There are many rare occurrences in life. Many of them are spontaneous and divine in every aspect of their nature, while others are provoked and well deserved. I had my share of both, good and bad. I wasn't particularly wise on the subject, but I believe I had experienced enough to get a glimpse of what was in store for me.
And to be quite honest, I wasn't too fond of what I saw…
Well, I suppose I would have seen brighter things two months before, right after I left Balamb Garden, but… other predicaments were thrown my way. I didn't plan on getting my wallet stolen in Fisherman's Horizon and I didn't expect to break my ankle in the middle of the desert on my way to Winhill. I didn't know of half of the adventures I was going to go through when I made my absence.
I guess that's why I was lying there, next to the Orphanage where I spent the first nine years of my life, with a fine mist of salt from the sea, spraying itself gently on my skin. Two months unaccounted for and that is where I ended up. Chilled to the bone, each and every cough inflicting my body with enough pain to make my head spin, outside of the first home I could ever remember having.
A breeze came up from the waves and flushed my face with a dose of salt and water. The cut that was engraved from the edge of my lip and down to the bottom of my chin instantly rejected the mist and began to sting immensely. I hissed, my dirty fingers clawing at the cut as it burned. That one would take weeks to heal itself. I estimated the Mantis had sunk its claw in at least two centimeters. Maybe more.
But Hyne knows what would become of me in several weeks… if only Matron were there to tend to the poor little chicken-wuss that wound up on her doorstep…
I spared a long glance out into the sea as I pulled back the remains of my vest. As the sea stared back at me, unnerving and pretentiously, I gazed at the sky glazed with purple and pink. It couldn't have been night… it must've been morning. No sunset to me is beautiful anymore. They all look the same… I needed to start treasuring the sunrises every now and then. I doubt I'd be seeing many more.
As one hand reached inside, I took a moment to relish in the possibility of cherishing one of life's more treasured occurrences. Well, all of life's rare occurrences should be treasured, but I think some should be reflected upon more than beloved. Maybe that's just me. I differed in opinion like that sometimes.
The picture unfolded to reveal the blemishes years of aging had done to it. Folds and creases made it impossible to see every full detail, but I guess that didn't matter much. In the condition I was in, I doubt I could find every detail and memory anymore. My energy had been wasted on lesser things during the gradual sapping of my life that was the past two months.
On the far left was Selphie. I was almost positive it was her anyway. I don't think I ever saw Quistis or Rinoa wearing yellow. She was smiling brightly, and I didn't have to look closer to be sure of that. I have many fond memories of her always being optimistic and playful. It was a devastation to Balamb to hear of her death. I can remember my reaction, standing there in Headmaster Cid's office, and just slipping a gloved hand over my face to hide the emotion. And it was only four years before… when I was standing in that office receiving my official SeeD rank… when Headmaster Cid came up to up and asked me to try and control my emotions a little… but… I didn't fare so well the day when Selphie died…
Next to her was Irvine. I swear to Hyne… he was the reason why I was crying that day for her… but hell, now I'm not so sure. I heard so many rumors about their relationship, that eventually, I just stopped paying attention. I'm sure I would've been in their business about it anyway… but now he's just a memory… like the rest of the gang. I didn't see him again after he went to Trabia to be with her. I heard the usual from Quistis… he ran off and married another woman… had a son… wasn't an official SeeD anymore… I'm not sure whether Irvine tried to move on with his life or tried to escape the painful memories of his past…
Quistis… I wonder whether or not she was actually smiling in this picture. I couldn't tell. Her long hair came down in front, but a big crease in the picture followed it, covering most of her facial features. She very well may have been smiling. This was before Irvine and Selphie really became a couple. I can remember Quistis being absolutely infuriated with what followed after Selphie's death, like any normal concerned friend would be. I think she had a quicker temper than I did sometimes. At least she found her happiness again when she got her old job back and married a police officer from Deling. They adopted two little girls, happy ending right?
But no… they were her children…
I tried picking my leg up from the mud I was situated in, but my body wasn't really committed in doing it. I dropped the thought.
Oh Squall… Hyne no, not such a happy ending. Not at all… but… damn, how I envied him for being in control of his emotions! No one had to scold him for being too sappy or hyper! I could remember in class, he really didn't do much of anything… he just sat there with his head hung over the class panel… but when Rinoa came, things changed. I envied her a little for being able to bring out what was truly inside of him, but… at least someone managed to. Seifer did too, but Hyne, I'm not going to go on about Seifer. I don't care if he's dead now, tch, so long as he's not being the ass to me that he was years before.
