I decided I should add this section as the last three days have been quite hectic. I can only assume it’s been the days, as the light here seems to go in a cycle and feel like I’ve had three suppers and the breakfasts.
As an introduction, in case my journal should be separate from my person which feels more and more likely, my name is Anethesia. I come from old stock of a dignified standing. We are well to do with no need of commerce, in part because my uncle Richard has a tendency to find the most particular investments. Seven years ago he nearly broke the family leveraging not only his house but the main manor without my father’s knowledge. When airships figuratively exploded into popularity after being used as command posts for the Battle for Redmond, his only comment was “I seem to forget exact dates more often lately.” While the end did justify the means and my father was more than happy to spend his newfound wealth on extravagances like one of those godless automobiles he never seem to have forgotten Uncle. Needless to say I was amazed when I was sent to live with Uncle to further my education.
I’m a disappointment to my parents, having twenty-three years, and yet refusing to even consider marrying any of the suitors who have deigned ask my hand in matrimony. They are each below me and only want my name as a trophy to add to their lacking credentials.
This is not the first time I boarded with Uncle Richard, as every spring I would stay with him as my parents, in an ineffective effort to coddle me, would send me there to keep me from the noxious miasma coming off the moors. During my stay my education took a drastic turn from the misogynistic homemaking and pivot over to adventure. The only modern family I know of with a man-at-arms and an armourer, they took care of my physical training. Uncle’s opinion, which I value greatly, is that one needs to be only possible with revolver as the range is terrible but the damage terrible. For this reason I’m only passable with firearms, focusing instead on training with a rapier. Many of my contemporaries see the value of an eastern katana as being incredible, but being slight of frame I chose to go with a route more focused on finesse and passing than superior strength and a single deadly blow. Not to say that there is no skill employed by the throwbacks if the samurai class, but the stylized and honorable technique only works against each other, which it’s evidenced but the recent folding that foreign empire into being merely another barony beholden to the crown. Against Isaac, his man-at-arms, I now emerge successful three out of four, and against my uncle it comes down to a coin toss.
After three hours of the day, while with my uncle, and otherwise whenever left to my own devices, I further my education beyond the simplistic poetry reading, expanding into Latin, Aramaic, and the brutish Gaelic and other languages that are now whispers out of time, where the name of the culture itself has been forgotten. I’ve been given the opportunity to show my knowledge of modern physics, calling down a faux artillery airtime while uncle was considering the purchase of a specially crafted 20mm gun. I can debate a yogi and a priest on the nature of good and evil, and have them both agree with my supposition. In no quibling manner, I declare I have an excellent education well beyond the realm of my fairer sex peers.
This expansive knowledge led me to look at any suitor as substandard. They looked at me with the boorish perspective of a cattle buyer. Turn around, show your teeth, say something nice. The final straw for my parents, which is how I got sent to my uncle’s this last time, depsite having reached my majority, was Albert Jenkins. He came from a family of almost non-existant lineage, having a grandfather that at one time actually was more useful than the average pikeman. He was a pikemen. Albert was gangly with the face of a norsk rat, black stubbly facial hair appearing at odd angles, a perceptible hook to his nose. During a social, he, with the facilitation of mother, segregated me in the garden where he was to my wooing. The stecnch from his body, bathing once a week is not enough, caused my eyes to water and so I attempted to leave. He grabbed my hand to keep me under control, and I responded appropriately. With a suddeness, I pulled him towards me and then his using his momentum I acted most unfeminen by moving my knee up top catch him in his hurtling stomach. Unfortunately, not only is he from lesser stock, but he also is sickly, having difficulty catching his breath from even going up a flight of stairs. When his governess found him, he was practically purple in the face, and everyone was quite displeased. I indicated, rightly so, that if I had managed to cause him to expire down that lonekly garden path, that I would have been doing the world a great service, for that would mean one more fair maiden would never be the brunt of his odiferous advances nor his advancing odor.
Upon returning home, my biological parents had already begun to pack for my sojorn at a convent, as I was obviously not fit for marriage. My uncle though had been visiting a local bell founder when he heard what had happened and he pressured them to allow me to leave with him instead where he would lead me being a proper lady as was befit my station.