In the sleeping hours, alone and in the embrace of a high backed wooden chair, a soft yet simple grey woolen blanket drapes over her lap, at which the blue leather bound book lays splayed open. Long shadows dance upon the walls, an oil lamp and several candles bringing them to life, casting enough light by which to work by. Upon the cluttered work surface, one small oil lamp sits beneath a short tripod of spindly metal legs, atop of that a shallow cast iron bowl, its contents a dark brown, syrupy concoction that smells faintly of almonds, slowly bubbling. A large sand timer, the grains running through the warped glass, is close by, its task almost completed. Dipping a slender quill within an inkwell, she commits her thoughts to the book.
What is there to say? A life reformed, one of peace, one of shaping myself to be that which is acceptable. I have tried to forge a life more pleasing to the Bard, one whom I continually seem to disappoint from time to time. Oh how I laugh as I sit here because it is a farce, an effort gone to waste it would seem, for what I was, I am to this day. Arithem delights in making it clear of what I am capable of, but then I do not think he does this to mock me, rather to warn, no, not warn..illustrate perhaps? What I have done and would do again should the opportunity present itself.
We are all faced with choices, some inconsequential, others seemingly insurmountable, but choices must be made. Like a stone dropped within a pool of water, the consequences of those choices will ripple outward, extend further than you imagined, in the heat of making a swift decision time is not a luxury to be had and what may come of your acts a season, a dozen seasons later, are not considered.
Do I regret my choice? I have asked myself this many a time of late, when facing a madman with a blade to my chest, the times when my bard stood to protect me, but the truth is, I do not. I was not destined to lead as my brother does, yet I was thrust into assuming command in his stead. I do not take pride in what was done, that would make me a monster, though to have my brother returned, to have the people appeased, I believe I have done right, even if I pay the price for such a deed now.
Now, my dearest bard would disapprove of what I write next, I know this to be true. Dozens..dozens of those whom I love, who I broke bread with, tended to their wounds, now slain, their blood nourishing the trees at the camp where they dwelt. My choice caused their fate, the ripples of my actions finally catching up with us and I will not sit idly, allow their deaths to go unpunished. The map, it shall have answers, just as the boy who died before me, but for every answer to be found it would seem there are a dozen questions. The home of a madman, the words of a witch, the pleas of a boy. The last grain of sand has fallen.
