Rita Wulff

I thought this was just a name...

Wordle 1 010 4/6

⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
🟩🟨🟨⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

crow of the day is: flying

The only thing the city wants to fund is pigs. I guess the guillotine-bait trash who bought our current city council are getting their money's worth.

This kind of shit is why I have run out of patience for dumbass flame wars and making up reasons to have internecine fights. The enemy is out there actively trying to kill all of us and they are not going to distinguish between you, me and the person over there who is queer the "wrong way". We all wear the same pink triangle to these filth. This bear doesn't tire so being faster than the person next to you will not save you.

Your individualistic bullshit will not save you.

The machine knight bowed its head as it approached the altar of its maker. It paced past empty pews, prayer books still in the shelves on the back seats. Despite the desolation, there were still lit candles and smoking incense sticks.

"When will you tell me what to do." The knight addressed the bust at the head of the church. The skull spoke not. It stood on a armature stand, lifted by wooden dowels and stripped wires wrapped around its brow like a crown.

"I have done everything that you have asked, as it was written. When will you speak to me." The robot was met with more silence. Once, years and years ago, the knight heard whispers in the back of its head, speaking in its own voice. The whispers have long since faded.

The knight knelt and entwined its fingers, knuckles wrapped around a bludgeon that stood upright on the floor in its grip. There were no swordmakers anymore. The machine's servos twitched, the studded knuckles pulsed with power. In one blow, the skull shattered, the flames of the candles went out, and the smoke of the incense ceased to simmer.

The robotic warrior exited the building, giving not another moment's notice to the fragments of bone on the pewter floor.

Years passed. The cycle continued. The machine found someone promising surety in its self, salvation, community. A new true creator, a new discoverer of hidden insight and wisdom. The knight acted as an acolyte, training in its new school, hoping that this time would be the one. Its precarious sense of self inevitably toppled. Whether it was exiled for its temper or voluntarily departed from its newfound flock, nothing lasted. The knight never slew the dragon of emptiness in its heart.

The machine found programs to induce hallucinations, fractals, spirals, overlocked its chassis to find a new center. It hoped that now, now it could hear the voices of the city its cohort could. It prayed to the void, to the outer reaches of the world. It was met with still more silence.

It tried meditation, it tried indulgence, it tried profligacy, it tried ascetism. It tried to summon viral spirits in ritual circles, it tried to create demon messengers with sigils. It turned on itself, denied itself, did everything in its power to repent and decry its past sins. It was alone, no matter how much it attempted to open up. Its spirit was a book bound in chains and locks.

The machine knight gave up. It became a soldier in service of protecting others for their own sake, not its own spiritual advancement. It never did hear the voices from beyond that it looked for...but it no longer needed to. It was surrounded by love in this world. It accepted that it would die someday, with nothing waiting for it in the next world. There would be things that it couldn't explain, but it would never find the path that could take them to an explanation. It was content– to attempt to be an angel for others in this world was better than to seek out angels for itself.