A Leatherbound Text

[Nyssis]

I experienced a dream last eve. It was a new sensation for me: something layered on my consciousness like a heavy throw despite my attempts to pay attention to my surroundings. And as much as I tried to control it, my mind raced with no hope of yanking on the reins. I suffocated in this dream.

'Do you think power changes people, Lasvi?' was the first thing that made my thoughts err. Dain posed this question to me when we spoke mere hours beforehand. I agreed with him --- a sentiment borne of prominent thoughts about my brother --- for more than one reason. For I am a fool and I know it.

The power behind knowledge and its ramifications are something that's been engrained on my person because of my father. He too knows the allure of intelligence yet he alone has experienced the full extent of its consequences. I'm still young, just a child, and Safriol would not see me become what his kin have. He wants to protect me from the world.

And for good reason, for what am I if not a child for doing what I have?

'Iyachtu Xvim is the answer to your question, creature,' I called up to the animated mound of corpses perched at the foot of the graveyard, serving as warden to protect whatever lay beyond its master's broken wooden gates. Simple knowledge for me from having spoken with the Zhentarim of Anauroch across my few years. They told me he was a savior: a fiend lording over the remains of his father Bane, god of tyranny, after his death little over a decade ago.

This place was what I next revisited in my dream. It is an untended graveyard that's nestled beyond a bog, northeast of the capitol. There could be beauty in this place, somewhere that the dead would feel grateful to be buried in, if not for the necromancy galvanizing it. I confess that a part of me wants to maintain it if I could without being stopped.

My hands and arms trembled with fresh wounds, for I foolishly spilled my own blood upon the various tomb lids that lined the broken trail. Perhaps the rest of the undead didn't cross my steps because they knew what I would do. Perhaps they were as curious of me as I was of them. 'By solving your riddle,' I insisted, 'I earn access into the doors beyond that I might be enlightened.'

And so the hinges on the gate creaked to life and the corpse golem crumbled piece-by-piece without warning. The magic animating it was temporarily cut off to grant me admission, but I wisely nursed my injuries before creeping closer for inspection. Beyond the door looked to be the skeleton of a chapel; perhaps a building not much larger than the Triumvirate temple.

Each glimpse brought more ruins to my eyes, similar to how I experienced it after breaking away from Ignus and Rafael, yet there were disturbing differences. Where once stood walking dead in the cathedral, objects existed that reminded me of the past. The veil given to me by the Bedine. The medallions I stole from the mummy's crypt. The first bracelet I made for the warchief after he fought the Zhentarim.

The rear of the temple that previously held an undead seated on his throne sat instead my beloved sibling, his forearms gradually slipping off the armrests. It was just as I remembered him the day I left, his hair still tangled from having been teased by Terani. He had a puzzling book in his lap with no discernible opening from which to read, but he pressed it closer to his gut every few seconds. His hand shook when he tried to leave it alone. He loved this book.

'He would rather kill someone than absolve you of the guilt that keeps you from home. Lasvi, I'm as certain as I can be without having him before me so that I can search his heart.' The paladin's words looked to have struck a physical blow to this vision of mine. Avistolis brought both hands to the tome and pushed it against his armored chest, grimacing in pain.

I am too exhausted. I could never fight him, vision or no. To bring a sword down on this would reflect more harm unto myself.

Dain looked at his incomplete weapon and said to me, 'They could be. My sword tried to harden my heart before I mastered it, and it was nothing so vile as a relic of the Tyrant.' I wonder now if he suggested his blade had a consciousness; if whatever grips Avistolis does, too. Again, my brother looked wounded and he let out a cry that begged my help.

But no phrase could burn more than what was last said to me in my dream, my warchief suddenly hissing as he stood. He looked betrayed, disgusted: an expression I won't soon forget.

'He could resent you.'

~ Memoirs of Tyros Lasvi Norreitryn, Chapter 1: Exhausted.

[Nyssis]

What I experience now is easily described as pain. My heart regularly seizes up when I consider my choices and the consequences that might come of either.

Avistolis is not related to me, born 154 years ago on the 27th day of Kythorn to parents unlike my own. He was raised with the other children by Safriol and his own father wanted to mold him into Thamior's successor as warchief. Nerrar did well to put so much faith in his son: Avistolis found that a sword melded easily with his palm. And even more than that, he enjoyed using it.

I can't explain what I saw in him to become so close, nor what he saw in me. Perhaps he thought me in need. Perhaps I wanted someone to hold my hand. He's kind and gentle, but his demeanor can prove wild. Uncontrolled. Primal.

The Zhentarim called him 'Rattlesnake' because of the beaded bracelets he stacks on his arms, one for each of his victories, and he shakes them with all the intimidating guile of a snake when he invokes his magic. So too do his eyes lend the title solid ground to stand on. Luminescent yellow eyes. My brother has an unnerving stare: something that cripples your guard with a moment's glance. Descended from draconic blood he is, and his otherworldly presence has only been magnified alongside his magic.

When he developed his first cantrips of sorcery at 31-years-old, they thought to turn him into nael'kerym: a duskblade. I remember how conflicted he was. Our society shuns magic developed outside of the elders and Avistolis thought himself cursed to be exiled. He thought his focus on the arcane would eventually lead to something that would guarantee he'd never hold the title of warchief. He must be a sage to know how right he would be.

It is a vivid memory of mine: that day we chanced walking into a tomb drowning in a dune to the south-southeast of camp. My brother perched himself on the precipice carved into the sand, slowly sinking closer and closer to the entrance, while I called up to him. I warned him time and again, and although his ears were accepting of my pleas in earlier years he didn't listen. He pressed on into the crypt as if some force were guiding his steps. A boy died because of his foolishness, his adventure. And it would ruin him.

We made a promise: Avistolis, Terani and I. By going to the elders and telling them that I was responsible, he would be spared his stigma. The lorekeeper's apprentice would instead be shunned by her people, by the Bedine, and the weight of blame would rest solely on her shoulders. My shoulders have held up well over the months despite how heavy they are. But I carry far more grief on my breast.

I grieve for the Bedine who lost one of their children that day. I grieve for the Zhents I buried after our warchief took out his anger on them. I grieve for the dirge I sang in a pitiful attempt to cement the boy's memory at his funeral pyre. And most of all, I grieve for Avistolis.

My brother stole Banite relics from the various caravans destined for Zhentil Keep, and through them he has murdered Halima. He killed her in cold blood and with power not his own, yet he did it for me. He did it because she spoke out against my name. He is proud and my father is equally proud of his warchief.

Would that I could alter time and space.

A tainted man is nothing that I shy away from, for tainted men are what need love the most. Things suspended in darkness barely remember light. I've held innumerable conversations with Zhents and through them I know a black heart. A black heart is not necessarily the absence of a heart. This is the creed that I live by and I would be hypocritical to give up so easily in the face of danger.

If Dain's original assumption is correct --- that the boy I've loved all these years is evil --- I question if I really need to change him at all. He smiles and laughs like any, and he defends his people with vicious strength. My brother is not lost to me, nor will he ever be. It is the relics themselves that are perverting him, and I've little choice but to pry them away before he becomes a monster.

This will be the second time I've sacrificed my name for him. I may be corrupted by the relics as easily as he. People would suggest that my efforts will get me killed, be it by the Banites that want their unhallowed baubles back or the paladins that would rend my tainted body.

But my treatise would sooner be writ in willingly shed heartblood than ink.

~ Memoirs of Tyros Lasvi Norreitryn, Chapter 1: Exhausted.

