Deftly, the tiny figure slipped into the night of Caledon Forest. Not a soul saw him dart amongst the shadows, finally finding himself in an unseen corner amongst the giant flowers and massive trees of the Verdance. Here, nestled deep among one tree's overflowing roots, sat a small patch of moss. A patch that was easily lifted to reveal the chest beneath. Every thief needed their own secret stash. This was Skoryy's.
The lock was picked with precision care, fingers resting a moment on the latches before the flick and a miniature creak as the lid lifted. Moonlight revealed the accumulated oddities and wealth that two and a half years of acquisitions could offer: A felt top hat, brazenly taken from a quaggan Consortium executive. An old set of leaves, flat and unused, not since Trisbaine's 'sapling' training. Assorted gold coins, an old Ascalonian wine glass, assorted special ammunition from Miss MIllicent's old shop, a charr bobblehead, a plush kitten hood, Bjorn the Bushy's shaving kit, and more dragonfly cupcakes than he could count. They were all stil there among the rest of his treasured trinkets.
It was at the bottom that he found what he had been searching for, a tiny silver bell. Nimble fingers reached to take it, then paused at what lay beneath. A pile of papers, all official, all decorated with the flourishings of the official paperwork of the Inflorescence. All signed by one Forerunner Zainerys.
The soft thumping in his head grew louder. Even the strongest can fall, can't they?
He braced himself against the rim of the crate, but there was no need to concentrate as hard this time. The voice in his head was clearer, yes. It was, however, no longer the only voice. There were many others now. One strongest above all.
"There are so many causes or complete strangers to die for, but you have always given me something more important: Something to live for. Hope that in the future, things can be better. And they still can. You have not been changed. Nothing has been lost or taken. It is only another test of strength.
And you can do it. If there is anyone in Tyria that can, it is you."
The thumping subsided, replaced by memories of cookies, arm clings, and the most beautiful apple in all of Tyria.
The bell was snatched in hand, everything else put back in its place, the lid shut, and the moss replaced. He had what he came here for.
The Valiant Skoryy disappeared back into his night. There was a future he had to make better.
Three nights and the pain hasn’t fucking stopped. It was bad before, but now it’s everywhere. Aching right through to my core, and constant. This is what people who don’t exercise complain about in the days after actually using their bodies. It’s excruciating. There’s not a part of me that can move without reminding another muscle that it was dormant for so long and then suddenly used, and screaming out in sheer agony and annoyance at the disruption. Even breathing hurts my stomach. I’ve barely slept, which is more frustrating. I could really go one of those impossibly good dreams right now. I don’t care if it’s crushing to wake back up into this shithole of a predicament, I want a few hours where everything is perfect.
Please.
I’m fucking begging.
I want to go back to a life where I’m useful, where I don’t rely on everyone around me to feed and clothe me. Where I can fucking take care of myself. Searil had to change me to go to the hot springs. Oaken had to change me when we got back, had to tuck me in and make sure I was fucking warm enough. As grateful as I am that they’re willing to do it, it’s humiliating. I try and get out there, try and walk, but all I really manage is to exhaust myself in a short distance and bring more attention to my emaciated and scarred state. And the pain. The fucking pain, I want so bad for it to just go away, but I’m not prepared to ask for painkillers. At least the pain is sensation, a knowledge that those agonised limbs are within my control, that I feel them and everything that is happening to them accurately.
Painkillers block that. They mess with your perception of yourself, they dull reality, leave you less alert and more vulnerable. I’d rather be in agony than dulled. I’ve always felt that way about painkillers, but now it’s more important than ever.
Mavern is likely in great pain. His lungs and liver are breaking down, or so says the report. It’s likely to be true, there’s been decay on them for some years now. But as the last time, with the branded crystals, he may be more a victim of a malicious pretender to medicine than his own body. That thought bothers me. It wouldn’t bother anyone here, and while I don’t blame them, that bothers me too.
