Introspection of Rosa de'Lacour

[Considerate_]

Written in a neat and tidy handwriting on the last pages of Rosa's spell book

Introspection of Rosa de'Lacour

I have toyed with the idea of writing down my mind on paper to grant myself a larger perspective on matters, for these past five days - though it has always been a matter pushed aside for another time. Recent events have forced my hand to accelerate the process considerably. These events have already started fading from my memory, and I am concerned that in a matter of ten days the details will be so blurred I cannot recall them precisely. I know from hard earned experience that I cannot afford to err in such matter..

Therefore it’s of the utmost importance that I am completely honest with my emotions in these pages, otherwise I will never get the necessary introspection I strive for. One day I’ll be able to look back and decide whether my stay here has changed me, for better or worse.

[Considerate_]

Merrok

How did I allow myself to be betrayed so easily again after Luskan? I should have known better! Twice, over the same number of days, and by the same person just to add insult to injury. You will recognize that name Rosa, no matter how much sand runs through the Hourglass of Time.

My initial reaction to him was sound, perfectly deducted with the various bits of information I had at hand at the time: “Stay away from him!!!”

Yet he persisted in stalking around after me in the shadows, first it was simply to insult me and pick at me – showing his true character I suppose? But then he warmed up to me, at first in that devilish charming yet impractically annoying mannerism.

Over the past two months we became close, he even dressed my broken leg when I opened a chest that revealed to be trapped (though in retrospective, I know now he’s a trapper maybe he placed it there as I first suspected). I even made the mistake of promising that if he could behave for seven days he’d get to see what I hide underneath my mask. Stupid, I know, but what would you do future Rosa, if you were in that situation with an intimidating man like Merrok? Yeah, I thought so.

I’ve lost count of how many times he’s threatened to unhood me by force, I ended up believing it was just a game on his part, some kind of elaborate joke to get an outlet for the calling of his heritage, that tug which pulls at your very soul and crawls in your most private emotions.

Yet we had a… what word could I use - intimate? Conversation. We shared out feelings on our relationship and he ended up releasing me from my promise, only a few days before his payment was due. You have no idea how elated I felt, well I guess you do if you still remember it. There was this urge deep inside me to just pull the hood off and wrap him in my arms, feel him tight like I felt Marcus pressing me into a warm hug.

But no, I knew to keep my cool – especially after Marcus. Blood and ashes Rosa, just imagine what had happened if you had let in to those emotions? You’d be lying at the depth of that well again, with nothing but shadows and darkness above you. You know better now than to trust another, don’t you? Please tell me you do, after all I’ve suffered through then you won’t be obtuse enough to put me through more?

He betrayed me once, jumped me up in the mountains north of the troll ford, it was cold and deliberate, he kept blabbering on about some people hunting him and placed the blame squarely on me, I must’ve been feeding them information or whatever. Doesn’t he know a thing, didn’t he know that back then I didn’t even have anyone else to talk with even if I had so desired. He hesitantly let me go and begged for forgiveness. Stupid cow that I am, I gave in; oh Rosa I so desperately wanted to believe him, I could almost see Marcus before me saying those very same words, wanting forgiveness.

Yet today, only a few hours ago he did it again. Having decked up with the most extraordinary meal I had ever imagined possible. Lobster, real lobster, like they serve for the high noblemen. It was the happiest moment of my time here in this region. Then and there, I decided I wanted to steal him away at some point after the meal, allow him to see me. I had it all planned out in my head, but… it had to be something private, just him and me. A moment of bonding and growth for our relationship. He STOLE what I wanted to freely give, right there in my deliberations for how to give it to him. There was nothing special about it. Just his own egoistical desire to take what he wanted.

Inebriated pig… and you really wanted to trust him Rosa? Well if you ever read this again, and I hope you do often and hard, then this is what you should remember you thought: “Don’t trust him”. That’s the only conclusion I can give to you.

-Don’t-
-Trust-
-Him-

[Considerate_]

Maria

She was my second closest friend… I use that term lightly, in fact she’s my hired muscle, but I just need someone to entrust myself to. Right after Merrok she was the closest person to me, after his latest actions… she IS the closet individual to me – how sad is that Rosa? Yeah, I think it’s sad, and don’t you try to argue against it. I said I’d be honest in these pages and so I shall, even if you won't like it.

