbles against Titus for a moment or two longer, until he has spent himself on the knight's shoulder.
"I failed you. I failed them all."
His lips are pursed as if they buttress the floodgates of Riverrun.
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Post by Titus Blackbriar on Mar 28, 2019 0:38:49 GMT 1
"Aye. You did."
He can not bear to look the Septon in the eyes. Not yet.
"Yet, you and I live... and they do not." It's not an accusation as much a terrible statement of an unbearable truth. "What are you to do to set that right?"
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Post by Septon Abelar on Mar 30, 2019 4:48:43 GMT 1
"Penance. Prayer. Piety. Nothing can return them from the Stranger's grasp. But even now, I am wracked with doubts." He wipes his eyes on a filthy sleeve. "I erred grievously. Now I face judgment of septons and lords, some of ill enough repute. Some of the character of that Merryweather, who drove me to the dark place during the tourney. Are the Seven testing my resolve? Punishing me with the cruelest tools possible? Am I to suffer their slings, jeers, and judgments, even as they plot murder and mayhem? Or am I meant to fight them to the last breath?"
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Post by Titus Blackbriar on Apr 3, 2019 22:58:30 GMT 1
"You are to endure. Whether they are testing or punishing you, you are to endure. Lord Eldon will be judged, if not in this world then the next. But a man like that... no matter how weak the law of men stands in our realm, can not avoid justice forever. No one can." There was a strange forebodance to his words, not quite intent but a resolve. Something he had told himself over and over again to make sense of the world.
He looks over to the small opening, not quite a square but more a crossroads of the winding streets of Oldtown, where the Septon had been preaching just moments before. "You do not intend to stop serving the Gods." It was a statement more than a question "This Tribunal, Lord Leo might have spared your life but this Tribunal is for something else. Your purpose. What if the Most Devout deem you unfit to speak for the Gods?"
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Post by Septon Abelar on Apr 5, 2019 5:05:10 GMT 1
"It is a credit to the silent sisters that they serve the gods even when denied the ability to speak. So it is possible to serve under such conditions. Of course, it would be mighty struggle within. I am known for my tongue." He steps back a bit, bringing them to a more normal conversational distance.
"The Tribunal will have much on its mind. Our silent sisters will have much work in the months to come, it seems, and the likes of Septon Roswyn will not fail to react."
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Post by Titus Blackbriar on Apr 10, 2019 12:27:50 GMT 1
”Yes. There may be dark days ahead... Hells, they are allready upon us!” His eyes dart to the Septon, ”Forgive me.” You shouldn’t curse.
”But you haven’t answered my question. What if the Tribunal strips you of your robes, sash and Seven-Pointers Star?”
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Post by Septon Abelar on Apr 12, 2019 1:26:28 GMT 1
Abelar clarifies.
"I will continue to serve the Seven, as a parishioner instead of a priest. The great strength of the church lies in the common, goodly folk who take up the Faith of the Seven. Who honor them in their daily lives, as well as on holy days and festivals. To become one of them again would not be such a huge loss. There are worse fates."
With that, the septon changes the subject.
"But what of you, ser? What does the future hold for you?"
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