I remember your face so clearly.
It was the first one I saw the night of the raid that wasn’t frozen in fear.
Your voice low and rumbling, laced with permanant annoyance.
Your eyes glowed faintly, like the Will scars painted on your face. I remember wondering of someone had taken starlight and etched it into your skin.
Your words were harsh that night, speaking bluntly and rudely as I knelt beside my father’s corpse. You scoffed when I threw up after teleporting to the Heroes’ Guild across Albion.
But I thought you’d meant well.
You were harsh and had little patience, especially for a child who was desperate for family. You didn’t know what to do to comfort me, all you could do was tell me to focus on my training. And I did as you said, trying to make you proud or at least prove to someone that I was worth the time and effort.
I wanted you to think of me as worth the Guild’s time. Worth your time.
And you were. You became steadily more impressed with my progress and strength. Often times, I could feel you watching from your tower when I trained with Whisper. You were proud, although when I think back now, I know it wasn’t pride in me. You were so damn proud of yourself for finding yourself a savior.
You wanted a way out, an escape from Jack’s clutches. You felt indebted, he’d saved your life, but your usefulness to him was ending, and you wanted to use me as a way out.
You picked me out of the village as it burned, as I wept on my father’s still chest. You picked me because you felt I would be your savior, that I could break your chains, but you weren’t even willing to try and break them yourself. How could you have even hoped to escape if you weren’t willing to try it on your own?
In the end, you betrayed me. The pride melted away, your impressed tone vanished and all that remained was anger and deceit.
You lied to me.
You stabbed me in the back all because you were too much of a coward to stand up and fight back. You took my already fragile heart and shattered it on the ground, disregarding your past affection for me.
I’ve lived through enough. I watched my family die, watched my home burn to the ground. I was uprooted and thrown into grueling training only hours after the raid. I was forced into a new life, forced to learn to socialize again, forced to ignore what had happened to me. I was given painful task after painful task, slowly having the burdens of all of Albion placed upon my shoulders.
I lived through enough, and you destroyed what little of myself I had left.
I hallucinate when I encounter something that triggers my memories of Oakvale burning. I cannot find it in myself to even speak, save a word or two. I have trouble trusting anyone. I lose time and I struggle with anger.
You knew this. You knew I zoned out, you knew I was tired and alone, you knew.
But I should have known you never cared about me.
You cared about yourself.
I was your pet project for years, being carved and twisted into a powerful Hero for you to hide behind. I was to be your golem, your shield. A shield you didn’t even have faith in to protect you.
You knew I struggled with myself, with trust and acceptance, and you didn’t care. You took my feelings, my admiration and love, and crushed them under the heel of your boot.
I admired you, loved you even. You were like another parent to me, along with Weaver. I looked up to you, determined to one day be as powerful a sorcorer as you.
But you didn’t care.
I was not important to you. I was a pawn on the chess board to be sacrified in a last ditch effort to save the Queen. I was simply another puppet in a grand pantomime, and you were all too happy to manipulate my strings.
Because of you, I’ve lost myself. My faith, my family, my home, and my voice. I wanted revenge on my family’s killer, and I got it. Yet, it only made the tear in my soul even bigger, because I trusted you. I loved and admired you. I gained my revenge, but I lost a friend.