She is quiet and reserved, but she has a blunt manner which I envy above all else. She says and does what she means, there’s no buttering up or hiding behind false pretences. Blood and ashes, she’s so strong, not just her sword sling arm, but in mind and spirit… or is it that she just has nothing left to lose?

I spoke with her, you’ll remember it if you try real hard. At the camp fire outside Candlekeep, just you two, testing her like she was another research subject, but she wasn’t. You couldn’t stay professional, you had to ask. Well, alright alright, WE had to ask. Same thing, you know she doesn't trust you - she doesn't trust anyone with your talent, not fully at least. I have to work on that, not for her sake... but for mine. I want her to. I've never had anyone to trust in me. Please, can't she just trust in me?

I learned so much about her, and yet she knows so little about me. We talked for lengths, I drew courage from her predicament. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I did. It’s always ME in those awkward situations, but this time it wasn’t, and it felt empowering to be able to help another person. Yes it did, don’t try ad deny it; the only reason you don’t do it more often is because you’re a coward. No not in battle, you can face giants toe-to-toe, but what you fear is them. Their response, their reaction, the questions oooooh yes you fear the questions don’t you? What will they do if you decide to side with the wrong one, what will it cost you?

But you know what, I would side with Maria if the situation demanded it… I think.

Oh who are you kidding. You’d run, and you know Maria would urge you to do so. Think you could say no to her, if she told you to run in the face of danger? No you couldn’t, because you’d be afraid what she would do, think and feel about you if didn’t.

What to do future Rosa? You tell me. Please? I want to know what to do with her more than anything. I've already lost the only one I truly could call friend. What will you do if you lose the only one you think you could befriend if given the time?

... I'm so lonely. - don't be sentimental Rosa, this is just a book.

[Considerate_]

Rosa

What? Why did you think you gave this work the title Introspection, if not to divulge information about yourself? When you started writing this, you undoubtedly had some ideas of grandeur and hidden truths, unveiling the secrets of your mind as easily as dissecting a frog… on second thought, I was a bit nauseous the first time I did that.

I’m feeling nauseous too now. I tried opening up to others, and for some reason it feels like I’ve tried dissecting myself with a blunted scalpel. The results was just as promising as the quality of the imagined instrument. Disastrous. I feel the bile rising in my throat just at the prospect of putting such complex emotions situations down in something as simple as bullet points… but I know I must try, for my own sanity.

• Hood forcefully removed by Alice, claimed she was my friend, she’ll get a section of her own when I get around to her.
• Harried by paladins, to be expected really.
• Bullied by Merrok, why does he do that.
• Assaulted by Merrok, no lasting injuries just a few scrapes.
• Lost my faith in Merrok, and I fear I lost my heart for it all in the process.
• Assaulted by Shirtza, she broke my ribs! (someone I have met all but once)
• Robbed by Shirtza, of both a powerful item and my hope to become whole.
• Hood forcefully removed by Shirtza, really, wasn’t two bullet points enough for you?
• Betrayed by Mealir, Rain, Zachariah, Laitae, and Shirtza, losing my will to live.

Re-reading that list, the moist in my mouth turns to ash and I’m left to wonder why this always happens to me? Is it something I do or something I say.

I can barely believe most of the above happened over less than a ten day. They would never understand me, they can’t possible hope to do so… and yet they presume to pass judgment on me. I still hear their words echoing in my memory, “leave her” – “it’s her own fault” – “I would’ve done it myself if you hadn’t”, all of them approving and offering words of comfort to my attacker. Accusing eyes boring into me from the shadows, I can’t put a face to the voices. It’s like my memory is draped in a thick all encompassing fog of pain.

Do you have the faintest recollection of how painful it was Rosa? How the very bone scraped against your inside with every movement? I can’t blame you if you can’t by the time you re-read this for personal reflections. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go bury myself in these sheets… I’ve ordered some wine for the pain, on second thought I probably should’ve ordered something stronger…

[Considerate_]

The Finger

They wouldn’t understand it, they couldn’t, and more over they didn’t even TRY to understand me… yet they blamed it all squarely on me.


