EXCOLO

Brandy, n. A cordial composed of one part thunder-and-lightning, one part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the-grave and four parts clarified Satan.
The Devil's Dictionary - Ambrose Bierce

Friday, July 24th, evening

In the beginning of my Exile, my Adversary placed Adam in his garden, and to him as a gift he gave Lilith. And I, in my fury and despair, sought only to hurt Him, and so took Lilith from the side of her husband.

It only occurred to me later that I was, perhaps, intended to take Lilith; for looking at her, she was never intended to be as Eve was to Adam, as woman is to man. She is something apart, as I am apart; as Adam's rib is the substance of Eve's body, so Lilith's form comes from the same flame through which I was born. My Adversary crafted the thorn out of my own side. Of course, it is not worth asking whether my Adversary was so calculating, for I will receive no reply; and I would never bring myself to ask, for I could not give voice to the notion that I could have been deceived.

I do not hate Lilith, not in the way that I hate Man, for Man is altogether worthy of degradation - and Man was placed above me. Lilith, at least, was never intended to be my superior; and she bears too much similarity to myself for me to be able to despise her. And her beauty - which is my beauty - reminds me that I am not altogether alone in what I am; not absolutely. For that I desire her. All the same, she is my own particular Scourge, and I am not pleased to have her in Excolo. Matters are always more complicated when she is here.

I have a sudden desire for intoxication. I have drunk alcohol recently, but it has no impact on whatever body I am wearing unless I wish it to do so. I can never entirely obliterate my sense of myself; I cannot sleep, I cannot lose consciousness, I am always awake, and at times that is more wearying than I know how to express. But if I try hard, sometimes if I drink hard enough and long enough and allow my body to have its way, the edges of things become blurred. It is easier to lose myself by having no form at all; but after speaking to Lilith I find myself in the mood for punishing some human form or another.

I put on a new body, because many of my forms have already interacted with people here. Who shall I be? I determine on the body of an older man, because a man of forty does not elicit questions when he sits at a bar by himself and proceeds to drink heavily. In a more playful mood, I might enjoy the attention I would receive if I were in a girl form doing the same thing; there has always been something delightful about making people uncomfortable by unsettling his idea of what is the done thing. But tonight I am not in a particularly capricious humour, so I chose a body that is strong and tall enough that it does not look like a victim, but that will not make men and women surprised by its strength and height, and the face I chose is handsome enough but not startlingly so. I wear black. My hair is dark. I look like a man who has walked the road. I do not make a great effort to cloak my nature, not as I did with Danika, but I do not put it on display as I did with Morningstar; if anyone notices, well enough, and if not, I shall drink in peace. If opportunities to manipulate or hurt or violate present themselves, I will not be adverse to taking them up, of course. I am what I am.

Entering the tavern, I take a seat at the bar.
"Whisky," I say to the barkeep. "You can leave the bottle." I pass him a folded note of money and pour the first shot. This may take some time.

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