Rivienne (prime)/A Leatherbound Journal

Rivienne woke feeling uncomfortable. Physically uncomfortable, having spent the night in the abbey library searching thousands of pages for one that might hold the key. Morally uncomfortable as well. She had spent most of the night trying to discover a way into another woman's journal. A reprehensible undertaking.

She thought about her own thinning journal and the way she used it as a tool. “Journals are like a garden of thoughts”, Rivienne mused, “Filled with the lush flora of hopes, desires, and imagination intertwined with stubborn weeds of doubt and insecurity”. Transcribing the intangible helped her to tend the blossoms and prune the invasive growth, cultivating her self awareness.

What matter she then burnt every page shortly after reviewing it?

After all, it is not the thoughts that we have, but those that we act upon, that decide who we are and who we will become.

Rivienne wondered which of Orelwen's actions had led to her journal being found in the underground laboratory. None of the scenarios she imagined boded well for Orelwen. Yet, the only thing she knew for certain this journal held was a peacock feather bookmark, which, she felt in her deeply superstitious soul, seemed a loyal talisman to keep within such a personal item. She smoothed the barbs of the feather before locking the journal away again. “Keep it safe,” she whispered into the air of the ancient abbey.

As she made her way to her private quarters, she found the sound of her footsteps echoing through the great halls satisfying, and began to hum a haunting Loenthran tune to their metronomic beat.