Emotionally worn. Soon to be physically damaged. Again. Who knew.

So we got back to the keep. And we rushed through, going with the next morning’s shipment of fish almost straight through to the citadel. We arrived without any notable incident, but once there the trouble began.

First we went to my shopkeeper friend about the psy crystal in my pack. He took it without fear and apperantly talked to it, and informed us it didn’t seem to be evil or have bad intentions. He didn’t talk to it much or get much information from it, but enough to sooth our concerns. He did know a little about the monster it had been placed in, but again, not much.

It was after Ann challenged him on the size of the sandworm he’d said he wanted us to kill that he stopped, and regarded me for a long, long time. I don’t know what about the sandworm comment made him ask it, but ask he did.

He didn’t ask me if I was alright- he flat out asked what was wrong.

And so I told him- everything I knew and remembered.

And I got one fuck of a shock.

This guy knew me since I was a little girl, and he knew my parents. I was surprised to find out that they were even still alive, let alone knew anyone in this area- and with him, my entire perception of just what the fuck is going on here started to change.

This man told me information on my past that literally made everything I said in the last entry null and void. Damon isn’t the one to blame, here- I am.

The shop keeper told me that I’d come into his place since I was small with my father, and then with Damon- my father, apperantly is a wizard who’d been here long before Damon ever came over scouting for the wizards, who’d lived in sanctuary here. I’d stayed with my mother, who’d apperantly not been thrilled with my father’s choice to deal more in necromantic arts. She, this little man said, was more connected to life. She and my father had split up some years ago, before I’d lost my memories (or even before I’d met Damon) and he didn’t know where she’d gone.

He said my father was a great man- apperantly they’d been friends- and that himself and my mother, on the other hand, had never really gotten along.

And he said that Damon and I had not been in love. He said that to him, who’d known me since I was little, it seemed like an act- a good act, but never the less. He said that Damon seemed to be very much in love with me, though.

So yeah. Seems I’ve had this entire thing just fucking backwords.

Damon’s not the nasty , manipulative son of a bitch- apperantly, anyway. Apperantly, that’s all on me.

You know what really is fucked up? I would do that. Make someone think I was head over heels for them to get them to do what I wanted.

Yeah, I’m a bitch.

Anyway.

The shopkeeper told me that my father was in the wizard’s tower that we’d wound up kind of inadvertently helping spring up inside the citadel. He said that he no longer held the sway he once had, but he’d contact my father for me.

After I’d gotten a little more information on myself- and doesn’t that just sound painful?- we thanked him and left. And we headed back to my tomb- and that is still as eerie as fuck to say- to…..make sure it was just an empty tomb.

And it was, too. I felt rather silly when we left it, empty-handed and without even a hint of anything….wrong.

The grave keeper, with some pushing, told us what the spirits he spoke to said Damon said. The whole ‘it should have been me’ bullshit again. But nothing else, and nothing useful, so once more we left.

And now we pick up on the second half of our storyline; that of a girl named Sparrow, apperantly. Or at least called Sparrow. After human ‘Ann’ became elven ‘Anjha’, I’m not really trusting any moniker given to me via my pointy-earred companion any time soon.

Ann lost Sparrow a long time ago. That is to say, they were, apperantly, good friends, and then she took off over here from her home, and then she vanished. And Ann came looking. Says something about Ann, really, that does, to up and leave your home to find a friend that might be dead or worse.

So yeah, Ann’s been looking for this girl, and, I think I mentioned before, right before the whole
Primov thing we’d been sent on a wild goose chase through her subtle puzzles.

This will be relevant in a few minutes.

But while looking for a kid that Ann had known about a year ago, who might be able to help us out, we saw him. That fucking little Halfling wise ass who’d half taunted, half teased me while Ann fought his companion. He was standing on the corner, watching us with a glower- watching Ann.

We headed in that direction. Origonally, I intended to be what I usually was when Ann was dealing with anything in this line- a quiet protective shadow, playing the role of simple brawn, rarely speaking.

I mean, it’s for more than one reason; partly because it’s what I am in this situation. I don’t know enough about it to be more. Ann naturally grabs the lead, just as I do when dealing with

Damon and his ilk, and she knows more specific questions to ask- hell, she’s better at that then I am, anyway.