How was I supposed to know? It's not like I was given the artifact, it was mine by right of victory over a giant long before they ever came into the picture. A lot of powerful artifacts have some semblance of sentience and develop a symbiotic bond with their wielder. I even utilized it to save their lives. Did they have any idea just how outmatched they were; no they didn’t, even as two of them fell to the Lich’s onslaught the remaining never came to understand that I was the one who saved their miserable lives. I truly wish I could pen down that it was a mistake on my part to save them, but I can’t bring myself to do it… Grouping up with a team and venturing into danger means you agree on an unwritten obligation to watch over each other, so I upheld my end of that bargain.

I should never have gone along with them in retrospective of course, it was stupid and altruistic (and how often don’t those two seem alike in my experience?), it was an offer of help to a group sorely in need of it – and in return for my favour, they turned on me and attacked me. I still feel the throbbing pain in my ribs, but it’s a fading wound that will heal given time… what they took from me, won’t. It wasn’t just the extraordinary power of the object they robbed from me. It was the promise, I felt its tremendous power and I know it could have done it, and it was wrested from my hands an item that was rightfully mine, by strangers who I had expended several hours and more material components than I care to account for, in aiding.

Oh Rosa, how much wouldn’t you risk to be able to toss these filling robes aside and be free of your prison? I know Rosa. . . I know. That sweet sweet voice, so much like Marcus. . . just that this one wouldn’t betray me, it wouldn’t leave me all alone. For the first time in more than five years, I had a confidant. For the first time in my life, I had someone that truly appreciated me and didn’t just exploit me.

And of all things, it was a magical item. An imitation of sentient intelligence… is this truly what I’m reduced to? Should I create some golem and impart it with a sentient spirit that would communicate with me yet be depended on my continued existance for its own?

I’m so tired of being alone. Always alone… and yet my surroundings keep showing me again and again that there is no place for me in this life.

[Considerate_]

Synchronized Betrayals and Apologies?

I’m starting to think some malicious group are spiking the water in this region… that or I am just growing paranoid... In my younger days I found myself easily swayed by words, in my later years I’ve come to discern intent by actions alone... but how those two sides have come to clash in these past few days, and I’m at a loss Rosa. I hope you chose the right thing, because I can’t make out the roads ahead of me clearly enough to give you any solid advice. They’re such a blur... Let me pen it down for you, so when you have to make your decision you’ll be able to read exactly how you felt during this turbulent time.



I’ve been betrayed, I’ve been chased away... I’ve even been disappointed before. Those are all feelings I can cope with, indeed its feelings I’ve perfected coping with over my entire life. Why oh why are they all trying to turn my world upside-down, stabbing me in the back with a serrated knife with one hand, while offering the other in a gesture sincerest of soothing apologies. Which hand should I trust, and why are both attached to the same individuals?!?

Merrok betrayed my trust, and reading back on it I know I shouldn’t trust him... but I cannot deny that my life has been strangely vacant of meaning ever since he and I turned our separate ways. He’s apologized, he’s tried to make up for it... and I know it strives against everything his blood tells him to do, yet he overcame his pride and said those sorely needed words: “I’m sorry”
He’s so very young in body and mind, with all the advantages and shortcomings that implies. How I envy him, he has the best part of his days ahead of him. His own mistakes to make and learn from; yet I find myself compelled to warn him, hold him back, and even protect him from the vile world that hides just beyond the corner. I so wish to be near him, but every time I do, I transform into this old hag that looms over him like some ill-boding parental figure and he’ll never listen to. Doesn’t he understand that I fear for him and with good reason? Still, I shouldn’t be such a hag to him...

Then there’s the matter of this Shirtza, who so thoroughly assaulted me, body and soul... she tracked me down in the minotaur caves, had me cornered in a confined room, there, she apologized. The wretched woman apologised to me, it made me feel horrible to hear her version of it. I felt like I was being boiled alive with every syllable she uttered, as if the blame was shifted squarely on me even though she made no words to that effect.
I told her my version, and I had gone over this scenario a thousand times in my mind, anticipated every possible justification that she could feasibly and unfeasibly conjure in defence... all save one; she agreed with me and swore she’d strive to make it up to me. What was I to respond to such a blunt admission? How am I to maintain my ire against that?!