I don’t disagree that he’s a monster. What he did to me and to the others he harmed is unforgivable, there’s no dispute. But that doesn’t give me, or any of the Inflorescence, the right to cast judgement upon his life. As the Forerunner says, we are NOT FUCKING VIGILANTES. The number of times the others have said to me they want to put a bullet in Mavern’s head (or similar) actually upsets me. Simply for the fact that I’ve brought this hatred into their world, and I can’t take it back.
I do want to go and see him, see if there’s anything I can do. The reasons why are complicated, and probably more crazy than rational, especially with how ‘fragile’ I still am. Especially when no one knows how damn afraid I am of my own magic. I’m almost grateful Virtuosity knows the words and gave me a viable reason to be collared. I couldn’t explain it otherwise.
Part of it is the hunt. The fact that I literally cannot be in a room with a sick or injured human and not feel like my life will disintegrate if I don’t do something about it. Every time I think about Mavern it triggers further, between that and the Elonian girl I’m getting closer and closer to that desperate point where hurting something to fix it starts sounding like a brilliant idea.
That isn’t all of it though, and that’s what the others are worried about. My attachment. I both long for, and fear, a world where he no longer exists. He’s been such a constant—first as my master, and then as the one I had to keep watch on. I’ve always had half an eye on him, I built it into my purpose. A part of me, a part of my history, dies when he dies. He’ll never be able to enslave me again, he’ll never hurt another sapling… but nor will I ever—I don’t know. The idea that I should want something from him, anything, is ridiculous. It should have ended when he went to jail. I guess this is really the only way it can properly end.
I know I need to be there. I need to feel it, need to see it, need to make sure it’s real. Otherwise, how will I ever know? It’s surreal enough to just sit here and think that he’s out there in Kryta dying, he may fade away at any second, but is it actually happening? He may be in a pub in Ascalon for all that I can see right now. Out there. Poised and ready to get his next sapling. I’m scared that if I don’t see it for myself, he’ll haunt me forever and I’ll never be rid of it.
I’m still working on being allowed to go, and if I’m allowed to go, being allowed to assess his condition for myself and do what I deem necessary. No one is comfortable with that. I should probably warn them what trying to hold me back will do to me, if I’m faced with a sick human, but I’m afraid if they know they’ll simply say I can’t go at all and “fix” the problem that way. Oaken suggested taking another coalition mender to assess him, but it doesn’t work like that, and I wouldn’t trust anyone from the coalition to speak honestly if there was something that could be fixed. They’d say he was a lost cause to save me, and I’d be left with eternal doubts and wondering whether I could have done something more. I don’t want that doubt. I don’t have to have it. I can go, find out, and work from there.
If anyone is to choose between his life and his death, I’d rather it was me.
But I’m stuck here until someone will agree to take me, until all the tape is cut and the time is made, and all of the stars align in a way that suits everyone. Just a few months ago I would have got that letter and rushed to investigate, now I need to be carried. Now I sit and wait and stare toward the waypoint and drown in frustration. I’m useless, at the moment. To Mavern, and worst of all—to Vila.
I wanted to go find her. I would have if not for the pain. I don’t know how to make this better for her and the thought of her being sad makes me sad and angry and so much more fucking frustrated because I should be able to get out there and help her smile. I don’t now what to do.
The menders have finally left me alone. It’s got to a point where they don’t know how to handle me and just threaten to call for Vailynt or Mnostovo because somewhere along the line one of them worked out that I don’t want to bother them. What’s the point? They can’t fix this, all they can do is what the menders have been doing for the past few hours—watch me through various stages of hysteria and see what threats will shock me into a calm state again. None of it works. Except for the prospect of bothering people that matter to me.
I know they’re going to find out that I lost it again, I know they always do. I know it’s there in my file and the Forerunner will read it and shake his head and probably groan to the nearest person, ‘FUCKING SADRIENNE’, and I know that I have officially become that person who is liable to freak out at the smallest thing and that as much as I hate people tiptoeing around me I’m not exactly acting in a way that inspires people to treat me normally. I’m trying to keep my breakdowns as out of the way as possible. Like the stumps and the scars, I don’t want them out where they can disturb others. They shouldn’t have to deal with this. I may not deserve to be dealing with it myself, and I’d give anything to not have to. I don’t want to put them in a position where there is literally nothing they can do for me—I know how that feels.
