Training...a practice that I was never all that fond of doing before my time away. Back then, I'd make a mockery of myself in telling others how lazy and slow I was. I'd laugh as I told them that I wasn't very good at training, that there was no point really in trying. I helped fight where I could and never even cared to think I'd one day be able to do more.

And now, I train so much. But feel as though I get no where. I've spent endless marcs with daggers and blades in the Lair. Certain things come back to me in muscle memory. But in some moves, I hesitate and wait for clarity that will never come. Wait for feedback from vision that isn't what it once was. And those moments of hesitation could be my death. Or another's.

Now I make a joke of it myself again, the lack of training and skill, but behind it is pain and fear. As I watch more and more raids and see tendrils, darkness, and know I am helpless. As I dodge the tendrils from the plateau again and again in my dreams and hear the cry of that volunteer perishing in the dig below.

I have never been much of a "Godly" person. I've seen Gods. Sung for them even. But I was never one for praying to them. And since my time away, I'd mostly pushed them out of mind and hoped that their vision didn't stretch to see my failure and my weakness in leaving, and in the questionable things I did while away. Perhaps that is why my vision never healed; perhaps my shame wasn't punishment enough in their eyes.

I was weak once before, but now I hope to be strong. I hope...and perhaps with some help, I could pray.