A single thought has been threatening to drive me crazy over this past ten day:
Why are the people who have wronged me the most, the ones who seemingly strive to want me the best? Is there something wrong with ~ me~-...


It’s an impossible situation they keep bringing me into... it’s as if they ask me to sum up all their actions into a single equation and then divide it by zero. How am I supposed to react or respond, when my enemies are my friends and my friends are my enemies all at the same time? Regardless of whether they’re friend or foe, I don’t wish to lash out at them... I just want to be left alone... so much, beyond all else that’s what I both wish for and dread for.

When I’m alone, I want to be with Merrok – hear him laugh, see that boyish grin on his stupid handsome face or just hear the chatter of Maria and Cinnamon as they talk about everything and nothing.
When I’m with others, I always do something wrong, or I have to hear my own grating voice... and I know they can’t take me serious, I can see it in their sympathetic eyes, as if I’m just some child they pity... then, above all else, I want to be alone....

[Considerate_]

Ethan

I should’ve written about him long ago, but I kept postponing and pushing it aside. Just as I did his many advances, I could not would not see them… Gods above you’ve played a cruel enough trick on me, I’ve never been a religious type, but I sincerely pray that You’re not going to involve that young soul in the mess that’s my life. The poor boy is barely half my age… and I fear I’m growing too old to rekindle the flame of passion I lost so long ago.

It would seem that he’s been courting me, thinking back on all the peculiar events that’s transpired when he’s been around me then there’s a sudden logical wall of insight that becomes transparent. He’s received dating advice from some woman called Fury and Merrok; I wasn’t exactly fair to either of his spiritual advisors on second thought, but if they’ve deliberately set him up with just half of those silly ideas he’s brought to fruition then… I don’t know. I just don’t know. A lobster… out in the open…. As if that alone wasn’t ridiculous enough, was it –really– necessary so shortly after my last wound over just such a meal? He knew it, I know he did.

Ethan is a kind soul, I honestly believe that… and just as I sometimes tend to lean on my stuttering as a shield against prying eyes, I think he might be leaning on his professed cowardice. No man can be that accepting of his own cowardly behaviour, surely? I guess he might be just that and this is yet another hint that I’m growing paranoid with all the pretence I constantly see around me… There’s just something nagging me when I see him, something seems amiss and I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.

Perhaps it’s just that he’s been infatuated with me… or rather, as is more likely, obsessed with some phantom of his own mind, conjured by his own imagination of who he thinks I might be. Much like Merrok I suspect, just that he had the presence of mind to know its’ nothing but curiosity that drove him.

I don’t know Rosa... but I hope that this female advisor of his will start cautioning him against seeing me, she seemed sincere enough in wanting the young man the best. Perhaps it was good I was so harsh on her? Perhaps it will scare him away... he’d be better off by far, before he’d find his dreams shattered in a thousand pieces when he found out what and who I am.




I sooo want to hate you Marcus, for what you did to me... why can I not find it in my heart to do so?!

[Considerate_]

Another day, week, month

So much have transpired, meaningless dribble seen in the greater perspective. Most important of news, I’ve made up with Merrok. I suppose, it's hard to tell these days. We’ve not quite attained the same level of familiarity that we once shared. I'm uncertain if we're falling apart because his woman has seemingly just upped and left him without a word, he's more secluded now, guarding his feelings and emotions... Though I'm not an inch better than him in that matter. It's strange, how time always seems to work in reverse for me. The longer I know people, the less I know them.

Yet I keep being astonished by the insanity that’s enthralled me. I’ve been warned already against meddling in the affairs of others, and now I might have earned the ire of a sect of necromancers. Two at the very least, maybe even three. Why do I keep interfering in affairs that are not mine... I know why, because whenever I see one of those young souls clashing with mortality I pity them. I pity all that they could have become, if only fate had been kinder. But it’s not... Fate is rarely, if ever, kind to us mortals - and I am left to wither and die from old age, watching the youth squander their life.

Sometimes I consider the futility of it all. Perhaps I should just face the reality; that I’m doomed to wander the face of Faerûn in solitude… I’m growing older with every passing day and I feel the wear aching in my bones when the weather turns to rain. In less than five years my adventuring days will be behind me, what will become of Rosa de’Lacour then?

I must find some purpose in my life, if this is to go on...