Within the swirling Mist (IC) > Biographies
The Diary of Verinne van Haute
Better Dread than Dead:
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11/25/772
Hate. There have only been two occasions in my life where I think what I felt towards someone, or a group of someones, was hate. The first involved a man back home, one by the name of Sicart Picavet. While I had certainly had people belonging to the Richemuloise gentry as my clients in the past, Sicart, despite being a merchant, was many times more magnanimous and charitable than they were. His coffers seemed to be bottomless and he seemed to always have his thumb on the pulse of Ste. Ronges. We Richemuloise guard our secrets well, yet he seemed to be be well-informed about everybody and everyone.
I imagine if I went back to Ste. Ronges now, I would see a coat-of-arms hanging from the bars of the wrought-iron gate, and him rubbing shoulders with the various blue-bloods, talking about the massive, sprawling estate with huge tracts of land he managed to acquire. In Richemulot, and arguably in other places as well, power is derived from what you know, and Sicart seemed to be learning more and more about everyone in Ste. Ronges, with each passing day. Furthermore, there seemed to be no limit to his ostentatious wealth, as his gifts to me grew more grandiose, more lavish.
I grew curious.
I eavesdropped upon his conversations, I rifled through the ledgers he kept, went through all the correspondence he had with those whom he called his business partners. Each time I did, I received a piece of the puzzle, and eventually, it all fit together -- with that, came a startling, horrifying revelation. The man who had became my benefactor was, in fact, a slaver, a man who made his money through contacts he had in the underworld specializing in human trafficking. They would capture men and women (mostly the latter) and see them transported across the border into Falkovnia -- their future, once they arrived there, would naturally prove to be a rather bleak one.
Anyway, Sicart seemed to notice I was acting differently around him, and must have realized I discovered the truth. In the middle of the night, two rather large, broad-shouldered men broke into my house, and tried to seize me from where I was in my bed -- I've no doubt they were sent by Sicart. I obviously didn't get captured by them, mostly because I ran. I ran until the soles of my feet began to bleed. I ran until I was out-of-breath, and continued on regardless. I ran until Ste. Ronges was but a speck resting miles behind where I stood.
Before all of this happened to me, I rather liked Sicart. He was charming, he was handsome. For the companionship I offered him, he, in exchange, allowed me to live not only comfortably, but luxuriously... and yet I grew to quickly hate the man, because it became clear to me that he was more than comfortable with having me clapped in irons and smuggled across the border into a nightmarish, horrifying country full of brutes and butchers, on the slim chance that I had become a liability. He made me leave Richemulot behind, forcing me to abandon everything I knew -- friends, the clients I dealt with before him, to start again elsewhere.
That was one occasion where I began to feel hate, and the other happened to me a few days ago, yet I am not certain who it is I hate more. Is it Sokolov and the Vos for what they did to me, or myself, because I was unable to do a single, solitary thing to stop them from doing what they did. The feeling of utter powerlessness I felt, that I still feel -- it is arguably worse than anything else that's followed in the wake of all this, worse than my lack of appetite, my need to retch, or the bad dreams I've been having.
Others are helping me get my revenge against Sokolov and his countrymen. Others, because I cannot hope to do anything myself. Easy as it is to wallow in despair as I have been, what I require is agency. Power, in whatever form that might take. Strength. I hope I might be able to find that here, in Krofburg.
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Better Dread than Dead:
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12/10/772
The bastard is dead, I think. Others, along with myself, saw him fall down the side of a cliff. I wanted to see his body, to make sure that he was well and truly gone, yet I couldn't find it. I hope I wasn't lying to all those women when I told them he was no more. I hope what I said, what I told all of them, was the truth.
When last I wrote in this diary of mine, I said that I required three things. I should consider myself incredibly lucky that so many people in the village, be they native or outlander, care about me, but I did not feel as though I had any of what I personally thought I needed to prevail. Tied up in that tent, bloodied, I felt like I lacked agency, that I was powerless, that I was weak.. and if they had not made haste in getting to where I was, I would have been harmed in ways my vanity wouldn't be able to handle.
I suppose it could have been far worse, I think. I consider it a small blessing that they led me out of the camp and up the mountain to try and kill me. They very well could have been brought me to below their tent, to the root-cellar they were keeping all those women in. The trail would have probably gone cold, and who can say for certain how long I would have been their prisoner, their slave, and what they would have put me through.