[Nyssis]

My mind is on fire and I suffer in the lingering remains of another dream. I am so acutely aware of everything happening around me as I lay that it threatens to overwhelm. I'm afraid.

I experienced first the conversation held with Daniel at Aquor's gate. A puzzling discussion we shared about vices and the human need for them, though he himself wisely tries to limit his indulgence. Inside, I am wholly virgin: I've never ingested alcohol or substances in the hopes of forgetting, nor do I engage in sexual activity. I admit that this skews my opinion about others, for when I see them gluttonous and dulling their minds I question the reasoning behind it.

If something is truly so painful, nothing can hope to block it out. You will remember and you will be consumed with the desire to forget. But perhaps there are good reasons to try. Perhaps I could forget this dream.

My feet carried me beyond Aquor's gate in the dead of night, beset upon by the worst chill I've felt since Rafael's pilgrimage. A premonition I experienced while I climbed ever higher, but I was confident in my ability to avoid hostilities. Nothing could see me here, I thought. When my feet grew weary, I believed I could find undisturbed rest. Who am I to think it was so willing to find me? Rest could never find me here, for there stood a woman at the horizon, her blackened armor a blemish in a sea of white.

She heard my steps and my breathing despite how quiet I tried to be under the weight of the snow. I was thrust into a conversation with her, entertained with her play on words and a desire to reflect, just as I am with most people. But I am still just a child and I likely would have died there were it not for interference on my behalf.

This woman pulled back the black hood protecting her from the cold. My eyes set squarely on the bright red hair that snaked out from underneath, framing a face paler than the whole of the frozen mount combined. I knew then that I was being deceived, for I have met no woman before in this valley with hair so striking. Dain told me about her in the past --- that color being her most defining feature --- and I can put a name to a face now.

'I will drive a wedge between you and him,' Ruby told me and a sure smile parted her lips. Mortannis tried to soothe her anger and despite my efforts words fell on deaf ears. 'We will meet again and I will have what is my right,' she insisted with her sword held high, teetering between crashing down on my head and staying aloft, and I summoned all the strength in my brittle limbs to leave. I descended the mountain, abandoning my pursuit of Auril's temple.

I have no vices, or do I?

'Only one-tenth the normal dose,' he told me once I reached the foot of the mountain and found comfort in town. Mortannis sought to protect me from Ruby's wrath. The woman sees in me a stepping stone to Tornbrook, but I will not let her use me so willingly. I would do anything to not become Priya or Emiliana or any other woman that's been manipulated by a puppeteer to shake his heart. My purpose in this world, this Abeir-Toril, is to serve and help others. I have another plan.

The dose he spoke of was a volume of his blood, pressed to my tongue from his severed skin and consumed like any liquid. The taste assailed my senses and I felt every desire to spit it out, but Mortannis' sacrifice kept my jaw locked tight. He lent me what he feeds from the Veritas --- what he needs from them --- in the hopes that it'll drive away the other vampires in the valley. He wants to keep me safe and so now I give off his scent. I am considered his temporary property.

He is a figurehead in the coven whose only social equal is the daywalker called Sebastian. By acquiring his scent, all other vampires will know better than to touch me; to feed off me. Harm dealt unto me is harm dealt unto their master, and he's already boasted his willingness to mete out punishment after punishment to Clive for thinking about touching me. But it is a temporary thing and I will need to drink again to maintain this facade.

I fear I'm no better than Avistolis now: where he has used Zhentarim relics, I have used the rites of the undead. And Dain said he is evil.

My body still shakes after so many hours of the initial effect wearing off, though it shakes more of worry than adrenaline. Holding a quill is stiff and awkward as I press it to paper, and I have to stop often to regain my bearings. My eyes can't focus properly, every muscle twitches to changes in my environment, and I can feel the pulse throbbing at my throat. He told me that I will be noticeably stronger if I pursue a full dose, so powerful that my bare fist could dent even Kyle's enchanted breastplate.

I could better defend the oppressed with strength like this. I could better help people like Ryan who is constantly used as an unwilling tool for the Black Hand. A hostage to force people to do what they want. But I run the risk of addiction. I would be the opposite of a vampire: a ghoul that suffers with the need to feed off of them to preserve my unhallowed power.

This was no dream. This was a nightmare so real that it haunts me now.

~ Memoirs of Tyros Lasvi Norreitryn, Chapter 1: Exhausted.

[Nyssis]

I endured no nightmares today when I rested. No horrific truths to rouse my slumber, no ghouldom to divert my attention, and no one to bother me. All was quiet and all will remain quiet as I alone ponder what I have become.

'No one to bother me,' though, is a partial lie. Once again Mortannis used his tools to scry my location, and once again he came to visit me when he was sure I wasn't surrounded by anyone that'd seek out his destruction. This time, however, I've told him that he won't receive my help unless he pursues abandoning his undeath. Bitter was his reply, for he thinks I have become nothing more than a mouthpiece for the people around me, but he told me instead of golconda.

Golconda is known as the White Path, a vampire's pursuit of becoming less a monster and more of a man through self-sacrifice. If he knew the means of attaining this enlightened state, the sun would no longer bother him. His vice for blood would be sated. He would essentially be the same as any other man, so I question if this means he would reattain mortality though keep his prolonged lifespan.

He admits that he is a selfish creature that fears death. All he cares for, truly, is his twisted sense of utopia. I worry that his efforts to attain golconda will bear no fruit because of the amount of suffering that walks hand-in-hand with the Black Hand's ideas. If I help him in this venture, I must first make him understand that an altruistic lifestyle would be the only thing to guarantee his success. A broken path because he is so passionate about tyranny, but if I can make him see he would be all the better for it.

This is a worthy path to take.

The path I take was never something to cross my mind, on the other hand. I have no sense of entitlement for the things I've so generously given of myself, nor do I feel like I'm supposed to do what I do. It comes as naturally as inhaling fresh air: thoughtless, an idiosyncrasy. People have expressed different opinions of my drive, from praise to thinking me insane; a desire to mimic to shameful of what image I give my species. And still there are those that would love to manipulate what I give or use me as they see fit.

I want nothing material for what I do, for what I feel. I shouldn't be rewarded because I have done only what comes to me. I'm no more a smith that works her forge.

There are those existing now that see what I do and label me a saint, but I beg to differ. It shouldn't be an extraordinary thing for one to give freely of themselves. It shouldn't be an extraordinary thing for a man to love his neighbor more than he loves himself. I confess that I pity the men that would rather safely comment than attempt to be as me. No matter how hard I try, my example is elevated and never repeated.

But I can't ask someone to be as foolhardy with their life as I've been, as I will be. A stranger has no right to control what their kin thinks and believes. And so as much as I would love a companion on this road, I've little choice but to walk alone. For the next 800 years, I'll be alone. It makes me feel insignificant. As if what I do has no impact on the rest of the world. As if no one cares for the things I'm willing to do on their behalf.

Yet I cannot stop thinking about what he's suffered. Never before in my life have I felt so angry about something; a frightening feeling, to be sure, because I'm still under the effects of Mortannis' blood. If I raised my sword now before it's left my system --- before I've had the chance to reclaim who I really am --- I would risk dependency on the strength it lends. I could become a monster, thinking she is doing the right thing but using horrific means to attain her goals. There are only six days left.

I will not become my brother.

My swordplay is not and never will be akin to any nael'kerym. My magic is transient hymns that are a shadow of Elven high magic. There are people wiser, more learned, and stronger than I. Any man would understand their limitations and know there's only so much he can do, but I will gain the power I need to defend others. My word will not be the only thing I lend them in times of need, nor will my blade.

