At a Loss

20th of Solae, 1485
 
The encampment Gerard spoke of is entrenched in ancient Elven ruins. There are more men than I was expecting… I thought there would be a small band, but this is instead a military encampment of at least three hundred individuals. We entered past the guards without so much as a questioning, it would seem that our mere armed and living presence, was enough to grant us entry to this place.
 
A song was being performed nearby. I didn’t think too much of it, but Secilia and Inira stormed off in the direction of the performers. Grimaldus followed them, looking amused. I stayed behind with the others, looking around the encampment and listening to Gerard’s descriptions. When I did glance over, however, I saw a couple of familiar faces among the performers… the same yellow-eyed man (he was a merchant and puppeteer the last time I saw him), the same one who had given me Tacitus’ book that I traded to Gaius of Astoria for my scrying mirror. It wasn’t the yellow-eyed man who help my attention, however… rather, it was the buxom elf woman who was singing with him… the feathered woman whom I’ve met on a few occasions.
 
We exchanged pleasantries, and she said that she is here on Hatholdir’s request. I’m not surprised that the two of them know each other, but I also did not know that Hatholdir was here! Why didn’t Gerard mention this earlier? He made absolutely no mention of Hatholdir being in the vicinity, much less, the apparent commander of this band…
 
A short while later, I found myself being led to Hatholdir’s tent. Inira and Secilia followed close behind, but I was going to go see Hatholdir regardless of their presence… When we entered, he looked up, surprised. “It is not often,” he said “that I am greeted by three beautiful women in one day.”
 
Hatholdir approached and I could feel a lightness in my step, as I embraced him. It was so good to see the old elf again. I had almost thought him dead, especially when Gerard made no mention of him. I introduced him to my companions, and he immediately ingratiated himself with Secilia by offering us a cup of tea.
 
The four of us talked for some time, about various things… what had been going on in our lives and the world, Gerard, among other topics. Apparently, Hatholdir has formed a small band of hellknights… I’m going to withhold judgement on that front, because their services are very likely a necessity, even if their methods are somewhat… undesirable…
 
We were having a quite comfortable conversation when the tent flaps were thrown open, and Grimaldus and Hasim entered. They seemed surprised to see us there already, and quickly joined in the conversation.
 
Hatholdir needed help retaking the bridge that lay between the encampment and Rafulkarn, the Cursed City. Apparently, the bridge had fallen, and they have been unable to retake it. He offered to send some of his men with us, if we would be willing to take it back from the undead.
 
Later on in the evening, when everyone was settling down for the night, I walked over to Dekar and sat down beside him.
 
“So, let me ask you something…” I said. “Whatever the FUCK happened on that Hill of Suicides had BETTER not FUCKING HAPPEN ON THAT BRIDGE. Do you, or do you not, have balls?”
 
“I could show you.” Dekar said sarcastically with a laugh..
“It’s a figure of speech.” I bit out.
“You don’t understand what happened yesterday.” He said quietly.
“No? What I understand is that we got in a fight with some undead and you froze.”
“I didn’t freeze.” Why was he being so damn calm?
“That’s what it looked like. Are you going to freeze when we’re on that bridge? Or are you going to actually have our backs?”
“I’ve always had your back.” Dekar stated implacably.
“It sure as hell didn’t feel like it.” I snapped.
“Let me explain something to you…” he said, still perfectly calm. “We, the three of us, went into that chapel of guilt, or whatever it was called… it wasn’t just a baptismal font inside. It was more than that…”
“Okay…” I said, apprehensive.
“I saw Henry. I saw the rest of the Butchers, and many other figures, stuck in the Fugue.”
“An illusion?” I asked.
“No. I touched it, felt it. It was no illusion.”
“A major illusion?”
“I didn’t see my father die.” Dekar explained. “But I know how he died. What I saw in the Fugue was his burnt body. I would have no way of knowing how he looked when he died. I have every reason to believe this was true… and he told me, as they walk the Fugue plane, something is in there. And something is shredding and devouring the souls that still wander.”
 
Inira came walking up. “What is going on?” She interrupted. I ignored her.
 
“The sorrows said they were protecting those dead people who had decided to take their own life, from going to the Fugue.” Dekar continued talking, ignoring Inira’s interruption. “I didn’t want any more people to go there.”
 
