1st of Ash, Year 119
There was once a world in which I lived… that knew no bounds. Terrible, but in many ways a fantasy — an outstretched glimmer of joy upon every corner, a cause for excitement that I no longer know. It’s not the same now as it was back then, guided by a sort of ephemeral, naive enthusiasm for all things around me. It was not just childishness that gave me this spirit, but emotion, since then taken by the Black Sign.
The Remedy gave me a kindling in exchange; a new sort of glimmer of amber colors, radiating through the core of my frame. But this gave me only combativeness, only fury to flail and lash. I feel that for the longest time, my one accompanying friend was anger, a singular vice that offered me purpose. I was trained to funnel this anger towards the Dranoch, though in truth most was directed towards myself. For my… inadequacy. For my vulnerability to forces that compelled me beyond myself.
I’m a man now to the boy I was back then. I’ve learned, mostly, how to harness these mostly mundane feelings that are largely not even my own. When my fractured mind feels that anger, I can almost lull it into sleep. It’s a strange feeling… I bring myself to the brink of despondency, then nihilism, then I let go of those feelings, all; I let myself embrace the tranquility of my Famished kind. I’m half-way into that state and half-way out… and over time I’ve become able to moderate and leverage both.
It’s a useful ability, this self control. Before I had it, things were… pretty rough. Sudden emotional backlash; I can still recall it vividly. Fits of crying, screaming, yelling. It was like all my emotions were trapped behind a glass door and when they broke, the debris flung outward in an explosive propulsion. Now I’ve learned to plant new doors in front of the old ones, sturdier ones in a way. The moments still come, and sometimes they’re irrepressible, but mostly they’re contained.
Things are better now. But still I want to recall how everything was back then.
If you’ll indulge me, dear written memory, I’d like to go over those past and pleasant days. Even mired in filth and mold, I long for them over the dissatisfying quiet of now.
When I was a child, shortly after my parents died, I had a friend. I remember him fondly for a lot of reasons; he was a Dratori, one of the very few I’d ever met, with brilliant white eyes that I held parallel to starlight. He had soft dimples at the corners of his cheeks, and a set of sharp brows that extended far too deep to the corners of his skull - common among our peers who left the homeland for something new.
His name was Lethiril. An old, traditionally Elven name, meaning something like… ‘strategic thinker’ in Kyriac and Eldhan. And he was exactly that, fitting to his name, a brilliant person with a charming heart and a mind for greater things. But not in Sil-Elaine, our despondent gravesite. He wished to see much more, and to take me with him, even though back then there was no hope of escape. The Remedy was new, and even though it had gained a great deal of traction after Aldrin killed a Courtier, they were in no position to challenge the Court more openly. The Adh Nuaihm didn’t exist back then; the Famished were few and still limited to the most rudimentary of expressions. Or they were messed up, like I am now, some even worse than me.
There was no opposition to the Court. There was no such thing as escape back then. But still, he dreamed. And I did with him. And eventually for him — I shared with him my own big ideas, and so enthralled he was that he planned his future in line with my own. I remember that he was the one who helped me discover who I was, and what I really wanted in life. I wanted him — I knew it already, as young as I was. I told him he would marry me, almost presumptively, and he didn’t mind. We were still young after all… at that age, everything is just a scheme or a game. A joke. I think he found it funnier than I did, but I’ve always been a bit insecure.
There was once a world in which I lived… that knew no bounds. Terrible, but in many ways a fantasy — an outstretched glimmer of joy upon every corner, a cause for excitement that I no longer know. It’s not the same now as it was back then, guided by a sort of ephemeral, naive enthusiasm for all things around me. It was not just childishness that gave me this spirit, but emotion, since then taken by the Black Sign.
The Remedy gave me a kindling in exchange; a new sort of glimmer of amber colors, radiating through the core of my frame. But this gave me only combativeness, only fury to flail and lash. I feel that for the longest time, my one accompanying friend was anger, a singular vice that offered me purpose. I was trained to funnel this anger towards the Dranoch, though in truth most was directed towards myself. For my… inadequacy. For my vulnerability to forces that compelled me beyond myself.
I’m a man now to the boy I was back then. I’ve learned, mostly, how to harness these mostly mundane feelings that are largely not even my own. When my fractured mind feels that anger, I can almost lull it into sleep. It’s a strange feeling… I bring myself to the brink of despondency, then nihilism, then I let go of those feelings, all; I let myself embrace the tranquility of my Famished kind. I’m half-way into that state and half-way out… and over time I’ve become able to moderate and leverage both.
It’s a useful ability, this self control. Before I had it, things were… pretty rough. Sudden emotional backlash; I can still recall it vividly. Fits of crying, screaming, yelling. It was like all my emotions were trapped behind a glass door and when they broke, the debris flung outward in an explosive propulsion. Now I’ve learned to plant new doors in front of the old ones, sturdier ones in a way. The moments still come, and sometimes they’re irrepressible, but mostly they’re contained.
Things are better now. But still I want to recall how everything was back then.
If you’ll indulge me, dear written memory, I’d like to go over those past and pleasant days. Even mired in filth and mold, I long for them over the dissatisfying quiet of now.
When I was a child, shortly after my parents died, I had a friend. I remember him fondly for a lot of reasons; he was a Dratori, one of the very few I’d ever met, with brilliant white eyes that I held parallel to starlight. He had soft dimples at the corners of his cheeks, and a set of sharp brows that extended far too deep to the corners of his skull - common among our peers who left the homeland for something new.
His name was Lethiril. An old, traditionally Elven name, meaning something like… ‘strategic thinker’ in Kyriac and Eldhan. And he was exactly that, fitting to his name, a brilliant person with a charming heart and a mind for greater things. But not in Sil-Elaine, our despondent gravesite. He wished to see much more, and to take me with him, even though back then there was no hope of escape. The Remedy was new, and even though it had gained a great deal of traction after Aldrin killed a Courtier, they were in no position to challenge the Court more openly. The Adh Nuaihm didn’t exist back then; the Famished were few and still limited to the most rudimentary of expressions. Or they were messed up, like I am now, some even worse than me.
There was no opposition to the Court. There was no such thing as escape back then. But still, he dreamed. And I did with him. And eventually for him — I shared with him my own big ideas, and so enthralled he was that he planned his future in line with my own. I remember that he was the one who helped me discover who I was, and what I really wanted in life. I wanted him — I knew it already, as young as I was. I told him he would marry me, almost presumptively, and he didn’t mind. We were still young after all… at that age, everything is just a scheme or a game. A joke. I think he found it funnier than I did, but I’ve always been a bit insecure.
