#vhanivere

[ms-sadrienne-blog]

Caerys.

I was trying to be casual. Revilion asked what I was doing, and I told the truth---looking at instances of sapling disappearances. I had no intention of telling him why. On a whim I read him the description of the one I was currently pawing through, one that bore no similarity to any of the saplings noted in the journal.

Except he recognised it. Gave me information I hadn’t given to him yet, and the sick feeling in my stomach grew. The sapling, he said, he’d found broken. Mangled in all sorts of horrible ways, crawling through the grass. Afraid. Escaping something. Revilion had tried to help him, tried to take him to the nearest outpost—but they weren’t allowed in. The guards were afraid they were nightmare court, but I think it’s simpler to say they saw sylvari and refused o open the door. The sapling died, but not before he mentioned the box.

Being shut inside one. He had all of the injuries consistent with it. Every word Revilion quoted from the sapling fit what Vhan and I had seen in Gendarran. Except he wasn’t in the journal. Just on a warden’s report as missing.

I’m not sure what to believe now. Either the master had others that weren’t noted, or---or there’s more. More masters, more saplings.

Revilion is going to get me a meeting with a minister from the area. Hopefully she can give me some names, some idea of who might be behind this sort of thing.

Before I allowed myself to my own tortured sleep, I said a small prayer. Dream well, Caerys, our lost little brother. You’re with Mother again now.

[ms-sadrienne-blog]

Sleep.

Sleep is in such short supply. Since finding the sapling with Vhan, I feel it always. The claustrophobic press of wooden walls around me. Daylight brings focus to other things, but in the night I’m vulnerable. Memories come back through the passage of sleep, memories that feel as real as they were when they happened. They’re memories that hurt now.

I wake screaming and afraid. Scared to close my eyes again and unable to calm enough to return to sleep. Elzy has become used to it. She no longer startles at my cries.

I go back to Revilion for respite. When it’s too much, I have to. I try to find other ways, others who might let me be quietened by their presence in the night, but there’s a trade required. So few are amenable to the prospect of someone in their bed who won’t allow sexual intimacy. I’m not so moral that I won’t give that, either. But a woman gets a reputation when she seeks too many partners—and my sense of attachment to those I’ve been with makes it difficult to accept when they are done with me. I am not done with them. I can never be done with them.

That’s not how it works for me.

I tried to explain as much to Gin. That on some level I loved him deeply and always would, though the love was not romantic in nature. Nor is it sexual. It’s far more basic, more primal. A driving desire to protect and be near him, as I feel for Keiranon and Scamall and Revilion as well. As I feel for Vhan and Lyn, despite their rejection of me. I tried to explain to him that it was possible for me to occupy his bed and not fall deeper for him, for there is no deeper level. It isn’t romantic. It never will be.

I was looking for an answer. I was willing to trade my body for comfort. Like Lyn and Vhan, he rejected that. And with that, Revilion became the last one to whom I could turn.

I hate myself every time for it. I hate how much I need it.

[ms-sadrienne-blog]

Vigil.

I haven’t seen Vhan for more than two weeks now. She’s gone. Protecting me from myself, I suppose. Me and my stupid feelings. She made me so giddy.

The journal I took at the merchant’s house is worrying. It describes different sylvari, all in a neat ledger. Body and frond colour, approximate size and weight. No names. Never names. Some are marked ‘burned’, I know what happened to those--I saw the pile of ash and smelled the sickly sap.

Others are marked ‘passed’. One has no status mark, by the description I assume it to be the sapling we found in the box. Did he intend to turn them to nightmare? If so, does this mean that the passed saplings are out in the world somewhere? 

I got the follow up report from the Vigil on what happened at the house. Vhan submitted a report that night, detailing everything we saw. Her reasons for killing the merchant. 

The investigation team found nothing. No sap, no body, no box. No sign that Vhan and I had been there at all. Except for her report and my horrid memories, it might never have happened at all. 

I need to find out what happened to the saplings that weren’t burned. The Vigil will be no help. I doubt any law enforcement will be either.

Not if someone’s gone to this much trouble to cover up what Vhan and I found.