Rinoa died shortly after giving birth to their daughter. She was a loss to all of us… and not just Squall. Certainly he took it the hardest but… when he kept coming in to work with a face that had been ripped away of all emotion, it took a toll to everyone he was associated with. Hyne, Dacera had to be at least ten years old now. That was so long ago…
Finally, there was me on the end. Heh, every day that passes by away from Balamb Garden, I still wish for a nice, toasty hot dog to eat. Man, they were delicious!
It's too bad. I won't be seeing those hot dogs, or Balamb Garden ever again…
I held the picture away from my chest as I coughed into my other hand. It was the worst episode yet. Each time I retched into my hand, it felt as if something was trying to be pulled up with it. My eyes watered it hurt so badly, and when I was able to calm the fit down, I saw specks of blood on my dirt-stained palm. I wiped it across my face, along the cut which had opened back up and was leaking blood onto my tasteless lips.
No no… it wouldn't be much longer now…
I pulled my vest up to shove the picture back inside, but I hesitated, my mind adrift along the sea. Perhaps I should spend my precious time remembering the days before true emotion took over… back inside the Orphanage… where the only trouble we had to worry about was how to hide the fireworks on the beach from Matron. Or no, perhaps I should be thinking of Ma Dincht back in Balamb. Hyne, she had to be worried sick. I last spoke to her about a year ago, when I came to Balamb for another SeeD exam, only that time… I was the instructor giving the orders… and not the candidate receiving them. She was ill when I saw her, but she still had that lively spark in her eyes. She was the perfect mother for me… I pray to Hyne I was the perfect son to her…
She could handle my emotion. She tolerated it. There was only one other person who could tolerate my emotion that well…
Elianta…
But… no… she was the reason why I had to leave! I promised myself I wouldn't be leaving to search for the answers to the questions I had about her… I promised to leave and forget about what we had because… because there was no one else who could understand…And now… even years after her death… I realized there would never be anyone who could identify so well with me…
Where were you now my angel…? Oh Hyne… I'm sorry you had to put up with what you did… I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you in your last moments…
I shook my head to stop my emotions… and was unpleasantly welcomed with a dizzying rush. Lightheadedness drifted over my skull and darkness began to take over my vision, but I held on. After the spell had passed, my mind was able to take in the memories again…
Meeting her… in Esthar… no, why would I think Esthar? It was Trabia…? Yes. Trabia… A SeeD from Trabia, shoveling the snow from the basketball courts. Selphie and I went on official business… can't remember now… why…
She was beautiful, nothing shy and reserved like the girl from the library in Balamb… everything but. Perfect, almost… but horribly tortured…
Elianta was a SeeD all right, she appeared to be the model SeeD at Trabia. When I spoke with Selphie about her later, she even had to agree. It wasn't until later I got to meet her… to actually talk with the woman who would become my angel… and then later… be ripped away from me by the devil himself! If she hadn't killed him, I would've!
Damn her stepfather! Curse him to hell! I sat up harshly in the mud to yell, but my body couldn't comply. A choking sound erupted from my throat, and I could taste the iron rust of blood that flooded within my mouth. I spat, watching the red blend with its family of tints within the sky before it was lost in the sands below.
Oh my sweet Eli… why did it have to turn out that way…? I loved you… so…
My eyes stung again with the threat of salty tears.
She clasped my hand gently when she entered my dormitory. She came to visit me often enough, when she wasn't needed at Trabia… but that time I knew something was horribly wrong.
She came to me in tears… not worrying about controlling her emotions as much as I seemed to. Immediately, I wrapped my arm around her, but she shrugged shyly away from me.
My first reaction was about a recent event that had happened back home. Elianta didn't live in the dormitory at Trabia, because she was privileged enough to live only a few miles away in the middle of the woods. Unfortunately, she had to live with the ugliest of men… her stepfather. I met him once, when I very nearly begged her to take me back to her home and meet her family.
I could understand now why she wasn't too thrilled with the idea…
What a bastard he was! Tch, I hadn't even stepped inside of the house yet when I heard him yell from within, "If that's a man you're bringing, you can tell him to keep out of your pants!" Eventually, she convinced him to supper, where more harassment was laid down in front of her.
