Many a night I spend tossing and turning in my bed, mind filled with eerie echoes and whispers – yet these are still not the whispers of Mother, they are the Jesters. He's always telling me to laugh with him, to send someone else to the Void to keep him company. I need the company, though. Why must I kill Nelly?
She doesn't speak to me, but I know Mother wants me to keep sending souls to Sithis as well. It pleases her, it makes her proud... I hope.
She speaks to the one who listens, though, not I, the one who has stayed at her side for the best years of my life – years which have now passed. Oh, but alas, the Listener does not like poor old me. When I recite one of the Jesters favourite rhymes for him, he simply stares and glares at me, as though... as though I'm mad.
Am I? Am I mad? Probably.
Do I care? No.
I just want the Listener to like me. I want Mother to talk to me. I want the Jester to tell me his jokes instead of asking for more souls. I've always had a knack for killing, sure, but even the Jester asks too much of me.
No, no. I am the Keeper. It is not my place to ask of such things, only to keep the Listener entertained, to keep Mother safe and to keep sending the Jester his precious souls. I keep everything, for I am the Keeper.
So what haven't I kept?
My sanity.