It felt good, taking care of all those women, giving them food, money to afford shelter, warm clothing -- in a couple cases, my own. I don't know how many of them will make it out here, being so far from home, but at least they'll have their freedom, and the choices they make will be theirs and theirs alone. I confess that it wasn't as satisfying as gelding and then eviscerating that corpulent wretch, the monstrous scoundrel who accompanied Sokolov the eve of my performances in the Miner's Merriment. Overcome by wrath as I was, my actions have led others, those whom I care about and those who care about me, to worry about me.. and they should, perhaps. What I felt, after what I did to that man, was fulfillment, and a sliver of the three things I've been longing for.
I want more of it.
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Better Dread than Dead:
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12/17/772
I do not understand what is happening to me.
I must've stared at myself in the mirror for minutes, uninterrupted. I did not blink, not even once. That's the first thing I noticed. I began to notice after that, how much smoother my face seemed, how much fuller my lips appeared to be. The scar's still there, but it's like I'm no longer myself. I am a sculpture someone has made of myself, one that's brittle and might break if handled improperly. What might happen to me, should I be tipped over -- will I shatter into a hundred pieces?
I might already be broken; perhaps I am deluding myself, believing that I'm only bent in places.
I keep practicing with others, I keep talking to my friends about how I feel, and yet I cannot shake this feeling. It continues to stay with me, this feeling of inadequacy. It continues to eat away at me, even now.
Maybe IT could help me. Maybe this is why destiny has brought me to this village nestled in the mountains, roused from its slumber by men of low character from places all over the Core, so I could be torn to pieces and then put back together again, stronger than before. There must be a reason as to why I stay, why I feel as though I must linger.. and perhaps, deep down, what I feel about this village's troubled past is not fear, but instead morbid curiosity.
The summit beckons.
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Better Dread than Dead:
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1/13/773
Almost a month has passed, and I feel no different. I've been to the summit, I've been to the ruined temple -- I've laid my eyes upon the large stone seal that keeps IT imprisoned. Lily-livered coward that I am, I did not dare try to entreat with the creature for what it is my heart desires most. It is almost as though I expect things to get better all on their own, that I will become stronger and self-sufficient by doing exactly as I have been all my life. It is as though I believe that by doing exactly as I've always done, over and over again, something different will happen.
Nightmares continue to rob me of restful slumber, of the sleep I so desperately require. I still wish I never ate that gods-be-damned flower, despite knowing know full well that it was never the true culprit for the dreadful night terrors I now regularly experience. As it stands, I am half-expecting one of the crag cats that lurk along the road leading into Krofburg to calling out my name between their hungry-sounding yowls...
Is this who I'll always be? Is this just who Verinne van Haute is? Is this the best she can do? Is she a doe, one that skitters away at the first sign of trouble? A woman who exists solely to cater to the whims and fancies of the wealthy and the powerful, with no soul to call her own? A woman who sleeps either with the bed of a complete stranger or on a bedroll in a root-cellar, while another, more fortunate woman sleeps in a four-poster bed with silk sheets and exquisite canopies?
Maybe not, yet I cannot help but feel despondent. Something has to change.
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Better Dread than Dead:
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1/15/773
A darkness is starting to well up from inside of me, spurned on by a heart-breaking revelation I received yesterday evening. For weeks now, I've wondered about the girls. Since that fateful night, I've wondered what might have happened to them, since I haven't seen a single one of them around Krofburg. I tried to be their advocate, to help them find honest work, if they lingered. I petitioned the Burgomaster and the Steward here to do all they could to try and help these women, and they agreed to teach them Balok and help them find work in and around the village.
They didn't linger. As it turns out, there was a reason I haven't seen them around -- most of them are now working at the Prancing Nymph. Those who didn't seem experienced enough, they were turned away, and to quote Orinal himself, "who knows what may have happened to them".
I tried to act selflessly. I tried to do right by these women, since it was Natasha's doing that saw them brought to Krofburg in the first place. In the end, I changed nothing. I accomplished nothing. It was as though the future of these women was written in stone, and there was nothing I could do to try and alter it. I cannot help but feel bitter, but at least I've learned a rather valuable lesson.
That lesson, I think, is that it's better just to not get involved. If I wasn't so nosy, I imagine I'd still be in Richemulot, living in comfort, with Sicart attending to my every whim. The doomed are going to remain doomed, no matter what I try and do to save them. In the end, the only thing that matters is me, and how far I can take myself.
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