Thank Hyne I never saw that bastard after that… he was almost as bad… as…
"Oh Hyne… what's wrong?" I asked.
She squeezed my hand figuratively. Elianta gazed up at me with her soggy, red-streaked eyes. "Zell… something's h-h-happened…"
I tried to embrace her again… but she felt compelled to draw back from my warmth. I let it go, not realizing yet what she was about to tell me.
"Relax… Eli, I'm here for you. You can tell me anything…"
Elianta cried a little harder next to me. She still held on to my hand, but somehow, it felt a little less strengthened to me. She knew what I did… she knew what was going to happen once she said it.
And like me… she wouldn't be able to control her emotions…
"Zell…"
"Please…" I begged. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I did.
A few seconds passed before anything happened. Elianta finally took both of her hands and covered her face as she wailed. Hyne, it hurt me so to see her suffer like she did… but she still refused any comfort I tried to give to her. When she appeared from beneath her hands, all I could understand was…
"Zell, m-m-my stepdad w-wants me… I-I-I… I have to marry another man!"
It wasn't… it wasn't full-blown outrage yet. That came moments later. I could remember my body tensing up and I was glad I was not holding Elianta at that moment. But…
"Eli… what are y – "
"Zell! I can't marry Seifer! I… I don't… I don't want to be known as Mrs. Seifer Almasy!"
The outrage came then. From the both of us. After she managed to say that, though I don't know how she was able to do it, she screamed. Literally. Her suffering inside flew out of her as one giant impulse of a scream. It hurt my ears to hear her sitting next to me and shrieking so loudly, but by that point, I think I was in as much misery as she was.
I stood. With nothing protruding from my lips, I simply stood, walked over to the wall and stared at it with a shaking fist. Behind me, though I couldn't see her then, Elianta had desperately reached for the pillow on my bed and held it in front of her soaked vision. I tried to hold it in for her sake… but this was the woman I could relate to the most… if anything, I shouldn't have tried to hold it back for her…
It made it all the worse in doing so…
"You… you…" My shoulder rose and the shadow upon the wall towered in front of me.
She spared one adverse glance from behind the comfort of a fluff of cotton and cloth and yelped.
"You son-of-a-bitch!"
My fist connected with the wall. Perhaps I shouldn't say… connected exactly… it was more of… my fist shattering the wall. Unfortunately for us, I was wearing my knuckle busters above my metal boxing gloves. Pieces of plaster soared back at me as it hit, implanting chunks above my eyebrows and to the sides of my cheeks… I felt my arm blasting through insulation and wood beneath until I saw light at the other end. In my mind, I could still hear Elianta's scream echoing… and echoing…
Damn… so much for my wall…
I was heaving… the want to run off into the bathroom and retch was overwhelming. My arm was inside the wall and was covered all the way up to my shoulder. I remained in that position, left foot forward, right arm meshing with the wall… with my face barely centimeters back from the plaster. A drop of sweat rolled from my forehead on down and slid to the bottom of my nose. The dust passing through the air caught on the sides of my face and left the gritty, dirty feeling on the outside… while I was still trying to cope with the gritty, dirty feeling I had on the inside…
"Zell…"
Pieces of the wall were still falling from the foundation. I heard sand and jagged sections land on the floor, the only movement or sound resonating throughout the room. Slowly, I pulled my arm out, not noticing the blood trickling down, not caring about the mess or the wall I had closely demolished… the only image I thought of in my mind was the one I didn't want to see when I turned around…
Fortunately, she was still there, tears plopping on the pillow she held in front of her nose… but in seconds, her eyes had moved from mine to my arm, back to my eyes and then down to the pillow. I realized she was going to run. No matter how many times I watched her control her emotion, and she had watched me do the same, this was too much for her to handle. Too much for me.
And as I predicted, the pillow was thrown from her grasp and she fled. Elianta dashed out, a bellow erupting from her throat as her feet hit the floor. I felt the urge to go after her, but it came and went. Soon that urge was replaced by the urge to hurt the people who had done this to us…
"Damn you! Damn you Seifer, damn you!"
