It's been ages since I wrote in this...oops! I promised I would be better though!

The quiet has drifted away and the demons seem to be intent on being annoying again. Always knew the peacefulness wouldnt last forever, and there is something familiar about slipping back into this role. Something that is made easier knowing I have the most amazing person beside me, no matter what I have to do or where I have to go. If she is not with me she is always waiting when I get back with a small knowing smile and lets me talk, lets me feel...lets me be, no matter what that means in the moment. I am not proud of the ways I used to cope with it all in the past, and I finally know it is right. This is everything I have ever wanted, she is all I have ever wanted.

Speaking of my bondmate...today is our first anniversary. We were bonded a year ago today! And the best gift I could have asked for came a few turns ago when I found out that she has my last name. Its...the most amazing thing, and I can't put it into words because...its always been her. People have come and gone, people have helped me and hurt me and played games...but she has always been there. Been there with a smile, a hair ruffle to mess with my spikes, or an understanding glance to ask without words if I was okay when nobody else thought to ask. I was always so afraid to tell her how I felt, so I never did...but the funny thing about fear is that something will always come along to make you realize not taking the leap is even scarier. And taking the chance was worth it, because this is beyond anything I ever thought I could feel (even if she DOES try and steal my cookies!) I can't wait for the lifetime of marcs, turns and cycles we have together because she is exactly where I want to be. Always.

Best cycle of my life so far.

We've been bonded for a cycle now and it's been better then I could have ever dreamed. There has been drama of course, things that have tried to break us apart but we came out the other side stronger. Didn't know it could feel like this but I never want it to go away. We decided to not redo the cabin, instead I took it down, along with all the things that haunt me there and we started new with a really sweet set up that is perfect for us. The guild renovation is underway and I'm really excited to watch it all take shape. Feels like a new start and I'm grabbing onto it with both hands, I refuse to let it slip through my fingers. We've both admittedly been a bit sleepy these last few turns, but it's really something to be doing nothing, and still be perfectly content and not want to be anywhere else.

I've been paying close attention to the nexus adventure and it sounds like people found some really amazing stuff there. I remember going to the nexus and it being the only time I ever questioned my choice to be a warrior, it was really impressive! Maybe I would read more if I had a sweet place like that all full of books! I'm enjoying hearing everything that is hidden away in there. I hope they find a way to fix it, the enchanters deserve to have their place back. I'm only sorry it has taken this long for them to get anywhere close to progress.

I've been worried about Ri, he's been struggling alot recently but where I have been unable to help him, she has come in and made him feel safe and comfortable to talk, to break, to feel....same as she has done for me. It makes me love her that much more, makes me feel so much gratitude to have her in my life. She understands Ri in a way I've never been able to, no matter how much I wish I could or how much I try. Ri has someone he can open up to and it puts a smile on my face, seeing the little brother I know slowly creeping back to the surface. She has not only put ME back together but she's helping him too. Just one more reason all I can do is sit back and shake my head, wondering how I got this lucky. For the first time I can truly say that Ri and I are putting the past to rest, putting who we were behind us, while understanding that it helped shaped who we are and finally being okay with it. It's a freedom I am glad Ri and I have found and I wish he had lived long enough to see, but I live it for him, and everyone else because I survived and I deserve it...she and I both do...together.
Always.

It finally happened!
I finally get to call her my wife! I can't stop grinning like mad anytime I think about it. It was the perfect thing, just her and I with Raffe and the moose. There was no doing it for show, no fancy stuff that isn't really either one of us, just us and someone I trust most in the lands saying what was in our hearts. It'll easily go down as the best turn of my life.

Of course, people have to try and ruin the good things, sadly. Something that escapes me is...how can you say you love someone and all of that stuff, while you simultaneously try to ruin their happiness? If you "truly" love that person, should you not want them to be happy? Is it out of selfishness or spite that they try and ruin your happiness? 'Cause you sure as heck can't say you're doing it out of "love".
It didn't work though, we are more solid then ever. I am more in love with her then ever. Nothing will make me walk away from her, nothing will make me leave.

I finally figured out where I am meant to be. Everything else before this was just stepping stones to get to something I never thought I could have with someone I never thought I would be lucky enough to love, to have love me. I will never stop fighting for us because she is all I want, all I need. She lets me be me, she gets the real Cody, not the surface variation I have to put on for everyone else...I am free with her. To this day she doesn't understand how amazing that is, how much I love her even more for what she gives me without ever trying. It's not just words...it's actions. She doesn't just 'say' she'll be there for me, she IS there for me. She lets me rant, lets me cry, holds me when I'm hurting, when the things I have seen and experienced get to be too much. She never left my side when I found out my best friend was dead, she sat there quietly beside me and let me feel everything I needed to feel.

