Has silence taken you?

You know, I always wondered how that worked when there were lots of Arani around. Did they all go around shouting at each other, like children playing games of pretend, hoping that their voice would be loudest and their choices become shared reality? Can they see when others of their kind have meddled in something? Why didn't they just... talk the Null away, for instance? (No, no, don't nitpick this; I can see you all out there raising your quills to say that they didn't need to - perhaps not in this timeline, but in countless others, no Arani saved the world.) Presumably even sociopathic immortal entities wielding absolute power would like the world to stick around - and this one in particular seems to be on the general side of things continuing to exist, or he would not be shoving scrolls in our hands.

If it is so important that the power be released from these scrolls to accomplish some effect - this binding of Fate and Bardics to the new Weave, or defeating Necrophitus, or whatever - why doesn't this all-powerful being just speak aloud that it happens? I do not think for a moment that it's out of some kind of paternal "the mortals must do things on their own" sort of instinct. Perhaps a sadistic one; perhaps he enjoys watching us scramble. More likely, I suspect it is because there are limits to his power. To take blindly that when your dear, wonderful grandfather (that you never seem to miss an opportunity to remind us is your grandfather - you can stop now; believe me, we are all aware) says as gospel truth is foolish. Are you sure you don't just buy the whole spiel because it makes you sound even more special by extension?

Even assuming this ultimate power works exactly the way you believe it does, all he said was that two would be sung. (And from his little posting here, he was getting frustrated that nothing was happening yet - yet another nail in the coffin of his power.) Two. Of the three (at least) unsung. Nor was there any timing specified. The original statement could still have been an immutable truth if one was held back and sung in a new age when bardics had no supernatural force, because they were never tied to the Weave.

I was fated to sing it, yes. Because I loathe Croinamara. Because my nature is to follow incomplete stories to learn more. Because both myself and Adam Hand share the same impetus behind our wounds. Because love was fed to an eternal hunger. Because I am just an ordinary woman. Because

we only own our hell

It was my Fate. But I still had a choice.

My response to Dear Grandad was not some damned poetry contest entry. It was the songs, because I wanted to tell him something without giving him any of my own words. He has used me twice now; I did not want to give him any more pieces of me than have already been taken. I speak now because, after all this, I have come to an interesting point.

Devariatus, if you must use our voices to accomplish what you want done, then our voices are more powerful than yours.

So come. Try to prove me wrong. We will see whose praxis is stronger, and whose words linger when this is through.

Besides, sometimes enough fates get tossed around by time, you can't complete an Arani's words. I'm proof of that.
I wonder if there is some 'one's stronger/louder' that makes that happen.

Lois, that was very well written. Thank you.

-Ilana