Journal of a Boy

[CrystikRage]

Found within a chest, obscured among several objects, most of sentimental value alone. An old plush toy, a few letters... Old armor, outgrown, alongside their accompanying weapons.

The script is messy, scribbled by an impatient hand that'd rather be doing something else.

Boy.

I hate the word, I think. Maybe it was fitting, once, when I was inexperienced, weak. Yet now I've outgrown half the people who would use it. Do they not realize they insult themselves? Or do they just think they're in on some joke between themselves, me and my father?

It doesn't matter. Ualdir tests me with far worse on a near daily basis.

Are these nightmares a trial as well? The crack of bone, the tearing flesh. Her body weak in my arms. My weak, powerless arms.

I don't sleep much these days. Ualdir, what must I do to atone for this sin? I'm told it was out of my hands, that my mother is proud of me, that there should be no guilt. And then I close my eyes and hear her while my fist is lodged between her ribs.

Undefeated... I suppose I shall keep this up, then. My exhaustion doesn't matter, not compared to the tasks impressed upon me by my father.

Fel beware, for I carry Ualdir's storm within me.

And maybe when I am victorious, the nightmares will fade.

[CrystikRage]

An old journal finds itself dusted off after infrequent use. Most of the pages remain blank, or possess the slowly maturing scribble of a teenaged boy. A new entry finds its way into it, written in blocky, deliberate lettering.

I have heard it said, as a joke, that Ualdir gives the greatest battles to the most powerful of warriors.

Why do I feel so weak and powerless, then?

It's an odd weakness, unlike anything I've ever experienced. My hand is as strong as ever, my grip mighty. I can call upon the storm to ravage my foes, or cut them to pieces with flickering shadow. Yet, when that strength mattered most? Where was it?

Why am I alive, not by my own hand, but through the temperament of my captors?

I can't banish their voices, their faces. Looking back at my time spent in the Maw, it feels like a blur. A mesh of mockery and insults. Of my own futile rage and cloying, false sweetness. Their last deception still haunts me. Perhaps it was false, but my rage was real - IS real. I can still feel it inside me, burning like a coal. I didn't know I was capable of such hate, I thought only a demon, or an occultist, could feel those sensations burning within themselves.

Wit. Persephone. Mystogan.

My primary tormentors. I will remember you. I will grow beyond you.

Or I shall die trying.

By Ualdir, I am tired.