I have been jerked awake.
I met with Isenduril, for the first time in several months - we spoke as we wandered through the forestry surrounding Port-a-Lucine, as the woods' wild abandon was limited by the straight, cobbled ways laid through, civilisation thrust through nature like a spear into the earth, disrupting the ground and dirtying the spearhead. I spoke of the slowness, the distance in which I am ensnared, rendering me like one of the Sithican elves of which I have heard, resigned to their fate and as such, like the shambling dead we so often put to the sword. I craved battle, the blade-dance, hoping it would restore some feeling of vitality to me.
Beneath the moon, we duelled, weighing once more the other's strengths, noting their weaknesses. I have improved since our last match, and was able to hold off his onslaught for far longer than before, and even to place a few well-handled blows, despite his quickness. However, he was ultimately successful, but I have come to almost accept such. Perhaps one day, I will have a victory over him in our friendly fights.
I remember little of what came after, only that we saw trouble ahead on the dark road. The next thing I remember after that blank was waking, surrounded by trees and the pitter-patter of friendly wolves' feet, as the rains came down upon us. I walked with Isenduril, for he was there when I woke, and together we walked the place. Isenduril had led us to Sithicus, to the city of Har-Thelen. A slowness pervaded the place, but there was much of beauty to be seen, of an eerie type, like the moon's sickly lustre on the water in the dark, above which blue phantasms appeared to hover. Pale statues bore record of heroes lost, lessons learned, sacrifices made for a greater purpose for, as one of the Sithican People reminded me, all sacrifices have meaning.
His words have lingered in my mind, and weigh upon me almost as heavily as the sadness of that place, that steadily weighed me down to one spot. I was encompassed by a melancholy that demanded expression, and I gave it voice in sung repetition of the city's name. Har-Thelen... the name is like a funerary dirge, suited to the low, solemn spectrum of sound as well as the lilting ghosts of sweeter syllables. It was no song that I knew afore, but seemed to born out of the burden of emotion, and having sung, Isenduril watching, I felt able to control my limbs, no longer held in a dangerous torpor.
And so, I have learned, that I must find my life's expression, a cause to which I will give myself ere my limbs wither from disuse and my mind decay beneath the whips of fear and doubt. Fate never smiles upon those who are as the dead.
I have since departed the bittersweetness of Har-Thelen, and the whole of the misty, sorrowful realm. I am grateful to Isenduril for his taking me there, reawakening me and reminding me of my strengths. I shall treasure well the gift of the dark leather braces he gave to me. I am cut off from the world I knew afore, pruned from it to grow again elsewhere.
May Fate give me cause to flourish.