[Knawlidge]

Time is a fickle thing.



Sometimes, it feels like only last month, that my brothers and I perused the grounds of the academy together. Stirring trouble- Enough that even Nikolai got himself expelled. Simple times, where dumb kids like us spent more focus on things like pool parties- or house parties. On Arcana, and on manaball.

It still feels like last week, when we walked into Asphodel, looking for Blair. Just Nikolai, Ilya, Monroe and I. Back before I saw everything around me starting to crumble-- And I can't help but feel like I had a part in it.

It broke me. To see our home fall to ruin, nothing more than rubble, and soon after? Marshlands. That the empire abandon us because nobody else but us. But I feel no guilt- I did my part. But could I have done it differently?

I kept walking forward.

Focus set ahead with no deviation.
There wasn't time for distractions- Because what I didn't break, I built. All the passion I'd seen in my lifetime... The only genuine thing I could find in a person. The passion to destroy, in one lover- And the passion to freeze in another.

The passion to fight, in all those dear monsters that I promised a better life. I think to myself- Did I really miss out on anything in the time of my life?

I don't have any regrets. Except for you, Claudette. My first mistake. But was it loving you or leaving you, that caused my inevitable spiral into the pits of Hel- If that's what this new eternity is. I can't blame you, though- It was all my fault in the end. I can own up to that.

-

Before long, it wasn't just the buildings and settlements around me that had begun to crumble... But I, myself, as a man. If I could even call myself that, after the things I'd done to ascertain my goals. I was more of a monster than the monsters hunted across the continent. I was proud of that. I built off it.

But I still don't regret it. Even in this endless vat of darkness I stare into... I'm left with nothing but my own thoughts.

But I still refuse to regret.

Even in death... I want to walk forward. I need to. I don't know anything else.

...Ah, that's right. I think I forgot something, in all of this.



Family Is Everything.