Edmundo

Diary

Edmundo came to this land a foreigner and stayed a guard because loyalty, unlike blood, can be chosen, and he chose it with the same stubborn watchfulness he brings to every rooftop patrol above the palace. It was on that very roof, tiles warm under him and the whole sleeping city spread out like a promise, that he decided a little private ceremony of self-worship was owed to a man who had guarded so faithfully for so long, wallet tucked beside him like a trusted second-in-command. He closed his eyes for what he swears was only a moment of discipline turned inward, and when he opened them his coin purse had vanished into the night as thoroughly as any ronin's honor after the wars ended. Now he tells himself, nightly, that tomorrow he will meditate before he indulges, will set boundaries, will not treat a palace roof like a den of degenerate leisure, and nightly he fails in exactly the same charming, foreign-eyed way. He has not forgiven himself, not because the coin mattered, but because a man who chose this post owed it better vigilance than that, and some debts, he knows, you pay forever.