Who were you before the war remade you?
That is what the healer asked me today. He thinks that keeping a journal as I recover will do wonders for my mind; a safe space, he calls it, where no one but I has to be privy to my thoughts. I am willing to offer this idea the effort it is owed - I have never been one to bring contention to the suggestion of a healer, nor will I be starting such behavior now, despite what has occurred. Yet, the question has sat in my head since he asked it of me. I had just woken up that morning. I had tried to slip out of Tham Send to check on the others. I was promptly caught and sent back to my bed.
“It is too soon,” I was told. “You are still too weak.”
To say I was unappreciative of such a sentiment would be an understatement of massive proportions, and perhaps I did not offer the aides the respect they were owed in their attempts to keep me curbed. That is when my usual healer asked me the question. I do not think he intended for me to hear, for he was muttering softly as he took note of my recovery on parchment at the nearby desk. No doubt to be placed into the hands of Cardanith.
Who were you before the war remade you?
That would be similar to asking him who he was before he was born, would it not? As though war was something I was thrust into with no say in the matter - yet to imply such a thing, I know, would be a lie. I remember a brief time, however long ago it was, before war had touched my soul. I remember tall white city walls, and I remember the strings of a harp, and I remember an apple orchard, and I remember a genuine smile. I remember a child chasing a butterfly, and I remember a hand in mine. I think the person who I was before the war remade me… that self is still here. I did not lose myself - or at the very least, I hope I have not. Even in the wake of Mordor and its vile clutches, I am… still myself. Still close enough to what I remember, I think. Something is different, though. Like I am ever slightly bent out of shape, like an old blade that has taken a dent to it.
I am putting quill to ink to parchment now in a leather bound book, with a thousand blank pages awaiting me, and I do not know if that is the correct answer. Thinking on it too long, I fear, is going to make me ill. Perhaps it is time for another question. Perhaps I take the chance to sleep. There is still work to be done. There is always work to be done.
