Ice

It has been a while. Again.
 
The cold returns. I freeze again.
 
But I digress.
 
The mission was successful but not nearly as satisfying as I wanted. We killed the commander Torgillius, but he tried to argue that they were merely trying to live and that even as undead creations they deserved that. He thought I did what I did because I was ordered to.
 
Fuck that.
 
I did what I did because they were poisoning a tree, a pillar of the world, because Rowan who is one of the purest beings I have ever met said that we needed to save the trees to save the world and I believe her over a crazed monstrosity any day.
 
Secilia got the first of her humiliations out of the way and somehow I gained a sister. Frida it would seem genuinely views me as a sister. Something I don’t know exactly what to do with since the last time I had a sister I was five, and I honestly don’t remember much about her.
 
Rowan became separated from us and had some interaction with a fey like creature that is a potential herald of the end of the world, we learned that things in Runestone are beginning to get dicey, and Vitrosi suggested that we have been cursed by the black wind. I find that I am not surprised.
 
Anyway. Grimaldus led us to a place of supposed safety. I say supposed since his grandmother had an assassination attempt that we barely thwarted. Hasim said that there must have been a hit out on him. There was much more that happened, but I find myself unable to write much more than the bare minimum. It all feels very distant.
 
San Marie came to me and demanded a life – since apparently the deal was much more binding than a simple promise of interest which is just my fucking luck – so I needed to step up the timeline of Frida's plan.
 
So we went to Ysgard.
 
I asked questions of Shard for my sister. We all asked questions.
 
Then Dekar decided he didn’t like being told there was no easy way to get what he wanted, no solution that wouldn’t repeat history unless we went outside the box, no path that would fix the brokenness of the world that would be easy to trod.
 
And he gave up.
 
He fought Shard knowing that Shard was more powerful than him.
 
Fought him with the intent of dying I now think.
 
The ice creeps in my veins once more.
 
I did not truly fear though, as our party is powerful enough to bring him back, at least not until I saw his grin upon drawing Shard’s blood. It was as if that was enough for him.
 
A few drops of blood were enough for him to leave us, leave me.
 
Shard left after ripping Dekar’s arm off and destroying his sword.
 
We began to revive Dekar but he did not respond at first.
 
I feel the frost once more, creeping to my heart, spiderwebs of ice trickling down my throat.
 
If I gain a sister but lose a lover, if he gives up now when I am here waiting, waiting for him. When he knows how much I have lost and how much I have gained through him alone…
 
I know what will happen.
 
I will become ice again, frost again, and seek out warmth no more.
 
A tool is just a tool and need not have comfort.
 
A tool knows what it must do.