If I were a fey, winged thing and all my delight belonged to the rasp of the wind, I'd keep the earth as a distant tapestry, and only swoop low when I spied the sea glimmering calmly. I'd bare my pointed teeth in a sharp smile and clatter my long, pixie fingernails while murmuring vainly about the sheen of my wings reflected off the mirrored waves. When weariness made my flight perilous, I'd swoop higher and find a friendly breeze to carry me to a rocky island. There I'd sing a dirge of stone and forgotten things until the Sea Dwellers rose from the ocean and asked me politely to squawk my laments somewhere else. And being a fey winged thing, I would then offer to catch them flying fish in exchange for stories.

Alas, I am a mortal woman, and limited in more than just my choice of story-tellers. For all my longing to be unencumbered, restrained by nothing more than my own whims, I've developed an unhealthy obsession with the Desert Tomb. I'm not just here to hunt crystals anymore. I've gone beyond the pale delights of stalking skeletons and pondering the living people they once were. My dreams remain nothing more than an excuse, as my father always averred, and I must now admit. What shall I say beyond that? My emptiness confounds me.

When did I cease to care, cast all passion for life aside, and embrace a numbing calm?

Slumping against the wall, I sink to the floor, and bury my head in my hands, cringing slightly at the rasp of my rough fingers against dirty, knotted braids. I've never been so filthy, and my robes are shamefully thin. Dismay seeps through me, knotting my shoulders, and I pull my knees in close. The gap between my fingers shows the sandy, gore splattered floor painted with light in a circle around me, and I hear the shuffling of aimless undead. I feel a brief, horrifying kinship with them, and shudder violently, relinquishing my grip on Thumper, my aged and trustworthy staff of lightning. It teeters next to me for a moment, then scrapes against the wall and clatters to the floor. A sinister hush precedes an increased shuffling, and slightly louder moans from the walking corpses.

I very much long to drift without dreaming, sleep without waking, and relinquish all choices forever. However, I have no intention of being eaten by anything less than a dragon, so I grudgingly shove to my feet and snatch up my staff from the ground, and being suddenly peeved, slaughter a quick dozen foes before stumbling towards Aldwythe's Landing. I pause to look over the dim ocean. It looks like a terrible place to bathe, and so I let my dishevelment last another night. For now, I pass beneath the massive gateway claws, and stagger through the city, filled to the brim with loathsome weakness.

At Aldwythe Library, I thumb carefully through old books detailing unfamiliar names and events, but absorb very little. Away from the blind corners and the hypnotic shuffle of my own footsteps, my mind seems only marginally clearer, and I'm pestered by thoughts from the last few days. I recall adventurers clustered three-thick in the Dundee Inn and clamoring for answers, and myself gawking and boggled by the current events, like a regular foreign bumpkin. I think on Glorina explaining the situation to me, detailing her impressions of the new Queen Cordelia, an Iron Knight, and in Glorina's estimation, gracious woman. Speaking with her, I felt much like the Synvasti who first arrived here, inquisitive and light-hearted. I believe that cleric is truly blessed with an aura of peace, or something more mysterious.

Recent travels with Tisran brought back memories of even earlier times, and it seems to me that we are most often hunting friends. Even in childhood days, when light glimmered grandly over the ramparts of imaginary cities, our games of pretending involved searching for something more often than not. Now, stalking circles over a pebbled beach, she helps me wake the Guardians and loot their fragile corpses, and we speak of grown-up things like politics and money. However, when last we hunted together, I made a glum traveling companion, and passed it off as disliking Kilican. She offered to hunt the Tomb instead, and I balked. Soon after, we found a glowing crystal in a cheerful shade of orange. It quite reminded me of sunset, and perhaps I should have kept its light to thrill my spirit rather than trade it in for a duplicate spell of illumination. Tisran was quite outraged on my behalf, and glared very fiercely at the Dundee Elucidator. She's funny like that, and it makes her a nifty friend. It also escalates bar fights, but who remembers those the next morning anyway?

I've spoken briefly to others, and did see Topaz during the meeting. Shadow Ryder greeted me after my last long sleep, and I enchanted a warrior who bore a superficial resemblance to Thorne. I even tried to socialize at the Dundee Inn for an entire marc. I believe I drove everyone out, and recall attempting to reach the ocean and dispel my curious stench. It was dark when I arrived, and a chill wind rippled the heaving waves. The stinging salt smell made my lungs wheeze for a second, and I coughed once before backing away, my feet leaving small breaks in the cold, hard crust of the sand. Hunching my shoulders, I splashed to the Sea Dweller's grotto, wandered through their halls, and ignored their baleful, sideways looks. Solace eluded me, but I placed a silver ring, lemonade, and ale at one crossing of the tunnels before departing. My motives are beyond my own fathoming, and I can only recognize that these paltry gifts are no atonement.

Mostly, atonement doesn't exist. Though physical recompense may be offered, all mistakes lurk forever in the place between memory and dreams. Forgotten while the sun is warm on your face or as the regard of others distracts you, they wait with endless patience. Take a moment for yourself or the space of many moons, but eventually they'll find you in the quiet of your thoughts or as you're sweetly dreaming of something fine or thrilling. Between a sleeping breath and heartbeat, old mistakes will trickle in, be they choices made too swiftly or ones not made at all. When they come, they'll be stronger than the dreamer, and they wear the shape of monsters. First they take the dream, then they take the dreamer. I don't know when they'll come for me, or if they have already.

I sit within my own trembling light, exhausted and hollowed, and I know that sleep encroaches from the burning in my eyes. The neatly penned text dances on the pages, and the heavy book balanced on my knee has numbed my entire leg somehow. Hobbling over to an empty shelf, I brush the dust off with the sleeve of my robe before placing the tome. Then I shrug off my pack, and choose to sleep here for a time, curled beneath my cloak in an inconspicuous corner. I hum to myself softly until my hum is a bumble of breath, and my sense of self begins to fade. My final awareness is of a lullaby faintly warped, and then I drop into nightmares.

I awake feeling ornery, spiteful and mean. I swallow back a swell of hatred, and flinching, grasp my amulet tightly. A wretched, malodorous scent rises to my nostrils, and literally gags me. I'm not the source, ripe though I am from wading in undead remains these many days. It stems from my pack, and I find a demon heart throbbing with malice. It's icky-dead and susceptible to the corpse rot that infests the Tomb, and I brought it into this sanctuary. Long ago intended as a gift, a joke, and then forgotten, I now see nothing funny about it. My wrath turns neatly inward, and I stalk with quiet restraint out of the town. Where the festering waters meet the ferry dock, I chuck the heart into the sea.

With that, I ascend and take two paces towards the exit before encountering a guardian. Not to long ago, the mere sight of one thrilled me, but the lingering rage changes everything. My bow is perfunctory and hasty, but I take my sweet time dispatching the luck-bearer, making certain that each snap of my staff is perfectly placed. Only one wild swipe of its sword slips through my guard pattern and carves a thin line across my sternum as I stumble backwards, and then I crush its left knee in a retaliatory lunge. Blood trickles down my ribs in a meager, ticklish line, but I ignore it while prying away the Guardian's armored chest. The crystal nestled there glows gently golden, and the anger within me gives way to inexplicable sorrow. For this, I forsake the camaraderie of my guild, and withdraw myself from the fate of Valorn.

It seems faintly foolish now, and a stupid grin stretches itself across my face. Why not try again - one last gamble to escape the Desert Tomb, and rejoin the living? What's the worst that can happen?