Fragments of a Forgotten Self
Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2026 6:16 pm
A weathered and cracked note, stained with red and marred by dirt. The ink betrays an unsteady hand, as though the writer trembled between fits or faltering resolve. The parchment is pierced through by a chipped dagger, driven harshly into the wall of the Edana stables.
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To the Honorable Members of the Council of Mercadia,
Should these words reach your eyes, do not mistake them for a plea for redemption. There can be none for what I have done.
It was I. Not a creature of shadow, nor a demon clad in flesh — but this very body that now writes, the same hands that raised the steel and sowed death among your people. I do not deny it. And yet… it was not I.
My memory lies shattered, like a mirror struck by stone, holding only fragments of what I once was. I recall no home, no name, no lineage — only faint shadows that haunt my dreams. I know only this: I walk… and something walks beside me. A presence. A voice that does not cease.
I remember — and would that I did not — falling to my knees before those I dare not name, to have touched… to have kissed their feet — heretics whose very names inspire a terror greater than that of any battlefield. From that moment onward, something took root within me. It whispers. It commands. It bends me to its will.
Those who know these lands will understand of what I speak — a cult that uses living vessels, inhabited and discarded at the whim of their god. I did not seek such a fate. I was deceived… and taken.
When blood ran through your streets… I was there. I saw every strike. I felt every moment the steel pierced flesh. And yet I was nothing more than a prisoner within my own form — a hollow vessel, moved by a will not my own.
I tried to resist. I failed. And I fear… it will come again.
I mourn those who were taken, not with empty words, but with a grief that consumes me and grants no rest. Every face… every death… remains with me. Kinurugi bears witness to this — the Father who tends to those I sent, without rite or farewell, into His embrace.
I do not seek forgiveness. I do not deserve it. I would sooner cease to exist. Yet I am a coward. I fear death, as any wretched man does. I have thought to end this burden… yet I have not found the courage.
Since the night my mind was broken, I wander as a beast. I feed on what the mountains offer and drink from the rivers. I have no refuge. I belong nowhere. And I know… I am welcome in none.
And still… within what little remains of me, one desire endures: to live as a common man. Free.
If such a fate may yet be granted, I beg your aid. Before it rises again. Before more innocent blood is spilled for my weakness. Before what remains of me is lost entirely.
(*The following words are pressed deep into the parchment, as if carved by force rather than written.*)
Azamul… I abhor your name. I abhor your kind. And I curse the day I first heard it spoken.
—The Distant Wanderer …
or so I call myself, for I no longer know who I am.