I am truly happy with my life. I love my wife and I love what we are building together. I'm completely changing up the cabin, making it ours and I'm finally re-working the guild completely. It's about time I put my mark on it, I've had it long enough. I've held onto past things, I've stayed in a little rut to make sure I never offended anyone or stepped on anyones toes. I spent so long worrying about everyone else's feelings I never took my own into account. I'm not doing that anymore, I can't be the Commander, leader or man I want to be, if I spend so much time worrying about everyone else and not making sure 'I' am happy. And I am with her, with the way my life is going. And to be frank, if people aren't happy with that, they can just stay away. If you don't want the best for me, then you don't want to be my friend or in my life.

I am happy and I am free. Finally. And I intend to stay that way.
Always.

Some things never change. Folks finally had the chance to try and fix the pillars in the nexus, but as with everything ever...folks just can't seem to get along. Got people snarking at each other because...well I'm sure there are a million reasons why, but very few people seem to want to put their ego aside and just work together. The first attempt went a bit sideways, but that happens sometimes, its how we learn and progress and maybe next time...well maybe next time it goes sideways too, just in a different way so we learn something else. But maybe it doesn't, maybe we try something different and it works.

I went into the nexus to help with the attempt to fix the pillars...that place is amazing, there really is no other word to describe it. I've never seen anything like it in my life. I was a conduit, which meant I had to speak about a memory I had in Branishor, so I used my favorite one, the turn Azz took me there. It felt...freeing to speak about her and about that turn and about how much she did for me. I'm just sorry it didn't seem to work...I did get a piece of pillar to the head for it! Good thing I'm a warrior and have a hard head! Still, I'd do it over and over again if it meant even a chance that it would work.

The amount of times I've been told me "judgement" is clouded or I'm not seeing the reality of a situation...well lets just say if I had a plat for everytime I heard it lately, I'd never need to plat farm again. My judgement isn't clouded, I just don't happen to agree with the way people are treating each other, and the reality is that people can't get over what they want to see, to help make something happen that isn't how they see it going. And as a Commander, who's job it is to make sure the lands are safe...I'm always going to stand up when I see things happening that can mess with that, including any infighting. Right now I question most people's ability to stand together and fight if that is what was needed, and that's not good.

In happier news, I'm getting bonded in a little over half a cycle! There is nothing I have done in my life that feels as right as this does. I've never felt this "giddy" feeling people talk about when I realize I get to be with her for the rest of my life. She doesn't try to stifle me to fit in with what she THINKS I should be, or what she wants me to be, she allows me to be free to be Cody. With all the messiness that comes with it. It's not always easy, but that's okay, it's always worth it. There will never be a turn I don't fight for her, for us and I know she feels the same way, and that makes all the difference. For once, I'm not the only one trying, the only one fighting. She tells me all the time how much I have done for her, and no matter how I try, she never sees how much she does for me. But I get to be the lucky man that spends my life showing her.

Been renovating the guild hall lately, I'm excited to see how it all turns out, it can definitely use some upgrading! I don't know the last time I really focused on it, so I'm working hard to change that.

Not sure what else to write in this for now, so I'll end it here...til next time I guess!

Been a long time since I wrote in this thing. Lot has happened, some good, some bad. Lot of people have a lot to say about me these turns it seems. Twisting events to suit themselves, assuming things, saying I feel something that I don't, or never did feel. Going to other people and telling them versions of things that are different then how they went for some unknown reason. It's annoying, and people wonder why I have pulled away from some of them lately. I've learned just how much my stubbornness has cost my physical health, how much ignoring something didn't make it go away, just made it worse. But I've also found my reason to fight, to fight to get better. The very first person I ever had feelings for...the person who has always been on my side...we finally figured it all out and we've been together for a cycle or so now. I didn't think it could feel like this and I kind of get why people write all this cheesy, gushy stuff in here. I get how it feels to want everyone to know how awesome it can feel. She knows everything, she knows how long a road I have to get back to even close to where I want to be, and she's still here. Asking me to fight with her...like there is anything I wouldn't do. I will get past this, I will get better after years of ignoring it, of letting it win...and it will be in large part to the support she gives me every turn. I can only hope I give her even half of what she gives me.

Who would have thought...

Something so simple, like playing in the mountains, yelling things that I needed SO bad to get off my chest, would make me feel...free.

I have felt for a long time like I lost myself, warped all that made me who I was, to fit other things and last turn...just messing around for no other reason then to enjoy myself...I felt like Cody again.

It's been a long road, always trying to go back and be who I was, but he made me realize that trying to go back was what was messing me up. It's not like that Cody was gone...I just had to find him again in who I am now. Shed all the little pieces that have been chipped away, chipped into what I was, and rebuild it with help from those who care, who remind me who I was, and who I still am under all the dust.

