#happy smfs day for those who celebrate!!!!!

[wintercrash]

ready for the fob sweep

[dragoninatrenchcoat]

Journal of the Creature Crafter: Hermitage

Entry 10     Am.M.L.04

A crafter who lives alone with a menagerie of half-composed creations is many things. A magician, one might say, whose preoccupation with alchemy—itself a high and arcane art, and older than the history of the world—fills shelves with strange and mystical things, shining their vibrant colors onto the crafter’s mysterious silhouette. A hermit, may posit another, whose house is shuttered against newcomers and shielded from prying eyes. An artist, might claim a third, whose worldly contemplation and insight multiply in the endless silence and birth themselves anew in the delicate layers of a creature’s winter coat.

Lonely, a fourth might supply, stepping out from behind a closed wooden door.

The reasons I moved to a place far from A’Srahd and far from Yezervias were perfectly necessary, and my life has only improved since I have done so. My commitment to my creatures—occupation in Ra’Voskim notwithstanding—has only grown, both within and without me and my self.

I do not prefer to record specific persons in this journal, beyond by necessity myself; this journal is an introspective exercise in order to study the craft of creature-making and my growth within that field. Suffice it to say, then, that there are people in A’Srahd and, yes, Yezervias (a town so small that cartographers have been known to overlook it entirely) who I have through this been forced to leave behind.

There are letters, there are pre-arranged meetings. Once, I was able to sit down with one of my mentors as they passed through the town nearest my humble outpost. The frank conversation about the craft and its real consequences, the talk of Shepherds and Territories, such faraway concepts to me and my unfinished beasts, was like a spring breeze sweeping in from the dying cold of winter. Even in the secret workshop of Vasotyr there are few such conversations.

And yet, despite all of this, I find I have been wearing my hermitage as a cloak about my shoulders. When others of the Workshop extend their hand to me in invitation, smiles lit upon their faces and those of the unfinished creatures clinging to their arms and shoulders, I find myself declining. I retreat instead to my secret place in the woods and I close the door behind me.

Why, if often in these long, quiet days I dream of the boisterous voices of my friends in A’Srahd, the friendly and righteous creature Noh-Eptfd smf Dzsaa Yplrmd which I had once studied as a friendly critic, and whose gifts I continue to hold close to my heart? Why, if I can but long for those I’ve left in Yezervias, their happy smiles and endless laughter, the greeting of open-arms?

Once recently, I received an invitation to the golden city of creation, in celebration of one of my friends. The festivity was to be a thing of great splendor, draped in colors and shining gems, filled with dancing and merriment and drink, creatures underfoot like serpentine mammals with thick, soft fur, fluttering bird-like beasts with bright feathers and pleasant songs.

Suppose I had nothing to wear to the occasion. Suppose, also, that such would not have been hard to find.

Suppose that traveling alone through the city of gold would have been difficult and strenuous. Suppose, also, that it would not have been impossible.

I have always dreamed of the inlaid walks of A’Srahd, and my memories of Yezervias are pure as morning light, and craftwork is not a substitute for human friendship and companionship, and yet still I hide inside my home and shield myself behind the soft winter undercoat of Haovjy’s dark fur.

There are no answers for me today. Not here in my home, not here in this journal, not here in my self. Perhaps I am affecting a temporary melancholy which will sweep away with the right turn of fate. Perhaps I am becoming something that I should not be. I can only hope that in recording the peculiar feeling of pushing away that which is wanted most, I may provide my future self—or any future readers—some measure of context or perspective for the work that I will continue to do, the work that I will ever continue to do.