Dain is proud of me for understanding what he says. My father Safriol may be acres away in the High Forest, incapable of teaching beyond the few spells he uses to contact me, but guidance I am not wholly without. This man that I love seeks to better mold some wisdom into my head, to prevent the ignorant things I've done in the past from repeating once over. And I couldn't be more grateful, for this is what I've craved since coming here.

This is my home now. I close my eyes and remember walking the dunes at night, surrounded by the chill and my peers to keep me warm, but I'm no longer unhappy when I open them. I love what I see: the rain and the bog, the city streets and the rural farms, the snow and the forest. The temple. The people.

And the Black Hand will know regret for hurting any of them. They will bleed regret.

~ Memoirs of Tyros Lasvi Norreitryn, Chapter 1: Exhausted.

[Nyssis]

I will be back home in Sundren soon. I've endured an arduous journey through the Gate and the surrounding mountains to revisit my people, and it was as bittersweet as I anticipated. My father contacted me late one afternoon and he told me unpleasant news. Again our warchief lost his temper, and again someone else had entered his sights. This time, Safriol was ill at ease with the resulting chaos, for he was the one being targeted.

'The warchief's life is in danger,' he told me through a magical sending. 'Not from Zhent or beast or ailment, but because I will kill him if this persists.' It was a rarity to hear raw emotion penetrate his flat yet holier-than-thou exterior: he sounded impatient. He was holding himself back from attacking Avistolis on my behalf and mine only. Too far gone was the Norreitryn warchief, he thought, to have turned his blade on the man that raised him.

Mortannis' blood left me as I was sped along by rangers through the High Forest, opting to take the quickest route I could. When Mhiilamniir's outskirts met my eyes after toil and traipse through the dense wood, I admit that my heart erred. I was ready for love from my father yet equal prejudice from everyone else. My confession is still fresh on the minds of others, and I expected nothing shy of being met with disdain.

What I saw, though, was nothing that all of my preparation could've steeled me for. So few of my tribe were amidst the pilgrims gathered that I worried my brother had murdered one-by-one.

My fears were thankfully unfounded --- Avistolis had only attacked my father beyond Halima --- but a sad truth it is that our tribe drifted apart and was assimilated into other Elven societies. Some turned to Moonwood, some to Silverymoon, some yet journeyed all the way to Evereska on the border of Anauroch. Little over a dozen still lingered, elves fiercely loyal to my father, though even their resolve was in decline.

And I knew the reason behind it. I knew that our warchief had been ruling above people that were once his peers rather than astride them: people that cared for what he really is, underneath the facade that those cursed relics have formed. While my father wanted to talk at length after our initial greeting, I wanted to see what had become of the boy I love. I wanted to see this so-called tyrant.

Avistolis was purposely sitting away from the others. He is still as fiery-eyed as the day I left a few seasons ago, but I saw anger in his gaze when he first looked at me. It melted away after a quiet moment or two and he surprised me with flat, unusually mature indifference despite his years. I confess that I expected him to be more welcoming of my presence, though that might've been my hopes stringing me along.

The whole of his muscled body was tense beneath his clothes, littered with more scars than I ever recall existing. His armor, passed down from Thamior who received it from Merahil before him, bore just as many dents. He was far more reckless in combat these days, I suspected, and frequently put himself in increasingly dangerous situations because he had so much pride in the false strength granted through the relics. How boldly he wore them, too.

Drawn across his right forearm was a black enameled gauntlet not unlike the one worn by the Dreadmaster in the Sundered Valley, his bracelets awkwardly ringing against the metal with each gesture. Without a touch, I could sense the magic emanating off of the glove; perhaps even smell its vile nature. This was the most obvious unhallowed object he stole from the Banites, and perhaps the one he showed with the most pride.

Our talk, admittedly, drew us in circles as it progressed and he too paced about in just as many. Despite how confrontational I might've been in retrospect, he grew only warmer as more replies came from his mouth. So warm was he that I was shown a second cursed thing dangling off the side of his belt: a book with no visible means of opening it. My mind raced as soon as he offered it to my eye, for I remember a nearly identical tome from my first nightmare.

Someone wanted me to understand that this unassuming tome was another tool, though they likely didn't take into account how trusting Avistolis is with me. Perhaps Sehanine takes pity on my brother and wants to help me help him. Perhaps my father conveyed its visage through dream as a spell. Perhaps no one is responsible and I'm just remembering false images.

Dain's words many weeks prior were still fresh at the time, when he suggested that Avistolis might hate me for judging him, and this echoed through my very careful words. I had to make him understand that he was doing great wrongs, but this was hard as he tried to make me understand otherwise.

I learned then that there was something else in his possession: a sentient pendant. A mundane-looking pendant weighing down a silver chain, it tried its best to influence my brother's decisions and the excessive pressuring fueled his anger. Through the frustration it lent, Avistolis lacked self-control and killed Halima, and through it again he assailed my father.

Despite this, my brother was reluctant to let go of what power he'd since gained. Even though he succeeded in silencing Halima --- an action borne of twisted respect for the promise we made --- these objects were continuing to use him just as he manipulated the strength they bestowed. They were turning him into a creature unlike himself: a creature I could not recognize as my sibling. A beast that knew only to use or kill. Zhentarim.

But he did not look to me then with eyes full of hate as I feared would happen.

~ Memoirs of Tyros Lasvi Norreitryn, Chapter 1: Exhausted.

[Nyssis]

House Norreitryn existed in excess many years ago before Cormanthor fell to the Army of Darkness and the subsequent dhaerow invasion. We bled noble blood and served as vassal house to those more prestiged than we, working as faithful scribes and lorists through the church of Labelas Enoreth. A Tyros or initiate of the church am I, much like my father, though I don't share the same responsibilities he did when the mythal still burned its oil.

House Dlardrageth was one of our affiliations. While the main bloodline resided in Arcorar, there stood a tower on the outskirts of Myth Drannor where several arcanists lived and parlayed with the city proper. I've been told that dealing with their ilk was an especially grueling duty by Safriol: their unquenchable thirst for knowledge and under-the-table demands strained what could've been a relationship of mutual benefit. Instead it was more of servitude and as a lesser house, we had to comply with our sponsors.

Come the Weeping War, most of the elves residing in Cormanthor banded together to fend off the abyssal assailants. I stress the word 'most' because the Dlardrageth weren't of like mind: they decided to assist the demons in exchange for power. While they were not initially responsible for the portal that supposedly brought the whole force to Abeir-Toril, their aid bore great fruit on the army's behalf. Myth Drannor's defenses couldn't stand against such a colossal weight and it wasn't long before the whole mythal crumpled under occupation.

I bring this up because Avistolis is walking a line that could turn him into one of them should he step too far to either side. After our talk the first eve that I arrived, he vanished from the city without a trace by dawn and he took his cursed things with him. My father refused to scry his location upon word from a scout that he headed far east towards the Great Sand Sea, though he'd not give me a reason why.

Knowing not where he's gone and what he plans to do fills me with fret, for I think of what might become of him if he does return to Anauroch. That shadow, the thing that forced us from the sands in the first place, yet lingers above the basin where I was born. Does he intend to fight it and fail? Is he going to return his baubles to the Zhentarim; perhaps join them? Will he remember the way back or will he walk those dunes until he's nothing, haunting the Black Road forevermore as one of the undead?

A mountain of queries with no answer to the smallest one. Mine is a frustrated mind these days.

Sitting with my father and learning from him was something I dearly missed. He and I were always closer than anything I felt with my mother, for while he was responsible for rearing me she tended to scouting duties at the shaman's behest. She was one of our greatest until the day she died and her absence left a void in my heart. I admit that I grieved more for the prospect of death rather than her death specifically.

