My soul went dark.

((The handwriting is slanted and shaky. Some words are smeared, and there are splotches of ink where the quill has rested on the paper a second too long.))

Location: Stormwind City
Lunar Phase: Waxing Crescent [small sketch]

My soul went dark with the coming of the new moon. I've never felt so much pain in all of my life. Considering all that's happened, this is noteworthy. Physical pain can be dulled with the alcohol, the drugs... pain of the soul is the most piercing thing I have ever felt. I was convinced that through the ordeal, a very piece of myself was being both ripped away and incinerated at the same time.

Such is the experience of the rite of exorcism. I've seen this ritual performed numerous times, by paladins stinging the vestiges of an undead soul and burning their bodies. By priests forcing a demonic presence out of a mortal's body. I had never expected it to happen to me.

I saw things within my mind's eye. I saw my husband. Urien, bless his soul, continues to care for me despite his condition, despite the terrible things I've done and said. I feel that dying may have been the best thing that had happened to him. Being removed of will and memory for these challenging ten years since Lordaeron... he is innocent, in a way. He observes everything with a fresh gaze, a different perspective. He doesn't rely on smoke or drink to make it through the day.

He was always my moral compass. He still tries to be. Despite the Light leaving him, despite it now being harmful to him, he still believes in it.

[The following paragraph is written frantically, some parts smeared.]

My thoughts become manic. Out of control. I want to kill, I want to seek revenge for the hurt that I feel. Cut Ludovick's back up with my dagger, whip the remaining flesh, feel the blood spattering on my face. Watch him scream in horror as his Light leaves him and while I harvest his new whore's soul and feed it to him so that I would be the only woman in his life again. The other... left outside to the fleshbeasts and infernal rains of the valley. We would make love on the stone slab in my laboratory, just us again-- [The rest of this sentence is completely scribbled out].





Urien would frown upon this. What am I thinking?


--F.P.