Oleg Semonov - Bio and Journal
Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 12:00 am
Excerpt from the Journal of Oleg Semonov:
With raiment and arms shall friends gladden each other,
so has one proved oneself;
for friends last longest, if fate be fair
who give and give again.
It is done at last!  With Selenda having recovered enough of her strength to regain consciousness, she and Jaeyna have reconciled. It will take some time for her to recover her full strength, but when she does, the three of us will be unstoppable! Bernadette, that cowardly niding - her days are numbered, as they always have been!
Selenda described the anger she felt, not just from her wielding the shard, but her own fury narrowing the choices before her until only the most direct path remained. She described the anger radiating from Salarak's remains, the intoxication of the power she felt, and how it influenced her using her own anger as a base. Reluctant as I am to say "I told her so"...I told her so. That is also one reason why I am so reluctant to see her go back to wielding a shard. I would rather not see this become a cyclic affair, in which she takes up a shard, fails to see reason for the duration until she nearly kills herself again, and then launches into another round of apologies before going back to doing exactly as she did before. I've only so much patience, and she only has so much life in her. Jaeyna's nightmares have not abated, either, meaning the shards are still a threat.
That, among other reasons, is why I made my offer to take her on as my kertilsvein. As an aside, I am surprised that she knows the word. I never took her to be dim, but time and again she surprises me with her knowledge and wisdom, particularly since I took Jaeyna to be the pillar of such. Could it be that there is another culture on Aria that has a similar language, makes use of similar terminology, and has a level of technology equaling that of Russ? Those peoples I have met on Aria meet at least one of these prerequisites, but not yet all three.
Selenda said she would need time to consider my offer. That is fine. When Rogvolod the Seer offered to make me his kertilsvein, I know I was similarly awed. But I was a boy of 14, and after the initial shock passed, I leapt at the chance to join him. I wanted to be like my brother Vladimir, who had left a few weeks prior to Rogvolod's coming to become a viking...how little I knew, then. The magnitude of what I am attempting with Selenda, of mentoring one from an entirely different world, is far greater. She is particularly concerned that without the shard, she would not have the ability to call on her seidr and she would be worth less as a result. I have written on this already, but there is one thing I have discovered. It seems there are those paladins and gothi who draw their powers not from any one god, but from the strength of their beliefs, their devotion to justice and honor. It seems a queer notion to me. I've heard it said that the gods need worshipers to survive, but I believe man needs gods as well. The gods reward us for our notions of law and honor and community by giving us the power to defend those ideals and that which they created. It is also not a guarantee that the seidr in Aria will work the same way as it does in Midgard. But perhaps there's a chance...if it means Selenda has power independent of the shards, it is a chance worth taking.
And although I can show Selenda the door, she herself must open it. It is not my wish to hammer my beliefs into her head; we are warriors, not zealots. Our pupils should and will ask questions, and it is our duty to answer them truthfully. They will test our beliefs and ask us "why?"; these beliefs should be tested for their strength and utility, elsewise they are nothing, disconnected from reality. Odin and his brothers made Midgard and man, but man made law and honor; the gods adopt them, bless our efforts, give us strength to defend them, in return for our devotion. So where a god has been false, as in the case of Aukeisier, it falls to man once again to defend that which he made. If he can draw power from that, so much the better. I don't think it's an easy way, if it is indeed possible, but I would sooner that than Salarak's influence any day.
Triana and Thalladen also visited, bringing us vital information. The Caledrians have been pillaging the Aumaati lands still under their control, stripping the lands of trees and ore in order to build something in Caledria. In addition, Sabine Bernadette is on her way to those lands in Rahvas Udu controlled by the kurja in order to speak with their leader. This is a precious opportunity that we cannot neglect. We can slay the kurja leader and that cowardly niding Bernadette in a single stroke! After Rahuko, we were already making plans to go to Rahvas Udu and slay this kurja warlord - now, that objective has become all the more critical.
After she left, Selenda shared with me some surprising information. After Jaeyna and I informed Triana of the events of Rahune, she and the Vatassi began raiding every Caledrian outpost they could find - not for the slight against herself, but for the slight against my person. I did not realize that she held me in such high esteem...I look back at the words I had written just a few days ago and feel ashamed. The pain that she felt from her brother's death is the very same pain that Selenda felt at the murder of her husband. This is not sneering contempt for the way of honor - it is a struggle against anger and grief and hurt and their subversive power. I cannot forgive one and condemn the other for the same thing...and since I have already forgiven Selenda, I may as well forgive Triana. All the same, she and I need to come to a common standard of war to which we can both be held accountable, or else this will keep happening. And for all that grief and anger are a factor, there are lines that I will not cross. It would be wrong to ask me to cross them for their sake.