Before I'd leave, though, Safriol told me that there was something important that needed to be addressed: my maturity. So impressed was he with this sense of wisdom I've attained since being out in the world that he thinks me an adult, but I feel otherwise. It's not all that impressive to listen to what other people tell me.

A silver decanter, dipped into blessed Lake Eredruie when the Norreitryn still lived in the Dales, is filled with a mixture of water and incense and left standing in the sunset's direct light. By virtue of divinity or the enchantment runes decorating the surface --- perhaps a combination of them both --- the liquid inside is purified into the sweetest smelling holy water. This conversion wastes not: values are exchanged in equal parts.

A custom exists for us that those that reach social maturity don grey gossamer robes, kneel before the rest of the family, and are christened under the flow tipped out of the aforementioned pitcher. My father poured more water down my brow than usual because it was too scarce to waste back in the desert, and he recited a prayer to the Seldarine while the few of us left looked on. As I sat on my heels, what respectful silence I tried to give was shaken by tears.

His voice called upon the strength of Fenmarel, the wisdom of Sehanine, and the guidance of Solonor. Aerdrie's fertility, Corellon's inspiration, Erevan's lightheartedness, and Rillifane's prosperity. Hanali would give me great joy in relationships. From Shevarash, the willpower to unerringly pursue those that threaten what I love. Deep Sashelas' intellect would echo through me as a ripple echoes through water. My pure heart, akin to Eilistraee, would embolden me to challenge the stigmas that try to define who I am. And my life would be eons long as foretold by Labelas himself.

The entire decanter was emptied until the very last drop and he said, 'Peace,' in addendum. I am an adult now.

I wept not because I felt undeserving of such a ritual or disliked so many eyes upon me, though such feelings certainly did boil in my breast. I wept because my brother couldn't see it. I wept because he may never experience it himself, walking the dangerous path that he does.

I was gifted a hooded cloak the following evening, fastened loosely about the throat with the Lifegiver's symbol, but it wouldn't be put to use right away. Chose I instead to stay with my family for nearly a tenday, awaiting my brother's return with hopeful eyes. Yet despite all my hoping, my praying and my tears, he never did come. The path east was just as barren as the day he left. My father suggests that this would be what might strip my innocence and force me to adapt to the harsh reality of the world.

I am an adult now --- that much is for certain --- but maturity will not wrest from me what I have become.

~ Memoirs of Tyros Lasvi Norreitryn, Chapter 1: Exhausted.

[Nyssis]

'Don't let go of your hatred,' the Dreadmaster told me once when we met on Auril's mount. 'Nurture it, Lasvi. Let it remind you what and who you fight for.'

I skim through my past entries and I'm filled with such regret, looking over the so blissfully written script as it snakes from page to page. If I could have known what would happen to me, would I have put so much excessive effort into keeping the quill well-inked and the words aligned? No, I doubt I could. My thoughts will be penned with far less hope from now on, for what hope could someone have in this situation? This damnable situation.

Returning to Sundren filled me with joy after I stepped beyond the gates in the eastern mountains, and I won't deny a smile came to my face when the rain started weighing down my body. I was looking forward to seeing those I cared for the most, and prayed that they might soothe the pain my brother's abandonment left behind. I prayed just as I did all those days awaiting Avistolis' return, but I received nothing just as I did when I began my trek home.

Humanity is significantly different compared to the Fair Folk and the dwarves, the gnomes and the hin, Selûne and Malar's blessed. Over my years away from the desert --- twenty-nine painfully lonely years without the crisp night on my skin and the sand at my feet --- I have put faith in their vigor. A fool be I to have once thought they were so robust and expansive, capable of great if imperfect thinking across their short lifespans.

I saw human arcanists and thought of the things they did. I saw human priests and thought of their strength of faith. I saw human paladins and thought of their vigilance, their purity. But there exists human mages like Roman, human priests like Mortannis, and human paladins like Dain.

And I hate all of them.

Perhaps it is yet too soon to lose hope in the entirety of human society, for there exists too people like James, Keegan and Darius. They are good examples of what their race should be and deserve to be elevated above the others as paragons of their ilk. I am more biased than anyone's ever been, having written this to be like fact. I know better than to puff myself up to be more important than my miniscule body portrays, but what I feel now has changed me. Perhaps they changed me so.

Had I more sense when I arrived in the High Forest, I may've yet convinced my brother to discard his trinkets and return to his past self. But I didn't --- I approached him with so many demands and prejudices --- and I squandered this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. My efforts were clearly in vain for him to so easily stand up and walk away. He may never be the same again because of what I've done, just as I will never be the same for what Dain has done.

Chione told me when I referred to her my desire for vengeance that she'd prefer I not become slave to it. Her daughter Layla looks up to me so and has learned from me more than she ever could have from the Enclave. Yet I feel no more sated when I think of approaching this with the levelheadedness Safriol has tried to cement in me. James doesn't want to kill me if I turn to forces darker than myself for peace of mind. I fear that I might let them down someday.

For I think instead to what she said before departing. Chione told me to keep close what I feel for Ryan personally in my heart rather than what I feel for those that harassed him. It's difficult because I barely know him beyond what it is I must do, whereas I myself have fallen victim to the Black Hand before. I am a selfish thing to suggest putting my slights before others' and I know this, so I should regard everyone else first.

How many people have I never talked to that likewise suffered at their hands, at anyone's hands? How many people will continue to suffer if I temper this anger and prevent it from overly guiding my blade? The wise and the learned inform me of the past, trying to make me realize that nothing good comes from writhing in this negativity, but this is what I need.

I am a dirgesinger. There are no good things to be sung from my voice. When I walk the graveyards and the misty vales to clear my head, come from my breast does a feeling so intense that it should be proclaimed instead of suppressed. I make people remember the things they try to forget: their weakness and their faults, their regret and their mourning. How dare someone neglect something that once so deeply gripped them. It spits on those memories; it cheapens how significant they were in the first place.

Twenty-nine years ago, I killed a Bedine boy and was punished for it, not my brother. Twenty-nine years ago, I performed alone for his funeral rite and was exiled. Twenty-nine years have passed me by and my hands still bear the wounds from my stupidity, my adventure. Traipsed I into the mummy's crypt as if some force were drawing me further within, and my theft caused the unliving to rise from his slumber. The boy died and it was my fault.

Anasath. Demons are responsible for ruining her, but I could have done something. It's all my fault.

Do I barely know him? For me to be so devoted to a thing or person without understanding it is folly, I comprehend this at least. My heart is strong and unerring when I consider avenging what put him in that situation. The impatience I have when I think of all the various tools at my disposal and how they can only rust right now makes me boil with rage. But when he tells me that I make him feel important, that my emotion and desire to help him give his life significance, I...

My eyes could not be more wet with tears.

~ Memoirs of Tyros Lasvi Norreitryn, Chapter 2: Vein of Grief.

[Nyssis]

Regret is a negative feeling I know all too well because of the things I have done in the past, be they intentional or accidental. More than pity, more than rage; more than distrust, regret grips me now with such a force that it might choke the breath from my lungs. It need not define me, I know this for certain, yet I must come to understand exactly what the source is so I know what should be conquered. I ask myself now, 'what do I regret the most?'

My brother and nael'kerym, Avistolis Norreitryn. Do I regret essentially turning my back on him with my words and driving him east to the Great Sand Sea? Do I regret pushing him away when he needed me the most? I do not, no. Someone told me very recently that dwelling on his loss won't return the present to the way it used to be, nor will it better help what I have become. He made no real mention but I felt kinship, for he too has had deep regret for actions undone and words unspoken.