Inira started to say something, but again, I ignored her. This wasn’t her conversation.
 
“Then why didn’t you explain any of this?” I bit out. “Why didn’t you say anything before we went over there, instead of just standing there, doing nothing.”
 
“How exactly would you take it,” Dekar asked, “if you saw your dead father?”
“My father is actually not dead…”
“I know.” He said. “But, imagine if he was… its not something that you just immediately get over. And, as I’ve said, I didn’t feel it an illusion. I was still processing what had just happened.”
“I mean,” Inira interrupted again. “It took me a little bit to process seeing my dead family, but why didn’t you say anything after?”
 
“Well, we had a lot going on.”
 
Dekar sighed and looked at me. “So, yes. I understand how you feel, especially given your past circumstances. But I will always have your back. As I’ve told you before. Also, I’d like to point out that you really didn’t need my help with that riffraff.”
 
“No. But you still stood there and did nothing… you didn’t even speak.” I said.
 
“Because I believed you were doing the wrong thing.”
 
“Then TELL me.”
“The middle of a battlefield is a bad place to have a conversation.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes that’s the only chance we get.”
“That’s fair.” Dekar admitted.
 
“So you saw your father?” Inira asked him gently.
“Yes.” Dekar replied, turning to her. “I saw Henry and the rest of the Butchers. Almost like it was foretelling me what I was about to see now.”
 
“Next time…” I interrupted their little interlude. “Next time, fucking say something. Don’t just stand there and do nothing. Because I’m not going to lie, if we go to this bridge, and you stand there and do nothing as a tide of undead crashes into us? I’m done.”
 
“Inara” he said gently, reaching out and putting his hand on my shoulder. “I am not Gaius of Astoria. I’m not going to abandon you. I have not abandoned anyone here. I gave my life for the rest of you to escape.”
 
I could feel my eyes betray me with tears. “You ignored me when I called to you.”
“Because you needed to go.”
“Oh, I was going to go, but I was going to take you.” I walked away then, angrily dashing the tears from my face. I heard Inira say something about me, but I was too angry and upset and confused to pay attention, or even care.
 
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I found a fairly secluded spot, between our camp and Hatholdir’s tent. I looked at Meriwald and told him to make sure that nobody bothers me. I saw a tiny hut shimmer around us, effectively locking Meriwald and myself away from the rest of the world for the time being.
 
I settled down and did my best to clear my mind before reaching out to Damian.
 
I was plunged into a dark area, different than the room I found myself in the first time I walked Damian’s memories with him… Above me, I could see a sunset.
Arrows fly toward me, whizzing past and passing harmlessly through me. They do, however, kill five men standing in front of me. I look around. Off in one corner, I spot Damian, but he looks so different…
 
He is sitting on corpse, as if the body were a cushion. He doesn’t look well… his skin has taken on a pale, sickly pallor. His normally shiny hair is greasy and unkept. He’s unshaven. He is wearing black armor and a purple cloak. His right hand is tucked under his cloak, as though he’s hiding something. He looks directly at me for a moment in disbelief.
 
“Damian.” I say, gently. “I’m so sorry…”
 
“What are you doing here?” he bites out, he sounds angry with me.
“I came to check on you. What are you doing here?” I ask disbelieving where I found him.
 
He points, as a volley of arrows hits another group of men. “I’m learning.”
I follow his attention and take a closer look. Judging by the livery of the armies, this appears to be one of the battles in Runestone’s civil war from around three centuries ago.
 
“Your dreams are your memories…” I say, confused.
“Not mine.” He whispers. He stands up, a bit shakier than when I saw him last. “How dare you? How Dare you come here?”
“How dare I?” What?
“This is not a letter. This is not a message. You are in my head.” His tone is scathing.
“Yes,” I snap at him. “As you invited me before. This is the fastest way to check on you.”
“How would you like it,” he asks angrily, “if somebody just popped in, while you were in the middle of something.”

“I figured you would be more broken up about your sister.”
Another cavalry charge happens in the distance.
“Of course you’d assume to know. As you know everything.”
“I found out two hours ago. And no, I don’t know everything. That’s actually one of the reasons why I came here, because I don’t know how you’re doing, and judging by the looks of you, and what you’re doing, it’s not that great!”
 