So I only speak when I think she’s forgetting something that might be important, and I’m usually wrong, or when she needs to be told to shut the fuck up and stop provoking- which she will deny vehementaly-or when I get pissed off, or when the conversation takes a bad turn.

And I had to do that in spades now. Nearly immediately the Halfling started off the conversation agressivly, with attitude- and of course, Ann responded in kind. Always did. Hell, I can’t say I’m completely innocent of doing that myself. I managed to defuse most of the situation, though the tension hung in the air anyway. The Halfling knew Sparrow, knew she was in danger, knew more about it even then Ann, knew that we- she- was looking for the other elf. He didn’t give us much information- any, really. He more like told us- through a sort of riddley manner- that they’d….worked?....with her, didn’t think Ann was the one good for this ‘mission’- I assumed meaning that of finding her. Told us to stop asking questions, stop trying to find them, stop leaving trails and stop being so easy to trail, which pissed Ann off to no end and made me rather embaressed.

He told us not to trust him- but who else could she trust?- and then slipped off into the crowd.
Ann went after him, and came back to me a few minutes later as a cat. A disgruntled cat- apperantly she lost him. I’m not utterly surprised, though frustrated for her. I understand what it’s like, to want answers so badly and not have them. We continued our search for the kid, but with the exception of some little brat that wanted to be paied, we found nothing. I made a note to go back to the girl, who reminded me so much of Min it made me a bit ill.

We left, then, and headed back to the same, eerie part of the citadel we’d gone to so many times before- the little area the menagerie called it’s own. We meandered through the actual show itself, hoping to speak to our tour guide. But the man was worse then talking to the fucking Cyclops. All he’d say was that he gave tours.

Then he shut the door in my face. I’ll tell you, I’d had just about enough of people shutting me down like that.

I bit down on the temptation to kick it. Or just open it myself, in a slightly less conventional manner.

Very hard.

I may have given into that urge, if Ann hadn’t gone to where the dog-boy- who’d I’ve started to call ‘Mogli’- and his intemidatingly tall (isn’t everyone, just about, to me?)….master? lived- or at the least stayed. Ann’d brought us here looking for information on something called a Cloaker.

What is a cloaker, you ask? One nasty son of a bitch. Unlike beholders, I’ve never actually dealt with one that I can remember (and with beholders, that was only a matter of weeks ago. It feels a lot longer.) but I don’t need to have. Imagine you find a pretty cloak, or cowl, just- hanging somewhere. Oh, nice, you think, lucky me, I’ll be a cheap asshole and steal this pretty cloak or cowl I happened to find.

So you do, and then, later, you learn why being a cheap asshole is bad. One of the reasons, anyway.

Because no sooner do you steal yourself this lovely item, then does it come to life and try and kill you. And I’ll tell you what, unless you’re really fucking good or really fucking lucky, then there’s probably not much ‘try’ involved.

Ann fought one, once; it had Lim by the nape, and if he’d not gone were, I may have never met a one Lim Dul. Or at least, not as such.

They don’t live on our plane, that’s one thing- they can’t survive long, unless someone keeps them alive. They feed off chaos, off streams of the stuff, and the people who bring them here usually feed it to ‘em somehow, until they’ve done what the person brought them to do, I guess.

They use them as attack dogs, pretty much, although we were also told they could be trained, to a point.

The person who told us all this was referred to us by the tall man, and was a dwarf with a metal, telescopic eye on his head. ‘A nasty got him once’, he said. Gruff, rugged, brisk and sharp, but calm and oddly likable.

He gave us more information then he really should or could have for the amount we could pay, and perhaps information that would, eventually, be helpful. At least now we know more about the little fuckers.

We left the man’s building, escorted out by a man who’d brought us in- a man who was half mechanical, like the captian that we’d gone to about the hunt, but who seemed incapable of doing anything but grunting at us.

Didn’t really seem to be a rude grunt, though. And yes, there are different kinds. Because I said so. Pay attention sometime, and you’ll see I’m right. If anything, it was oddly expressive, and made it hard not to smile. That would have been rude.

