Memoirs of a Madwoman

[Imeriel]

This is a story that I keep playing with, writing, and re-writing, dependant upon which story-world I'm playing in, which character seems to fit, and so forth.  It's an ever changing story that burbled up in my brain way back in grade school ... and it's continued to burble since.  I "finished" it once, but never really liked the finishing.  It's latest iteration revolved around Chrysis, my Venekor EQ2 PVP character.  One of these days, I'm going to write it, sans any attachments to a gaming universe, and be done

[Imeriel]

How many times have I died, and forgotten some portion of thing?  I gave up counting when I realized that I couldn't remember.  Thus the reason for this paper upon which I scratch words.  Words that hold some measure of meaning for me now in hopes of reminding myself of what I was, and what I am.  At the very least, it is something to do whilst healing wounds after battle.

Battle.  Constant battle.  To go forth and fight and die and live over and again.  We're all just pieces on the Gods' game board ... constant movement, constant flux ... power plays, coups, subtle maneuvering.  We're all born to be the catspaw of a god, even those who refuse to believe ... as they, too, have parts to play.  There are those who believe that each time we revive from death, that we return out of the grace of the gods.  I say, it is because they are practical beings for not wasting a useful game piece, and that True Grace is thus -- to be granted the chance to escape their circles of life and death for once and all.

Some things I do remember.  I remember being paraded in chains across wooden planks.  I remember a toiling mass of people, chanting, and the smell of magic. A smell that made the nose twitch.  An altar that gleamed in spots and was blackened with ichor in others.  That was the first death, I believe, and perhaps why I remember it.  One always remembers the first death, if not the others that follow. 

Staring at the Brother, the claws coming close, the blades keening in my ear, the pain and the darkness. And then the unique realization that I'm standing there, looking at my own corpse, already cool on the ground.  The words echoing in my ears, "She did not take the Final Death."  The priest shaking his head, murmuring, "I heard nothing from the Father.  Claimed by the gods, yes, but the Father claims her not."   The Brother handed the Claws aside, still dripping with my own blood, and took up a brand, glowing and smoking with that same hot magic-twitched smell. Grabbing my face, staring into it, dark eyes burning with the same heat that now seared into my cheek. He speaks again as the priest scribes something into a book, his voice striking the air with the seeming finality of the brand smoking my skin.   "Leave this place. The Brotherhood now owns this one."

And then nothing.  Not sure how many years passed.  Not sure how old I am.  How many lives have I lived?  How many deaths?  I've no clue.  Enough deaths to make my memory a shell of a thing, any former knowledge forgotten in the haze of death and rebirth.  Thus the name I am called, the name I give those who ask.  Change the spelling to make it more pleasant upon paper, but the fact remains ... I am nothing more than a walking crisis, a play on words, and I know this.  For I instinctively call upon living spirits to cause sickness, sap strength and skill.  Am I truly that different from those that I battle against simply because I tell such spirits "Thank You" when I'm done with them?   My face is unwrinkled, yet my knees ache in the cold.   My hands laced with what appear to be decades of calluses and scars, I stare at them sometimes, hoping that the twisting traceries will make some sort of pattern to unlock the memories of why they are there.

Opposites, dichotomies.  Facts that do not reconcile.  And not enough memory to make something logical of it all.

But then again, where the gods are concerned, there is little logic.  I am a pawn.  A play piece.  And while I've reconciled that and accept it, I want to know what game is being played.  So I write these words so that I may remind myself of them when next I die.   Call it a morbid curiosity.

I wish to sleep; yet I am drawn home, pulled there.  Must keep moving, keep running, and keep making my Way ... Home.   I know where it is, but will I remember it? Home is where my name is.  Perhaps I will meet Final Death in my sleep.  Unlikely, but one can hope.  Or is hope even real when it is nothing but the carrot the Gods use to keep us in their game?

Bah, it is cold and my knees ache ... and I cannot remember my name ...

[Imeriel]

It's raining again.  And if it weren't the fact that I knew the roof has been treated recently, I'd swear that there was a definitive drip.  A constantly wandering drip that finds my knees wherever they may be.  The cold ache sinks into the bone, going far beyond the reach of any  healing ointment or magics I can find thus far.  Stab stab stabity stab, a poking slicing ache that flirts with the edge of my mind, dancing with scraps of memory.  Which is ironic, considering what memories it dances with.

Some memories, I have found, are sometimes best left forgotten.

But curiosity drives the dance, the need to know, so I chase and chase and dash, grabbing the scraps and fashioning them together as best as I can figure.  I've gone beyond the desire for exact accuracy.  Of course, I've also gone beyond the darkly morbid romanticism that seemed to plague my fashionings at first.  It's the ache drove that away, guiding me with its piercing clarity.  Or at least I hope so.

But even so ... some memories are best left forgotten.

