4:27 A.M.
To Desna, and all my fallen brothers and sisters.
To the Black Butterfly. Hello, for the first time, officially. It’s good to meet you. Forgive me for bringing a candle to sit at your mural, here, but I can’t journal with the goggles on very well.
I haven’t written in a few days. Things have become a blur, and I feel unmoored from myself; unmoored even as I watch my city broil with conflict, as I learn more and more about it. Refuge. Kaer Maga. My home. No matter what, I can never question that it is my home. I have that above all else. I don’t know what I am without that.
Or maybe I would be something. Do you know my own sordid tale, more than I do, more than others? I’ve only the bits and pieces. They come back in fits, like the Caulborn, like Xavorax. Sometimes it’s nice. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the sun on my face.
Fucking Caulborn. Fucking vampires. The world’s ending and it’s all swirling around this city, braying hounds and bad moons and all, whatever-the-fuck-you-please. Thank you, ancient and naively cruel Runelord, sir. Now we’re really in it. Lamashtu on one side, New Azlant on another, a great callous hive mind beneath our feet.
How many times have I died down there? How many times have I NO. Not me. It wasn’t me. It doesn’t matter what he says.
Sorry.
I just want to be who I’ve chosen to be. I don’t want to be the leftover bits and pieces of dead Percivals. I don’t want to be some ancient necromancer’s frankenstein fix-it zombie killer. I just want to be me. I want to build things and teach people and make art. Why is that so hard? Sometimes I feel like I could fall apart in the undertow. (Millions of poor suckers like me, topside. Gods, I don’t want to go. Not Osirian. Not Ustalav.)
Maybe the other six will hold me together just long enough to fight. I saw them look at me when the ritual passed. Raggedy old Percy. Moth among butterflies. I hope I give them a scare every time someone cuts the marionette strings. That’d be funny.
You know.
I’m glad it won’t be as lonely, on these quiet nights. I don’t dream, so I don’t mind the absence, and I’m not much afraid of the dark. I hope you can embrace us like we’ll embrace you. We don’t need to fight or grieve or travel alone, I hope.
I’ll be thinking of you, at least.
I’ll do my best, Desna. I promise. Wherever and whenever you are.