As it went, we headed back down to the graveyard, this time without bothering the gravekeeper, and inspected the mosleum- much larger and more expensive then my own, but then, this one actually held bodies, and more then one at that, and was made by people who had money to spare. This was the same place I’d been- what, months ago, now?- with this lot, looking into something called a deadwood tree and a bloodline of a family full of people that weren’t so nice.

It’s a long story, but it has to do with Toby, that ‘special’ friend I mention all the time, and lots of people dead, and perfume that you just don’t want to fuck with, and a corrupt clergy. Yeah.

Corrupt clergy trying to win power in the worst way they could possibly want to do so, and pissing Toby off something fierce. Because for them to get this, he’d have to take a nosedive and let their little masterpiece take his place.

Can you guess what Toby is yet? Like I’ve just been so helpful.

Anyway. I won’t get too far into that, either, because there is no corrupt clergy, not anymore.

There was never a corrupt clergy that anyone ever knew of outside of us and a few important people, and I doubt they’d like it much if they knew I was writing about it.

But suffice to say this place was not a nice one, and these people not good ones, in so much as I knew. Ann had last seen the cloaker she’d fought here, but there was no sign of it or anyone in or around this thing. Dead end.

So we went back to the ally where I’d found the girl, and I wound up paying the little bitch to take me to the kid Ann’s met. Who turned out to be her brother….who was now a squire. Apperantly mostly due to Ann.

See, good things do happen because of us! Or at least, her.

The kid was nervous and jittery, but he knew he owed Ann, so in he went and came out with the man who’d taken him on. Watching him, listening to the word-play of this man and Ann, I didn’t see anything that struck me as not right about him, not blatently. I like kids, from babies up, and hoped this guy was treating that one decently. I should have payed more attention to the man, but I had my attention of Ann’s questioning. The red-haired man knew the symbol Ann had, called them ‘spies’, said that we weren’t enemies with them or we’d be dead already. He told us they didn’t test people very often, and that to be doing this, they had to have really liked Ann’s friend- or respected her, at least.

He didn’t want to say much else, but what he did say…..at the very least eased my hackles. This group seemed to be beneviolent, in the general whole, towards us. Just…..wanted something big from Ann.

The same force in me, driving me to find out about Damon and his group, is now coursing in me again, though. I want to know. I want to know who these people are, and what the fuck Ann’s friend is running from.

I can’t say I’m especially emotionally tangled up in it. I don’t know this girl, and I don’t paritcuarly care about her. I do know Ann, though, and I do care about her, to a degree. She’s been beside me throughout the entire chaos that is Damon and my rapidly-becoming obsession, the least I can do is shadow her through this. And so I will, as far and long as I can.

But the point remains that, while Ann and I make a pretty good team, we have devided interests. And our interests are on two separate roads, hers spinning off over the mountains to the desert, mine right here at home and then sliding down a cold path to the south. There was, at first, no doubt in me that I’d be going west with her when she went. It was just default. She’s something like a partner, and I something like defer to her, and when the thought of going where she went came up, I didn’t second guess myself. I didn’t like leaving Talron, and yeah, I was scared as fuck, but oh well. It wasn’t even a question in my mind. If she’d want me, I’d go. She needs someone at her back, and it’s nice having someone at mine.

But now I have to wonder. Now that I do have my own set of interests, and it’s not a matter of

‘I have nothing better to do, why the fuck not?’, what happens if I don’t want to go west? Do I have a choice? Would it make a difference?

I told Damon I’d go with him. I wouldn’t have expected Ann to come with us, wouldn’t have even wanted her to. It’s my business and my problem- if she’d trailed along, I’d be okay with that, but I’d be just as okay if she’d wanted to stay.

Yeah, I’ll explain that in a second.

I just don’t know, and it’s too early to worry about it.

Anyway. After we investigated this tomb, we went back to the one for me- and watched Damon put a flower on it, place his hand on it, and then lower his head and walk away.
I was torn like a wild animal for a long time, then I turned and bolted, racing around to cut him off.

