The writing on this leaf is large, oddly formed and wnaders over the page in inexact lines.

I...write this with great difficulty, and only with the aid of Ildara in locating paper and charcoal for me. I... am currently...blind. As far as I can tell, I must ahve had an encounter with a carnivorous weed in the Black Wastelands. I only remember finding myself wandering under Wall, in pain and barely able to see well. I could not seem to think straight, so a long wandering I can only recall parts of brought me back to the Dundee Inn. Everything seemed so strange...the light, even dim evening light, hurt my eyes as if I was standing in blasting harsh sunlight of home, so I covered them with my hood. By that time, I found myself so oddly disoriented I could not quite make sense of much that was said to. I...believe it was Korrith that spoke of a demon cenbturion maraauding near the Dark Tree. I stumbled my way to the Forest and slew it with relative ease, despite how strange I felt. I then ran into Ildara, who accompanied me to, oddly enough, milltown inn. I still feel so oddly safe there of times. I still think that, if this terrible law regarding children in the town centres were repealed, I would come back here in times of trouble. But as I crossed the threshold, I...fainted.
I came around some time later to find Ildara frantically trying to heal my face, my eyes... I found myself terribly disorieted, unable to tell which way was up, and sick to my stomach, my head spinning. I..could barely see anything, and the pain in my eyes.. burning, sick, terrible... When I could make out what Ildara was saying, she seemed to think I had been...stung, or attacked, somehow, in the eyes, by a carnivourous weed. I...mamaged to direct her to a broad antitoxin that works for many types of plant stings and venom. As she is yet unable to read, it was lucky that I colour code the bottles I use the most frequently. Yellow for antitoxins, and I keep only that and the most common anti viper poison in my pack. After she administered the tincture to me, with the aid of Cleric's grace I soon felt better, if a little shaky and sick still. But my eyes... They seemed, as they still are, to still be suffering the direect effects of the venom. Ildara, with great patience, guided me home, and followed my instructions to grind a paste that I can only pray shall neutralize the venom. I pray... dear Gods, how I pray. If.. if I am blinded...I shall be useless. I remember Xan once confessing to me in the depths of the night how much he feared to be crippled one day as he fought. But this... If I were crippled, I couls still read, and heal, and mix potions and salves, and care for Issy. If I am blind... I shall eb able to do none of those things. I shall be helpless, useless, and, with Xan away... alone...
Oh Gods...I pray you, Gods... do not leave me helpless. Do not leave me useless. I know what I can bear. I could not bear this...
I shall refuse to despair. Ildara has mixed me willowbark and poppy for the pain. I shall drink it, and sl;eep, and hopefully find solace from the pain, and healing. I cna hear her playing with issy in the next room. Isolde's sweet voice... While I can hear that... perhaps, for now, I need not see at all. I shall not fear. I shall not fear...

I am most terribly worried about Esh. She has had a terrible experience in her long wanderings, and has returned to Valorn wounded badly in both body and soul. The flesh of her arms seem torn almost tp shreds, and she cannot use them. The broken fragments of story I could glean from her as I tired to persude her to let me heal her tell me that she was close to death from them when she was found by a wandering cleric, much as I once was long ago. It seems that as soon as she was strong enough to stand, she ran from him. At least that is what I suspect, as I can see no one of my own calling leaving her wounds in such a state. They were swathed in dirty rages, and I could smell the corruption from them as soon as she walked into the inn. She was pale and ill, and showed the marks of great pain. She is in a bad way.
I have tried to ease the wounds of her soul as best I can. Even from the gragments of what she says, I can tell she has acted in no way badly. She has allowed me finally to cleanse and redress her wounds, though she will not allow me to use Cleric's grace to heal them. She even finally let me give her something to make her sleep. I write this as I keep watch on her in the upper room of the Dundee Inn. I would have had her come back to the cottage with me, but she seemed so ill I feared even to have her make the journey with me, not to mention it was easier simply to coax her up here to let me treat her.
Isolde was with Xan for the time being, although I think he shall soon have to leave on a truly long journey that might keep him away for some months. I hope not, for I miss him, but I am also proud of his dedication. More proud than I can say.

I am a little worried about Isolde, actually. Since we moved here, she has become more quiet. Less...well...sociable than she was when we lived in the inns. More wary of strangers, staying closer to myself whenever we do come into contact with anyone. She laughs, still, but less often and less silly then she once did...
Perhaps it is simply that she is growing up. She is getting tall, now. Losing some of the baby fat, and her hair is growing longer. She is becoming a proper little girl now. No longer a babe. Xan is teaching her some simple sword drill, with a new wooden one he carved for her. He told me that this is the age one should begin, if one is to become the swordsman he himself is, and I can see already that she is a natural at it. She is... beautiful. Whatever they say about a mother's eyes... she is so very lovely. Even more so now that I see thoughts behind her eyes she does not always speak of. Becoming a person all of her own. Those Waster dark green eyes. I still do not know where they came from. Naranthil did not have them, of course. She never spoke freely of her life or her origins, but from the patchwork of what she did say... I know she was from a long way away. From far further than the Wastes to this land. Somewhere far to the south. Her eyes were very dark. But the Waster eyes...I have them also, and my mother...my mother did not.
It is odd, but in many ways, I feel as if I have discovered an entire new life out here, in the forest. An entire new layer of Valornian life. All those people those who live or are based in the towns never see. Kiris is one of the more visible ones, of course, but there are many others. Hunters and wanderers who never took the oath of the adventurer. Hermits. Families, too, even. Just people. People of the woodlands. I do not know if Danica knew any of them. It took me quite a while to, but...Issy and I wander, especially when Xan is away. And they need me some of the time. They seem more than a little wary of adventurers, but the fact that I do as much with herbs as Cleric's grace seems to make me less alien. Or maybe it is just I. I feel oddly more comfortable with them. I never felt so with most of the people of the towns, even before the incident with the Ventelis. I delivered another baby last week. A boy, for a woman who seems to wander from place to place in a deerskin tent. It was a difficult birth, and I mean to keep an eye on both of them for a while.
Is this what my mother felt?
Is it?

