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Understand this, understand this. I was never a violent man. Not once had my intention been malice or cruelty.
So what is this? This that I must do? This that I have become? No better than beast or demon, grace held in my hands slipping through my fingers, leaving behind only blood and gore of those fallen by my blade.
I was never a man of vengeance. Of revenge. Of such fealties, such callings of danger, such sirens songs that whisper of great violence to the ears of weaker men. Is it weakness? Is fighting weakness?
Am I weak?
I know not who I dare speak to. I know not where you have gone, should you have ever existed at all. Dearest Idrila, dearest mother of all that is beautiful in this world, won’t you turn the tide?
Look upon the man who weeps for his mother and father, the man tainted with violence and blood. The man who never once wanted to become infected with such horrific intentions.
They say what I do is a deed for others. A service. A protection. I must hold on to that, I must, I must. If I let go of that tether, then I fear the dangerous places I shall drift, idly sinking further into the darkness until I, too, truly become the very demon I fight against.
Is it madness, Idrila? Dearest Idrila? Please, tell me it isn’t so. Tell me that I shall not meet the same fate as those sickened, stricken, tainted by the words of wickedry and evil. Tell me that it isn’t true. Dearest Idrila, please, tell me.
Please tell me that every fight is worth it, that the cut of my blade, sharp, precise, is not the cut of a murderer, but the cut of a hero. Idrila, please; am I a hero? Will the title act as salvation for the evil I have done? Should the world return to normalcy, will I be absolved of my sins?
Or will it stain? Will the gore and grime of evil work its way beneath my skin and stay there for the rest of my life, parasitic, ever present, until the madness of such knowledge drives me to insanity?
Dearest Idrila…
…
…
How I miss them. How I wish that then I knew what I do now. That, back then, I could have fought. I was weak. I am still weak. All I am and all I have ever been is weak. Is this how you made me, Idrila? Was I molded into the shape of a weak man by your hand? Is that a blessing?
You wouldn’t curse me, would you, dearest Idrila?