Zul’ai’kah left yesterday, to begin her training in druidism. What was left of our father’s hut was crushed in the quake, and with it, her reasons for staying put. She’d never ventured off far, from what she’d told me. After I left, she feared loss greatly and couldn’t bare to leave him alone. It was strange for her to be so candid with me in amidst all the bitterness she is choked up with. I attempted to say something comforting, something to soothe her, and to let her know that familial bonds never die… but such things were never cultivated for me in the first place, and so I fell way short of making her feel anything other than distance.

There are spaces between us, greater than canyons, though we stand so close and share so much blood. But it is only blood.

My sister thinks she can heal me. She thinks I am vandalized by ‘Scourge’, torn apart by self-hatred. Afraid of my own self. She might not be wrong, either. But this is where we part ways, again. She told me to wait for her. Regrettably, I lied. I have always lied to keep a measure of goodwill in situations I don’t care to needlessly erupt. She has truly done me no harm, save the harm of being the channeled focus of every tender thought my father had ever had.

Ah, father. Am I bitter? Yes. And no, that bitterness hasn’t died with him. If anything, it is alive and well. He is dead, I set him ablaze, all too gleefully I lit him up and then mournfully watched him burn, realizing that now, I would never have him again. I am mournful of death, of all the wasted years, and of bad, bad blood.

But it is only blood.