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All responses Most smiled responses
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We were not allowed books as children. My mother felt that learning made a child willful and prone to violence, and saw to it that reading materials were kept as far from her offspring as she could muster. And she was exacting, with eyes like a torch at dawn, blistering away the fog that might be thrown up to confound her.
Though, it must be said that however sharp her eyes were, the woman had short arms. The top shelf was beyond her reach, and therefore beyond her purview. So it was there my siblings and I stashed out bounty of words and phrases, scrabbling up the shelves like monkeys so that we might learn how to me more than mere apes.
My favorite book of these purloined and hidden gems will always be Hypatia's HISTORIES AND LIES. Hypatia never differentiated between the two, which is where she and I part ways. -
All of them. But I cannot give you details. For if I did, who knows how many of those kind folks who took me in would now be facing prosecution?
(Also, I am cheating a bit, as while I have spent time in Vrussia, I have not spent time in ALL of Vrussia. It is a large empire, and my boots only last so long. I did, however, visit Charnzio, Felds and Juhdew before they became part of Vrussia, which should count for something)
But, I can say I've been to all of them. I can say that. Amperstam was last on my list, and now I am here. I expect all that remains is the moon. -
I have performed in the circus, back in my youth when I mistook danger for desire and fear for fondness.
If you go out to the borders of the Vrussian Empire--not as far as Scalzi, mind--you'll find many a traveling show, eager to separate you from your time and your money. I was a member of such a band. I juggled. I threw knives. I performed small but exciting forays into the dark arts. It is not a piece of my my life I am proud of, but for a young truth seeker it was the perfect thing. There are only illusions in the circus. Which made it easy to see them once I left.
It addition, I am now extremely adept at throwing knives. Also, juggling. -
You cannot be a writer like me. And even if you could, I would kill you before you had the chance. I accept no duplicates.
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The Truth, darling. Always the truth. The truth can destroy armies, lay waste to cities, bring the strongest man to his knees and weep at your feet. Always the truth.
That said, I keep a wickedly curved hunting knife lashed to my thigh at all times,.Because while the truth is powerful, it is can slow to work. The truth works like a poison, a virus, worming its way through hearts and minds. It is effective, but there are times you need to cut a bastard and run for the hills. For those situations, I have the honesty of a sharp blade against soft skin. -
I speak only one: TRUTH. However, I speak it many tongues. Some are modern. Some are ancient, grunting spits of speech, from the bowels of time itself, when we wandered, ape-like, full of naked honesty and unchecked aggression. Yet others are of languages not yet known, future talk from races we have yet to meet. I have spoken all of these, for they are all ways to say the truth, which is all I will ever speak.
And if I need to ingest a series of hallucinogenic substances in order to obtain this heightened state of truth-speak, so be it. Much worse has been done for far less noble a cause.
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Hanner Gatling
Redlaw Arms, Amperstam
Hanner Gatling’s Bio
I am a truth-teller. I am an oracle of the darkness, the likes of which would never be revealed were it not for my blazing eyebeams. I write The Hunter. Incunabula of the truth.