The breakdowns are scary. It’s like being back in that chair, so helpless to do anything for the girl that my instincts took over and Virtuosity had to sedate me to make it stop. All the screaming and the thrashing, pure desperation and a burst of strength that I shouldn’t have in my emaciated state, I’m near blind with it. I don’t hear, I don’t see, I just feel terror and isolation and the overwhelming need to fight for any sort of freedom. There’s no rationality to it.
That’s not to say that my good moments aren’t genuinely good. I don’t feel secure anymore. At all. I’m bored out of my mind with so little to do, my body aches all over with the effort of healing, I can’t take two steps without keeling over exhausted. None of that makes me feel good, but in spite of it all I still laugh. The others come to see me, joke with me, help me out. I love them all for it, and they do make me proper happy—even if I have to keep checking my way out, even if it bothers me when they burst in unexpected, and even if poor Scamall has had the shittier end of this fall out. It’s not a lie when I laugh or smile. They make me laugh and smile.
I smile even more because against all logic, Keiranon and Vailynt seem to be treating me differently. More honestly. Especially in the case of Keiranon, it doesn’t feel as much like he’s looking down on me. Despite the fact that he’s had to hand feed me, and basically function as a nurse at times, when we talk it’s close and friend to friend. Not exasperated boyfriend to idiot girlfriend, or tired man to crazy ex. I still feel like I can tell him everything (more to the point, I can’t not tell him pretty much everything—a few things excepted) and it feels so much less like he’s going to rub at his face and shake his head, add more idiot points to my ever-growing total. This is what I wanted to start with. I think we’ve finally reached our perfect point. It still hurts a little when I remember that we’ll never be together, but it’s hard to describe how or exactly why. I guess I just wanted to make him happy and complete, the way he felt in his dream, I wanted him to have found the last piece he needed for a perfect life and in that respect I suppose I feel like I’ve failed him. And it’s never pleasant to feel that you aren’t enough. Now that we’ve established ourselves in a comfortable place though, I don’t long for him. Not like I used to.
My relationship to Vailynt has shifted significantly as well. He doesn’t crush me anymore. I know he’s actively trying not to, but I don’t think he could if he worked the other way. Time in Virtuosity’s control broke the chains, and I never really let Virtuosity be my master—which makes me at the moment masterless. Finally. I’ll need to be careful about how I hold that, but for the moment it’s freeing enough to just be able to joke with Vailynt and not be worried that my actions are disappointing him.
I might be masking the worst of the pain, hiding my scars and keeping my breakdowns to the shadows—but all of what they are seeing of me at the moment is me. That’s me making morbid jokes about my hands. That’s me taunting Revelin with a prosthetic boob. And yes, that’s me trying to kiss Scamall because I’m lonely and concerned that everyone is finding someone else. The good and the bad, and the utterly crazy. I’m a mess but my actions are genuine, and I need to look at this in more detail soon. This may be my base self, but whether I like it or respect it is another thing entirely—though I think at this point, I’m proud of how I am handling the whole ordeal. I’ve kept my humour.
I could love that about me.
I’m going to conduct a survey among those I know. I got a bit excited after Dhaedre therapisted me. I need to learn to love myself, which isn’t going to be easy. There’s a lot I already know I hate. Still, I need to try. First step is finding what I believe comprises a person I can be proud of and love. I’ve got a few attack plans for that—one is to critically examine those that I respect and tease out what it is about them that inspires those feelings. I want to compare that to a list of what they believe is special and loveable about them—there may be things I didn’t consider, and I think the difference in results will be enlightening. I will be conducting the same process on myself, critically analysing my behaviours and supplementing it with observations from those around me. From all of that, I should be able to decide what things are already present within me that I ought to keep, and polish, and what things ought to be cast aside.
Quite a project.
