Inner Thoughts

Where am I?

I have no memory of this place. A dark forest, with looming pines, seemingly void of life. My whole body aches to the marrow of my bones, and my mouth is dry. I feel as if I have not rested in weeks. I can't sleep again, not now.

I close my eyes for only a moment, and Lyn's voice resonates in my mind.

Sethos... in these waking dreams, he has dominion over my physical being. To be a prisoner of your own mind is wicked in and of itself.  To be submit to someone who has already caused your family so much pain is unspeakable.

I have wanted since my youth nothing more than to rid myself of my family name. The Bartholomaus line has been cursed with a cruel fate since ages past.. I have spent my life trying to avoid it, only for it to meet me time and time again.

Lynsyrien has been generous to aid me to the extent that she has. However, I worry that she has wasted her efforts on me - there is something I don't see, that she believes me to know. I can't even begin to fathom the general idea of what it may be that I should know intrinsically-let alone bring it to a question as she desires.

Therefore I'm left to speculate, constantly until I'm all but mad. If my abilities as a skilled hunter have taught me anything-it is that my own mind is a well constructed trap, the inner workings of which I have no idea how to disarm without becoming ensnared. Every time I seek this "truth", I have to start from the beginning, and work my way through until the current point in time. I keep coming up short, and more confused than the last time I sought the answer.

It's easier to consider first what I do know, then try to read a library for texts that don't exist within.

I know that I have sought purpose my entire life, even now. I've toiled to atone for my sins, and the sins of my ancestors. I've fallen out numerous times-giving up on purpose and hope and all but lost-only to be dragged back to the brink, more often than not against my will. Then by who's will?

In the last few years... I have looked death in the eyes more times than I can count. Yet here I am.

As it is, my current task is simple. I must stop Sethos. In his previous reign, countless lives were lost at his hands. I could hear them - their terror. I cannot let this happen again. If it doesn't end with me, then how many more lives will yet be lost at the hands of the Bartholomaus?

I reach to my hip to find the hilt of my dagger, and slowly I withdraw it from it's sheath, turning it in my hand.

Is this the answer?......

.... No... Taivian still lives out there. I'm not so important that he won't turn his eye on my brother if my body is no longer of use to him. Perhaps he doesn't know of Taivain's existence yet.

I replace the weapon and stand slowly-my legs feel useless beneath the weight of my body. I use the massive root beside me to hoist myself up, then look sideways at it, my gaze following the root up to the tree. Turning around, I recall this place now - Lyn brought me here before. The patterns in the roots and carvings in the tree, another one of the riddles she wanted me to discern. I came up empty handed then just as much as I do now. Why did he come here? I feel so ignorant-as if I'm contemplating a book written in another language, without the smallest understanding of it. How will I find the answers?

Perhaps I will not be afforded the opportunity.

There's the slightest crack in the deafening silence. I turn around-to see Ardonali standing a few yards from me. He's not alone... Apostos is there, in his grasp, a blade pressed to her neck.