[Shilukk]

My weakness appalls me.
Every day, I am reminded of it. It pisses me off.
Not good enough. Not fast enough. It doesn't matter what I do. My face is always in the dirt.
It's just a matter of time, though. Until you trip. Until I catch up.
Everything, really, is a matter of time.
I'm just fucking with the clock. And you'd best hope your name isn't on the list when the hands hit twelve.

Thalus cos Duran.

You. I'd not an eye left to take, but you burned it beyond repair anyway. If I'd ever a hope of seeing again, it would have been with my right. I'm lucky that it's even in my head anymore.

Do you yet live? I don't know what gods you have there in Osrona. The only thing I know is that none of them are going to save you from me. 

The one they call 'Luna'.

Some diseased thing. Sickly and weak. If I were to cross paths with a wounded animal, sickly and pathetic, I'd have a mind to put it down.

It's only charitable. To put you out of your misery.

Demon.

I never got your name. Pray I do not catch your scent again. I don't know what demons are. I don't care. I've no interest in how you came to be. Who fought alongside you. What that miserable excuse for a 'leader' I have did or did not do.

Do not mistake my disinterest for morals. I will show you how few I have, and how little it matters.

The Brother.

You tried to convince her to stop. Only after she took my coin, of course. As if I needed you to spare my life. As if I can't defend myself.

I will enjoy killing you first.

So does the first one fall. Struck down by me. It was everything I hoped it would be. And it felt good. I was not permitted to deal the killing blow, but the knowledge that the last thing he heard was the screaming of his sister and my laughter at their misery is enough. For now.

A pathetic little wretch. You should have known your place.

The Sister. 

You think you're something special, don't you? I don't know what you have in your head, thinking you can just take somebody's money. A criminal, surely. They put those on trial, you know. Pray they find you before I do.

It isn't my fault the law is too slow to keep people like you in check. And it won't be my fault when they can't find your body.

You have spiraled out of control and sealed your own fate. It would be a pleasure to kill you myself, but I do not expect it.

A shame. How broken you've become.

It's adorable.

And I am satisfied.

You are now a waste of my time. One day, you will turn up dead. And I'll laugh.

You would never have avenged your brother anyway.

Right where you belong, thing.

Ashes, at my feet.

Know your place.

Armand.

I know how close you were. What would have happened if you hadn't exacted your justice on a broken girl. You may break my jaw to keep me down, but I will stand again.

Don't worry little knight, I don't want to kill you.

I just want to put you on the ground, and remind you who's in charge.

You're dead, little knight.

Do you hear me?

Do you hear the words coming out of my mouth?

I will put you down,

Burn you alive,

And make everybody you love watch.

There'll be more. More of my blood on the ground.
But the tables have started to turn.

Ever so slightly.

Ever so slowly.

But turn, they do.
This list will grow. Until, eventually, it shrinks. Names will be crossed off, and soon enough nothing will be left.
It's just a matter of time.

[Shilukk]

The Brother.

Words simply cannot express what the first head felt like.
Euphoric. Maybe that will work.
It's so sweet. To hear the cries of siblings fighting not just for their own lives, but for each others.
Sweeter still to see them fail.
Crossing me was the last mistake you'd make.



Ah, the... The catharsis of it all. I'll never understand them, those people that cry at every death.
They deserved it.


I'll deserve it.


...A brief moment of clarity, I suppose. I couldn't stop laughing. Clapping and laughing and mocking you. You and her.
...And yet it fades just as quickly. The joy. The...
Anything at all.
I sit on the scorched ground, blood painting my cloak, pondering the sick pleasure I ripped from someone else's misery in the brief respite it afforded me from my own.
I wonder if there's a place for me.
I wonder if I deserve it.

...

To think I could cry about someone I killed. Not.. Not even about the person, but the simple fact that I did it.
..That I made it happen.
...I.. Hate...

These things, are better left in the back of my head.
What shred of pity have I been spared?
Why would I.. Ever spare it for someone else?

...

What a disgusting series of events. I wish they all knew what...


Of all the people to lie to, I should keep the truth for myself.
I liked it. And I anticipate the day where I do it again. 

It is as simple as that.

[Shilukk]

The Sister.

"Fuel, for my fire." I say, holding her by the neck. My hands aflame.
"Just like your brother."
A sick smile takes me. Telling of how far I've gone.

"Shall I send you to him?"

A horrid inferno for all to see. Skin, flesh, bone; all burned to ash. Scattered to the dull wind between their trees.

I burn a girl alive in Moxtli square.

The knight stands. And tells me that this sacrifice to the gods was wrong.
I turn my sick smile his way, and laugh.
"Gods?" I whisper, narrowly avoiding a blade aimed to split me in half. Flame and ash spiral in the wind.
He does not understand the depth of my depravity.
"No, no, you've got it wrong."
"I don't know what spirits they pray to. And I don't know what gods you have in Osrona."
"All I know is that none of them would have saved her from me."

"This was not a sacrifice. It was a murder. Please prosecute me on these grounds, instead."

He strikes me down.

But he knows how close it came.

The damage I could do.

And that he was lucky I'd suffered from more than just his hand, that day.

If I won, I might have killed him.

What an issue, I am.



I love it.



She never should have taken the shot. Never should have tried.
She really did die because she took my money. All she did was make it look better for me.
Because of our feud. Because she tried to kill me. Because of my burns, my bullet-wounds. Because of the threat on my life.
They all think I've so many reasons to burn her alive.
They don't know it was all because of the first time we met. All because she cut my purse. She would have been ash at my feet if she'd missed that day, you know.
A shame she lived so long. Given a false sense of hope. Thinking she would ever avenge her brother.
Now she's reunited with him.
In that place they call, 'Hel'.
I told you, you know. Every single one of you.
That you would suffer less there than when my hands are around your throat. I would tell you all to ask Janet how it felt when you see her in Hel, but I'll have to send you all there first.
And by that point, you'll already know. That, or worse.
Pray you all die as quickly as she did.
My patience is starting to wear thin.



And yet this, too, fades.
I don't understand why.
A pest. An obstacle. In my way. I feel alive as I rip her life away.
And yet I lay here, in this bed.
In a bed Reynaud moved into his room for me, as he sits at the desk behind me.
And I bite back, of all things, tears.

I hear his footsteps. Every breath he takes. And I feel him pull the blanket, and tuck me in. Of all things, tuck me in.
And I lay there as he leaves.

And I start to cry.

Of all people, of all times.
He knows what I did. He watched me do it.

Watched me burn her alive.
Watched me taunt the knight.
He has to know I'm sick in the head.

And yet he tucks me in.

And says goodnight.

And I start to cry.

Because I don't want to do it again.
But I know I'm going to.
And it's going to hurt when it's gone.
When he's gone.
Or when I'm gone.
But I'm already on the path, and my heart won't let me leave.
Whatever vague mockery of one still beats in my chest.



I replay it all in my head. Over and over.
Wings of fire sprout from my back as I turn the sister to ash.
My hysterical laughter, muffled by the flame.
Until nothing remains but ash.

And now I lay here, in bed.
In a bed, someone went out of their way to give to me.
A bed someone put in their own room, for me.
A bed made, for me.

And I am tucked in, and told goodnight.

The lights disappear. His footsteps fade.
I stare despondently at the wall before me.



And I start to cry.