Fall Fest is coming up, it has always been my favorite festival. I need to spend some time with the candyball man, and refill my stash as I always get low around this time. I'm looking forward to taking part in events again, to laughing and joking with friends and meeting new folks...I've been hiding away long enough and this is a good time to stop all of that. So bring on the events, the costumes, the jokes and the CANDY!

Of all the thoughts and ideas bouncing around in my head, one word sticks out right now: Simplicity.

I've always been a pretty simple guy, and I seem to like and gravitate towards the simple things. To me they always mean the most, they make the biggest difference. Sometimes a whisper has more effect then a shout after all. It's not that I don't like more complicated or complex things, I do enjoy them sometimes, but in the end I always finding myself wanting or even craving that simplicity. Maybe it's my upbringing that made me that way, learning to be content with the small things because we never had much so I learned that those small moments have value as well.

A soft place to land after a long hard turn, just sitting somewhere having simple conversation-talking about nothing important but saying more than the most intense conversations, just being content to relax and lounge around without a long list hovering over my head, things slowing down once in a while instead of being warp speed, knowing that you can say anything at all with no worries of repercussions...its not wrong to want that right? To grab it when you find the chance to have it?

For so long I have done what I could for other people, to do everything I could to make others happy...because that always made me happy too. For the first time I find myself being a bit selfish, knowing what I want and just accepting that, and taking the chance to have it and it is such a weird and almost freeing thing. I still want to make people happy don't get me wrong, and I still want to do everything I can for people but i realize I have to take some time for myself, or I risk losing myself all over again and that's terrifying. And I know a thing or two about scary, I've lived through some intense and scary stuff, and looking at myself and no longer knowing who I am...was the worst thing I've experienced.

Who am I?

A good question...one I find myself wondering about more and more these last few turns.

I used to be so sure, so aware of everything that made me who I was, but lately it seems like I've lost sight of that.

Thoughts are so jumbled in my head, it's become almost overwhelming and I actually cracked and decided to write it all down, for fear of my own sanity (You know, whatever is left of it after all this time) if I kept sitting there with thoughts festering. So much has changed in a little time, people I knew and trusted made choices I could not understand even though I tried, I lost someone I care about very much because things changed and I handled it wrong, and I did things recently that make me question things I thought I knew.

Change is annoying, and unintentional but unavoidable and I feel like the more you push against it, the more it pushes back. In some...misguided attempt to save something, for likely selfish reasons, I ended up destroying it instead. A person who once thought I was a good person now thinks I am not, that I am a person that only hurts them for my own amusement or something...a person that lost the right to matter. I find myself changing...twisting into some angrier, meaner person to them, even though they dont deserve it, just because it hurts less to be the terrible person I feel they think I am, then them hating me while I tried to make it right. Some things you mess up so much...and you have to take accountability for it and hope that somewhere at the end of the tunnel there is a brighter turn. I do not regret the memories made, and while I regret how I handled all of it, and I regret things I have said...I do not regret where it has lead me now.

A few turns ago we defeated a god that wanted to make us puppets and destroy free will. It was a rare time when we all came together, no matter the guild, level, or profession for one common goal. I should be happy we are free of him, and free to make choices again for good or for bad. How can I be completely happy though when the proof of what we had to do to get here is clear as day in Dundee? Those were people I have grown with, have shaped my adventures though my life here and now they are gone...and I helped kill them. Why? Because Drakon hid behind them, and put them in our path and we wanted to get to him. I had hoped that if we defeated him, they would be alright...somehow his magic would reverse itself and they'd be celebrating with us...but they weren't. Why did they all have to die? Even people that were not directly in the way of the temple...we sought them out and killed them anyway. He changed them without killing them....why couldn't they be changed back without dying? I sit here in this tower, leaving mainly just for food and the thoughts keep bouncing around but there are no answers. Was it my naivety in thinking things would work out that made it so I could do it? Or was it my thought that had I lost all control of my mind...I would want someone to end things for me? That is no way to live...as a former slave myself I know all too well what serving a sadistic master can be like. I have no answers, no way to make sense of what I did or why I did it...I can only live with it all and hope to come to peace with it somewhat in my own time.

I have fully recovered from my two lovely bouts of sickness, and am looking foward to helping some friends with projects they have cooked up. It will be good to put effort so something positive and watch what we can do when we put our heads together for the benefit of people, some quiet happy time is long overdue I think.

As for who I am...turns out I have no answer, any time I think I know, something comes at me that changes what I thought. But I guess that is how life goes; you win, you lose, you change, you grow and then hopefully someday in the future you know.

Wish me luck!
(Ha this writing it all down thing really does help)