[scribbled quite quickly and then crossed through with multiple lines]
Death, pain, destruction… is that all my powers can do? Burn, maim, murder… am I not the monster that others think I am. Am I all that different from the enemies we fight?
[usual neat writing]
After a long struggle Borborygmos is dead. Braz asked me whether I knew where we went after death. And for a second I froze remembering all those I have lost and will never see again; and even those I have no memory of. I wonder what my parents were like: were they kind and caring, or string and form, were they good people? And what happened to them, how things would be different if they were alive…
*I don’t know. They are just gone...*
Then I realised he was asking about my own experience with death. Darkness and her malicious laughter. I can offer Braz no reassurance save for the hope that his uncle’s experience of the Nether Sea may be better. I’m not sure what I can say to comfort him. He has just lost the last of his family and chosen to renounce his name, his identity to help rid the village and himself of this vicious curse that has sent so many harpies against Pamplaxia. We are to leave the village perched on the side of the mountain, slowly reaching for the sky. Braz is to leave Pamplaxia forever. Because he can rise above and be the selfless hero this world needs. And leave the name Vaca behind.
I will cling to my parents’ name, even though I cannot remember them. For me it’s not a sign of the lineage I belong to like for so many others, it’s a symbol of a time before… all this.