[Eastbound] IC Journal: Unsent Chronicles

[bearshermark]

Letters and personal notes steadily taking up an increasing span of pages in Eleven's journal.

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Day 26, Month 8

[bearshermark]

The room is nice. I've decided not to ask after the means. So long as it didn't cost lives, I can be content. I am not dead nor corrupted, as Lily promised. It's enough.

I can feel my injuries easing through the power of this bracer. Within a day or two of rest, I will be fine. Although there isn't much to do until then, save for lay down and let my thoughts wander, I've decided to work through them here in writing.

Already the days of my imprisonment feel like a dull haze. I was not conscious for much of it. What I do remember is colored in pain and anger. Certainly, I'd proven rash and reckless in provoking those beatings. I recall the feeling of a ship crashing through a roughened sea.

Worse, I know I'd wanted this pain. Perhaps more troubling still is the strange peace I feel now. I begrudge Rigarda her false accusations and sense, but not the men that gave into anger. I know this temporary suffering falls far short of the lives lost as a result of my foolishness, but it is some penance at least. It's eased my mind too, to speak all the terrible truths I've learned and withheld like a festering wound.

Now there are no more secrets save for one.

Even now I hesitate to put it to paper in even the most cryptic manner. I'll never speak of it, even should the opportunity arise. My heart aches, though I know it's much better this way. Over time, it should fade..

Goddess lend me strength.

I've made for a poor steward thus far. Even with my power returned, it's seemed there's been little I can do. I suppose it was short-sighted to think it would solve everything.

The proposition made by Hatisse only further suggests that something about the cycle is broken. Her soul shouldn't have lingered this long. I need to find out how Life and Death are meant to work here. If there's anything I can do to help this world, perhaps it's to restore that cycle in some way. If I could manage that, then it might be enough to atone.

In that way, both worlds feel as though they nearly mirror one another. It's what Erdrea might look like, should I fail and centuries of darkness linger.

Once more, though the part of me that is tired of heartache wishes to, I can't give up on the life of this world.