Repetition and Chaos are brothers. For proof, you need look no further than a satchel of rocks and an arm capable of throwing them.

First, plant your feet firmly on the ground, take your first stone and hurl it away from you. Then, without moving your feet at all, take a second one and do the exact same thing.

See?

Okay, there's actually a point to this . . . trust me.

Take a look at where the first stone has landed and compare it to the second. Barring divine intervention, they will come to rest in two completely different locations, both having followed different paths to get where they are. And yet you performed the exact same action, something called "throwing a rock" (or perhaps "breaking something valuable" if you lacked the foresight to choose an appropriate spot for this demonstration) in each individual case. Same activity, same approach . . . two utterly different outcomes.

The act of writing a journal, something that is required of me as a Lord of Harael and a member of the aristocracy of thieves that governs this city, would be another good example of this concept. A ridiculously good example, really.

My first journal began with hours spent studying a blank page, wondering how to begin. Once I did start I could barely keep up with my hand, hardly requiring a break. In fact, the only substantial setback that I can recall involved getting a little too animated while describing a particular scene, and accidentally tipping the contents of my inkwell over the entire page I had been working on. I cursed, cleaned up the mess, tore out the offending page and continued to the next with hardly a pause.

And then there's this attempt to do the same thing - my second journal. At least, I can only assume that this particular leather-bound collection of paper will be my second, and that I won't have tossed it upon the floor in a fit of pique like the previous seven attempts that litter my study. This one is actually going much better than those others, the shortest of which saw me pen only the word 'Once' on the very first page before casting it aside with a snarl, frustrated beyond all measure. Even with how well this one seems to be going, I have stared at the previous sentences for far longer than I aught, wondering if that is how I wish to word my thoughts, how those thoughts might carry me to my next ones, or if those are even the thoughts I wish to share at all.

All the while I'm thinking to myself "I've done this! I'm capable of doing this again, surely!" I take up my quill, sit at my desk with some fresh ink and a full bowl of drying sand, and I vow to repeat the same activity I'd managed so effortlessly before. I stare, and I scowl, and I ponder . . . slowly eking out word after painful word in an attempt to coax my exhausted brain into telling the story I wish to share, wondering if I'll ever again be able to write at the speed that seemed so natural during my first attempt.

Same thing, yet so very different.

I suppose I've come to realize that part of the problem is the need to bring up things that I've already documented in my first journal. Understanding this, I attempt to find a way to briefly jot down something from my previous recollections, or refer to some notable event from my past in a succinct manner, and while I sit and attempt to do this my eyes wander to my first journal. I see it there, perched on my bookshelf beside the eighteen journals of my father, all nineteen of the books displaying the Tucat family crest on the spine, a pair of cats sitting back to back. Upon seeing it, I think of the words contained within, the memory of what I've written returning to me in a flood.

"I've already done that," I think to myself, "it's right there. Why must I go through those same details again if they're right there?"

And then I remind myself of the two books in my collection written by Lord Silvergate - volumes two and three. They're notable in this case because I do not possess volume one, something that frustrated me to no end upon reading them as a boy.

Silvergate made reference to happenings or facts he'd mentioned in the first of his books, his words and descriptions of situations oft times becoming cryptic and mystifying as a result. Clearly when writing his second and third journals, he hadn't even anticipated the possibility that his first journal might become separated from them. (Or destroyed in a fire, as it turns out) The result - the true meaning of some of his thoughts will be lost forever, as anyone reading them lacks the key necessary to unlock exactly what he was attempting to say, or precisely what he meant when he referred to some important fact from his first book in a vague sort of way.

Since I don't wish to be guilty of the same thing, I tell myself that it's necessary to provide background in order to construct some sort of frame of reference for whoever might be reading this, just in case they don't have the context of my first journal to draw from.

"Well," I think to myself, "I should mention something about rose blight, obviously, the disease that took my family from me as a boy and left me unable to someday have children of my own."

Indeed, how can I not? I should mention the years spent isolated and alone in Tucat Keep during quarantine, hovering on the edge of madness . . . my father, mother, and sister all dying before my eyes. I should mention the scars that the disease left behind that even now, over sixteen years later, stand out prominently on my body, my soul.

I should mention the very recent revelation that my family's deaths were murder. Prince Tenarreau himself had suggested to me that the four of us contracting this disease was no accident, a fact that has been paramount in my thoughts this past half year.

Dozens of thoughts such as these - things that I should briefly bring up - fill my head. I jot down the words I hope can describe these thoughts, I re-read them, and then I think of how trite and simple they seem, such a poor reflection of the true emotion that dwells behind them.

About this time I find myself glancing at my first journal once more, thinking about the words written within and how perfectly they seem to encapsulate the emotion that drove me to talk about that chapter of my life. I think of my second attempt, a terse and oversimplified summary of events. I think about how it compares to the first . . . and that's when I find myself thinking what a fine idea it would be to toss it upon the floor unceremoniously and stomp on it for failing to live up to my expectations.

I think entirely too much sometimes.

Of course, I know it's ridiculous to expect that the same amount of emotion and meaning that I poured into my first journal will be present in the few dozen words with which I attempt to summarize it. It took an entire book to properly describe those things, after all. Still, having written at length concerning my family and their death, writing the words "my family was murdered" falls insultingly short of conveying what I wish, how I feel.

