Fool, Of Thyself Speak Well|Richard's Journal

[RICHARD PLANTAGENET]

Isn't it always the case that, when you think things couldn't get any worse, life has a sickening manner of throwing something else in your path? I've sometimes thought that even I manage to overdo things when I'm in a foul temper, but considering what happened today I believe I'm justified in my reactions this time.

Not only did Hector Tormei win the elections, but now I'm helping him run his underworld enterprises. Well, when I say help, I mean I was coerced into doing it. Forced. Threatened. What choice did I have; the man could very easily destroy everything I hold dear (and proved he was willing to carry out his threats - Hector Tormei is not just a man of words).

I will admit that he is right in saying our partnership, as he terms it, will be lucrative, particularly in the monetary sense. But that doesn't exactly help to heal my wounded pride.

It's not as though I simply gave in though, far from it. I put up the best fight I could, circumstances considered. Having been in the army twenty years ago doesn't exactly prepare you to face a Mafioso who won't take no for an answer.

It's strange how things seem to have come full circle. I'm back in my old job, my old office (which I can't say I missed all that much) and am, once again, attempting to come up with a plot to avenge myself against the man in the supreme seat.

I guess some things never change. That and there's no rest for the wicked.

[RICHARD PLANTAGENET]

It's been weeks now and no inspiration has come. Things may appear the same as they were before, but it is clear my plots and schemes aren't coming as easily as they used to. Something is wrong with this picture. Well, when I think about it and speak plainly, many things are wrong with this picture. But the fact that I have yet to come up with a suitable plan to get back at Hector...

I don't understand it. I formed a plot to kill my older brother without a problem, but getting revenge on Hector, a mere business associate?

Am I losing my touch?

That worries me. I have always been so clear in my intentions, determined to prove a villain...could it be that my conscience is actually having an effect on me? Do I truly feel as though I should leave things as they are?

No, I can't do that. I can't stay like this, live this way, content the way things are. Because I'm not content, and I will not be until I have regained the position that is rightfully mine.

Besides, even if my conscience if affecting my actions, why should I listen to it? I am the way I am, and not voice in my head is going to change that.

[RICHARD PLANTAGENET]

As I write this my new 'friend' is sitting at the window, staring at me. As if the idea of me having a friend isn't strange enough, exchange that turn of phrase for another, that phrase being 'deranged stalker'.

Wait...that sounds stranger.

Well, it's not as though this situation isn't strange. I'm being followed by a cat.

That looks ridiculous written down, and it's even more ridiculous to admit it out loud. But it's God's honest truth. For the past three days there has been this ginger cat outside my study window at this precise time and I haven't the faintest clue how it got there, or, indeed, why it's there.

I tried to make it go away of course, but it wouldn't budge. I foolishly decided to tell Anne about it, but when she came to help me get rid of it, the cat had vanished. She shrugged this off at first but today is the fourth day this bloody cat has turned up and, since she's yet to see any evidence of it, she's starting to think I'm hallucinating. A symptom of stress, perhaps. I informed her firmly I'm not the sort of person who has hallucinations.

Well, I thought I saw Edward's ghost. But I didn't, in reality. It was just some crazy dream. A crazy, recurring dream.

The way the cat keeps staring is un-nerving. Its stare is piercing... accusing almost. I didn't think cats could look accusing, but this one most certainly does.

Accusing.

What does it know?

What the hell am I on about? It's a bloody cat.

There. I took a photograph of the blasted creature, as evidence it exists. As though to prove to myself I'm not seeing things. Because I'm not.




ooc: This may look odd, but I figured since Richard is dismissing his visions of Edward's ghost as dreams, he needs a more...alive reminder. Think of this cat as Edward Plantagenet reincarnate, XD

[RICHARD PLANTAGENET]

It has come to this - I have been reduced to cliché and am writing a last entry in this journal on New Year's Eve. There's the New Year's Eve party tonight and I'm so out of sorts that I'm actually going. Anything to try and escape the confines of this house...the confines of my thoughts. I keep revisiting the same ideas over and over again and for once I just wish I could stop my brain from thinking. Yet how can I simply let this go? Anne...seeing someone else? How could I have expected otherwise? And yet...

Furious doesn't even begin to describe how I felt when she told me, how I still feel. But what can I do about it? She's proved she can, and will, fight back against me.

There I go again, Anne this, Anne that. So this is how the year ends; myself disgraced, Edward dead and Anne-

I'm not going to write it again.

I feel I might as well go the whole hog and see if I have any New Year's resolutions (another cloying cliché, what have I come to?). Well, let's see. I can't resolve not to kill anyone this year, for who knows what direction my plots against a certain Mister Mayor may take? But I can resolve to try and deal with my anger issues in a manner more befitting a man of my status.

...As if I could stop being angry.


I can't think of anything else to resolve, in all honesty. Not that I have resolved anything. But then, what is the point of entering a new year with a strict set of rules laid down you're likely to break at the first opportunity? No, better to do without.








...That bloody cat hasn't made a New Year's resolution to leave me alone.