After that horribly slow day had passed, I didn't see Eli for quite a while. I missed her so… there wasn't a night during that time in which I didn't find myself crying to sleep. The picture of us on my nightstand survived the wall and the fit of tears… and when I returned to my dormitory after my duties, or after a hot dog from the cafeteria… I would always reach over and take it… sliding my finger down the swath of her hair… planting a kiss on her lips… gently holding it close as I remembered…
What drove me to find my angel again was the morning newspaper, and the many returned letters I had sent to her. Four months had passed since I heard anything from her, or of her, and finally… I was able to piece it together. I met Quistis in the cafeteria for a cup of coffee before light had fully settled itself upon Balamb one morning. She brought a newspaper along, and without thinking, casually mentioned a front page article.
"Oh my, a house in Trabia? That continent has always been riddled with snow…"
I swallowed the coffee I had taken in. "Hmmm?"
She flipped the paper over and set it down on the table for me to read. "Here," she pointed with a long, glossy fingernail. "A big house in Trabia was burned to the ground, not far from the Garden."
I took it in my hands, casually, almost as casually as she had mentioned it. It was the morning, and perhaps I didn't think to think of my sweet Eli, but a picture of the house's owner caused every sick desire and countless bouts of rage to come flooding back.
I spat my coffee out of my mouth as it made impact.
"Son-of-a-bitch!"
Quistis grunted an angered response, wiping lukewarm coffee from her blouse.
"No! Eli!" I cried, leaving the newspaper, and a rather confused Quistis alone together.
It took the article and the letters to back it up. I sent many letters to my Eli, and I imagine about half of them came back to me with no return address, no stamped information, nothing. As I became more desperate to hear from her, I wrote them in excess near the end of the four months. I discovered they came back because there was no house, or furthermore… nobody to receive them.
She was tortured… the poor soul… she had burned that wretched place down forever…
I tried to believe that she had burned the house down with her stepfather in it because she was planning on coming back to me. While I made my way to Trabia, that was all my mind could fathom… Eli was coming back to me now… we can finally be something again…
How terribly wrong I was.
When I arrived, the Headmaster informed me that she had left Garden and had transferred her residence elsewhere. He hesitated to tell me where she was, Hyne, I wish he had hesitated more… however, he wrote her address in Deling and left it up to me to find her.
Again, my journey to Deling was interrupted often with the thought of Eli trying to get back together with me after the unofficial break-up.
But once the bus pulled up to the new residence of Elianta… or rather… Elianta Almasy… I began to see things more clearly…
I was greeted with shouting from inside of the house.
I heard Eli first, the higher-pitched woman's voice.
"Do you know how much time it took to hide that?"
Then, a man's voice. I had to hold it in as I listened further… squeezing my fists shut as the shouting commenced…
"Quiet! Everyone will hear!"
"You would like them to hear, wouldn't you? Announce it to the world, Seifer!"
I had walked from the bus at the wrong time. I tried picking out their shadows from behind closed curtains, but I couldn't find Elianta. If she had not left the window open, or whoever had left it open for me… I would've been humiliated even more… but it was enough for my ears.
"Eli! Eli, just shut it!"
But… no… Eli, that was the name I always called her…
"That's right, I killed him!"
"You need to fucki – "
I cringed as she screeched from inside. I saw a light turn on in the neighbor's kitchen, but the old woman was only attending to the dishes in her sink. Was this another everyday occurrence for the old woman? Had they always shouted at each other?
"You keep your mouth shut! I'm glad I got rid of the old man!"
"Eli!"
Eli… my angel… I was the only one…
"Eli, can it!"
Tears welled up in my eyes, but I wiped them away with a hand that wasn't covered with shame. Inside the home, if I could really call it one, the match continued, but it was one man's fight now. I imagine my Elianta was in tears by then…
"Eli, shut your face!"
Hyne… not my Eli…
"Stop this now, Eli!"
Yes, yes Eli… my sweet angel, I'll come! I'll come and stop this for you! I stormed to the front door, first across soft grass with two steps withering away into the ground, and three giant steps pounding on the concrete with a tramp, tramping sound that bounced off of the walls surrounding the porch. With my fist, I blasted the door in front of me, clearing my way to make room for my Eli…
… Just in time to watch Seifer swing his arm back and strike his hand across her flawless, unspoiled face.
Eli fell.
