Virdan's Question

Virdan asked me what it was like to kill that bandit.
 
He was supportive enough. He wasn't accusatory. He said he likes to think he would have done the same thing. He thanked me for doing that to help protect his family, and he asked me what it felt like. I told him I didn't have time to feel much of anything. That was true. I moved, I reacted, I don't regret it.
 
I am so thankful he didn't ask me about my other kill.
 
How could I explain the strange mix of joy, exhilaration, agony, and rage that flooded my tired body when I pushed Vamwaeline off of that Tower? How could I explain that the thing I felt guiltiest for was that I felt no guilt about what I did to my own flesh and blood. The satisfaction that left me feeling sick to my stomach later as I saw her body broken against the ground from my view on high?
 
The bandit was a threat. The bandit created that situation. I went after Vamwaeline. That situation was my own creation. I'm not foolish enough to think my sister was planning to let me live and risk my revealing the truth, but, I pursued her. I didn't let her come to me. I came to her. Not to capture her, not for the sake of justice, not for the good of the people or the good of my family.
 
I still set out to kill her. Not just confront her. Kill her.
 
It made me happy.
 
I have to live with that.
 
Even now, part of me wants to turn around, go back to the capital, find my sister, and, to reference a famous bard, eat her heart in the marketplace.
 
Moradin's beard, I've made such a mess of things, haven't I?