[redzaru]

---

I don't write much anymore.
I did when I was younger.

I was more juvenile. I recounted every small thing detail. 

I wrote of the people I met. That became my friends companions.
I wrote of the small things. The strange lupin I saw one day. The way the river sparkled once.

My parents. 

Even back then I had noticed the passive admonishment of my Father.
The unhappy smile my Mother would bear for me Him.



I used to be young. Some Many say that I still am.
I used to be younger.
I used to live as a human would. I would laugh. I would cry. I would antagonize for no reason.
I would live.

But such was unbecoming of my heritage.
That is what Father would say to me. His words were as firm as his hand.
I hated him. And yet I could not escape his design.

And so I donned his masks.

His blows were softened by my Mother's buxom.
Her warm embrace as I wept quiet enough to hide from Him.
She would lie to me. Tell me it was alright.

Mother was my lighthouse. A beacon that kept me from the rocky shore.
One day that beacon was extinguished. I was crushed.

I lost my way to the harbor.
And fell into my Forebear's Design.



A single fragment of my Self was lost when I put down my tool.
"There is no point in it," I remember my Father telling me.
I'd do better learning. Following after Their footfalls.

I learned of Nemea. I learned Wylden.
I learned the passive disinterest that my people wear like a tight shirt.
I learned the rituals. They are now as breathing is.
I forgot how to be Human. I learned how to be Faeborne.

I've lost many fragments following my Forbear's Design.

The parts that made me who I was have been replaced.

I splintered my Self to fit the mold.

I became a collection of shards and a wearer of masks.

I've lost my old Self.

And yet, I persist.