Nightpixie (prime)/Nightpixie's Diary
Dear Diary,
Khalypso is ranting again that I need help. That I need to "snap out of this". She is convinced if I put pen to paper, things will be better but I know they will not. She is sweet and she tries, so for her, I will make the effort.
His name was Trin. We met in the square. He would often come in and juggle his war hammers while I healed the wounded. He was a tall, broad chested, effortlessly handsome elf, with his dimpled cheeks and sparkling hazel eyes with tiny wrinkles that coalesced around them when he laughed. Back then, he laughed often.
It wasn't long before he would often ask me to heal him. As soon as my hands would touch him, I'd feel a spark ~ unexpected..electric. It would send a shiver down my spine that at first, caught me off guard. I would almost look forward to his wounds even though it pained me at the time that he was hurt at all.
He started to come to me more and more. It wasn't until years later that he would reveal to me that he would often get hurt on purpose so that he had an excuse to come to me for healing. He felt the spark as well.
I remember when he first asked me to pierce him. The next day he came to me and claimed his jewelry was lost in battle and asked me to do it again. He was charming, relentless. I must have pierced him 10 times before he admitted that he was removing the piercings himself so he could spend some time with me alone.
And then we were together. We were happy in those days. Happy for a long time.
A warrior Guild Master, he would often be behind the guild gates. I used to try to chat up the guard in the hopes he would let me in but to no avail. Trin tried to teach me how to tackle and how to become proficient with a warcry. I was hopeless at both. but I tried.
I remember his tattoo, two war hammers crossed over his wrist. It was his idea for us to mark ourselves, matching ink on opposite wrists. My dancing pink pixie on him, his hammers on mine. A permanent bond, inked into our skin, binding us together forever.
With him, I felt safe. Loved. Protected for the first time in my life. I would fall asleep on his chest with his big arms around me and truly believe nothing could hurt me. There was nothing he wouldn't do for me. Nothing he wouldn't protect me from. I suppose in the end, that was the ruin of us.
It started, as it always does, with my sister Skylai.
I don’t remember exactly when she began to take interest in him. I only recall that she knew I was happy and she was annoyed. When she calls, I come.. Immediately. That's how it's always been and that’s how I’ve stayed alive.
In the beginning, Trin understood that I'd have to go when she required my assistance. As time went on however, he grew frustrated with her hold over me. He would tell me to ignore her, which I knew I could not. When she called, I would leave him every time and while it caused a small rift between us, I knew it had to be done. Until he convinced me otherwise.
The first time I did not go to her, she warned me. I suppose that's as much kindness as I could ever expect from Sky. She told me not to do it again or I would regret it. When I told Trin of her words, he laughed and flexed his muscles, telling me not to worry, that he would protect me should she come for me. Little did I know, it would not be me she would target.
The second time I did not go to her, I only received a single thought "You were warned". Thinking about it now still makes me shudder. It was then that she began to hunt him.
Every day, every hour, she and her demons killed him at every opportunity. I would feel his death soon after he would leave town for a hunt. At times, she would drag him back to me and lay what was left of him in my lap, his blood often seeping into my satchel and dripping uncontrollably onto my boots. He was no match for her, and I believe she saw him as just another play thing, much like she had always seen me.
One day, as he lay dead in my arms, he chuckled at her and told her some day he would have his vengeance. I remember cringing. You do not threaten Sky.
The next time I felt his death, I do recall something being.. different… distant.. when I healed him. When life came back into his body, his eyes no longer sparkled, but instead they were more muted. I shrugged it off that he was simply tired. The day after, Trin hunted with no encounters with Sky. I found it odd as she had hunted him for so long, it seemed strange that she would suddenly lose interest. A part of me actually thought for a mere second that she realized she had gone too far and that she would simply leave us alone. I, of course, went immediately when she called and she never spoke of him again to me. I thought everything would be ok…. It wasn't.
Soon after, I was healing in the square as I always do when I began to notice small things. A glance he would give a customer when I healed them, the veins in his neck that would pulse a little too much when someone would give me a generous tip. He started to grumble often and would even walk away from the square claiming he had things to do in the guild, which I knew he did not. His laughter was gone and he rarely smiled. We started to have arguments about my friendliness, about me touching people to heal them, about how much I may have laughed or smiled with someone else. The jealousy started to truly overwhelm him. I had never seen this in him before.
I began to be scared to heal. I never knew what he would consider to be too friendly, too flirtatious as he would often call it. He would tell me that I didn't know the mind's of men and that I was naive to their ways. That their gifts were not tips but rather attempts at gaining my favor.
One night, a customer tipped me with a pink crystal bracelet clasped with a tiny heart. I hesitated, but accepted it out of politeness. That was all it took. Trin dragged me from the square, all the way back to my cottage on the outskirts of the Landing. He had never put his hands on me in anger before. He overpowered me with ease, and the sanctuary I had cast did nothing to calm his fury. To this day, that same sanctuary lies in ruin, a place that once offered protection, now hollow and broken. It holds no comfort for me anymore, and I avoid it whenever I can.
I felt his fists against my bones, and wondered how this could be the man that I loved. I fought, I fled. I made it to Khaly's house.
The next day, Trin came to me in the square and asked to speak with me. I was so afraid to go with him but I still loved him dearly and for a second, I thought I saw his eyes sparkle. As we sat in my cottage, he told me he felt something had taken him over, that he knew he was not himself. It was then that the pieces started to fall into place for us .. Sky … her demons… one had most likely taken him over, had manipulated his protective nature and turned it against us - amplified it until it poisoned him. It would tear us apart or I would be dead at his hands. We did not know which.
I vowed to find a cure. There had to be something the old clerics would know of to rid him of this parasite. Something ancient, something forgotten.
With tears in his eyes, he just told me no. That he would never again risk what happened the night before to happen again while we looked for an answer. That he would never trust himself around me and that he couldn't bear to ever hurt me again. His eyes sparkled more… then back to muted.. I could feel his struggle but begged him to give me time to figure it out. With a shake of his head, a single tear rolled down his cheek. He kissed me the sweetest, most gentle kiss, told me he'd love me in every lifetime, and with that, I watched him draw the sign of hopelessness… and then he was gone. I sat in my cottage and watched his essence flake away, piece by piece before the crackling fire until there was nothing left. There hasn't been a fire in the fireplace since. He was truly gone.
My heart was more than broken, it was shattered. I left the council for I never wanted to be reminded of the sign that took him from me. I couldn't bear the thought of touching another so I studied the ways of healers that enabled me take wounds without laying my hands on someone. I could even heal them from far away. I cut off my empathy when the pain became too great and that made it easier. I could laugh again, smile, wear a mask, of sorts. It does help keep people at bay. I picked up a terrible coffee habit but find it helps me to not sleep. Dreaming is not my friend. I removed his war hammer tattoo and replaced it with a black mourning pixie. And so now, I will never love like that again. I will never put those I care about at risk. I will never put myself at risk. I simply couldn't bear it a second time. It will break me.
Khalypso was wrong. This did not make things better. It made them worse. I do not wish to relive this over and over again. Some memories hurt less than others. Some, I can separate from him. I still practice my warcry and my tackle. Perhaps one day, I'll master them after all. The guard at the Warrior Guild still won't let me in. Other parts of our life together, at times flood back with such weight, that I feel as though I'm drowning without him all over again and therefore this is the last time I will speak on this.