That was another way in which Selenda's wisdom surprised me. I have not even taken her as my kertilsvein, yet I am already learning from her, the oblique way in which a mentor learns from his student. One of the other reasons she was hesitant to accept my offer was because she fears to disappoint me. But she is sword-sister to me. Yes, some of her words and actions have been irritating to me, but she could only ever disappoint me by embracing the niding's path. Using the shards in and of itself does not constitute dishonor, no matter how worrying it is to me, but slaughtering prisoners and the innocent, twisting, raping, and dominating minds, using poison, acting in bad faith, violating dignity - all of these things certainly would, and I've not seen her to do any of these things yet. I told her of the dream that I had, too, and my desire to make it a reality. She was receptive to the idea - surprisingly so, I dare to say. She was more ambivalent when Jaeyna proposed that she leave the service of Aumaa for a time after the war is over to come travel with us.
Perhaps it is time for me to stop, how you say, beating around the bush and say that I love her. That is not to say that I want her. Jaeyna is the one that I want. I know you are reading this, Yaropolk, and I know you are going to try and twist my words, you little shit. A romance with her is not what I wish, nor a love triangle. I am content with Jaeyna in that regard. These things being said, the differences between the way I care for Selenda and the way I care for Jaeyna are disappearing. I love her as kin loves kin, the same way I love my brothers and my parents - maybe even the same way Jaeyna cares for Selenda, assuming I haven't dramatically misinterpreted their relationship. How the Hel am I supposed to explain that, though, if asked? "Selenda, you know I care very deeply for you, but Jaeyna is the one I want, so don't expect this to deepen at all, mmm?" To either of them? "Jaeyna, you know I love you, but I'm also growing close to your best friend, so I hope it won't be a problem if I share some of that intimacy with her, yes? Not even all of it!" This is not good. Perhaps I should not have written that.
On the other hand, what else am I to call it? There is nothing I would not do for either of them, and I want them to be a large part of my life. I want to share in their triumphs and in their troubles. I want to teach them what I know with the time I have, so that they might succeed in their endeavors. I want to marry Jaeyna and one day father children with her, and I want Selenda to be there when I marry Jaeyna - when, I say, and damn the king and my peers if they do not approve! I would lay down my life if it meant either of them might live. What else am I to call that, if not love?
To Hel with it. I will go and pray to Freyja and Frigga for help in sorting out my feelings. This is a delicate matter. I do not expect such feelings to be reciprocated - although in the case of Jaeyna, they certainly are - but I owe an explanation to myself, at least, or to the gods, or to whoever should read this after my time has passed. (I don't owe you anything, Yaropolk. So stop pestering me about it.) For the nonce, I hope Selenda accepts my offer. It would be my greatest joy to teach her. The times ahead will not be easy, but neither she nor I chose this path because it was easy. We chose it because it was hard, because the easy path was insufficient for us. Certainly the Aumaati might end the war with nothing but the shardbearers - crush the Caledrians, spare no one, and drive their seed into the ground, so that they might never threaten Aumaa again. But apart from being practically nigh-impossible, strategically problematic, and risking exposure to Salarak's corruption, the Aumaati will still have lost the war.
Because I see the true enemy now. It is grief, terror, overwhelming anger, the forces that drive us to compromise who we are and all that we have achieved. It is the fear of threat that drives men to abandon all decency, to liken themselves to animals, the fear of threat that makes the dishonorable, the uncivilized, so tempting. The secret - the reason why, after ten years, I still call myself a champion of Rurik and all that is just and good - is that we need not always win. We need only fight. Our honor is a construct - it is made by us, a deliberate limitation on our capabilities, followed because we believe in something more than naked power, than mere survival. And we believe in these because just by forming communities and laws, man has already rejected the idea of power and survival being end-all, be-all, because we wanted meaning in our actions and our lives. I weep for those poor souls who believe the opposite - we rejected animal behavior for a reason.
And that is why the gods reward us. And that is why Thor defends mankind. And that is why Rurik unites us. And that is why I defend not just my people, but the Aumaati and Rahvassi, and Selenda and Jaeyna in particular. In those two I place my hopes. So long as the three of us keep fighting with honor, Aumaa and Rahvas Udu are not yet vanquished. May the Aesir watch over us all!