M is for Map

Change, bah. Yes, it may be part of life, part of balance. That doesn’t mean it won’t come crashing down on your life, flattening it to a pulp, crushing everything you’ve tried to build. I ought to know. Three times I’ve tried to build myself a life, an existence. Don’t remember much about the first time, only that it didn’t work out. I ended up chased a mob carrying pitchforks. I tried a smaller community the second time around, founding a temple to Seraphix for girls wanting to escape from the world. We called ourselves the Sisters of Seraphix. Never mind that the god was something I made up. Seraphix was nothing more than a metaphor for a balanced, orderly life, a philosophical dream that came to me when I was drinking. Still I tried to make a good thing of worshipping Seraphix until a text and an unguarded moment revealed my true self. This revelation brought out a side in the Sisters of Seraphix I’m not sure they were aware of. Once again, I was chased by a mob, this time waving torches instead of pitchforks, but the rage was the same. I lost control of my own rage with horrifying results. I don’t remember those results. I don’t want to. Bits and pieces of it are coming back, ever since Danyel handed me a rock in The Hand and the Eye of the Tower. I must have been shattered by what happened. I ended up alone. Again.

You’d think I’d learned my lesson about communities by that point. Join one, become part of one, and change will rip it all away. Only I did join another community in the village of Omphalos. This time, it would be all right. This time I was among shadow halflings, children who’d appeared out of nowhere, slipped through Doors and cracks in reality. Many of them bore tell-tale signs that showed they weren’t human. I could be myself in Omphalos. I had Ashleigh and Christopher, the closest people to being family until I found my boys, but I get ahead of myself. Ashleigh, Christopher, and I lived in a cottage together, built a life in which I was truly happy. Only change came, taking first Christopher, followed by Ashleigh, and finally everyone in Omphalos. The village itself, well, let’s just say it burned to the ground. Yes, some of that was my fault. I don’t remember. I don’t want to remember. I gave into temptation, stepping through a Door, hoping to find my lost loved ones. Did I find them? More likely the shattered remains of them. We come from shadow, we return to shadow, unless we can become solid and real enough to exist in a reality. Like me. My current form may not be the prettiest, but it’s stayed with me after returning through the Door, bringing someone with me. The first time it was Leiwell, the second time it was Danyel and Tayel. My sons, my boys, who became my new family. We kept to ourselves in the cottage where I lived with Ashleigh and Christopher, not bothering with a community. I’d had it with communities. This was where we were in The Hand and the Eye of the Tower. Bloody tower wouldn’t leave my boys alone, even if I did my best to ignore it and urged them to the same. What sort of Doors they opened with their hopes and fears, I don’t know, but a community came looking for us, along with my Ashleigh. They were accompanied by the same forces which lured Ashleigh away to be begin with, taking Christopher and the original inhabitants of Omphalos with them. Some of those inhabitants are back, only they don’t remember being here. They want us to be part of their village, their Omphalos, part of their religion. The Followers of Seraphix, really? I made Seraphix up! Only this godling of theirs appears to be real, bringing change to everyone who accepts their talisman. As if I’d ever do so. I’m going to have to deal with the consequences of this folly again. Bloody changes.