The loneliness is less today though. Revelin took me out. We went to Metrica and played with the robot toys, which was excellent, and then we almost died when one of the big golem fights got out of control and spectators had to run in and help disable it. I nearly started screaming, but Rev calmed me down and took me to Rata Sum where I think he bought just about everything to make me feel better. I have a piece of jewellery that does absolutely nothing, and my corner of the infirmary is covered in these very pretty but pointless holographic flowers, and there’s a little tube aquarium that has bobby fish toys inside it that is just there to look pretty. I’ve never had things that were just there to look pretty before! He also got me a bright pink tiger pelt blanket for my bed, and a data cube that is recording all of this for me so I don’t have to write, and this neat crystal dagger that he attached to my chair so that I can flame things in front of me. Then he went to the Reach and got a prosthetic boob made (even though boobs really seem to bother him) so now my clothes don’t look weird and have to be padded with bandages or paper. Vailynt fitted it for me, and we all sat around and laughed and when I got a bit sad (because Vailynt was teasing Oriaen about Keiranon) when everyone went to do other things Vailynt pulled me in for a cuddle and told me a story and made me feel better.
I have the most amazing friends. I really do.
Revelin is also going to find me a hobby. If anyone can do it, he can!
Later, Ralich came to visit me. Soon as he walked in he was poking fun at my fuzzy happy hat, and teasing me. We talked crap for a while, like we usually do, until I finally got the guts to ask whether the whole thing was just business or not. I want to say I wouldn’t have minded, but I would have, even if I wouldn’t have stopped supporting him. Apparently it was never just business. He’s just in a position where he can’t turn down money when it’s offered, and the whole reason he never took advantage of the times where he could have had me (and this was as confusing as hell) was because he didn’t want me to think it was all just business. He told me that he thinks I’m cute and wants to touch my butt on regular occasions. He’s really sweet, even if he’s a bit of a dick about it sometimes. But what was it that Keiranon said? Find another arsehole, but one that will feel for you the way you feel for them? I don’t know if that’s going to be the case yet, but it’s certainly fun and the worst that can happen is that I get hurt again.
Let’s be honest. I just had my hands cut off and fed to me.
I’m pretty sure I can survive whatever happens if this thing with Ralich doesn’t work out.
It put me in the greatest mood though, which lasted right up until Tiargeth mailed. And I went to therapy. I wish I could say that I showed him that his bullshit pseudo-mending was exactly that, but no. He closed the door to keep our session private which would have been fine except I don’t like being closed in like that anymore. Still, it’s stupid, right? Then he starts talking about paralysing me and how he’s going to break me of the control of the commands and I don’t remember much. I remember magic creeping into me, trying to soothe me and calm me down, but mostly it’s just screaming. Screaming and hitting my head against the door—ripping the IV out with my teeth, desperate to escape. He called a mender to get me out and that was the end of our session.
After Zainerys left last night, I slept. From what I’ve heard, nightmares and poor sleeping are the common thing to have after capture—but I seem to have the opposite problem. I sleep heavily. Half the time I don’t even dream, and when they do, it’s of possibilities so wonderful that I don’t want to wake up. In the dream I had last night, I was human. Truly good, with not a spot of wickedness on me. I had a love that whispered sweet sentiments to me while my children adored me. I tucked them into bed, all five, and marvelled at their perfect features and the lives ahead of them, in awe of what my love and I had brought into the world.
I woke to the quiet hum of the infirmary and stiff fronds on my face—a harsh reminder of what is true. I shouldn’t want for anything more than I am, but I have always wished to be human. Perhaps a feature of my hunt, or a consequence of my upbringing. At the time that I awoke, we were still so very new and frightening to the other races, and I spent so little time in the Grove. I never really had a chance to establish any pride in my own race, Mavern was not particularly helpful in that respect, and I longed to be something of which he could be proud. A human. A daughter, perhaps. Still. It doesn’t matter—it can’t be. I woke up as myself, and that was devastating enough to start.