White to my black, Emiliana Blackwell. Do I regret showing a weakness in battle that I cannot control, even as she depended on me? Do I regret stretching the truth in my grief and leading her down a road she might not mean to tread? I do not, no. My phobia of that gods-be-damned smell is something I may never conquer. I remember well that day when I saw the most vicious of deaths within arm's reach, close enough for blood to land on my shoes before I ran screaming. The latter is equally something I can't master without changing how firmly these emotions run in my veins.

Knight-Commander, Lauan Tissle. Do I regret denying her so resolutely when she would turn me against a thing that I cherish? Do I regret all of those long, tranceless hours I spent standing in the cold and the dark and the ice at Aquor's gate? I do not, no. She is not wholly without my sympathy, even if she'd try to convert me into a Thayan tool for the benefit of the Enclave. This woman has been beaten and broken on her leash to the arcanists, so why should I hate her for something out of her hands? Why should I hate anyone for something out of their hands?

High-Adjudicator of Tyr, Dain Tornbrook. Do I regret acting so callously the day I returned to Sundren, learning that he broke off a love that was never there to begin with? Do I regret what happened not a few eves ago, when I ignored his pleas and his demands that were well-placed on my safety? I do not, no. Our love wasn't to be. Another woman holds his heart and will do so forevermore. I may have failed to heed his advice --- advice in good faith --- but I wasn't myself. I shouldn't have to take blame for what I didn't do.

The shaman, Tigen Amastacia. Do I regret giving in to my emotions and lending the departed the strength they need to fight back? Do I regret following the path that would so unerringly put us at odds? I do not, no. His nature and mine are diametrically opposed. We are fated to despise each other as much as it pains my heart, and no words or phrases or honeyed nothings will change that. If he and I are to meet again as enemies, so be it. This is the walk of life I've chosen with my own two feet and I'll not so easily give up its significance.

The man I met in the ruined part of the vale, his face a shadow of what emotion might've once been found there. He was hard-pressed to tell me anything of himself, but opened up with time because I am so strangely willing to help. His is a type I have never seen and I am beginning to think he might be the supposed evil I could reform into the greatest good. Do I regret standing with him when it comes to the Enclave? Do I regret how much passion guides my quill when I write of him? I never will.

I can regret nothing. Regret won't make what I've done go away.

Are other people willing to let me walk free despite this burden that's been lifted from my heart? Dain told me I would have to reconcile, that I would have to make amends on his terms and with his guidance. I confess that I don't want his guidance anymore and have found wiser men to fill that void, though he yet forces it on me. He who once so proclaimed I wanted freedom now clips my wings and doesn't let me leave his temple, and I am roiling around here like any impatient morning mist expecting the sunrise.

But a joy finds itself in my heart that I have freedom to make my own choices for once, good or ill the result may be. I am free of the burden of my people with our House all but destroyed. I am free of the burden of my brother with his departure; of knowing that he did all of these malevolent things on my behalf. And I may be free of the burden of my dirge through my strength and mine alone, regardless of what others think or expect.

Happiness fills me, yet this place holds only unpleasant thoughts. I grow tired of looking at the same masonry and hearing the same footsteps. The stale air, given a brief respite each time the doors open, taunts me with vivid memories of the outside world. I think of the rain weighing down my hood, the dirt scattered by my footsteps, the grass crisp in the night air. But not everything remains the same here. There are some differences that I've come to appreciate.

He told me that he wanted to grant me freedom when he contacted me. He begged forgiveness for his powerlessness; for his inability to do anything to remedy this fate forced upon me. There would be a safe haven and shelter for me yet when I was released, if the High-Adjudicator ever wants to, and I'd be taken far from this tyranny. I smiled as I responded, warmed by his care. Even now, my smile grows impossibly wide with tears desperate to find purchase on my face.

I am happy, finally, after what felt too long. Perhaps I can be myself again.

~ Memoirs of Tyros Lasvi Norreitryn, Chapter 2: Vein of Grief.

[Nyssis]

I wrote without clarity in my last entry so many days ago. I wrote of regret and grief, blame and happiness. These emotions are things given unto me by other people, and there are certainly a few events that I regret ever being partial to. Dwelling on them is the folly of which I meant to profess, however, not necessarily my yearning to be absolved of all blame. For I was never to blame to begin with, correct?

I do regret trusting people: humans and their pets, for instance. A pet can be found in law, nurtured and fed by human hands so it can properly become the tool they need. Be it through the Black Hand's tyranny or through the Sundarian Legion's tyranny, law is an ideal abused by upper echelons to exact dominance over the lower. I see now an object in Emiliana as I see an object in Lauan; a thing that acts through someone else's will. Same and one.

'Law and order' are terms meant to shepherd the sheep of humanity under someone's control. There is little room for free thinking, for free walking and free worshiping. Why spend so much excessive time and so many excessive resources on oppressing your own people when enemies threaten you at every side? I see fault in their idea of justice, though only a little in the people that unknowingly play away their fates for it.

Perhaps I am biased, having lived in an environment where the rules could be counted on one hand. Perhaps helping the law is the wrong way to go about helping Sundren. And both are true for me, I think. I doubt I could ever work for the good of others through something so corrupt like Peridan does, even though he is the likes of which should be defending the tel-quessir. So strong and so faithful, but for the Legion. For nothing.

I will help Sundren, the land and people oppressed by law, through the gods instead. The will of the divine is more important than the machinations of man.

The sword I chanced upon on Auril's mount was never a gift to make me remember what happened there, though at the same time it is. For it was forged during a time when elves questioned their own brethren and brought a blade down upon brother and sister alike. The Crown Wars, I understand, though my father was coy enough to be evasive about its lengthy discussion. He told me it was the greatest shame to the Protector's children and one I should take to heart but never overthink.

A weapon such as this was likely turned against my own people in the past, perhaps even my own ancestors, if it fell into dhaerow hands. It paired with a sister shield but while the sword was made biased by the blood spilt upon its mithral and the feelings in the wielder's heart, the shield Paerolia remembered what was true. They were tools crafted to urge the one that used them to do what must be done with no reconsideration, no hesitation and no coercion.

Tools to enact the Twelve's will. Tools to enact Lolth's will. Either or, only an elf has ever mastered the sword and shield.

Eirimil told me that it was delivered unto me for a reason, something partial to my destiny even if other people strove their hardest to interfere. Likewise, the events at the Necropolis that had me falsely imprisoned were enacted through the now-deceased human god of death, Kelemvor. Be it through his servant or the deity himself, I care not. If it is the urging of the Seldarine to assist him --- to assist anyone --- I do as they command.

Glory and fame are things in the back of my mind, whereas my desire to do good as the divine wills it is all I see. I would rather not be polluted by delusions of grandeur, to become a glorified nothing like Tornbrook has. No godly power flows through me in my faith as a tyros but I will still do my part. The matter remains that I must find the shield, wherever it is, and wield them both for the Seldarine and for the fallen that suffer at the hands of the Black Hand.

My prayers still ring with the names of the dead I've performed for. I should not regret what was ultimately Lyonsbane's decision with the destruction of the animated corpses in the graveyard. This is for the better, for they will never be desecrated again and turned against that which they so dearly loved. Myrkul won't have the slaves he so desperately clings to, through he and his priests alike, but there are still many people buried there. There are still many people who yet are forced to enact the Lord of Bones' will.

