Do you know what it’s like to be afraid of yourself? To be afraid of what you might do?
I asked Cesistya this today. She’s… amazing. Somehow knows just what to say. Last night, she helped me with something that… well. Perhaps it’s best to start at the beginning.
It’s been an eventful week since I’ve been back. Made a few good friends since then. Most notably, I think, are a lovely lass named Ollena who has since become like a little sister to me, and an Elvish scholar named Cesistya, who has been in Bree for quite a long time. It seems only now that I’ve found the time to sit down and talk with her. The other night, she took a closer look at my sword, and told me its name. Sanyaxa. “One who walks the thin line of justice.”
The name hit me like a brick. Everything just seemed to stop and come into focus. And Lilthalas’s words came back to me, about the thin line I must walk. It’s been weighing on me ever since.
Three days ago, while talking to Leoffrith I saw a lovely lass stealing bread from the Pony, and I followed her back to Beggar’s Alley. As I made my way over to her, I noticed that she was choking on the bread, so I yanked on her belly until it came out. I tried to give her some coin, to try and make her life better, but a few thugs saw the exchange and tried to attack us. I laid them out flat, but tried to not kill anyone. Alas, things happen, and the lass was not so careful. Two of them died, and we were forced to flee. I took her back home, where I told her that her and her mother would have a place to stay, if they ever wanted it. She called me ‘Thief Hero’, like I wasn’t some kind of monster trying to play nice with the pretty people.
Yesterday morning, I had a chance to talk to a lass named Ruevir. She’s had a rough time of it, and I feel bad for her. She’s got a nihilistic, dark outlook on life, because her parents broke her. She told me that only the strong are deserving of life, and that she will abuse the weak in order to make them stronger. I swore to her that I would protect them from people like her.
That evening, I walked into the pony to find her smashing Ollena’s face into a pillar. Part of me just snapped. The next thing I knew I was across the room, smashing Ruevir’s face in. I would have kept going, if not for the intervention of Presten, who unfortunately, I kicked in the ribs. Cesistya arrived in time to split us up, after I’d backed the lass into a corner.
We tended to Ollena, walked her home. Got her stabilized and in bed. And then I walked back to the Pony. I had no idea what I was going to do. Only that I was angry. Murderously angry. I felt Ces following the whole way. It was…comforting? But it wasn’t enough.
I grabbed the lass by the blouse and slammed her into the wall. I nearly lost it, but then I saw Seraden again through the corner of my eye. Something about her being there, and Cesistya… made me remember myself. I released her, but I swore to her if she ever harmed Ollena again, I wouldn’t be so merciful.
I’ve spent the past year and a half trying to become a better person than the lost girl who hunted her lost sister across all of Middle-earth. I’ve gone out of my way to spill no more blood than neccisary, to try and not hurt anyone.
People like Ruevir seem so convinced, so sure, that the world is simply composed of shades of grey. I know better. There is true evil in this world, and true acts of good. Grey is simply black and white; interwoven with such complexity that one cannot tell the two apart.
Maybe… Maybe someone must exist in the grey, so that those looking in from the black and white can make sense of it all. Everyone has demons. Mine are worse than most. But a wise elf said that “there are no greater truths in this world than tears.”
I’ll be your Thief Hero for as long as I can. And the tears will remind me that my cause is just.
