Dear Joey...

[kezzalord]

OOC: The following is an IC private autobiography that Rose (Narell) writes for her partner Joey. I should warn that much of her backstory is very dark and has themes of and occurrences of torture and worse so please read at your own discretion.

Foreword

I'm going to try and write everything, I want you to know these things. I want you to know -everything- but so many of them I just can't talk about. Many of them I still have trouble thinking about or memories and nightmares have become mixed and I'm never sure which part is worse,
My hope is that the quill makes things easier for me. 

Many things I write here are things I can never say, much less explain in person so I want you to write in these books also, I will try to answer any question I can. And it would be comforting to have your words here when I'm writing.

[kezzalord]

My first memories

Like so many things when I think back this far my memory is vague. It's not that I've forgotten things it's that in so many places my mind has filled in blanks where I've shut something out or my nightmares have become mixed with the memory that this may be difficult to read..

Though other outlanders know the place I grew up as underdark, that's not a name we ever used. The name we used doesn't have a direct translation, it was more of a three word rhyme in the common tongue of that place that would loosely mean "Hell where I wait" or "Hell where we wait". If you like I can teach you the pronunciation (it sounds somewhat like falcovian I think though).
 
I began my life in a cage with my mother, I can only assume that either my father was another captive who was killed before my birth, I am a child of rape or some mixture of the two as some twisted game or experiment of those that held us. I fear the latter is by far the most likely.

I have few happy memories of my mother, it's difficult to think of her without either thinking of things I saw happen to her or how she died. She had red hair, but in other ways I assume I look a lot like her, she was pale and darkborn (a term the captives used for those born in that place as opposed to those brought in from elsewhere) .

The good things I remember are that she protected me fiercely, I would never stray far and though she was hardly imposing none of the other captives dared come near. Darkborn children aren't allowed to be named, the captors kill the child if they find out that they've been named... so she called me “dearest”. It's still my favorite word.

There were some fun times, I was a child and I don't think it's possible for children not to play. The given food was scarce and my mother and I would chase down rats and try to corner them against the wall side of our cage in order to get a second meal. I know it sounds horrible but it was one of the few happy memories I have.

I need to take a break now. I'll write further soon.

[kezzalord]

Being Alone

I'm not sure how to write about this so I'll just start and hope I can put it in words as I go.

It must have been the first time I was ever alone, because up until then I'd been sharing chains with my mother as far as my memory goes back but I remember them coming for me. Before they lead me away they beat her in front of me, it may be hard to understand but they didn't need a reason for these things.

Time down there is measured darks, not days. A dark is I'm guessing about eighteen hours but we just roughly kept time in our heads so I'm not really sure if it was longer or shorter. Many times I'm sure it must have been one or the other.
I was taken to a small chamber with an upright bed they strapped me to and...In a period of perhaps ten or twenty darks they carved some kind of writing on me with a black knife. I can't be sure how long it took because I would pass out frequently, the pain became so intense that each time I woke up I thought that the next time I blacked out I wouldn't wake up ever again.

I had the scars up until about two three before we met and they were a constant problem. After I discovered myself I realized what they were, they somehow caused me (given even the smallest emotional uncertainty) to burn energy under my skin in some way that could harm anyone touching me. As I became stronger, so did they... the miracle of Alice's birth is in part the miracle that Vasten survived a single night in my arms.

Before the scars were removed I was forced to use increasingly drastic measures to hide this side to myself. At first I could simply wear a dress that had wires running from bracelets to the ground inside the hem, but as time went by this wasn't enough. Eventually I had a suit made, imagine that ring-like armor some people wear but light enough for me to move around in if you will. It was unbearably cold in the winter but I could at least wear a thick cloak over it during those months. To be honest I'm still amazed to this day that people didn't find it strange to see a woman wearing such, but I guess that's the outskirts to a degree.

Given how I am now it must seem strange to imagine me being unable to touch anyone for fear of hurting them, without a grounding rod or some equivalent. But I actually lived this way for several years and it wasn't until shortly before Alice was born that I finally had them removed.

Until very recently I had assumed what they did to me had some significance or greater motive behind it but I'm not so sure anymore. The first drow that I spared told me a great deal about how they treat their captives. It's very likely that I was just a toy, some kind of caged wild animal for them to prove their superiority or even just for their amusement.

I should write here on my mother's death but I don't feel I can. From what little I have told you I hope you can answer your own questions on this as I still can't bare myself to that memory. For now I'll have to stop but eventually I'll be able to get onto happier things to write about.

I love and miss you so much dearest.