Her sobs had been silenced, but not calmed. She lay there, mere inches from my feet… quivering… shaking as violently as she had been struck. My fist was pulsing, not from the blow, not from my racing heart… but from the grin Seifer had sprayed across his baseless complexion. He stood as he had always stood… confident and unchallenged… damn him. Hyne… how he made my blood just boil…
I tried to analyze the situation before making any moves.
"Eli…" I whispered.
"You keep your filthy hands off of her!" Seifer said, opposed. He took one pace forward at me, like he did in Dollet that day… dammit! I… I wasn't a chicken-wuss… I just wasn't!
But I had to control my emotions…
"Tch," I sputtered, lowering my hand, turning my head to the door on the floor even as Elianta whimpered beneath us. "I wasn't the one who slapped her."
"Get out of here, chicken-wuss, I'm busy!" He took the hand he had walloped Eli with and whisked it to the side.
Chicken-wuss… ohhh that chicken-wuss nearly did me in. But, I still tried to pose as the gentleman… I couldn't give in to emotion just yet…
I knelt down to her on the floor, taking in the entire width of her shoulders. Elianta… didn't refuse my touch, it was Seifer who did… but she seemed sullen and submerged with weight. I wanted to see her face again and not the folds of hair that touched me, but I was forced out of her way with the very edge of Seifer's boot.
My breath escaped me, as did Seifer. I rolled, hands clutching my gut, back into the slabs of the front door on the hallway floor. He towered above me, a shadow lingering upon my face like the scar he so boastfully held upon his.
"Beat it, chicken-wuss."
"No…"
I allowed the pain in my midsection to numb itself, as I watched Elianta bring herself to her feet. I did not believe she would rise so tall above him, with such steady and accurate being, but she did before me. It was sorrowful sight. I'm not positive as to what assured me of my suspicions. Perhaps it was the light, or the way she concealed her slender hands over her body. Her left ring finger glittered at me with the richness of the situation.
Eli was pregnant.
She was with child! Oh Hyne, she could've been severely damaged! Did Seifer not analyze his actions? Well no, he was never one to think of what was about to become of him. He never thought about the acts he committed or the words that came from between his lips… but… why Seifer would treat his own wife like that was beyond my comprehension…
And beyond my emotion.
It had to have been rape. A monster. A vampire, sucking the blood from its victim, understanding its own survival and its own will… nothing more. What a romantic knight he had become! I thought a knight was to fight the evil that threatened his damsel in distress… but not… not fight the damsel… to force her through such distress…
"El…" I began.
"Silence."
I was kicked again and thrust back to the floor, but it was not enough to save him that time. After my shoulders made impact behind me, I lifted my legs and used my abdominal muscles to thrust myself upward. He saw me trying to reach him, and used his arm to block my right fist launching itself at his ugly face, but he wasn't fast enough to see my left fist sighting the same target. Knuckle and cartilage collided, and I felt the tissue tear apart under my hand. Blood burst from his lips.
"Zell, no!" Elianta pleaded.
For Hyne's sake, they were married! She had a child developing in the womb! Just the thought of this fallen knight beating his own damsel before me encouraged my right leg to slam into his gut. He flew backward, falling onto the floor with both hands seizing his stomach.
"Zell!"
I wasn't finished. Not after seeing what crime he had committed.
"You son-of-a-bitch!"
With a loud roar, I folded into my body and prepared to come out of a flip and land my left leg on top of his head. Spinning through the air felt like slow motion to me, like in the movies… they'd slow it down enough to show the audience how the action was being recounted. I heard an angel's voice call out, and I saw a bright light… a loud bang…
I saw the wave of blood coming at me after the light hit my eyes. I switched directions. I tumbled backwards and into the wall. The sting wildly ripped up my leg. Wincing, I grabbed it, feeling the slimy blood trickle through my fingers.
Elianta rushed forward, and I saw Seifer behind her, heaving, brandishing his gunblade with fearless abandon, yet still holding his midsection in pain. I got him good, but as always… he got the better of me…
"Zell," she said, trying to help me up from the floor. "You need to leave now."
"Elianta, no I – gaaah!"
Oh yes, my body felt it now. Seifer had shot me. I stuck a hand out in case I fell, but Elianta… took it…
Took it… for the last time…
"No, listen to me! You need to go."
"I can't Eli," I moaned, hopping on my right foot to maintain balance. How silly I must've looked…
"Hyne, Zell…"
She was crying again, after the shock of the attack. Seifer himself was having difficulty rising from the floor. My foot must've made contact near the kidney. He had to support himself against the wall.