But I have faith that my efforts will not be in vain. I pray to the Protector and the Goddess of Moonlight, the Queen of the Avariel and the Trickster. Lord of the Undersea, the Heart of Gold and the Lifegiver. The Dark Maiden, the Lone Wolf and the Black Archer. The Leaflord and the Forest Hunter. For Kelemvor Lyonsbane and the dead, the grieving; the tormented. I will help you if you so wish it, I promise, and all I ask in return is your guiding hand.

For the people who have had the life stolen from them and made unto the undead. For the Knight-Commander and Chione, their families and friends. Every person I have ever known. For my father and my own family. For Anasath who yet suffers, I pray for her peace. For Tigen's brazen personality that will put us at odds, I hope he finds the wisdom to know that my path is necessary. For the Blackwells who may ever be a tool of another, I wish for clarity to lend them the truth they need to fight back.

And I pray for Alyrian that the Twelve may never forget one of their children. Ave.

~ Memoirs of Tyros Lasvi Norreitryn, Chapter 2: Vein of Grief.

[Nyssis]

I share a great many talks with a great many people on a daily basis, and I won't deny that some are more significant than others. The most recent days have been filled to the brim by discussions pertaining to what's important to me: faith, people, the war against the Bloodmaim. But what is more important than death? Death affects all things, god and mortal alike. Demon and element. Idea and emotion.

Death is not a malevolent thing like humans are led to believe. While they fight for immortality through undeath or otherwise, fearing an end to everything they've accomplished, the other races embrace it as a part of life. Death is another step on a creature's journey; indeed, you'll live again and go to your gods and goddesses in their realms. The only reason to fear is if you have doled out suffering, for you certainly will get your just desserts when you die.

But perhaps this argument was more sound when Lyonsbane was the human god of death.

The Dreadmaster contacted me again with a desire to talk and I entertained him, as I do with most Zhents out of respect for their zeal. He brought me to a casual environment at an inn, hasty to get formalities out of the way, and asked me what I know about the demonic activity in the vale. I reminded him of Argyle, a great keep near the Schild Mountains where an abyssal army has possessed the living and dead stationed there, but this wasn't to be the topic.

Some other, unrelated army has sprung up towards the north of Aquor and it is steadily gaining in number, all led under the banner of an arrogant greater demon called a balor. Of course, arrogance in tanar'ri isn't something so surprising, but the presence of the army and its assumed number is enough to give any extraplanar thing swagger. Adeodatus is attempting to gather troops to oppose these creatures, either to destroy or banish their filth back to the ether from which they spawned. Yet people know he is a Zhent.

Lending assistance to a profane priest of any faith is plenty to err a humble man, even if the aforementioned priest is attempting to conquer an evil greater than himself. Sundren, however, as a whole and its safety are more important to me than denying a person on the color of his banner alone. Even if he is a pious though dreadful man, he is attempting to kill a demonic horde. Why deny him aid when people stand firmer as a union? I am not pledging myself to Bane's service in any way. I'll not be so easily manipulated.

'The demons act under the name of one called Zesiro,' he explained when pressed for more details. The familiarity of the word to me made him add some more depth. 'You may remember her as Anasath Zesiro, a priest of Lathander who has since fallen to demonic corruption.' Yes, I remember her. I remember the torn brook failing to protect her. She is the one responsible for this army? Is she going to die and never be redeemed by opposing these forces of darkness?

Calling out the name of an otherworldly creature or god draws its attention; this much I know to be fact. Safriol told me of many demons in the Army of Darkness that crept beyond the Ahk'Velahr barricades and had an easy flank because a few elves uttered the Trio Nefarious' names as a curse during combat. Fflar's efforts as commander of Cormanthor were in vain because of meager slips of the tongue, despite the prowess demonstrated during the Banes' Duel.

Indeed, such a slip might have proven to be our end this day.

A knock at his door lent it some slack and abyssal things tore beyond the barrier into his room, foul machinations likely working for the demon servant of Graz'zt herself. They smelled of metallurgy and sulfur that threatened to overwhelm my every sense --- hideous scents to match their tainted appearances --- but the Dreadmaster and I were capable of fending them off to the last sprite. Conversation was kept curt until I vacated the inn and followed the road back to Sestra.

I still worry for the Zhentarim's safety, alone in what was perceived to be a safe place. As evil and corrupt as he may be, there are few in the world that I've met with such respect for the gods. Losing him would be a burden to his clergy, a burden to pious mortals everywhere. It's men such as he that keep faith strong and in turn give the creators the power they need to thrive. Evil cannot exist without good, good cannot exist without evil. Mortals cannot exist without gods, gods cannot exist without mortals.

When I returned to the mausoleum, a tall and gaunt thing in tattered robes was exhuming the bodies buried there one-by-one. It nodded once in polite greeting as if nothing were out of the ordinary and I assumed it was a graverobber. But when I locked eyes with the creature there was no man, no woman, nor any demon under those robes. A grey skull stared back from under the recesses of its hood and the fear I felt then was beyond all imagining. No creature has ever made me feel as terrified.

This thing called itself Death but likened its existence to no deity. It was an idea given form, melding in personality and shape depending on what mortals perceived of it. It is much like how men's memories are given form by what mark they leave on their peers. I suspect that the creature's purpose there was to destroy the bodies of the dead so no more necromancy could come, though it gave no such allusion when asked.

When the fear subsided --- partly because it was so cordial and partly because I drew favorable responses with my opinions --- I brought him the rest of the dead throughout the course of the night, each body vanishing into thin air as he paid it due attention. We shared a lengthy chat despite the grimness of our work, each question answered in kind and nothing left without explanation. At least, not without vague explanation.

My brother is alive and well according to the aspect. I know not where but he is, and that alone gives me hope that he might one day return to his senses. There has been no word from my father since I last saw him many weeks ago, so I sincerely doubt that Avistolis would return to Mhiilamniir. Or perhaps I hope that isn't the case because I fear what he might do to what's left of our house. Did he ever intend to ruin Norreitryn as he has? Does he still?

In exchange for my assistance, Death offered me but a single boon after I grasped his skeletal hand in farewell. I cannot deny that erring thoughts crossed my mind --- things such as asking for a specific someone's life to be guarded from harm --- but with the Bloodmaim incursion I cannot afford to be selfish. To better cement the importance of what's happening in this vale, I asked that the aspect speed along those that die during the conflict to their respective gods faster than others.

It is all I ever could ask from one such as he without feeling guilty.

His bones creaked as he shuffled to the opposite end of the mausoleum, to the entrance gate with his farmer's scythe in tow. Now that his mission was complete, he had no reason to linger with dawn's onset. 'You and I won't be seeing each other again for a very long time,' he told me before stepping into the ether and vanishing from sight, leaving behind no trace of his arrival or departure. The various lids of the empty sarcophagi were ajar with no magical residue, no notice, no dust or debris.

When I checked my hand in the silence that followed, some faceted trinket had been slipped into my palm. A tangible but not physical thing, it melted into my digits afterwards like smoke and my closed fist felt comfort. Some favor from the aspect or perhaps he has left his mark on me, I cannot say. I may rest easier tonight, however, with the burden of worry removed. Perhaps I was resting all along and this is just a neverending, lucid dream.

As I cross off each deceased from the neglected Jergalite records, so too do I write their names and identities in my mind. I will remember this act of mercy when I come across every man and woman that once slept in the graveyard. I will remember this act of mercy when the dead and dying are granted gentle repose, and Death brings them to the gods to live in peace.

I wonder if Death will remember me.

~ Memoirs of Tyros Lasvi Norreitryn, Chapter 2: Vein of Grief.

