[Shilukk]

The place people like me go to, I believe, is called 'Hel'. What a nice name. It rolls off the tongue, like this:

Go to Hel.

You will suffer less there than you will when my hands are around your throat.

Why do these things, across from us, pretend to be people?

It's disgusting.

What a joke.

I put one of you down. I will not make the mistake of letting you leave again. I will take whatever words that oaken bitch cusses me with; I will take her lacerations. Whatever she sees fit to beat me to.

Because it will all be worth it, to see your head roll.

Let that be known, thief, and the rest of Moxtli besides; not a single prisoner will step foot outside my eye. Never again. Not until they're dead on the floor and removed from my sight, to be fed to that abomination they worship.

Disgusting.

I look across, to the East. And I feel sick. Why do these things pretend they're people? Pretend they can grieve.

"Perhaps," mumbles my conscience, "So they do not end up like you."

What a disgusting person.

But it rings true, I know.

I sit 'neath the shade, pondering the enemy's vague mockery of emotion, distracted from my own.

"You don't love him. You thought you loved Lythaniel, and how did that go?"

"Where did it get you."

Hands shaking, I stand above the sister, and scream.

"Trash.", I call her. And I say, "Know your place."

Do I really know my own?

Why did I let you live?

"Get a fucking grip."

"You're pathetic."

I hate this.

Every second of it.

Why the hell am I even...

I was raised to value myself none. That tends to happen when you're a glorified courtesan, I find.

And just as little, to value others. How may I end a life, if I find myself swept up by my own emotions?

And yet, here I am. A fucking mess.

Pathetic.

"When will you do something worthwhile?"

"That bathhouse was your one and only, you know."

"And you blew it."

Of course I did. I didn't deserve the chance.

...

I hate this. Every second of it.

I look across this god-forsaken place, my memories as broken glass; scattered, carelessly, across the floor. I may push the pieces together all I like. It's never what it used to be.

I struggle, like a beached fish.

Kicking and screaming until someone puts me out of my fucking misery.

And yet I continue, out of spite. Because I'll make something of myself, and scream it from the heavens. I'll make something of myself, even if it means burning everything else to ash.

Fucking disgusting.

What am I, to the others?

I would say "That crazy bitch", but they're not much better.

And I do think that.

Reynaud smiled at me. 

It was a sick sort of smile. Like mine. I bet he's consumed by that vengeance for his sister. Driven mad by it. Desperate, thinking that dying for the cause is worthy.

Amaranthis cannibalized a man, and rolled the disembodied head to his daughter.

What ill people. I wonder if this echoes in their heads like it does mine. If this crushing feeling permeates every day with more and more insistency until you either live with it, or go mad.

I don't want to live with it.

But I like being me. Alive.

...I liked being me.

Before I remembered who 'me' was.

My, what was it... Delicate, house of cards? Broken in an instant. Nothing more than scattered shards of the whole, all across the floor. I may struggle to put them back together all I like.

It will never be what it was.

So the answer, I suppose, is rather obvious.

Why do they pretend to be people?

So that they don't end up like me.

A demon playing house; it's endearing. The vain struggle of their existence is amusing. To see them cry.

Nobody laughs, at me. Some vague mockery of a person. I am not endearing, not amusing, just a...

I'm... Pathetic.

I lie to myself, and say I've something to live for. If I died, nothing would change. It wouldn't matter.

I've nothing left. I didn't have anything to begin with.

I sit here beneath my tree, and once more steel myself against the future.

I reassure myself that the only thing I need to know is that I will enjoy killing her. That nothing has changed. 

I step ever forward along this worthless arms race. I kill whoever gets in my way. Such is the way it goes. It would never be anything else.

I have a list, after all. And the hour draws near.

[Shilukk]

Fire flies.
Scouring the air.
Wings pour from my back.
My body aflame.


I watch you rip through the air before my eyes. One of your little rifts I never understood.
I watch you rip through the air before me.
And get impaled on chains of metal.
Your chest is a mess. You're bleeding out. Fast. I shake. I hesitate. I would have been dead.
Did you die for me?
Words catch in my throat. I can't do anything for you. Crying over you would do nothing. I have to kill the thing that-

He stabs it through the heart before I can even turn around. He never loses. I stand between him and you.