“So tell me… because I’m sure you’re eager to talk about that as well, what happened to you?”
“A lot…”
“Yes, of course.” He murmurs quietly, almost as if to himself.
“Are you okay?”
He chuckles. “I… like I said… am learning.” He starts walking into the battlefield, as though he’s looking for a particular spot. I follow him.
 
I can see Viktor von Carstein getting up, bloodied. He begins running from the battle, straight for the city. He looks like he’s panicking, trying to get to something in the city before it’s too late.
 
“Have you heard of this battle?” Damian asks sarcastically. “Please access that vast repertoire of knowledge…”
“What is with you?” I ask. I have heard of this… if my reading serves me correctly, this must be the battle where Viktor’s father fell, and as his family had been assassinated earlier, it made him the last surviving member of his house. “He’s going to find your grandmother and your aunt dead.”
“Yes.” Damian replies. “But that is not why this is important. Do you know what this moment is?”
I shake my head. “No…”
 
“This…” Damian says, motioning about him “is my conception.”
“What the fuck?”
 
“It’s in this battle, that Viktor decided all was lost. That the only way to preserve his bloodline, my bloodline, was through unconventional means.”
“Where are you going with this, Damian?”
“This is where it started coming together.” He continues, almost as though I hadn’t spoken.
“So, do you admire him now?” I ask in disbelief.
“No.” Damian answers. “But I understand him.
“The last time I saw you interact with him, you punched him in the face… in your dream.”
 
This is a dangerous path that Damian is walking… going through Viktor’s memories will only cause him to empathize more with him…
 
“I don’t respect him. But I understand him now.”
“Why?”
 
Damian waves his hand and the scene changes...
 
Odd stone houses by a coast… seagulls calling. A sea battle taking place not far out to see. Damian is standing in front of a house. Two men duel in a corner and a primal roar sounds out across the area. I see Damian run into the house, panicked, clutching a bloody stump of his right hand… This must be his memory, because I am watching the Damian I recognize, while the stranger stands beside me.
 
“This one’s mine.” Damian says to me as he turns, before calmly following himself up the stairs. I follow him, and the scene at the top of the stairs turns my stomach.
 
A girl lays in a puddle of blood, her throat slit from ear to ear. A young man, one very same who I’d complimented his dancing not a few days earlier, the young emperor, lay mostly dead and bloody across the room. Damian seemed to have arrived mere seconds too late… he was clutching his sister to him.
 
“Do you know the thing, that is really the most tragic, that Elves will never understand?” Damian asks.
“What?” I heard a cackle in the background, haunting in its familiarity… Viktor, the creature that Gerard was supposed to be reining in…
“The preciousness of mortality.” Damian answers as though I hadn’t spoken. “You live for hundreds of years, possibly more, some of you are probably older than I can even comprehend. Ironically, the only person who probably could comprehend it was my father. The human who hated Elves the most, was the most like them in that regard. You don’t understand, you won’t understand, how truly precious a life is. Because you get centuries with the ones you care about, or you get used to the weaker ones dying off, and then you find yourself someone else. But this is all humans have.” He points to his sister’s corpse. The memory of Damian is in tears, trying desperately to pour a potion down her mouth, only to have it running out the gash in her throat.
 
“And after its gone, that’s it. Nothing left. Nothing to come after. But hoping that it doesn’t happen again. I know you understand to an extent…”
“You’re assuming that I don’t know loss? You’re assuming that I don’t know pain?”
“Again, it’s all about you.” Damian laughs ruefully. “Because your trauma is so much more important. Because your events that happened before I was born, that happened before most humans who are alive now, were born, that you had more time to grieve, and get over, than any of us could ever hope for.”

“Yeah,” I snap back. “Because I’ve had more time to get over Garrick dying than you.”
“You won’t understand… I know you know why. But I know you could never accept it… why generations of humans, of people, fight and die for the same scraps of land, for the same name that one of their great grandparents was called, why the world is falling apart.”
 
“Actually, I..”
“Why people like my sister die.”
“Actually I don’t.”
“Oh you do.” Damian whispers. “But you’d never admit it.”
“Then tell me.”
He leans in, over his dead sister’s body. “It’s your fault.”
“My fault?”
“Not you specifically. The Elves…”
“How is this?...” I motioned around to the chaos and tragedy surrounding us. “All of the issues that men have… the fault of the Elves?”
 
