Nightpixie (prime)/Nightpixie's Diary

Portrait of Trin created by Nightpixie's player using ChatGPT

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 was healing. He was a tall, muscular, broad chested, gorgeous elf that immediately caught my eye 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 like no other. 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 and it drew us together.

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. 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, neither of which I was ever very good at and unfortunately, I never got to master.

I remember his tattoo. A set of crossed war hammers on his wrist. It was his idea for us to tattoo our other wrists. An orange ornery pixie on one and a set of crossed war hammers on the other. We would forever be linked.

I felt a love like no other. I felt protected for the first time in my life. I would fall asleep on his chest with his big arms around me and thought 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.

I can't remember when my sister, Sky, started to ask about 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 what's always kept me relatively alive.

In the beginning, Trin would understand 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 had just been through a lot. 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 mentioned 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 gave me a pink crystal bracelet clasped with a tiny ruby heart after I healed them. I was afraid to accept it but also afraid of offending the customer, whom I also considered a friend. As soon as I accepted, I knew I had made the wrong decision. In one swoop, I remember being dragged out of Central back to my cottage. He had never put his hands on me in anger before. It wasn't him but I knew not how to help him, how to make him stop. He overpowered me quickly and the sanctuary that I had cast did nothing to quell his rage. The fight that night was terrible but I am lucky that I am quite skilled at healing my own wounds. His fury was an unstoppable storm. I managed to finally get out the door and fled 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 - making it his overwhelming emotion. One he clearly could not control. It would tear us apart or I would be dead at his hands. We did not know which.

Once we knew what we were up against, I vowed to find a cure. There had to be something the old clerics would know of to rid him of this parasite. 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 I had ever experienced, 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, act a fool if I wanted. 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 tattoo. 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. There are certain things about him that pain me less than others. Certain parts I can remember more easily as I've learned to disassociate them 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 inside. Other parts of our life together, just flood back too strongly and make me feel as though I'm drowning without him all over again and therefore this is the last time I will speak on this.