Run and run and run away, this I'd done since that day, whatever That day may have been.  The day of the First Death, I'm supposing.  Run away only to be caught, time and time again.  Always finding some way around whatever strictures, rules, and policies that were slammed down ... each more binding then those previous.   Then, one day, no more running.  I suppose the chase became tiring or annoying, or no longer worth any exhiliration they may have felt within the Hunt itself.  For whatever reason, it was determined that She Who Runs shall no longer do so.  Period.  And a method was devised to keep that from happening, all the while still permitting my body the freedom to do ... whatever it was that they had me do.  What, exactly, that was, I do not know.  Perhaps another day I shall remember ... although some memories are best left forgotten ...

Feysteel, blackened, the rods gleamed with a darkly flickering light.  Two of them, a blue witchfire glowing in the red coals of the forge.  Smoke rising up, the soft sussurus of feet pacing behind.  No gag used, no gag needed, the flesh instead shaped and woven to form a gag on its own.  Magics rising, tickling the nose and constricting the throat, allowing breath, no sound.  Not a peep, not a peep, nothing to disturb those slumbering above.  Eyelids sealed in the same manner as the mouth, not even tears allowed to fall.  Muttering voices, deep and high, the sputtering of the coals of the forge.  What's happening?  Don't know.  What are they doing?  No clue.  What's taking so long?  I have no answer ... stop asking questions, be calm be calm.  Muttering again, magics rising, needing to sneeze.  A clink and a clank and a crackling spatter.  I know that sound.  The forge.  Taking something from the forge.  No, not something.  Somethings.  Realization dawning into a dusk of despair, rising with every hitch of breath.  No no, not that, not that.  Movement of feet stepping forward, hands on flesh, bracing each leg tight.  Cannot wiggle, cannot move, will never run again.  No no, not that not that.  Witchfire burning, sizzling, passing seamlessly through knees that helplessly locked with pain.   Passing through?  Just passing through?  I can heal that.  Yes, I can heal ... no ... no... Wait.  It stopped.   Staying, settling, cooling, fusing into bone and flesh, the molten feysteel of coldest fire left inside ... never to run, never to jump, never to feel the wind again ...

But of course, that wasn't quite true.  As I can certainly attest to right now.  How long I lived that way, I couldn't say.  At least until That Day.  Another That Day.  The Day my Shining One, my Golden One came.

But that's another memory I am needing time to piece.  And for now, I'm tired, and my knees ache ... and I wish to go to sleep ...

[Imeriel]

I am minded to write down that last of the memories that have any meaning.  The last of the past that I have had lived that forms who I am.  All else ... fleeting.  And with that, I can stop the scribbling.  The ache runs into my fingers now, and once neat script turns shaken and awry.  Much like events now.  Shaken and awry.  Still making sense, but threatening not to.

One is not sure how to begin this last recording of the Before.  I suppose it can be said that there came a time when those whom hobbled me found no further pupose for me.  Or, rather, the purpose they had in mind originally simply never came to fruition.  Yes, the latter I think more than the former.  Now that one has had time to ponder it, the latter more than the former ...

A key turning, a lock clicking, a door creaking open.  Step and step and step again, closer the footfalls came.  Curled in a ball in the corner, listening but still.  Semblance of sleep.  A voice.  The same voice.  The one from the beginning, the Brother, the Priest.  Muttered words of vile seeming, hatred leaking through the walls.

Still the Father refuses her, and she's too broken to Fear, too weak for War.  Abandoned by hers, refused by ours.  I have no more time to waste on this.  Dispose of her how you like.

Hands grabbing, chains clanking, unlocking from the wall.  Bundled off, shuffled off, knees screaming with each movement.  Out of the pits, out of the dark, now to the dark of outside.  Sharp pain, lights flashing, knowing nothing more.   Waking later to sniff and sniff and what is that?  The sea the salt the sea .. heart bursting, yearning, crying for a Home I did not know.  Grabbed again, and shoved again, and pushed out over the edge.  Falling falling forever and then strike the water to fall some more.  Enveloped by cold and wet, lungs screaming.  The thought to draw the magic to make the water air, and a pause.  A pause.  A pause.  End this. End this.  Break the cycle the endless cycle break it.  Water filling lungs with a painful peace, darkness taking sight.  And then words echoing, rushing, ringing and ringing through ...

Ahhh ... you are not mine to claim ...

And then darkness until I awoke.  I remember a beach, and a cot.  And this cottage, fairly simple but comfortable for all that.  Far better than what I'd known before.  Before.  Echoes of memories rang through my mind, and I determined then to forget.  To forget and not think of it again.  This was the now time.   The new time.  This veritable palace in which I sat, my skin scrubbed clean, my hair no longer itching.  I blinked and stared dully around ... and then He came in.  Golden as the sun, beaming a smile that brightened an already bright day.

You're up!  Excellent.  I brought some food, 'cause I imagine you're hungry.  And some more food to put in packs, 'cause we'll need that.  Well, that's if you want to come with me.  I'm trekking to a new land!  It's supposed to be pretty nice there, with a Queen that's pretty and smart and has huge tatas!

He stops abruptly and flushes red, looking aside.  I grin, I cannot help the grin for I adore the expression on his face.  Seeing me smile he smiles ever wider and laughs.

You still want to come with me? he asks, looking from underneath his eyelashes.

He holds out a hand, skin as golden as he. 

And I place my hand in it ... I'd follow you anywhere.

And so I have.