I was leaning back, propped up lazily when he walked by, eyes on the ground. And, suddenly, feircly, I wanted-

To hurt him, to hate him. I wanted him to hate me. Wanted him pissed off, wanted to be pissed. I wanted to make him feel the sick twisting in my gut, wanted to see something on his face besides anger or bitter amusment. I wanted to see emotion there, wanted to see what my words did to him, wanted to see him hurt. I wanted it, right then and there, more then I’d ever wanted anything in my entire fucking life. I wanted him bleeding in front of me, wanted an honest reaction, wanted him to loath me and scorn me. I wanted to see if he really cared. I didn’t want him to care. I wanted this to be hard. I wanted it to be easy. Everything I thought I’d made choices about flew out the damned window. I was as confused and mixed up as I’d ever been, and right then, right fucking there, I wanted him down.

All I was sure of in that moment was that if I couldn’t cut him with my dagger, I’d do it with my tongue. Sometimes, I’m better with that, anyway. I was in that cold place again, the place I’d been when we’d met Simon, where everything was cold and clear as a pond in winter, and all I knew was hurt him hurt him hurt him hurt him.

And I did, too. Or I tried my damndest. But for every sharp, sarcastic word, he presented soft applogies and seemingly heart-felt pain. For every demanded answer, I got a quiet, achingly sad avoidance.

His voice, his eyes would have broken my heart if I’d been talking with Talron. He looked like a kicked puppy, and soon that cold, clear place started to muddle up again, and I started to feel like I was kicking a puppy. I couldn’t make him bite me. Once, he came close- once, I pissed him off. Well and truly got his hackles up, I saw it. I saw it come and go just as fast, and you know what? He had no fucking right to be pissed off anyway.

But while he wouldn’t bite, he did nip rather hard; he knew where to poke and how to defend himself. I threatened to kidnap him; he challenged me to try. I demanded he tell me which way to jump; he told me figure it out your own damn self, moron, in so many words. I called him on the Man In Black, and, once again angry, he vehemently insisted they didn’t work for him. I told him he’d die
trying to stop Feng. He told me I was wrong. I told him I only cared because he had my answers.

He called me a lier.

I told him the truth. He looked as fucking smug as a fox who’d gotten away with the henhouse.

He also told me it was my father’s fault I’m in this situation. He told me my father trusted me more then him- belived in me more.

He told me he was going after Feng, back ‘home’, back to the south, after him to stop him. And that he’d send word to me when he came back alive.

Now I was only confused and upset again, and, with him about to leave, sorry I’d set out to wound. I hugged him with an apology and then I let him go….fighting the urge to just kidnap him the entire time. He’d said I was welcome to try, but in an hour they’d come looking for him. And they’d bring him back.

And then I watched him go, and I thought, I let him go. Maybe I should let him go. But I knew I never could.

We made one last pit stop, checking on the shop keeper to make sure he was okay after talking with me, and then we headed out again. We made it back to the keep with no incidents, and by the time we’d gotten back, I’d worked myself up again. I marched up to the keep, eyes on my feet, entire body stiff and jaw set, mind racing. I stormed past everyone, shoved past gaurds and maids alike, slammed into Talron’s chambers and grabbed him by the wrists where he sat.

I lead up to what I’d done slowly and distinctly, without looking at him, but when it came to saying what I’d actually done, I spat it all out so fast I didn’t understand me.

Apperantly, he did though, and his expression was utterly unreadable. And then he said, pretty much- ‘okay’.

I was kind of shell-shocked. I stayed kind of shell-shocked when he admitted he’d been frightened I’d been going to say I’d gotten back with Damon.

That, apperantly, was worse then being offered as food to a vampire. He wasn’t happy with it, that’s for fucking sure, nor my way of getting it. But we got it, and he wasn’t pissed at me. In fact, he seemed faintly amused, as well- frightened, upset, amused, and faintly annoyed.

And when we left, he still hoped to see me at dinner. I couldn’t be happy about it.

There was too much I had to discuss with him.

I never got the chance, at least, not that night.

Y’ see, the bat-shit insane vampire showing up kind of distracted me.
Walking out in the middle of the night with a cup of ancient blood?

Really bad fucking idea.