[Nyssis]

Two centuries worth of Highharvestides and solstices uncelebrated. And a few years more. Six, nearly seven.

I am still so young, so little. So childish. Across the months that I have been in this vale, I went from being the toddler nipping at Dendraphis' heels to a girl willing to stand on her own two feet. And yet there is very little that I've actually accomplished for my betterment. In my zeal to assist those that need assistance, I have done and said things that I later regret. Things that I later came to hate. Things that damned me. Is this natural for someone my age? Would it would be better that I stop thinking about other people and consider only myself for the time being?

Only myself? A selfish gesture.

And all too common. I can be selfish, yes, though the occasion was rare in my earlier years of life. But once I set foot in this Sundered Valley, I was doomed to begin acting with my temper or my naivete. Or perhaps with both. I have little doubt in my mind that my actions have given negative opinions more than enough purchase. About the dirgesinger, about the bard, about the desert, about the House; about anything that may define me. Am I deserving of it? Certainly, considering what I have proven capable of.

I have blown up on people that cared for me, perhaps even those that still do, like a babe. I understand that I get frustrated and angry at the situations I am in --- situations that certainly do not fall into my lap out of nowhere --- and then this is turned as a sword onto others. Even if their involvement is as a mere bystander, my eyes begin to see them as an instigator or a source. And then I attack them with words or otherwise. And then I am alone again. Emiliana, Dain, Darius and James: they have all unjustly been the victim of my backlash. More. Perhaps a great many more.

As much as I try to puff myself up --- as much as I try to believe that I might be a woman now --- it is a lie like any other. I share Av's temper and his horrible social skills at times, and my father's narrow-mindedness and selfishness at others. I can tell lies and spit venom as dangerous as any snake, but while I may be fed for a night I am famished the dawn afterwards. Just as I was those few decades after he died, and just as I have been since I made tracks here. I'm not strong, wise or scholarly. Charming or disciplined. I am very rarely pleasant company.

Least of all, I am not ready for the rest of the world.

Reading through past entries, I see how blank this tome truly is. There is a lot of senseless talk flooding these pages, the occasional footnote breaking apart the monotony of my uniform script and parchment clogging the spine where I ripped out a mistake. Talk about vampires and undead, morality, the reasoning behind some decisions, zeal. A great deal of my anger weighed down my quill in places, while mirth lifted it from the page and left behind barely a whisper of ink. It's all nonsense, but filtering through the nonsense has been good for me.

I understand that I am very lonely. I write in this journal like I'm talking with another person, like I'm talking to someone that wants to listen to me. Lonely for what, I cannot say. I miss my o'su --- my papa --- a great deal and so deeply wish he could hold my hand through these years of my life. I miss my home in that desert, as vast and dangerous as other people might see it, and how much of a nuisance it was to shake the sand out of my clothes. Av used to poke his head into the yurt every few seconds to see if I was awake, and it was always conveniently timed so a wave of loose sand would greet me too.

He is not like that anymore. I suppose I need to change, as well.

Why try to discipline myself with Tyrn'm Shadi if it's doing nothing? All that I have ever accomplished with that sword is turn people against me, albeit for misguided reasons that I didn't see at the time. I thought I was getting stronger by doing what the blade wants me to do, but I'm weakening. Or maybe I have always been weak and used the existence of the sword as a crutch for my fate. I cannot become a bladesinger as Peridan alluded; I don't know what I can become. I need to return this to the man that lost it, for it is he who truly knows how to wield it for the Seldarine. It is he who must.

I will not forget, ivaebhin, but I need to grow up at my own pace. I will not forget when we were the youngest of children, disobeying our elders and skirting along the edges of the dunes in the tepid dawn. I will not forget those chance encounters with the fauna of the Sand Sea: the asabi, the desert gargoyles and lamia. I will not forget the way you looked at me when I returned to Mhiilamniir a few months ago.

Something like this, yes? Maybe a bit more broody?

~ Memoirs of Tyros Lasvi Norreitryn, Chapter 2: Vein of Grief.

[Nyssis]

I've been---

Each letter pressed from my quill elicits a groan of discomfort from the weathered binding. A thought unfinished, like many of mine. Like most of mine.

I have been experiencing nightmares again, not unlike those I felt ages before this entry and following the last. Indeed, I write during the middle of the eve: an eve cut far too short that my body begs for --- that my body longs for --- respite. Yet I cannot sleep or pray or even hold my eyes closed in fear of what I'll see in the blindness that accompanies it. I am afraid to lay down my head again. I am afraid to let myself be vulnerable.

When I shut my eyes to meditate a candle ago, I was back home. There was an undulating, boundless sea of sand in every direction, its dust and dunes whipped about by the fiercest winds imaginable that predate the rain. My senses convinced me I was there, for I smelled the electricity on the air. For I heard the din in the distance, far removed from the horizon of clouds. For I felt the sand grating at my face. My eyes fluttered closed to keep them safe from the elements and the emotions. To keep me safe.

And so I heard more. I heard someone taking heavy steps to my flank, the sand shifting with every print of a boot; intending to join me where I was perched overlooking the Plain of Standing Stones. A man's steps, weighed down by strips upon strips of tempered metal and gear, and carrying none of a woman's grace. I heard him and I wept pitifully. 'We're back home,' he told me with relief and a smile made audible. It was as if he'd walked every step, every day of his life to be here. 'Finally.'

My sight marred with tears, I fancied a glance at my companion; at my brother. At my ivaebhin. And he looked back at me by reflex. His whole face was rotted and raw, the sting of the airborne sand making him wince in pain but still did he wear a smile to greet me. No wound on his body didn't continuously draw blood. No wound on his body hadn't been horribly melded to his arms and armor. He still had eyes like the sun, but his lids were black from sleeplessness. Heavy from remorse. Lifeless, half open from doling out too much suffering and death.

Seldarine, how I trembled. Trembled so did I that he noticed.

'Aren't you happy? This is what you want.' No! A million times no! This was never what I wanted. But despite all of my silent pleas, my silent yearnings, he couldn't translate how I felt from my expression. Av took loutish strides down the dune ahead of me, ahead of us. His armor was rusted and ruined, as too was the scabbard of his blade, but when he reached the bottom and turned in place--- When he looked up to me with eyes much like I looked up to him in the past, there was a glimmer of life on his person. There was a crystal pendant swinging from his neck.

That thing. That Zhentarim thing. That hideous and cruel and selfish thing that stole from me what I loved the most. And still he wore it, proudly dangling over his corrupted heart like his father's brooch. And still he wore it, convinced he was in control when it had wrested from him everything he was. 'Come here,' he ordered me with the same arrogance I'd come to understand as a child. This was wrong. Everything in my breast screamed to me that this was wrong.

I felt my past catch up to me and we swapped places. Av was atop the dune, Terani and Nimr at either hip; slowly sliding down against his will as he stared longingly at the crypt's barrier half-buried in the sand. And I was a little girl at the basin below, begging him to reconsider. He showed me his eyes and his decline in the same motion, proceeding onwards. Then I showed him mine and likewise tried to leave. It took all the strength I had to tell that tainted elf submersed in the storm 'no.' All of it. I had nothing left afterwards, just as I have now.

But my response angered him. Or perhaps it angered the spirit inside that evil relic he wields.

I smelled the blood that oils his weapon as it was raggedly drawn from the scabbard. And despite the various nicks and chips in the longblade's edge, it could still be put to use. He wanted to use it on me and on my betrayal.

