This journal is kept buried under rocks, outside the shifting caverns, in a place where it will not normally be found.

Why keep a journal at all? I do not know, only that before I had someone whom I could voice my thoughts to. Now I have noone.

None of them understand. And I do not dare speak to Reynart.

I failed them. I failed him. Why would I seek his comfort and understanding?

I wish the Dhaerow had cut out my lying tongue. The tongue that led others to its doom. If only I had remained quiet, and stood trial for endangerment of Sanctuary.

They might all still be alive.

Theon, Salvador, Albrecht.....Senestia.

I am ugly both without, and within. A result of my life, the choices I made. Because of those choices, I will forever see her at her end.

Bloated, burned, without a tongue, without an eye, her head scalped. I could not even look at her. She was beautiful, and I brought that fate upon her. Not the Dhaerow, but me. I do not begrudge beasts, for acting like beasts, even if I hate them with the entirety of my being.

As much as I hate myself.

The N'Tel'Quessir are lucky. They sleep. Sometimes they dream. The dreams are often pleasant, or sometimes their sleep results in no dreams. Sometimes, nightmares.

My reverie will forever be haunted by that final image of Senestia, as she drew her final words in my palm, unable to speak. Her body torn, and defiled by the Dhaerow. It will replay verbatim, every day, for the remainder of my days. They will tell me to remember her as she was before that. And I will, but it will always end like that. Always.

Why am I even here? It is said that one must always choose to come back, but I remember nothing of my time in the afterlife. Why did I make the choice to come back? I am a failure as a Guardian, unworthy of my clan. I am a failure to my friends. All I have left now, is my guilt, from my failures.

I don't want to feel anything, any longer. My duties, my life. All of it feels hollow. My death, if self-inflicted, would be even more hollow. My soul wants me to be here.

I only wish I knew why. Perhaps then, I could forgive myself.

I doubt I ever will.