I have been tired. Very, very tired. Sleeping badly. Xan is away a great deal right now. It is neccessary, the Light knows I am aware of that, but it makes for a cold and lonely bed. I wish I could blame that for the dark and self-pitying state I seem to have fallen into recently. Such a fool that I am. Though many have left, there are still people I care for a great deal here. And I still see Mylor, my oldest and likely dearest friend here, quite frequently actually. I do not think the buzz of the inns suits him as it once did. We have met a few times in the Glass Tavern, our haunt in the oldest days of our friendship, and some of his talk, under the veneer of banter and sarcasm, seems melancholy. He misses Llye, I think, for though she has returned in safety from...wherever she was, she still wanders far and wide.

I am tired. Terribly. terribly tired. My life seems to be shriking part on part, with little of worth to leaven it, and I feel hemmed in on many sides.

The grey winds scud over the barren lands, bleaching the sky to the colour of bones...
Mine eyes see sooth the rising gale and shed the tears of winter lorn..
O'er barren lands clad now in sand the shielding grasses now are shorn...
Mine eyes are dimmed and only solace fading dreams of lands newborn...
Spirits grant us now thy grace
Save us from this barren place
Gift our eyes with dreams anew
This world has dimmed our wonder true
Our torment and agony leaven
Grant us at last thy glimpse of heaven


This song...I cannot get it out of my mind.

Xan? Can you feel my hand?

If...anyone who once knew me saw me now...would they recognise me?

I feel like a thing shaped of shadows. And the dawn is coming.

When all this outer seeming is gone...will anything be left?

Is there anything to me but shadows?

Do I even exist?

Mar...Mar...please...help me...

Tell me I once existed. Tell me you remember me. Tell me you love me...

A long time since I last took the leisure to write...some days, in fact. I have been busy... No, Venus, in this place be honest with yourself. I have been brooding, locked up in my disturbed thoughts like an old desert fox in her burrow, licking out old and aching scars over the winter. Skif's coming has disturbed my old thoughts as a man standing on the flat-seeming bed of a dry soak lets oozings of thick mud; and his actions since coming have disturbed me more. He...he was one of Naranthil's old lovers, long ago. He seemed stricken by her death, almost prostrate with grief. I had forgotten how she raised such feeiungs in some men, and how much she shut herself away from allowing herself to understand or return them. I can see her now, her eyes so dark she had little need to stain the sockets to shield herself from the glare of the sun; "Love is the word men use to bind women to their will, Vrit. Do not be caught in such webs." She always treated what I felt for Mar as if it were a childish indulgence, laughing as I tried to hide my feelings from her, from everyone.
I...miss her. Gods forsake him for raising her ghost before me again... My best friend... (a slight smear on the page). Skif's raising of these ghosts and this way of dealing has ended up angering me. Foolish, but so. Drinking, fighting everything that comes his way. And women. It took a talk with Mylor to lay much of this anger to rest. He is right; they are hardly unreasonable ways to react to such a loss, especially for a man. Not my ways, but not hard to understand. It was unworthy of me to react so, and more so to take it out on that foolish young noblewoman, Mitzi Kitan. Patience is a virtue it sometimes seems there could never be enough years in my life for me to cultivate as I should. . I shall do my best to make amends as I can.

She is gone. Danica... she left us. I came home one night to find a note on the table to Xan and myself, stating that she had gone and taken Elysian with her. She left us a great deal of coin, and the cottage, indeed had taken little more than clothing, supplies and Elysian's things. She left us her love, and her blessings, and has gone.
I...do not know how to feel. I shall miss her. I do already. And Elysian...I find I miss him also. The sister who was not my sister...the child who was not my son. I miss them in spite of that.
Of course it is far worse for Xan. His son, whom he was just beginning to get close to, gone. He speaks little of how he feels, but I can tell it both hurts him to lose the child, and gladdens him that he is with his mother. The drawings sheleft show us all together...as a true family. I think we shall forever treasure them. And there is Issy. He is a good father to her; better than I could ever have hoped. He loves her...as I do.
Last night, I saw I new marking amidst the scars on his chest and arms; Danica's initials, pricked ornately into the skin with a fine needle. A fitting memorial to she who has given so much to him.