Hinzel. Reflections and memories.

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Any day now...this is all just so scary...I wasn't sure before, but then I got a sending from the man, Myhun? Now I have to go speak to elves about who knows what, good thing the sending is so specific...

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So many people are gone.

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New dream...another nightmare...subtle, quiet, cant speak to them. Everything is darker. They all come and go in flashes of memory by now.

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I've sat in the Shadows for too long, doing nothing, while the Coast is once more wash over by waves of activity, the people changing. I sit and watch and do nothing as everything just passes me by...she keeps getting hurt when i'm supposed to be keeping her safe...too lazy, too lax, letting my guard down...it's time to fix that, to <i>do</i> something...

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I walk around...everything is...the same but different...off...but this is how things are supposed(?) to be. Why is the Gate so...dark...gray...bleak...I think I need to go to...somewhere. Wandering through the city, I find the Sewer, something tells me I need to go there. I try to speak to people, but they walk past...not noticing i'm there...

And happy birthday to me I guess...

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Annie and Gwydion will...they'll be fine...they'll return home...before long...I...hope so...

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...I count the passing moments...that I do not spend with Annie and Gwydion...and I begin to wonder if it is worth it...I wake and look around and...nothingness...silence...

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Each waking second of every day melts seamlessly into each other whether i want them too or not. The gently humming energies in my belongings keep telling me i have unfinished business. The gem...continuing to.draw in light...the stone Kaltyra sealed it in cracked and broken...mostly dust now...the aching of my heart renews with each beat...Annie and Gwydion gone...the daily nightterrors...maybe losing your mind...isnt so bad at all..that creature within...the call gets louder...darkness growing...

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I stare and stare and wonder. I wake and wander and search. I try to close my eyes. To find the calm, to sit in the dark, but it brings with it a void, not a comforting embrace...I do not feel anything around me, the emptiness fills all of me.

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To be abandoned by everyone...

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I can hardly believe I found this damned thing. It hurts to read through it, I can almost visit those times once more, recall things, faces, people...but life moves on. I still don't know if could've changed anything back then, but now I know once again I can't dwell on the past and live in the present at the same time. It's good to remember where I came from, but more important to know where I am going from here.

It is my sincere hope that everyone, wherever they are, that they are handling themselves well. As much as I wish that I can do everything for everyone, all that worry and pain only continued to build inside, while forces from without pushed me, all of me, deeper inside and away from everyone so that the shadows consumed me. Perhaps I was weaker than I thought to be, I was serving the shadows and not the other way around. I can't allow the darkness and shadows to extinguish the light...I can't allow me to be defeated by myself.

It is...liberating to be able to finally speak my mind to someone once more. To be able to let someone...people, inside to help me. But I cannot simply lay that weight on them. Everyone has their own lives, it's time for me to live my own once more. A life in fear is no life...especially if it is spectres from your past that haunt you. The Shadows will serve me once more...and I will make use of them, and do with them what I will, for myself and others.

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The recovery of the Gate seems to progress well enough, with Festivities ran and donations collected and people working for the benefit of others. Things are as they should be I suppose. A dance here, idle chatter there, a little snowball fight, the little things. At least everyone else seemed to enjoy it. Suppose Myhun is right about...whatever he said. These highs and lows are life, the lows simply reveals itself throughout the day as things unfold, and by the end, I dont even realize how low it's dragged me down from the start.

Pathfinders is the busy hub of activity these days. Eleanor shouldn't have accepted that, but that all appears to have passed without further incident. I hear about the children from the Radiant Heart have moved into the Hall there. I've come by a few times, though they are most times too busy. I've donated what meager coin I have...I just wished I could do more. They aren't lacking in hands but...suppose I really need to speak to Ameris at least. Orc tried to drag Telia off during the festivities, suppose the Guards were a tad lax that day.

I've spent time with Atashka. At times it hurts, other times things seem okay and even well between us. Another veil perhaps. I'm attached, and it makes it hurt more. It is good to be around Kin..i think. But when your kin is demon and deviled blooded people known for dubious integrity...it still lingers that she trusted Praethis at all to begin with. I cant fault her for it though can I? Sneaky shite. Trying to listen into our conversation and sneak off. It was surreal to behold his heart. Looked rather like mine. It stopped beating in the end as well. It was delivered, his body rotting on the side of the road. Good riddance. He was of the Coven, not surprising in the end. They did manage to drag me off to their little hideout though, damned undead and their magicks. Took my left thumb and blood. They said they would have use for it to study. Im more surprised there was six or so of them around me. So much for having gone to ground again. Halfling, two females and the rest male I think. It seems I also belong to a certain Drowess as well now. At least she is a better hostess than those Coven. All the promises and threats of torture and death for interest in one of their own, only to be told to let me go, after a good time in that cell of course. I've nothing else to offer in regards to the idol, let's hope she believes me when I am eventually questioned and not sent back into the hellfire.

Myhun found other prospects for the detective group. Just need to see what they answer. Not surprised at the picks in the end. Still have a few of my own, though I suppose i tend to poke and prob at people a bit slower to learn of em. We'll see how things pan out.

Even if loss is her strength, I will find my gem.

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The tiefling, seated on the simple chair within the inn room, beheld a piece of paper in his hand. He was unable to look upon it, so he instead tried to conjure the image in his minds eye. Him and a small bear, nestled in his lap beneath a tree. He however, found himself unable to completely recall the memory. His index finger would trace ever so lightly over the small piece of artwork gifted to him by a friend. He remains there in silence, trying to draw comfort and to find a peace within himself, instead, he felt hollow and empty. He tried to recall the joy and serenity from his memories, but they too were in the past. He forces himself to his feet, dragging himself to the Inn's washroom, blindly staring into the mirror, and reaching out.

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*A journal escapes the bottom of the inside of a knapsack. A tiefling opens the pages, he takes a slow, contemplative read through them.*