He had been unsettled somehow since he had left her, and so set to familiar path. Using what had calmed him always he fell to hunting, Killing.. Attempting to lose himself in the comforting dance of death. Still peace eluded him though he could not place thoughts to precisely why.. Things were moving exactly as he would have had them.. by all points his machinations were bearing fruit. Still it tugged at him, the uncertainty.. not knowing precisely the outcome. Such was not his preferred method.. but this was one case he could not risk experimentation absent one of worth.. And so it was the only choice.. Chance it all in one foolish attempt.
Beyond that though, something else nagged at him. Like some rodent chewing at the corner of tapestry rolled in the corner of some forgotten basement, so it was he felt something.. -Something- gnawing at his mind.. His thoughts had dwelt on her since speaking her name.. How many years had passed since it had been spoken aloud? His brother.. How many years since he had spoken that name aloud.. Too many. Enough that he had allowed such times to fade into the distant silent part of his mind.. The part required by all his kind to keep moving.. To not seek their own destruction with the weight of all they had endured over long, countless year.
Still he turned it over, and still worry touched all aspect of it. Would she be able to handle what lay ahead? Would it drive her to madness? Would she rise at all.. removing all concern.. He had seen the one attempt.. witnessed the madness that was the reward for efforts, and then lost all that had mattered to him in answer to his choices.. Would this cost him any less, or would it be yet another page in the book of horrors and mistakes, of long and endless journey wrought only with Sorrows.
So long had it been since thought weighed so heavily, he had all but forgotten the desire to seek council from his elders.. from the one he had come to call ‘Sursa’ and Father.. And yet in this moment, half of him yet wished he could go to them with present concern, and hear their wisdom.. Their council, some sort of reassurance that all would be well.. Even as his mind turned to it he saw the madness of such thought.. Surely there would have been no offer of reassurance, only condemnation for his mad plan, absent the blessings of the only one able to grant such a gift.. She too would have called it madness.. Would have questioned the worthiness of the girl, of her place in the darkness..
Yet none of them were present.. He was now, and had been for untold years, alone.. What companions he had taken had served short amusement only to be ended or abandoned when such amusement failed.. He had toyed with some.. broken others.. But never given so much as passing thought to what now he set plan to.. None to judge plan.. None to question it, and yet none further to condemn.. In the end, as had always been..
He would stand alone.
