Dragomir's Diary

I write by candlelight. I'm bare-chested. And… bare-legged, to be honest.

Tonight was weird. Very weird.

I spent all of today feeling incredibly optimistic. The transport is well underway, the crew is prepped and ready, our destination is clear… ish… and, for the first time in a while, we received some good news: Goblinoster is holding fast against the Non attacks. It's one of the only kingdoms still standing in the Indy Plains, at least in the north. Nice to hear that King Gok is fighting the good fight.

I suspect that the Non are concentrating more on the giant landmass that's apparently appeared where the Grand Chasm used to be. As far as I know, the lock they were after was keeping all that land under wraps. So… maybe they have everything they want, and will back off a little on conquest? Who knows. For now, this is good for us.

Problem is, the more I thought about the trip, the more I began to wonder if I was heading in the right direction.

Ever since shit went south in the hole, I've been struggling to get my daughter back. It was always my intention to storm the old castle and pull her straight out of hell… but when June dubbed me 'mayor', I kinda lost sight of that goal. I was mired in petty politics, in farming and building and all sortsa meaningless stuff.

Then she came back. But it wasn't really her. And with the fake gone, I'm back to square one. My daughter is out there, she's always been out there, and she's under the control of… things. Hell, when I saw her, she had green eyes. Green. She might be turning INTO a Non, and if that's how they're born… gods help us all, I guess.

She attacked me. She beat me up. She… she was going to kill me. And she wasn't smiling this time, she wasn't saving me this time. She was going to off me for good.

I… I can't help but wonder if she thinks I abandoned her. Left her to rot with demons spawned from an unknowable place. And in thinking that, I… I have a responsibility… a duty to set her free… and gods, I want to, I just want her, and Libby, and me, and, hell, even Grayson, I want us to be a damned FAMILY.

Just a fucking family. You know? We can be dysfunctional, we can yell at each other… can fight whole wars against one another… just… I just want a family. Is that really so much to ask?

The more I thought about this, the more it wore at me. It nibbled at my happy thoughts and dragged me down. I must have looked as bad as I felt, too, because as the darkness came in and I bid goodbye to Plato for the night Libby took my hand and led me to our bed. She set me down, and she hugged me, and in the quiet we embraced for a long, long time, weeping over our broken children.

Thank the gods I have her.

Now I write by candle-light. I'm still bare-chested. And bare-legged. She's asleep in the bed.

We did that thing that married people do.

But, oh, lords above, it was so sad.

(Yet I still have a stupid grin on my face. Can't help it. Is that strange of me? No doubt.)

Sincerely,

Dragomir the Wanderer