I canna believe it. I certainly don’t UNDERSTAND it. Guessin’ things like this don’t matter much in the eyes … or the minds… of Gods, but it still befuddles this feeble one. I’m back. Just as the Mistress said I would be. Not quite sure WHERE exactly she left me but it certainly weren’t where I just WAS… or remember that I was? Farruck to all this Godly nonsense but I’ll never understand none of it. Matters not. Here I be, back on my own Plane, and I have things to DO, Gods Damned me.
She said I should return on her most important day in the same year when I ended my first run. She even smiled at my jape about how kind it was for old Augathra the Mad to name the year after me. I think that funny old Lord of Bones may even have smirked at it - not that anyone could tell with that desiccated visage he claimed was his skull. He surprised me… much more of a gad than I thought he’d be or that anyone ever claimed he was…. That means I only have a scant couple of years to find where I be NOW, get to where I need be THEN, and prepare myself for the coming… whatever in the Hells it will be. I made a promise to The Lady of the Forest and I always keeps my promises. Did so in the last life and I’ll still do so now. Although the promises I kept previous were a might more grim than any I’m likely to conjure now. OH NEVERMIND ALL THAT! SHE SAID IT WAS IN THE PAST! I’ve got to remember t’weren’t my fault, but this conscience does weigh on me…
I am forever indebted to Mielikki for her kindness and my deliverance from the inescapable grasp of The Black Hand. Difficult to believe that all my previous terrible was never meant to be. I was stolen from service and dedication to HER and given over to HIM to be a tool of oppression and strife. An extremely effective tool, I should say, but certainly one that deserved the damnation The Judge of the Dead had for me. My purpose now, first and always, is to be sure the plans and wills laid out by The Lady are seen through to the end… or at least MY end as it were... But there is a LONG time for that, and in the mean one I must find myself some decent steel and git to showing The Final Scribe that I am true to my word… and I’ll be the victor in our wager . He may be keeping the official tally on that old List, but this here will give me a chance to keep track of where I stand. Funny of the Lady to send me back wearing nothing save the garb given to me by nature, but with such a fine and seeming newly bound book by me side! I’m thinkin’ she’s got a little side action going with The Scribe.