Found:
There's been a lot to think on these past days. Too much. I don't know how to sort it all through or even how to start.
Rhaug has been mentioned again and again. I find it hard to think about him, but he keeps cropping up in conversation. 'Tis almost alike the bloody world refuses to allow me to just forget and push him aside. It does me no good to dwell on what was, what happened and what could have been but... they keep asking. They keep bringing it up. Curiosity over who this man is that I "belong to," that I "lost my heart to." It seems so romanticized in every mind but my own. The tale of the Ranger and the Treasure Hunter. Two people who should never have worked out... and didn't.
Thanks, Taala, for putting that idea into everyone's heads.
"What do you want?"
What do I want? It's a question that keeps cropping up but I don't know how to answer it. Are my desires even relevant at this point? He made himself perfectly clear. When words weren't enough, his fist conveyed the information.
"Perhaps he was crazed."
Maybe he was, but if so then wasn't I the one to make him so? Isn't that what he told me? Isn't it best for his sake for me to stay away? Isn't it best for mine?
I don't know how to make this right. I don't even know if it can be made right. And, after all, he knew, he knew and he still... why should I be the one to try after that?
He wanted me to move on, to find someone else. He told me so time after time. I tried. I tried. But the more I speak with Owena, the more I listen to her troubled thoughts and secret doubts, the more I grow to like her. The more I open up to her in turn. I'm not always honest or entirely truthful with her, but I'm trying to be.
"I find it difficult to care about other people," I told Rhavic after the poor man had opened up enough to tell me of his past. Sadly, it's true. I shut myself off to others a long time ago. I had to. There was no other way. Opening up has only ever brought more pain. But I'm learning...
I'm learning. Thanks to Neyaa, I'm learning. She was the start. She is the centre. I'm branching out a little now. Rhavic, Loakee, Owena, Taala, Eroforth. Little by little, I'm learning to care and be cared for. It's not easy, but I'm trying... which is more than I have done in a very long time.
I think... I accept it now. Accept me. Who I am, what I have done. I think I am beginning to forgive. Myself more than anything. I think I need that.
