*The collection of papers that comprise the journal are bound in red leather, and they smell faintly of cinnamon*

Inside, the latest entry reads:

Oh mother, why haven’t you come for me? This place is dreary, and you must know how much I suffer here, away from the Temple and my sisters. I’m your favourite, your most beautiful and prized, and yet here I remain, lost in these caverns, cast away from my pleasurable life. Have I wronged you so terribly? Is my crime so dark?

I was wandering through the city today, thinking of you and the others. I miss Dryschella and Gorantha, Krys and Forlona... I miss the courts and the balls, and even Lugar, that detestable son of Humerham that would always try to win my attention. I miss Selgaunt dearly, and I miss all of things that it represented to me.

Instead I find myself in a frontier-like city, built on ruins. There are people here, of course, but their motives are so simple and plain. They strike out at the darkness, and they live in fear for the day that the shadows strike back. They are desperate, and hungry for hope, and it drives the soul to coldness to live in such environs. Sune’s great warmth seems all but absent from this place.

There is some prettiness, I suppose, but it seems so muted by the shadows of the place...it seems leeched somehow, like bone aged too long. Many of the men are too serious to even consider Sune’s blessings to be of any importance, while others are simply base and crass, the product of a society where culture holds little sway. The women, meanwhile, seem mostly cold and lifeless, as if they have forgotten that hearts reside within their oft-armored chests. This is no place for one of your great daughters to reside.

My only respite in this darkness has been that Sune continues to look over me, and even here, away from Her great temple and Her mysteries, I still find myself able to evoke Her powers. Sune has been my only solace of late, and I’ve been seeing visions of Her more frequently, although I’m not at all sure what I am to make of it. It was her fire that touched me when I saw this journal, and perhaps she intends to aid my mourning heart. If it were not for my love of Sune, then I’m not sure how I would drudge through each ugly day.

I still have those feelings, you know? The ones that kept me from ever joining you and the others in the great festivities. I can’t help but think of Her, no matter how hard I try to transpose her onto others that I meet. There are a few beautiful souls about the city, and yet I haven’t had the courage to even approach them with my heart. I hardly feel that they could compare, to Her warmth and to the pleasure that She brings me.

I wonder sometimes, if maybe that is why you, my own mother, has forsaken me. Are you still angry with me that I refused to take part in the Great Rite of Her mysteries? Does your ire still rage because I chose a path that did not fall into your own footsteps? I could hardly help it, and yet it pains me to know how displeased you are. All your other daughters held no reservations about the lifestyle that you chose for us, and yet I, who you groomed above all others, who you chose most of all, rejected the choice you made for me.

I never saw you and the others as whores. I never strayed from Sune’s path, and I never let the shallow morals of others fell the beliefs that I hold sacred. I simply could not follow into that revel...my heart did not lead there. It led, and still leads, to Her. I long to be by Her side, and that longing brings me such love and pleasure! The pictures in our sacred books, the images that you once conjured through yourself...they drive my heart to cry for Her.

And I think, in some small way, that She takes pleasure in me as well. The visions, although never frequent, come more often now. And She still holds me, and She still touches me...and my love is still recognized, still incited. I could never taint that want...that desire with the baseness of the physical. I’m sorry that you can’t understand that, with all your wisdom and with all the beauty of your mind. I’m sorry that you can’t accept that, as if I’ve failed you somehow.

But I’m still so very lonely. I miss the comfort and the warmth that you and my sisters once provided. I miss my room within the Temple walls, and I miss the courts of the wealthy nobles. I long to be returned to the place where I belong.

Perhaps it was that loneliness that I succumbed to, two days past, when I took in a girl that I found wandering about the lower parts of the city. Her name is Anatolia, and I know that you would never approve of what I have done. And yet, strangely, I could hardly care these days what pain you might bring down on me with your disapproval.

I found the poor thing broken and hurt in the rubble of strife. She is a half-orc, I think, and I would take that as the first of the crimes I would commit against you. Your doctrine of exclusion, of riding the grace of the “fairer” races, is quite cardinal to you. And yet, for all that she does not look like a fair-skinned and gorgeous elf, she is quite pretty. She seems so complex, and yet so wounded. In her, I understand as you once said, that there can be such beauty in a wound, such grace in longing, and such passion in healing.

I brought her back to the room I rent at the Rock Bottom, and I even share my bed with her, which I know would send you into fits. And yet, for all that your more-experienced mind would consider, there is no such debasement between us. Instead, I simply hold her, offering what warmth one soul can unto another. In her pain, I can see what delight I cause to her soul...I give as Sune gives unto me. To feel protected...to feel beautiful in a world that rends you apart...to feel loved, without reservation or reason. I think I love this girl, and yet there is no physical passion between us that does not come from such simple acts of beauty.

I have even started to describe to Anatolia more about Sune, and her doctrine. I think...I think the girl was brutalized in the horror of what has happened. Some of our beliefs, about the openness of our love, and the value of pleasure and beauty, strike hard blows to her pretty smile. She finds it hard to consider the openness that oft-defines a follower of Sune, and I think that, in light of what hate men have put unto her, that perhaps the Fire-Haired will forgive Anatolia until she heals.

But the girl seems quite drawn, and I have considered, in the dark hours of the night, when she lay finally at rest in my arms, that perhaps I should offer her a path to Sune. This is not Selgaunt, where a half-orc would never find a place within our sacred walls as a priestess to our great Goddess. This is a far different place, where beauty is more subjective, and ugliness is far more prevalent. I’ll have to think far more on this, and of course I will petition Sune herself for wisdom, in the afterglow of my sacred meditations. Barring something drastic, though, and should she be willing, I think I will offer her a place at my side as an acolyte. In any case, I will protect her until she heals, and perhaps longer...by my own coin, will I care for her.

I am very lonely, mother. I hope that I am doing as Sune would have me do, each day. I know how strong your powers are, and yet even with that knowledge, I understand that these words will never reach you. But my heart cries out for you, nonetheless. Forgive me for my transgression, for not being as perfect and as lovely as you expect. I will wait, as I have waited, with faith that your love for me...as sacred as love is to you...that it will bring you down into this darkness to save me.