"All the World's Sorrow"
By Amanda Swiftgold

Entry One

--I shall not be forgotten.

I suppose that is why I have decided to write this now - I have realized just what memory means. And I think... I also realize just how important it is to me. Being remembered, that is.

I don't know, is that a good beginning? I am not sure how to start this, actually. Maybe I will speak of my past, though I will not start with that beginning right now. This is a different sort of beginning that I am approaching, a different sort of future than I ever anticipated before.

As I write this I am sitting near the edge of a cliff, just off the path leading from Treno to South Gate. Amarant is asleep, apparently, though I never can tell if he is really sleeping or not at this distance. He is probably aware that I am writing something, and I know he will want to read this as I have read his writing.

Well, Amarant wrote his book as if he were speaking to someone in the future, but I do not plan on ever showing this to anyone else. I know that when he suggested to me that I write down my own thoughts, he was aiming for me to let him read it, but if I wish to be honest here then I know I could never let him read this. And truthfully, would he have been so honest if he'd known I would read what he'd written? I think not.

The sunlight in this area is quite an odd phenomenon, though maybe no odder than Burmecia's perpetual rain. It always appears that the sun is setting, and it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, even taking into account everything I have witnessed, like the light of Terra. The sky is orange and gold and so bright it almost hurts my eyes.

Soon enough I will not see the sky like this anymore. When we reach South Gate we will part and I will continue on to Burmecia to do what must be done. It must be done alone. Amarant would come with me if I asked but that is something I cannot ask him to do, especially now when things are so changed between us and new.

Like he wrote before, if someone had told me when I first met him that I would kiss this man, I would have - not been very pleased with the teller. Even so, I think that now I am glad things turned out this way. There is something very compelling and safe about a thing like that, about this sense of being wanted and needed in some way.

Though I want to stay near him I must go on for now before I can return to him. I must leave the past in order to move into the future. I do love my home but I am also afraid of it. No, to tell the truth I am not afraid of Burmecia but more what going back there means. I left it not long ago and went to Alexandria because I was afraid, I had an argument and a realization and I was afraid. I left and in Alexandria I found warmth again but now I must go back in order to settle things.

I am dreading returning and the weakness that I feel. My weakness that is waiting for me to return.