I wouldn't be this weak in front of him. Not again… not ever again… not this forgotten chicken-wuss…
I made myself plant my left foot on the floor. Instantly the excruciating pain rippled upward and I yelped, but I was not weak. I would not let my emotion take control again… but how many times had I told myself that…?
"Zell, it's time to leave."
I realized it was. I simply didn't want to accept it. I knew she still loved me… but she had grown accustomed to him. It was too late now. I knew Elianta, I knew her more than Seifer would ever be able to comprehend. She had to stay. She had to stay because they were already married, they were already expecting a family. It was her duty now to remain.
I gazed at her, long and enduring. She was somehow the Elianta I had remembered. Beautiful, wavering… adapting yet always questioning… she could've avoided her fate… she could have avoided it sooner…
But, it was too late now.
She didn't burn him quick enough.
I dragged my leg along, glaring Seifer down with all of the emotion I had left in me. She ran to his arms for warmth, and sobbed into his shoulder. One slithery arm wrapped itself around her and the other raised itself to me, the holder of so many battles and wounds…
"I hope you enjoy your romantic fantasy…" I mumbled.
He grunted and creased his finger against the trigger of his gunblade. While holding his damsel in distress, he finally was the one trying to ward off all evil with her in his arms. He took a shot, and I felt the bullet ride its path inches away from my eye as I dashed across their lawn in the best manner I could…
But he missed.
And… well… he would miss the rest of what his miserable life had to offer him in the end. They died just over two years later… it was Quistis who informed me. She brought me the paper two days after it had happened.
How dare they say I never knew love… she saw me that day… sinking to the floor… having the unsurpassable feeling of blacking out… did anyone see what pain, what devastation that had caused me…?
Squall, the man who had lost his love for the creation of unconditional being… did he not understand? Had Rinoa's death sent him to the Squall I knew before she began? Unlike Squall, who felt compelled to take time away from work, I was called to duty the very next day. I was… not important enough to be given time to gather my emotions… I was forced to control them.
Quistis, oh Hyne Quistis, she brought me the damn paper! She had always known, whether publicly or privately, that I had an ongoing relationship with the woman of my dreams… my Eli… oh Hyne… she knew… wasn't that enough to relate? No sympathy? No sympathy for the man without a grip upon himself?
Irvine and Selphie were the most prominent couple, griping or not. When Selphie had died… I wonder… I wonder if Irvine was mature enough then to comprehend… what power death truly wields…
A startling lurch came up from the bottom of my throat, and once again I was in a terrible fit. Blood flew freely from between my lips now as I coughed, barking like a dog in a fetal, oddly thrown position. I didn't bother to waste the energy of moving my hands to soothe it. I opened my eyes to the salt of the sea, and I tried to convince myself that I could not see the sticky beads of fever attaching itself to the edges of my eyes. Lightheadedness was taking over, and the light at the end of the tunnel was slowly fading…
Why? Why must we experience death? If we must see it while living, we're only going to question it before the end. It is an average reaction of all humans, most commonly in children.
However, I am not a child. I'm a grown man of thirty years. It is not wrong to question death at my age, because I have seen a great deal of it. Why must my colleagues feel the need to question death amongst themselves? Could absolutely nothing be discussed with me? Squall lost the love of his life, the only one in his life he allowed to have, and yet when Eli had died… he did not approach me. Nor Quistis, nor Irvine.
Had everyone forgotten the battles? The torment? We were so close to losing everything… is it merely a game to them now? Or perhaps my life is the only game to them now… because they feel I have gotten to know nothing in my affairs… I don't have a steady job, a mortgage on a home, a wife to go home to, a family to care for… I had Eli, the start to everything else I could've had… but it was game over from then on. To my comrades, my ticket to a normal life had been taken from me and shredded in half. My hopes and dreams, all placed within one mansion of faith, had burned to the ground. Two options pop up in my head as they do on the computer screen.
Continue?
Or game over.
No, I think not. No matter how many times I try to convince myself of all of the reliance and belief installed within me by the people I fought beside years ago, no matter how many times I must curse upon a man's evil ways, no matter how many times I must find another reason to keep moving besides the one Elianta I found… it will never be enough to satisfy my famished mind.
I've played this game… long enough…