I should have listened to Keiranon and not eaten so fast, as well. I’d been Elonian in the dream, and I lifted my arms first to check the colour of my skin—just to be sure some miracle didn’t happen—and there they were, the teal deadened stumps, and my tongue ran cold with the taste of copper around it. Had the Elonian girl been one of my children? I remember the taste of her so keenly, the wildness that her pain incited, the ever-present buzz of my hunt ignited into a full explosion and I woke the menders with a scream before doubling over the edge of the cot to empty my stomach. In the half light, it was dark and thick, and tasted like horror. I screamed when I was done. Again and again. I wanted to move, I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. My limbs were frozen. As if I were back in the chair, unable to save myself or the oak, or the girl, from what Virtuosity had planned for us. All I could do was scream, and scream, and scream.
Then cry.
When my throat was too raw to scream anymore, and my body heaved and trembled with exhaustion and fear, I cried. The nightshift menders just watched—debating among themselves whether to go against Mnostovo’s note on my file and sedate me. I don’t know how much of this they reported. I don’t remember how long I sobbed for, who heard, or what they did from there. I was locked in my mind, taken up entirely by a hunt that insisted I escape and find the girl, find any girl, fix something, fix it now—and a body that simply couldn’t. A hunt that raged at me for being useless and condemned me for allowing the continued suffering of the poor Elonian girl, the hunt that I wasn’t distracted enough to ignore.
I fell asleep again. Somehow. I didn’t dream, but I woke with a little more strength. The supplement pack Zainerys hooked me into is at least nourishing the body. It doesn’t fill my stomach, doesn’t rid me of the gnawing hunger, but it keeps me stable and gives me the energy to keep healing. I didn’t give myself a chance to think this time, I demanded a mender take me out to where the others were. I demanded my fuzzy hat and enough bandages to stuff the left side of my shirt. There’s a thin layer of new flesh grown there. I’m a little worried that it might grow back different shaped or sized to the other. If I weren’t already growing so much back I might request the removal of the other just to keep them even—which may be the most vain request I’ve ever made. We’ll see how it grows back.
I’m trying not to be impatient during regrowth. It takes time, especially for complex things like hands, and I am no sapling. The most laughable part of me being a mender is my low tolerance for magical healing, I’ve not got the genetic makeup to have flesh and core woven back in a matter of hours. I grow well, if I grow naturally. I don’t want to take the risk of pushing too much magic into new body parts and have them dysfunctional. Especially for my hands. My body is so used to having that healing magic on hand though, and taking what it needs as it needs it (hence my usually efficient healing process) but that is not an option for me right now. I am entirely at the mercy of my body’s energy, my natural grow rate, and to be honest I don’t know what I’d do even if Zainerys walked in to tell me that Virtuosity and everyone who had possession of my commands has been killed. If he came in to remove the magic suppression collar I asked for.
When they took Virtuosity’s suppression device off me, it came back in a flood. Blinding amounts of power that charged me from core to the outermost reaches of my fronds, a wealth of destructive energy that threatened to explode at any time. I’m terrified that Virtuosity will come back for me and use that power against the others, I’m terrified that I no longer seem to have the control over it that I used to after being cut off like that, the way that it consumed me and directed itself while Searil was trying to heal me—it’s always done that, but it never seemed scary before. I feel like I’m forever on the edge of exploding, just a tiny tip away from completely losing it and obliterating everything in my path. I’m volatile and dangerous and giving me that intense of an ability is only going to hurt everyone else around me. So I don’t want it.
And I don’t know what I can be without it.
I was a soldier. Until I lost my hands.
I was an elementalist. Until I lost my ability to control magic.
I was a medic. Until I lost my mind, and needed healing more than I could give it.
Now I am nothing, a bed-blob taking up space and resources that ought to go to functional members of the coalition. I have no value here. My hands will grow back in time, but I’m not so sure the other two states will be healed, I can’t—I don’t know what to do. I just sit here and while away the hours, an invalid, a burden, here simply because the Inflorescence would feel guilty if they turned me away.
