This, too, shall pass [Journal]

[Marcy]

Marcellain keeps journals to keep his head in check. His past is a patchwork of shredded memories -- through words and pages, he sifts it, trying to make sense of the lost days and hours. Some of these will be current entries directly related to his meta-plot, some will respond to events and characters, and some will be pieces of his backstory I will not be putting anywhere else. Thanks for looking!

 

General content warnings apply; some entries will deal with graphic and violent imagery though I will try to keep it PG-13.

 

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COERTHAS

 

When less than a third of your life is behind you, your mind is the last thing you expect to go. Dragging along with heavy shoes, it’s shedding a piece at a time -- an hour here, a day there, gone, dissolved in the aether. It’s been happening ever since the Shroud spat me out, screaming and naked, onto the desert’s dunes. It’s been happening, again and again, as faces faded and names became little more than notes on the margins.

 

I caught on too late.

 

Remembering hurts. It’s like pulling teeth, root and all, from the soft pads of your jaw without assistance. My skull buzzes (it can feel something missing) and makes quick work of my meal. I taste blood and acid for hours.

 

Maybe you should see a conjurer.

 

And do what? How many conjurers can see inside your head? Maybe I should stick it into a bucket of bees, for all good that will do. Maybe I should have it cut off. Someone will have a field day with what’s inside it. I won’t even need a very large jar.

 

I’m cold, and I’m tired.

 

Limsa sounds wonderful this time of the year.

 

She’s coming. I should hide this.

 

Black hair, white eyes, loud spurs.

 

XX.XXX.XXXX

 

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[Marcy]

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CAMP DRAGONHEAD

 

Same dream again.

 

Crystals form in a matrix. They spread in a fractal pattern, each multiplying on top of another like branches in a tree, as the thing that fed them disappears they blister in defiance with sharp edges and thin lines and clots of hard, cold glass.

 

It starts in my stomach and spreads to my esophagus, pushes through my throat and tears past my vocal cords. The aether is strong and endless, something big had to have split to let it all out. Small shards fall out of my mouth, coated with me, coated with my acid and blood. They glow a faint green that only makes me sicker, some knob turns in the base of my spine, and I vomit again.

 

I think, I'm gonna lose my voice.

 

They grew them inside of me. Every song filled and swelled the spaces between my cells and as I walked off, exhausted, unable to even see the steps of the stage the memory seeped into the crystals and let them take it away. They must have done it when I was asleep, dreaming,

 

(about spitting)

 

A candle burning twice as bright burns twice as fast, and I was lit on both ends.

 

It's been two years clean. The aether calls. There is nothing growing inside of me anymore, just an empty pit begging to be filled.

 

I'll just have to let it happen, I suppose.

 

XX.XXX.XXXX

 

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[Marcy]

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THE BLACK SHROUD

Time waits for no one, so do you wanna waste some time?

 

My voice sounds strange without the aether -- naked and empty and vulnerable, like there is no line to guide it against, no hand to hold through the waves of melody. It reminds me of how many notches are still in my throat, one for every day I wasted singing things that did not belong to me, one for every new face I put on. Every note has to climb over them, like a flimsy staircase, and I’m afraid of misstepping with every new scratch.

 

It’s going to be different this time,

 

how many times have I lied to myself like this already?

 

Time. That’s what I need, I need time, I need to rewind and rework and rewrite, and I need all those days that seeped from my fingers, I don’t care how many beaches I will have to comb. One day at a time -- his hair in my hands still feels like a warm, living luxury, and I don’t want to stain it with dirt.

 

Second chances are never free.

 

I can’t sleep in the Shroud. The trees are too full of voices.

 

XX.XXX.XXXX

 

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