His ascent up the river of sand was swifter than I expected, his thick boots retracing every other foothold his descent left behind, and he was upon me before I could retreat. As wild-eyed and ferocious as I remembered him when he mercilessly killed man upon man along the Black Road, the fury with which he swung his sword now was nothing like it. He swung to slaughter. He swung to render me twain. It was a singing blow cutting Akadi Herself that I barely managed to vault out of the way of.

The reprieve I was allowed upon both feet touching the ever-shifting ground breathed short breaths. His assault proved relentless no matter how short or long this mock fight took place, and I suffered many wounds while he suffered none. I was reluctant to draw my weapon --- too reluctant --- though after chiding myself I finally yanked Tyrn'm Shadi from its scabbard. Av stopped dead in his tracks and he stared me down like a predator, awaiting my next move. The corrosive gas that spewed from his draconic mouth threatened to melt his chapped lips off in his zeal, but he erred not in eye contact.

And then, as our eyes met at the point of my sword...

'Kill him.'

I knew this voice.

'Kill him,' came a second time, much more insistent than the first, and I was assailed by the smell of potent black tea. My father --- tall, thin and draped in embroidered silk robes --- bore a chilling stare into the middle of my back. He took a threatening step closer and his slippered feet disrupted the sand; sand that then ate away his visage until he was nothing, least if all a shadow. Safriol hates Av with more fury that he hates demons because he got my mother killed. Because he got many family members killed.

'The dead want vengeance, not redemption.' My own words and enough to make the hilt in my hand tremble audibly. Av did not move beyond the breath in his lungs.

'If the time ever comes and I am not busy elsewhere, I will do it for you,' a paladin of Torm assuaged me with his unspoken promise off to the side, borne of the very same sand that whirled round me and my sibling. He wanted to kill Av because I lacked the conviction and the strength to do it myself. Because I still do.

'There is a family in the Black Hand,' Adeodatus whispered in my ear as his black gauntlet choked the flesh on my arm and left behind more than just a simple mark. It was a cold and oppressive sensation not dissimilar to his evil god and the corruption He left behind within my sibling. The corruption marring his body head-to-toe. 'A family that you surely want. We are all brothers and sisters under Bane's rule.'

'You are, as always, a beacon in dark times.' No, Alyrian.

'Are you really this weak and pathetic? Sad that you couldn't do anything to help him?' the Knight-Commander spat in my face as her imposing figure strode beyond me. Likely to return to the Enclave itself somewhere in this maze. Likely to return to another beating or another order.

'No,' the admission came from Tirion, 'thank you.' It was just as painful as when he spoke it aloud to me before, and even though his back was turned to me I could see that my distress had an affect on him.

In the distance formed a creeping puddle of shadow within which I could see and hear my own silhouette performing the dirge at the Necropolis. Within seconds, I relived the whole experience and my body was thrust from the inky blackness to glance upon what allies I bid come with me. The fatigued smile painted on my face spoke aloud how joyous I was that I'd been able to do what only I can do. But Tigen. He looked back at me with a ragefilled, "You."

Chione, ailing beneath the humid and clouded air in the Enclave's crafting hall, was repeatedly striking her smithing hammer to the sheets of mithral she'd been working on restlessly. My heart jumped in tandem with every resounding bellow and stopped when she spoke, 'There will be respite for me when I die and am reunited with my family and my husband.'

'Do you want him back, Lasvi?' I did and I still do. It hurt when I thought of what I could've done for him. All of the words and promises done in the past amount to nothing now that he suffers alone. Suffers corrupt. Suffers each day he lifts his head from wherever he lets it lie. It hurt so much that the blade fell out of my grip, but before the sound of metal on dirt could ring to my ear Av snatched the weapon in his empty hand.

'If you do not kill him, daughter, he will kill all you hold dear. Including yourself.' And he aimed it towards my core with the same motion.

Will Chione, Tirion, Alyrian or any other likewise go the way Fenmarel insists they should? I...

Please... I...

~ Memoirs of Tyros Lasvi Norreitryn, Chapter 2: Vein of Grief.

[Nyssis]

A thought occurred to me recently and it has been consuming a great deal of my attention since. I wonder, do people get upset when I act so bellicose to them? Do they despise me or do they see right through my guise?

It is not fair to others uninvolved that I treat them how I do, yet I am prone to hate now more than ever before. I look at a person and I dissect their faces, their demeanor; their idiosyncrasies for something to despise. I am a beast: a predator that scours for every obvious weakness and I exploit them for all but my own gain. For how could I gain anything from a random passerby's crooked posture or downtrodden appearance?

Need I a reason to push them away, to tell them 'no.' Need I a reason to dislike and scorn them. Need I it so much that it is a vice. A vice, much like Daniel told me about in days past, and something I fancied my virginity immune to. I am drunk off of hating. I binge out of fear. To feel my blood churn and boil excites me, or so my body says.

I hate because I fear rejection. I fear rejection because I am terrified of being inadequate. What was once me and mine --- what was once a person I could call my own --- is gone and there be a lonely void in its place. And it hurts.

Not the solitude itself, though. Solitude doesn't hurt me. Far be it that I've been driven mad, standing the lone guardian over a graveyard here or a glade there. But knowing that I lost someone cuts deeper than any spell or sword set to my flesh. Knowing that they may be irrecoverable stings like a lash. I have lost a lot of people this way, through my hate, but it doesn't mar me quite like those I lost through my love.

To be robbed of my family has affected me in a way I'd only worried about in dreams, but these dreams now paint a darker reality for me than the faces and woods I see with mine eyes. I suffer in them. They are nightmares handcrafted by a force more wicked than Shar's handiwork; a force so skilled with his anvil and forge, that he knows exactly what makes me break. How I break. Where I break. And so I do, day after day, until I am so shattered that I cannot even consider staying awake.

Yet he is not so easily satisfied, this incubus. As surfeited as he gets when I cry for help halfway through my rest, when I am so petrified with fear that I cannot fight his phantasm, when I feel troubled without even closing my eyes--- As soon as I think he is gone, he returns like clockwork twice over. He visits so often to reveal his latest creation that I'm convinced he's made a home within me. Or perhaps he is me, considering how easily he preys 'pon me much like I prey 'pon others.

He is Morv. All of my darkness. 'Tis good to give an enemy a name, no matter what they are.

I question if people would be more respectful of my demeanor if they knew why I act the way I do. If they knew how afraid I was of getting attached to someone and then not being good enough. My mouth is foul and I spit many a cruel remark on purpose, whether I know the person or not, and I don't flinch from caustic replies. It is oddly comforting to not be liked --- there are less things to fret about this way --- but I tremble in fright when someone fancies me a companion.

Perhaps there be a chance they know why I do this. Do they then distance themselves from me because they understand or because they genuinely hate me in return? Are they so arrogant to think they can mend my wounds by keeping close or are they ignorant to the subtleties? And yet there remains an equal chance that I am only convincing myself. I could be trying so hard for people that peer so easily beyond the facade; so much so that soon I'll become the facade.

I remember when I could give anyone the benefit of a doubt and all could see the heart sewn to my sleeve. Such a heart is what got me into a lot of trouble, though I always carelessly passed the blame around. Comforting another, shaking their hand, smiling, laughing; embracing someone was a daily happening. Now --- 'tween venom and acrimony, 'shut up's and 'go away's --- the best I can manage is to force a simper every so often to placate the insistent. And I make certain it is never of convincing make.

A lot of the things I do and say are fake. Were I to cast off the guise, what would be left? Would I remember how to be myself again if I found someone worth it?

Is anyone worth it if I will inevitably lose them?

~ Memoirs of Tyros Lasvi Norreitryn, Chapter 3: Rapport.