I try not to bother them as much as I can. Cover my scars, put gloves over the stumps so they can pretend I have hands. Surround myself with people and distractions, make jokes and avoid sitting around alone where I can. How long is that going to last, though? Keiranon has been so sweet since I was brought back, almost a nurse to me at times—and yet, he had to ask Vilathara if she was okay being on “Sadie duty”.
I am a duty now. They won’t say it, they may not even feel it, but I do.
And Vila—she’s equally as sweet, divulging gossip to me (which I told Keiranon. He was upset over the Whispers thing, but that is basically the only thing I’ve ever managed to keep from him) and as much as it entertains me, it saddens me too. She’s got Trisbaine an atlas with locations marked that they should to to for adventures. They’re just going to dance off into the sunset and have exciting travels and come back with stories and be closer than ever before. Keiranon is embarking on a quieter adventure with Oriaen, one that I really hope goes well for them. I want them to be happy. I want them all to be happy.
Yet it seems that everyone is happier with someone else.
There’s no one marking maps for me, no one who wants me to show them all the things that I find amazing in the world. No one who wouldn’t be crushed by the complete mess that I am. I know there are a lot of people who care for me, and I appreciate them so dearly. I do. But I’ve never felt loneliness so acute as it is now once everyone’s gone to bed and the menders are satisfied that I’m not going to break into another episode. They all leave me to go tend to the parts of their lives that I cannot be part of, the parts that belong to their significant and special ones.
I’m scared of what will happen when I’m released from here and sent to my own room. How much more it will hurt when I know that there won’t be a mender wandering in occasionally to ensure everything is okay. Even if they don’t care, even if they’re just doing a job, they’re company. Temporary relief. There’s a part of me that wants to lie to Scamall and beg him to take me back. It’d be so wrong. So awful to him. Every time I see him I’m just a split second away from it, a split second from leeching his kindness and sweetness just to make myself feel good, so that I wouldn’t have to sleep alone, and I fight it. I can’t let the monster out, not like that, and not at him. So here I am still.
Useless and alone. Pretending every chance I get, sucking up every distraction I can find, trying to be less of a burden even as my body is wracked with the agony of all these damned burns and cuts and healing flesh. As my mind is torn apart by denying my hunt and watching the lives of others progress around me while I can do nothing but watch and be jealous.
This is when I can’t hold it together anymore. When I’m on my own with no one to pretend for. When I scream into the pillow in frustration and pain, and cry until I pass out to another dream so much more beautiful than my reality.
Journal, I don’t write in you often enough. Now I’ve picked you up again, I’ve so much to say that some will need to be covered in future entries. Red’s death was a trial for me, I’ve never felt loss so absolute. Even Lily’s absence hasn’t cut as deep as knowing that there is no way that Red can possibly come back and be as he was. He is gone. Forever. Once again it frightens me how deep those bonds can go and how painful it is when they’re severed. Red was dear to me, he became a very close friend in a very short time. He became a confidant in ways I never expected, and his support helped me through Keiranon’s disappearance and return, Lily’s disappearance, and all of the other bullshit that’s been happening.
I didn’t expect the ending of the siege to hurt the way it did. Maybe it was the closeness of that and Red’s death, or maybe endings are just something I don’t handle well. Probably both. That the rush of my hunt died with Red and the girl didn’t help, all of those sudden breaks in what I had thrown myself into left me struggling once again for some sort of purpose.
Not being allowed to Red’s funeral hurt. And Ixoris Sebelle sending a letter requesting my resignation for a bunch of bullshit reasons (read: you’re sylvari and I don’t trust you) only compounded the pain. I need to do something about that—I can’t, and I won’t, stand idly by while other races attribute Scarlet’s evil to us as a whole. I’m still working on that proposal. Every time I go to write it, all I get is “We go out and help people!” yay yay happy faces. I think that’s the only way forward though—engage with the wider world and help solve their problems where we can. Forerunner Zainerys agrees, I just need to put all of these thoughts into some sort of cohesive and workable plan.
I’ll get there. After some amount of fucking about, I always get there.
