[GSM]

I'm terrible with words.

I'm still just as introverted as I was back then, when you found me by chance.
I'd much rather be in solitude than beheld with a dozen of the friends I've made over the years.
Yet it is the innate freedom where I push through the boundaries,
The bravery to do what I normally can't,
The wish to do and see new things.
I've been traveling in place, moving so much, without needing to take another step away from you.

I wish the drawings I made could make up for that deficiency,
But you always know just what to say to make my heart dive and beat.
Once, I believed I couldn't be loved, as stupid and false a notion that is—
And you proved just how wrong my own insecurities are, all those years ago.

I was… different then, wasn't I?
A scared young woman with my head in the clouds, always drawing what I saw,
Hopeful that those artworks would survive if I vanished.
Yet, in an odd twist of fate, I outlived most of my subjects.
Maybe that's why I got scared when you told me those words.
"I might be dying."

This reality is cruel, and this life is a test for many.
No child of ours deserved the grief of losing their father;
I didn't want to lose the husband I'd found in the depths of despair.
I asked, I pleaded, I broke more times than I'd admit to you.
But it was when I prayed, when I reached to the threads of the lifestream,
It was only then, with my patron's link to yours, that I could save you.

… I could have a million years to try to put the words in place, and I'd still come up short.
But the times we spent in that cozy home of yours within the realms,
The mountain's peak we visited together, drawing what once was,
The depths of the deepest pit we shared our first kiss in,
Each and every time I was afraid for my life, where my faith was tested,
I don't remember my vows to my patron,
But I remember every second I spend with you.

I might seem so far above, but we travel together, upon each of our wings.
For so long, I asked, just for one more year.
Now that I have twenty-two, I count every extra year as another blessing.
I'll count it by your side, making new memories all the while.

I may be terrible with words,
But from Life to Death,
I know the only words that truly matter for us.
All you need to know, no matter how much I say it—

I love you.

[GSM]

I woke up like last night, hoping it’d be your warmth I wake up next to.
I watched as the graveyard got more and more lively, and I was powerless to stop it.
I couldn’t ignore the fact that you saw their graves more than ever last year.
I woke up like last night, knowing what you did.

You vanished.

I woke up and walked that brisk step through the continent.
And I saw that you joined them.

It all happened like you said it would.
One day, my selfish prayers would stop, and you’d be gone.
I’m the childish one for hoping it’d be different.
How am I supposed to tell our daughter, our friends?

What am I meant to do?

I don’t know. I really don’t have answers anymore.
It all feels like it’s all one big fucking cosmic joke, and I’m the punchline.
My husband, the love of my life, the light of my life—

Irreversibly, gone. Not meant to be anything more than an ephemeral memory.
Twisted into something unrecognizable by a girl with dreams bigger than her head can muster.
Bound for the very fate you avoided, year after year, until you decided it was over.

I still haven’t processed it.
I doubt I ever will.

Color lost vibrancy, breath lost purpose, food lost taste.
I can’t even get myself to move half the time.
How pathetic is that, Chireus’s Chosen unable to get her feet to step forward?
I’m nothing without you, it feels like.
And all this pain was self-inflicted, because I loved what was already lost.

How long will it be until all I can remember of you is what’s sketched in my books?
How long will it be until I forget what your voice sounds like?
How long will it be until the promise we held disappears from some twisted, divine law?

And now look at me.
I can’t even say ‘I love you’ to the grave you left behind.

I lost that ability.

I can’t say that phrase at all.

… wherever you’re watching from, I hope you realize what that promise meant.
I don’t plan on joining you for some time.
The me you loved probably doesn’t exist, anymore.

I’ll see you later.

I’ve got to stare in the mirror in my now-blind eyes and see just what I did to myself.

I hope you hate what I’m seeing, too.

[GSM]

It's all so cold.

I lost my last line of defense.

The only man I could have ever called a constant presence in my life.
Before Jegnal, who helped me with getting over my grief.
Before Bartholomew- Bartomeus- when I was still as lost as he was.
Before everything, I knew him, and he helped me become who I am today.

Garret.

... I lost everything.
The corpse I loved,
the statue I helped,
the visage I cried on.

All in ten years.
... and I still wasn't strong enough.

...

I DON'T KNOW WHAT I SHOULD FEEL,
BUT EVERY SINGLE FUCKING INCH OF ME IS EMPTY AND ENRAGED.

HOW MANY MORE HAVE TO DIE?

HOW MANY? GIVE ME A FUCKING NUMBER. TELL ME.

I WATCHED AS HE TURNED INTO FUCKING DUST.

THE BEST MAN I EVER KNEW GOT SLAUGHTERED BY SOME WHORE.

MY HUSBAND DIED IN THE ARMS OF MY DAUGHTER.

NO FUCKING MORE.

I AM GOING TO RIP EVERY SINGLE FUCKING VEIN OUT FROM THE INSIDE OF YOUR NECK WITH MY BARE GODS-DAMNED FINGERNAILS. EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU IS A WALKING TARGET, TWO TIMES OVER, AND THE ONLY TIME I WILL BE HAPPY AGAIN IS IF THE SHIT YOU PREACH AND EAT AND WORSHIP IS NOTHING MORE THAN CRAWLING FUCKING MAGGOTS. I HATE YOU. I HATE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU. IF THERE WAS EVEN A CHANCE THAT HEL COULD SHOW YOU HALF OF THE FURY I FEEL, I'D STILL STRANGLE YOU A MILLION TIMES OVER.

TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO ME.

THE WOMAN YOU KNOW IS GONE.

NOTHING WILL BRING HER BACK.

READY?
I SURE AS FUCK HOPE YOU ARE.
BECAUSE YOU BETTER BE, SO I FEEL BETTER WHEN IT'S ALL OVER.

[GSM]

A page of a curious book has started to float around, though obviously a reprint or reproduction from a much more valuable tome.
It is blessed by Chireus, from his alleged Chosen, as a figment of the Book of Travels drifts into public conscience,
as a now-forgotten soul rests easy.
x
x
x

---

x
x
x
It's 2177AC, Jegnal. Today's the last day. Last day I'll be alive- I ended up living a lot longer than I thought I would.
... I'll burn out one last cigarette. Don't think I've smoked in well over fifty years. Something about the taste of smoke seems comforting, now.

Left Meranthe for a while, wanted to see what else was out there. Not a whole lot, to be honest, that really spoke to me. My story's in Meranthe, much as I learned to hate the place... but, what can ya' do? When everyone sucks, when you're led to everything, you get angry. Irritable. You want to grab people by the throat and thrash 'em until they stop fucking bothering you.
I was angry for a decidedly different reason, though, than most.

I was lost.
Lost for a variety of reasons, really; I was robbed of my home, I watched as everyone stopped makin' sense, I ended up fighting way more than I ever thought I would need to. I tried to love after you, but nothing ever felt right. I tried to have other kids after Circe, but I'm fairly sure most of them died younger than you. It isn't like I cared much for lineage. All that mattered to me was what I promised before.

I lived to experience life. I wanted to live for me. And damn it, if I didn't do that, despite all the heartbreaks, all the anger, all the hollow, metallic tastes of it all.

... hah. You should've been there, Jegnal.
I ended up beating the dog piss out of an Imperfect. Mettadora, or Metta, I think it was Metta- beat her in a straight fist-fight. That was a fun one, y'know. Who else can say that?
Beat the shit out of one of them Atrellyan Ascended, too. Lykon was a hard fight. Fighting that fucker made me feel like my soul was about to be ripped apart.
Should've seen his face. How those eyes changed from domineering reds to so-scared blues.
That phoenix, too- when Bart and I, and everyone else, nearly died to that thing. The time that I helped kill a dragon, too. Cleansing Grimjhall, only for him to go all insane...
Gods above, you'd have been a better help than ever when I was forced to lead the Martyr's Vigil. The Order was rough, but it worked out, I think.

... you should've been there.

I always found myself saying that to myself, sub-consciously. That you should've been there. That you should've been here, with me. Was it by fate that you were meant to die so young, leaving me be in the world? Or was it because I forgot, by a year or two, to give you every nestled blessing I had within me? Was I just a selfish bitch, after all? (Don't answer that. I know I've been a bitch, for a while, mostly after you were gone.)
I always felt guilty for your death. I know it probably had absolutely nothing to do with you, but fuck, how else am I meant to feel when the one man I truly loved died like that?

There was a part of me, I think, that was always scared of dying. I know you did everything in your power to reassure me. Death wasn't going to be all that bad. It'll just be a 'see you later', you know?
... I think I was more scared of what you'd say when you saw me again. All the mistakes I made. All the people I hurt. All the things I did that I thought you'd hate me over, even when I lost my mind for a while and went off the deep end. Dying didn't scare me one bit, it was facing you again that did.
Shit, I was hoping with all the fights I picked that I would've died doing something insane, a story that you'd have loved to hear. Surprised that a demon didn't kill me or something or another. Not that that matters, particularly.

Not a lot of us get to die like this. I'd know- I think I just got lucky.

... I wonder what you'll say. Will you comment about my glittery eyes, how one looks almost exactly like yours in all of that dire scarlet? What about all of my burn scars, all that latticework of death-fire across that pretty face you loved? How my wings haven't changed even a bit, since last you remember? How there's more arcanium in my head than there is bone? How it's taken me so long just to get here, to be by your side again? How so many of people that have my blood, my eyes, my face, my wings, have passed you by, but none of them were me?
I found myself wondering what I'll say, too. But it doesn't really matter. I've always been terrible with words.

The world's gonna keep spinnin' without me. Garret, the stubborn dick, is probably still around somehow- doubt he even thinks about me, anymore. The Vigil is still up, so I guess he must've got off his giant ass to do something about it. I'm sure most of the people I loved forgot about me, or died somehow, or... something.
That's fine. I didn't plan on being anything too special. I didn't want to pursue a legendary existence, or follow in anyone's footsteps.

The woman dying tonight is just a glimmer in the night sky. A passing moment. An old, stubborn bitch who never really cared about anything else than the moment.

... cig's almost burned out, by now. It's hard to write like this, with all these hand tremors, but at least I'm not crying. Think I lost the ability to cry at some point, with all the scars. Or maybe I'm still fucked in the head. Who knows.
One last sketch of you for the road...

... okay.
Your beloved blue-berry wife is on her way over. I went 'round the entire world, and the only place I ever wanted to be is in your arms.
Your grave will have to do.

See you soon.