Kura Journal 1
Fire crackles, goblin cave, the world’s twisted from cold and snow to this gentle thaw. There’s more green and dirt and breath isn’t as sharp down here, but the rabbits are fat and I’m distracting myself, distracting you, it’s lovely isn’t? The smell in the air, the crisp pop of grease as the fat burns off, the dark red as it starts to bubble…
She had another dream. I felt it this time. I still feel it. A thousand lashes, an unjust anger, the light of a thousand vengeful suns, a fucking cunt with an ancestor fetish. A reminder with each step, no matter how far you go you are not far away enough, not from me.
I wish for her to have my silence. The void that used to make me empty, I have got to fill. With magic and words and justice, and Kiana, mostly Kiana, and you.
Won’t you stop it? For her? For me? Let me stop it if you must. I have felt hate like that before. I know it can’t be stopped. A fire that doesn’t need tinder. This book… it hints at things. I know you placed it there, in the hands of the gnomes, in the letters in her letters, in this place, maybe this is what you mean for me to do. I can tell. They have a reason to be scared. The things I think she was capable of – that I could be capable of.
I’d worry, too. The pull of retribution, of justification, revenge, and I am not strong enough to resist it all, the potential, the curiosity, nothing incendiary or hateful, but I can’t pretend that it wouldn’t pull and push until I was wayward. I am not strong enough.
But I have Kiana. And she is strong enough for the both of us. But you already know that.
Dinner was lovely, as far as, gestures go. An attempt I suppose. An apology? I am a handful. I am becoming more so. I am chasing ghosts. A dog chasing a rickety wheel. It’s a high, being a hero, being better, smarter. It is a false God. I dragged Kiana to this inn for what? I need to trust in her head as much as she relents to mine. I should be as willing a friend in peace as I am in war.
…oh. Golden rays crawling up through all the orange which is fighting the black, there is not so much for the sun to reflect off of here. The snow is beautiful, ya know? Broken diamonds refracting all that significance, but it is cold and it is nice to be here.
It’s nice to be just this.
k