“The challenge, therefore, is not in the keeping of a secret, but in avoiding telling it once too often.” – Julius Caesar
Secrets are like doorways or the lid to a Pandora’s box. Once you have thrown them open, it becomes very hard to close them again. I dont like to divulge my secrets because they are mine. I have borne my secrets in silence. I carried the deception of the circumstances around my daughter Maeve. I bore the secret of the ambition of a vengeful heart. And I kept well hid the secret that I wanted Sebastien to free me from being affianced to his one-time brother whom I knew I did not love – nor, in fact did he or could he ever love me. I silenced the cowardice within me that would not grant sufficient voice to speak of it. Those are the secrets to which the details have been revealed (or not) at the proper time and those things are likely to remain so.
Those are the personal secrets. There are others, of course. The secrets of strategy and the secrets of Power, those fascinations that I have held consistently to my breast, those are easier to reveal to you because so few will ever bother to become Power’s true understudy. I rest easy in the knowledge that most will only play at it and never fully understand. A person who does understand their role, even if that person is of the so-called weaker sex, knows how to hone al weapons at their disposal. In so doing you make yourself a force to be reckoned with. Everything is used, nothing is ever extraneous or superfluous or without a purpose.
Within that lies the laws of Power, the arts of seducing the unsuspecting and the underlying strategies of war. With these things in hand, a Prince may remain victorious over their enemies – no matter who they are or what shape they present themselves as. Such an astute observer of these secrets knows better than to make judgements about others. Even their enemies contribute to teach them still more of the secrets within secrets. With this knowledge one inevitably becomes master of one’s own destiny with no need for blaming anyone or anything outside of themselves for their successes – or lack thereof.
So there you have your secret. The question is, what will you do with it?
Muse: Fanny Fae / Faelyn
Fandom: Original Character
Word CountL 363 (without the quote)
crossposted to
Fanny Fae 
Had I but known that, he’d have been made to meet his maker far sooner than than when I sent him there, a year later.
I never spoke of it, but I am certain well you knew how much my heart was already yours – even then.
Say, how much of your story is based on Robert Greene’s books, and for how long? He’s one of my favorite authors – genius on speculating the nature of man. I enjoyed the readings immensely. In fact, searching him was how I came across your blog.
I came across his books probably about two and a half years ago and they gave me fantastic jumping off points because Fanny has always had this *thing* for Power. She wants it. She is so Machiavellian that it is frightening. Alot of her previous ideas before my finding Robert Green was the Egyptian idea of ‘Sekhem’ or Power. And that is probably an even more intense definition because there is so much to it when you view it from that language – it animates everything it can destroy, it can create, and sometimes the best use of sekhem is to not do anything at all with it. When that book came it was like…oh yeah, this makes sense. It was the Elizabeth I and Wu Chao stories that enthralled me the most because those were two of the influences that I had way back five or six years ago when I was fleshing out Fanny’s character.