Ab Antiquo

Since we’ve been talking about purpose, I’ve begun to ask myself… what is the purpose of the city?

Why do we keep coming back? What calls us here?

This city has burned us—has spurned us—has broken us time and time again. And time and time again, we return, we return, we return.

Why the fuck.

You already have an answer; I can see it in your eyes. But patience. For now, let the dead speak. Today we’re doing a little seance. Today we’re going to wake the dead.

Mictian.

There’s a lot to be said for Mictian and The Splinters of Dusk. That is a story that I know you’ll want to hear. There are so many fragments, so many little fragments, that make up a mere fraction of the story of the Gekkonid.

I wouldn’t know where to start, so I’m not going to. But if you don’t know Mictian, know that he was a philosopher. Know that the story of the Gekkonid continues to splinter, pun very much intended, into other stories. The Gekkonid splinters still.

From Dusk—to Morningtide—to Eventide—

But enough of that history for now. There are a few here who actually spoke to Mictian, who sat in the same room with him, who shed the same blood. If you want to know the story of Mictian, speak to them. Adamas, perhaps. Mandolin, perhaps. Annabelle, perhaps? Seyda? Who else. Oberon, perhaps, from journals, from a dead wo—

But anyway. Mictian.

I want to hear him.

You’re here. Why?

You’re in this city. Why?

You keep coming back to it. Why?

After it’s beaten you and bled you and taken your will to keep dragging the weight of your guilt and the weight of everybody you’ve ever loved and lost, and the weight of your failures and your mistakes—WHY.

Are you mad? Are you a masochist?

Something must be bringing you back. This place has to mean something. This place has to be something—otherwise, why would you even bother?

I'm sorry. I've brought you here under false pretences. You're going to listen now.

I believe this city is a holy place. I believe this is where we go to accept the rites of our kind. OUR rites. OUR rituals. Vampire, werewolf, fae, demon—MONSTER. OURS. Yours and mine.

The rite of power: questing, grinding, LEARNING.

The rites of building and binding and siring and creating our lineages—finding our families, our friends, our homes—our kin.

The rites of bloodshed and camaraderie and the rite of claiming our Immortality every time we are bled to the point of True Death and stand again.

OUR rites. Our rituals.

This city—this home of our vendettas, our petty squabbles, our grudges, our failures, our resilience, our love, our passion, our friendships, our families, our hope, our FURY—

This is our holy land. This is our Mecca. We leave and return and leave and return—all part of the cycle.

Here are our proving grounds. Here is where we put our so-called Immortality to the test. We come to this city to embrace Death as a lover, as an enemy, as a mother, as a friend. We rebel against Her, like all prodigious and prodigal children do. We rebel against Her, we rage against Her, we resist Her and evade Her for as long as we can and She loves us for it.

One day we all go back home to Her anyway.

One day we will.

One day it’ll be our names in the Graveyard, never to return from the shadow again.

I’m sorry. It’ll happen. You’ve seen it. You were there.

I think Mictian understood that. And I think he understood that true Immortality is about mastering yourself so that you can do the hard work of telling your story. Yours. Of shedding blood to tell it, if you must. Of making peace in an eternal warzone, if you can stomach it. Of telling your story. Of making your voice be heard. Of joining it into the chorus of voices—of the many voices gone but not forgotten that make the roar of this city.

Listen to it. It’s beautiful. It’s there if you’d just LISTEN. It’s sleeping now, it’s been asleep so long, but it’s shifting. It’s stretching. Wake it up.

You’re afraid of another Capadocious. Afraid of another Join Or Die. Well, let me tell you, vampire, this is the Join or Die of our lives. Right here, right now.

Tomorrow you may find me at one end of a stake but here and now, we fight together. We fight for survival. We fight for coexistence.

JOIN this city and wake up. JOIN the chorus of voices and make your mark. JOIN the dance and change, and grow, and LIVE, god damn you, or die.

Make something. Say something.

Or stagnate, and stay there, and wither, and die in the only way that matters.

@Lady Crimson said it here, herself, yesterday: “When you quit learning is when you start dying."

And when you stop telling your story—when you stop making your mark—you die.

And I defy you to LIVE, god damn you. I defy you to tell me your stories. I defy you to make me listen to you. I defy you to give me no choice. I defy you to prove wrong everyone who’s ever made you feel less than, made you feel insignificant, made you feel like nothing. Absolutely, undeniably, immortally wrong. I include that enemy in your mind. Prove it wrong.

Prove them all wrong. You peaceful, you vicious, all of you. Don’t stay down. Don’t stay silent.

MAKE your mark.

MAKE this city listen. I want to hear you. Let us all hear you.

Mictian exhorted us to master ourselves—to test our Immortality. And here are our holy testing grounds. Here is our vestibule, our threshold, our bardo, our Mecca. This I believe. This I will fight for—this city’s purpose—until it gives up on itself and dies a true death.

And then, I suppose, onward. None of us are strangers to burying our beloved dead.

None of us are immortal. We will all fall one day into shadow, never to return.

But for now, rage. Rage against the dying of the light. Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Before I leave you to discuss at will, some homework:

Look at your manifesto. What does it say, if anything, about this city and its purpose? What does it say about your purpose as it relates to this city?

I can't wait to hear your voice, kin. I've been waiting so long to hear it. Make them listen.