It seems like only yesterday I felt this way… when Marcus was torn away.  My brother, my partner, my dearest friend gone and that quickly.  It wasn’t that long ago, at all, that I relived those memories, swearing in my rage revenge over a year old but tonight… I felt it again.  That tearing.

My hunter.  Gone and gone so… quickly.  How?  Where?  Why?  Perhaps I’ll never know.  I will miss him, terribly.   May he find his peace in Her arms now, instead.

But now I know why I did not feel the same way when the Rogue died.  He did not.

He sounded the same as ever, too.  Carefree, entirely pleased and as roguish as ever he was.

It is good to know he lives, still.  Though right now I feel as if I could kill him myself for leaving like that, we both knew from the start that he would not stay forever.

I do wonder, though…

Did he miss me?

The waters of the lake are always so calm, so clear.  I remember now why I used to come out here, so often.  The peace settles my mind, the voices fade away to nothing and then it’s just me.  Me, and my thoughts.

And my thoughts tonight were strange.  Very, very strange.    The twisted path that has been my life has continued on, winding through the shadows and yet, at some point I lost track of it all.  

For months… months! I have been far too absorbed in trade.  Buying, selling, soiling my hands with this desire to keep things running the way they had been.  Disgusting.   The Raven is no common shopkeep.   Not that I begrudge myself the luxuries purchased with that coin, by any means. 

No. 

But she is not who I am.  That was made far too clear to me the other night.

When outrages that once would have brought cold vengeance are left unpunished and the perpetrators are made bold enough to brag of their feats to me, then I know that it has been too long, and I have been made a fool.

Rogue, how I need you sometimes.  You would never have allowed me to become so lax.   Always, I was driven with you.

And yet, without him, I have found another.  My conscience.  There are times I cling to him… I do not think he realizes, truly, how much I need his wisdom and his… utter disinterest in dirtying his hands, to maintain any sort of hold on myself.  Where would I be now, without him?  I still cannot believe I made him that promise… He has gotten so far under my skin.  Perhaps deeper even than my rogue had, though I swore never to allow such weakness again.

And my hunter… ahhh  yes.   So primal.  So full of life and yet, outwardly so very calm in even the harshest of circumstances.  Everything in me screams with questions about such loyalty so easily given.  Can it be real?

There is nothing to suggest it is not.

Perhaps with these two, I will reclaim my path and my place in the minds of the citizens of the city.  Perhaps now that the terror of the monsters has died down, it is time for the truth of things to be revealed.

May She be ever pleased. 

(A small flourish ends this entry, resembling an inkblot that has been shaped into a small, rather blurred rust-hued rose.)

Darkfall is three days in, as I write this, and I cannot remember a time when my own thoughts have been darker.  Perhaps I ought to shift my birthday.  It seems petty to celebrate in the spring, now.

Petty.  Yes.  

I sit here writing about my own little miseries.  

The Baron is gone – my hopes for a title of my own with him.  What other noble in the city would?

But that is petty.

I’m starting to think the entire city is founded on pettiness.

When a man can speak of brutal torture and murder offhandedly, and expect no retaliation and when justifiable vengeance for that murder is denied — why?  Oh yes, right.  Heresy.

Petty.  

It will crumble around their ears and then they will see for themselves.

Once it’s too late.

I can almost understand why some would give in to the urge to paint the city with blood.  Almost.

I would not have minded seeing the Wraith bathed in it last night.

But then they would have called on me to heal them, once they had purged their pettiness in this way.

I suppose it is good that they did not, for I would not have, would I?

No.  After all, I am petty too.