Dramaturgy

[Shilukk]

The voice is cold, but the heart yet beats.
And it bleeds for the ones it's killed.






I don't belong here. I never did.
I should have died when they threw my body to the sands. Why I yet live, time after time, is beyond me. I kick and scream, but the blade never comes. I remain in endless death throes.
It is misery. I find no release.

What have I done, here?
What have I accomplished.
The badge in my satchel is a symbol of the lives I've taken. The corrupted metal of my blade a symbol of my desperation. The rift-core burning in my chest a symbol of how far I went.
The burns that scar his a reminder of what it cost me.

Fire laces my body. A prosthetic crammed into my skull. No longer am I mother's innocent girl.
I learned how to read. How to make things. I fell in love. Twice.
The more I understand, the more blood on my hands.
I made the same mistakes as you did, mother. A pity I cannot hear your scoldings from the grave, is it not?

I had two children. I took two children.
Those two are my pride and joy. I was happy. I stopped wanting to fight.
Yet mere years before had I taken another's pride and joy in a pair of two. One of them crushed, mutilated; fed to a tree. The other, burned alive. Both fell to my hand.
And yet I still live.
My children still live.
My love still lives.

So I ask you, mother, though you cannot hear a word I say.
Why me?

Why am I here.

You should have killed my father long before. You know that. I know that. He was just another name on the list, was he not?
It would have been so simple. For me to ne'er have been born at all.
Yet here I am.
Look what you've done.

I take my leave of you, Esshar. For I will suffer you no longer. You will suffer me no longer.
I have done enough.
Mayhap I will die, when I return to Sheng. Mayhap by another.
Unlikely. I seem to be incapable of it.
Then, mayhap I will do it myself.

I fantasize, yet I know it's not true. I will not take my own life. Nor will I allow another to in my stead.
Nor will I cry for the lives I've taken. Nor will I pray for their souls.
Nor will I utter an apology for the afflicted. Nor will I repent for my sins.
My name is Chiase. Fox of the Glorious Inferno.
And I do not regret what I've done.

But a piece nonetheless, if I may:

I am what one would call, a monster. A murderer.
I have heard it plenty before.
The words crumple against my unflinching visage of savage pleasure.
Yet despite it all, so much more lay just beneath the surface. Never to be exposed.
For I play the villain. Such is my role.

My voice is cold, but my heart yet beats.
And it bleeds for the ones I've killed.