The Writings of a Paladin: Legacy (09/22/05)

This is a new chapter for me.

Something I never thought to do...but the unexpected and unbridled joy of having to do it can hardly be contained.

It is incredulous.

I write tonight to a man....or a woman....I may never meet.

My son. Or...my daughter.

The thought of it causes a tremor in my hand, which I shall strive to halt, if only for the sake that these written words might live on to be legible and pass someday to one for whom I would hope they would have meaning.

With the impending inevitability of war looming on the horizon for these lands and the certainty of my part to play in that, there is no assurance that I will live to see its birth or its growth to adulthood.

Yet I would acknowledge this child, even were my life to be ended before my child's has begun, and shall strive to do so herein with what I might write on these humble pages.

My wife....strange in and of itself to write that again after so long a time!....if all goes well and the gods smile upon us with favor once again, within a few months time, shall bear a child into this world. A child conceived in love between a man and a woman, a living example by its mere presence in the world of the reality of the depth and breadth of that love between its mother and its father.

And to that child....I would be the father.

It is the greatest gift I can think of, to claim that child as my heir, my offspring, flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood, born of the love bond between its mother and I.

It is the one thing that my father never gifted to me.

And I would turn wholeheartedly from that inheritance, never want to cause my child that like shame and grief.

If I am able, when the time comes, I will stand to the world and proclaim that this child is mine. This child shall have its birthright. This child shall claim its rightful place in the world as the Heir and Offspring of one lowly paladin, Antonio Sabatier, humbly born, but faithful to His God and the Cause, and the Lady Penelopy Garrison, Countess and Claimant of my Heart.

And I will shout it to the heavens!!

So, to whomever might read this, for time immemorial, I set witness to this now: this is my child....created of my flesh....created of my blood....created of my love for its mother. So shall he, or she, be known, forevermore and for all of time....



......my child.





~~~ Sir Antonio Sabatier ~~~

Diplomatic Liason to the Duchess of Ashford

The Marquis of Pantera, a.k.a., The Black Panther



"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within." ~~ Emerson