Wings pour from my back.
My body aflame.


The sound makes me sick. For once in my life, I falter.
Your chest is a mess. You're bleeding out. Fast.
I shake. I hesitate. I would have been dead.
Did you die for me?
Words catch in my throat.
I stare, despondently, in shock.
I don't know what to do.
I look back at the thing, that did it. Surely, I want to kill it.

He stabs it through the heart before I can even turn around. He never loses. I stand between him and you.


Wings pour from my back.
My body aflame.


Who am I kidding?

I can't protect you.

I can't protect anything.

To tell you as you hold me that I'll kill anybody who hurts you;

That I'll defend you until it kills me;

And to be the one that needed to be saved.

Because I lack the compassion to save you instead.

Your blood splatters across my cheek. The prosthetic eye you made for me stares, in horror. You fly over my head. I thought it cut you in half.

You're bleeding out. Fast.

I shake.

I hesitate.

I would have been dead.

Did you

die

For me?

Words catch in my throat.

I'm too stupid to do anything for you.

I know I won't cry.

I turn around to die to the thing that killed you, that I need not live with the shame.

Fire flies.

Scouring the air.

Wings pour from my back.

My body aflame.

I stand, silent. My heart stops beating.

I want to help you.

I know I can't.

I want to cry.

I know I won't.

I want to kneel over you, and hold you while you're dying.

But I can't find the strength to move.

I know I'm not strong enough.

I know I never will be.

Wings pour from my back.

My body aflame.

And I wish I could protect you.

[Shilukk]

The voice is cold, but the heart yet beats.
And it bleeds for the ones it's killed.






I don't belong here. I never did.
I should have died when they threw my body to the sands. Why I yet live, time after time, is beyond me. I kick and scream, but the blade never comes. I remain in endless death throes.
It is misery. I find no release.

What have I done, here?
What have I accomplished.
The badge in my satchel is a symbol of the lives I've taken. The corrupted metal of my blade a symbol of my desperation. The rift-core burning in my chest a symbol of how far I went.
The burns that scar his a reminder of what it cost me.

Fire laces my body. A prosthetic crammed into my skull. No longer am I mother's innocent girl.
I learned how to read. How to make things. I fell in love. Twice.
The more I understand, the more blood on my hands.
I made the same mistakes as you did, mother. A pity I cannot hear your scoldings from the grave, is it not?

I had two children. I took two children.
Those two are my pride and joy. I was happy. I stopped wanting to fight.
Yet mere years before had I taken another's pride and joy in a pair of two. One of them crushed, mutilated; fed to a tree. The other, burned alive. Both fell to my hand.
And yet I still live.
My children still live.
My love still lives.

So I ask you, mother, though you cannot hear a word I say.
Why me?

Why am I here.

You should have killed my father long before. You know that. I know that. He was just another name on the list, was he not?
It would have been so simple. For me to ne'er have been born at all.
Yet here I am.
Look what you've done.

I take my leave of you, Esshar. For I will suffer you no longer. You will suffer me no longer.
I have done enough.
Mayhap I will die, when I return to Sheng. Mayhap by another.
Unlikely. I seem to be incapable of it.
Then, mayhap I will do it myself.

I fantasize, yet I know it's not true. I will not take my own life. Nor will I allow another to in my stead.
Nor will I cry for the lives I've taken. Nor will I pray for their souls.
Nor will I utter an apology for the afflicted. Nor will I repent for my sins.
My name is Chiase. Fox of the Glorious Inferno.
And I do not regret what I've done.

But a piece nonetheless, if I may:

I am what one would call, a monster. A murderer.
I have heard it plenty before.
The words crumple against my unflinching visage of savage pleasure.
Yet despite it all, so much more lay just beneath the surface. Never to be exposed.
For I play the villain. Such is my role.

My voice is cold, but my heart yet beats.
And it bleeds for the ones I've killed.