“Because,” Damian bites out, “we were never allowed to grow. The Elves came because you destroyed your own world. And, in your arrogance, you taught fledgling men, still hopeful and under the oppression of beings they couldn’t understand, how to use magic. You gave them access to gunpowder, before they could even light a candle… Do you understand?” he sneers. “And because of that, we accelerated so much faster than we should have…”
 
“So” I interrupted. “you would rather be living in mud huts?”
“I would rather we have done it on our own. So we could have learned from our own mistakes, instead of only having the Elves to say that they know better, and that we should listen, because they are better.”
 
“You don’t sound like yourself…” I tell him.
“Or maybe, I wasn’t myself before.”
“So let me ask you… am I speaking to Damian? Or am I speaking to Viktor? Because you’re certainly not acting like the Damian that I traveled with… the Damian right there.” I say, motioning to the image of Damian cradling his dead sister.
 
“You think yourself so clever… that there’s always some reason behind it. But, maybe, sometimes, things just aren’t the way you thought they were.”
 
I am still taken aback at the rage and condemnation in his voice and countenance.
“No shit.”
“Sometimes, the things that you trust, and the things that you think, are just wrong, like this.” Damian said, waving his hand once more and changing the memory we were standing in.
 
I find myself wanting to scream at him, force him to remember that he was there when my world fell apart. He and Grimaldus were the ones who caught Filandrel’s lies… He already knows that I have realized that many things I have trusted and “known” for most of my life have been wrong… so why is he pouring salt in that wound?
 
This memory is another battlefield, except there is an Elven couple walking through a city, burning the buildings with people trapped within, the doors having been turned to stone. It looks like it might have happened at some point during the early wars.
 
“What is this?” I ask.
“It’s proof.” Damian sounds almost satisfied.
“Of what?”
“That you’re not so different from the humans that you’ve always looked down on. And you can say that you don’t, but you do. Everyone knows.”
“Everyone knows?”
“All Elves do. Even if you don’t think you do, even if you act like you don’t, deep down, you feel like you’re better than us.”
“And you resent us.” I reply.
“No. I don’t resent you. This is not a decision you made, you’re young. It is a decision of your elders. And it is you, taking that decision and insisting that it was right.”
 
What decision am I insisting was right?
 
“So tell me, Inara…” Damian continues. “Anytime that you’ve asked your people why they left the First World, did they ever truly tell you? Did a single one of them, did any of them,” he pointed his bloody stump that was once his hand at the two mages burning the city, “admit that they made a mistake? That they let power control them? That they were the ones that destroyed your world? Or did they just say that they couldn’t control it? It was unexpected? It was out of their hands? And that whenever the humans did the exact same things, with the tools that they gave them, that they simply just didn’t listen? That it’s the humans’ fault for creating their own gods? Just like the Elves did. For dooming their own world? Just like the Elves did. Did a single one of them ever say anything like that? Or did they insist that they were in the right?”
 
“Let me ask you something…” He finally stops talking long enough for me to reply. “How do you propose to understand this? How do you know of this? And why do you not care about your sister?!”
 
Damian laughs. “I read books. Books that weren’t written by Elves, from their perspective. Books about how bad things actually were. And… I do care about my sister.”
 
“So you read books written from a humans’ perspective?”
“No.”
“Books written from whose perspective? The dwarves?” he doesn’t answer. I don’t think he wants me to know… I don’t know what to say to him, so I look at him sadly and tell him the truth. “I… I thought that you were… I considered you the most genuinely good person I’d ever met.”
 
“And because I don’t agree with you, that makes me a bad person now?” Damian sounds defensive.
 
I could feel the dream starting to fade, as though I was being pulled out of it by something.
 
“No. Because you’re not acting like yourself. Trust me, I don’t agree with many people.”
“I will give you this one piece of advice, because we fought together. I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me!”
“I did call you a friend, and maybe I still do, I’m not sure. Don’t come back to Runestone.”

The dream faded then, and I found myself awoken by Inira. She was shaking me and asking what was wrong. Meriwald was peeking around her, jumping up and down, all distraught. I ignored Inira for the moment, turning to Meriwald. “I told you not to let anyone bother me!” I scolded him, harsher probably than was necessary. He looked ashamed of himself.
 
