I have been wronged. Wronged by many including myself. It was those I trusted that did the greatest hurt and are responsible for the only time in my life I've every been truly defeated or captured. Trust is a difficult thing, whether it’s finding the right people to trust or trusting the right people will do the wrong thing. But trusting your heart is the riskiest thing of all. In the end, the only person you can truly trust is ourself. I trusted them and hence my downfall. I trusted Logar to save me, I even chose compassion instead of will to let Lux live, and chose compassion to ask for my belongings instead of kill them and take them.
It may not be trust that defeated me but compassion. The greatest weapon anyone can use against us is our own mind, by preying on the doubts and uncertainties that already lurk there. Are we true to ourselves, or do we live for the expectations of others? And if we are open and honest, can we ever truly be loved? Can we find the courage to release our deepest secrets, or in the end, are we all unknowable? Even to ourselves.
Lumeria had abandoned many friends before and I know the guilt she felt. The guilt I feel when I look at her and remember what I am. Guilt is a powerful affliction. You can try to turn your back on it but that’s when it sneaks up behind you and eats you alive. Some people struggle to understand their own guilt, unwilling or unable to justify the part they play in it. Others run away from their guilt, shedding their conscious until there’s no conscious left at all. But I run toward my guilt. I feed off of it. I need it. For me, guilt is one of the few lanterns that light my way.
For a long time, I thought Lumeria and I were connected two halves of a whole. Just as there are two sides to every story, there are two sides to every person. One that we reveal to the world and another we keep hidden inside. A duality governed by the balance of light and darkness. Within each of us is the capacity for both good and evil, but those who are able to blur the moral dividing line hold the true power.
But even here in a cell guarded with my thoughts read and muddled by Shogun masters I am not defeated. I still keep my secrets. We all have secrets we keep locked away from the rest of the world. Friendships we pretend, relationships we hide. But worst of all is the love we never let show. The most dangerous secrets a person can bury are those we keep from ourselves. I have a secret friend one I've been able to speak to. A lightning bearer who serves Vegeta and Malekite before him. She has bound herself to me so that I may not die.
A large boom echoes through the temple as the foundation and walls shake from the impact.
I can feel it, your fear. What is coming for you? Can you defeat it?
Some say our lives are defined by the sum of our choices, but it isn’t really our choices that distinguish who we are—it’s our commitment to them. The will to do what is necessary. For some, commitment is like faith. A chosen devotion to another person or an intangible ideal. But for me, commitment has a shadow side, a darker drive that constantly asks the question, ‘How far am I willing to go?
Walls crushed as zerg poured into the temple. She could feel them talking to each other and feel them devouring the shogun they attacked. The Shogun fought bravely as they must. The force was their ally, or so they say. I was even going to be one of them. My father wrote, ‘Always question where your loyalties lie.’ The people you trust will expect it, your greatest enemies will desire it, and those you treasure the most will without fail abuse it. Some say loyalty inspires boundless hope and while that may be, there is a catch. True loyalty takes years to build and only seconds to destroy. She had destroyed our loyalty. Loyalties forged in apprehension and mistrust are tenuous at best, easily broken when held up to the unforgiving light of the truth. But in the darkness of our most desperate hours, it’s often these loyalties that lend us the strength to do what we know must be done.
The masters outside were dead now. She felt their control and influence over her mind break. The door soon came open to the scratching and clawing of zerg.
People only see what they’re prepared to confront. It’s not what you look at that matters but what you see. And when different perceptions battle against one another, the truth has a way of getting lost. And the monsters find a way of getting out.
The east wall caved in and burrowed zerg appeared. As the ceiling fell around her she could see hundreds of flying Mutalisks swarming and seething above her. She closed her eyes and raises her arms parallel to the ground waiting for oblivion.
A conflicted heart feeds on doubt, confusion. It will make you question your path. Your tactics. Your motives. When you stare ahead and darkness is all you see, only reason and determination can pull you back from the abyss. Doubt is a disease. It infects the mind, creating a mistrust of people’s motives and of one’s own perceptions. Doubt has the ability to call into question everything you ever believed about someone, and reinforce the darkest suspicions of our inner circles. I have no reason to doubt them Chastity has sent them.
Openning her eyes she saw a queen floating above her. As the spores sprayed Raven breathed deeply and used the force to wrap herself in the spores. The infestor was next as it latched her in a tentacle and began pumping its blood into her she could her the zerg more clearly.They wanted to leave the Shogun were regrouping. The infestor lifted her up and placed her in the womb of the queen.
Absolution is the washing away of sin, a promise of rebirth and a chance to escape the transgressions of those who came before us. The best among us will learn from the mistakes of the past, while the rest seem doomed to repeat them. And then there are those that operate on the fringes of society, unburdened by the confines of morality and conscience. A ruthless breed of monsters whose greatest weapon is the ability to hide in plain sight. If the people who have wronged me cannot be bound by the quest for absolution, then neither will I.
That list is long, Lux, Logar, Reven, Lumeria. As I've said, those who have been wronged only have two paths. The peace of complete forgiveness or the satisfaction of revenge. And I know now, mine has never been a story of forgiveness.
The Queen made it to the teleport gate and back to the primary hive on the blood isle. Chastity was there and helped them lower Raven into the hive. She would soon have the power to exact her revenge.
And NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.
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