And yet, that is how I must leave things if I do not wish this journal to occupy twice the amount of shelf space as my first one. I must force myself to compress hours of thoughts and feelings into a couple of sentences and move on, despite my misgivings or desire to elaborate.

Same activity as before, yet utterly different.

Thus I must bring up details regarding my life, important details, briefly holding each of them up to be viewed and then discarding them almost as quickly so that I might go on to the next, the rich tapestry of meaning behind each individual detail hidden from view.

Theodore Haundsing, for example, is my closest friend. He and I pretend to be bitter enemies in the streets as part of a subterfuge we came up with as youngsters, one that leaves other Lords with the impression that we are at each other's throats. This fact allows us to covertly assist one another politically when attempting to navigate our way through the web of intrigue and thievery that makes up Haraelian politics. I could go on at length about his skill with swords, his perceptive plain-talking nature, and how half a year ago both of these traits were largely responsible for the fact that I'm still able to breathe in and out. My hand finds itself itching to devote hours to the mere act of describing my dearest friend, of re-telling all of the stories that make up our fifteen year friendship, and yet I must refrain.

There's also Cyrus, Captain of my house Knights, who I owe a similar debt of gratitude. I observed him break down one of the most formidable doors in my keep, despite receiving a painful injury from one of my own booby-traps guarding the hallway preceding it, while attempting to save me from a bloodthirsty country Lord intent on revenge and murder. He'd stumbled across information regarding my friendship with Theo just recently, and is the only member of my staff who I trust with this knowledge. And yet what can something like that possibly mean to someone reading these words who knows nothing about me, or how hard it is to trust others in a society whose very nature encourages its more perceptive citizens to steep their thoughts in paranoia and suspicion?

When I talk of my library, do I somehow expect that the two simple words 'my library' will communicate what my collection of books means to me, or provide a clue as to the sheer quantity of books we're talking about? Is the size of my library - now sixteen-hundred and thirty-eight books in total, the largest repository of written knowledge in all of Harael - even important enough that it needs to be brought up in the first place?

How do I deal with this need to elaborate? Do I not bring these things up at all?

Do I perhaps resort to literary trickery, asking myself these very questions as a way of briefly touching on these subjects without seeming to, an act I'm clearly guilty of?

It's maddening, because I don't know what someone reading this might already know. It was comparatively easy approaching journal writing with the knowledge that it was my first - everything I chose to discuss being fresh and new, like crisp footprints in a field dusted by morning snow. Now I find myself writing for two people - one who has read the first of my journals, and another who has not.

They seem very much like spirits hovering behind me, looking over my shoulders as I burn these words to paper, inspecting each sentence as I put it down. I imagine one looking confused, as though my poor words hold no meaning for it, while the other taps his ghostly foot impatiently, already very familiar with the background I'm documenting and wishing that I'd just hurry up and get on with the rest of it. I don't know where these two spirits came from - they certainly weren't around during the writing of my first book.

Same activity, yet so very different.

I was complaining about this fact to Theodore during one of our weekly games of cards. After patiently sitting through an exhaustive speech on the matter, listening to my complaints about the immense pressures I suddenly felt from my unknown audience, the seemingly impossible task of following my first journal with the writing of a second, he nodded thoughtfully at me for a while before replying in typical Theo fashion.

"So what?" he said with a shrug.

"Huh?" was all I could think to say.

"Vincent, who has read your first book?"

"Nobody. It's locked away in my library."

"I see. And who is going to be reading your first book?"

"I don't know. With what I know of rose blight and sterility, passing it on to a son or daughter is out of the question. I haven't really thought about it much, I suppose."

"But to clarify - you'll be hanging on to your first book, as well as your second journal and all others after it, for as long as you live, so you won't know who's going to be reading them, and that's your problem?"

"Correct."

"So? What do you care?" he said to me with a grin. "You'll be dead! Are you seriously telling me you're worried about people who might be critical of your writing style after you're dead and buried?"

He's always been like that.

Still, he's mostly right from what I've been able to conclude, having taken his advice and pondered the matter. Really, the only pressure I'm feeling is coming entirely from myself. When I hadn't ever done this sort of thing before, I had no expectations, and each completed page was a new experience for me. Now, it would appear that I feel my words should live up to something, as is evident from the seven discarded books on the floor that I may have mentioned.

It occurred to me an hour or so ago that the trick may be to focus on how similar things are, rather than obsessing about differences. After all, even with the new scars and new understandings I possess from the activities of this past year, even acknowledging that I'm a completely changed person, I'm still very much the same.

It's night as I write these words, exactly as it was when I wrote my first journal. I sit at my father's old writing desk, just as before, two vimroot candles burning merrily to keep me awake and sharp. I have a noteworthy and engaging chapter of my life to relate, much like last time. Like before, it is one that I believe will lend itself well to the anecdotal style that my father also used for all of his writing, preferring that method to the dry and stuffy journal writings done by other Lords.

Extremely different, yet very much the same, I suppose.

I sense it's what I should do. I shall focus on what's similar, and as a result the differences and pressures that were making writing this journal so impossible may recede into the background and fade from my thoughts entirely. Hades, it's worth a shot . . . and judging from how much quicker my hand seems to be moving suddenly, it might just work.

And, as luck would have it, the story I wish to pen in my second journal also has a rather striking similarity to the first.

It's a story about revenge . . .