Inira asked what was wrong. She claimed that she was willing to give me space and time, but yet she was there and must have convinced Meriwald to let her interfere. We argued. Grimaldus walked up, and said we needed to table this argument for later unless we plan on dying tomorrow. Inira started arguing with him, saying that’s why she’s here, because my head isn’t in the right place, and she is worried that I won’t be able to function in the upcoming battle.
 
I told her that she isn’t one to talk, because she’s never faced an army of undead before… and by tomorrow I will be in a perfectly fine headspace to burn a bunch of undead… now that I write about it, I might have been a bit harsh. But I was so angry. Hurt and angry.
 
And then Grimaldus interrupted and told me that I need to focus on the here and now and save Damian for later. How dare he? He doesn’t get to tell me what is important in life. Grimaldus doesn’t get to tell me that I shouldn’t have contacted Damian, who I thought was my friend, on the morrow of his sister’s murder!
 
Instead of saying anything that I might regret later, I walked away.
 
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21st of Solae, 1485
 
Later last night, after I calmed down a bit, I sent a message to Princess Anastasia. I asked her if she still has the staff, because if she does, I will have need of it before too long. I asked her for it, and told her that I would destroy it later. A short while later, she replied in her usual succinct fashion “I have it.” She later said that she will come to me when the time is right. I don’t know what she means by that, it sounds a bit ominous, but I imagine that she has her hands full with the fallout of the dragon’s return and the declaration of war against our people.
 
We are halfway to the bridge, we had a skirmish with some undead in the woods nearby, that fortunately was handled without too much trouble. Some of them were winged monstrosities… I pulled out the floating disk and handed it to Grimaldus, figuring he would want to use it. He passed it over to Dekar, who looked at it with such an expression of glee, I was a bit worried he wouldn’t return it. Fortunately, he did hand it back, and it is once again tucked securely in my bag of holding.
 
Now that everyone is settling down for the evening’s rest, my mind is playing over all of the events of the past few days… it is all a jumble, and will take me some time to sort it out… if it can even be sorted out… I do think I realize now why my interaction with Damian affected me so…
 
I have been on edge ever since we arrived in Loec. This is a place that I swore to myself I would never willingly set foot, and yet, I have voluntarily teleported here twice. Then, I spoke with Filandrel… who sent me to speak with Gerard. I don’t know why he wanted me to find Gerard in that chapel… and am more confused because of it. Why would Filandrel want me to talk to someone who so blatantly blames him for so many things, including the death of Damian’s sister?
 
Then, Dekar’s inaction on the Hill of Suicides. After speaking with him, I do understand where he was coming from, why he did what he did, although I still fault him for not speaking up at the time. If he had told us we were wrong to fight the spirits and remove the bones, and had given us the explanation of why, I do not think we would have destroyed the Sorrows…
 
After that… when I walked away, I decided to contact Damian… needless to say, that didn’t go as I was expecting… I thought that I would be able offer him some comfort and support… I wasn’t expecting to be attacked like that. He started as soon as I arrived, and didn’t stop until Inira interfered and broke my concentration. I thought that speaking with Damian would be a reprieve of sorts, if a sorrowful one. The Damian I encountered was the last thing I was expecting…
 
To top it off, Inira had the presumption to think I will freeze up in battle against the undead. Frankly, that’s insulting. And then for Grimaldus to tell me my head isn’t in the right space if I want to live? Does he have any idea the places my mind has been? Does he know how deep in the darkest reaches of my mind I have been, and still I’ve survived this far? I can see what he was trying to do, but he went about it in a harsh, human fashion that is not usually his way.
 
It isn’t freezing up that I’m worried about… I’m more concerned that my mind will go down the dark path that it was after the war… and that I might not be able to pull myself back from the brink this time. That is truly what is terrifying. I don’t want to lose my will. I don’t want to lose myself. And that is the road that I almost took before, and it was my time in the woods of Alcarin with Ravlor that brought me back to myself.
 
I had a glimpse of that same peace in Wei Jang after we first arrived, but that faded when we arrived in Loec. Grimaldus is partially correct, in that I need to figure my mind out, or I won’t be able to function at my best… there is just too much jumbled around my mind right now. I need to get some semblance of mental order before we attack this bridge.
 
I find myself wishing that Ravlor had come east with us… I could really use his counsel right now…