Day Six-Thirty-Six: Changes

She's right. I won't ever say what happened. It's better that way.

I can't... 

No. No, that's not the right way to start.

I don't know how to express how I feel right now. That's more appropriate. I don't know how, because this experience... it's novel. New. In a way that's more horrible than anyone could ever understand.

In the last three years I've had a lot of firsts. Had my first kid. My first argument with a noble. My first brush with a king. My first thing with my thinger. My first death, and I hope it's the last one for a while. My first death in the family. My first betrayal, cross-country trip, semi-affair, political position, captaincy, fight with a penguin, hint at what's in my hands... a lot of firsts.

And now, I've had my first murder. I have killed a man. More than that, I've killed a friend. One of my best friends. A guy I've hung out with almost every day for the last year-and-a-half. I may have been tricked, I may have been confused, may even have been outright manipulated, but I killed a person.

I haven't killed before. Nothing bigger than an insect. I've talked about it, I've threatened people behind their backs... but a threat is not the same as the act. A threat is grandstanding. Murder is murder.

I'm back. I'm talking. I'll continue on, because that's what I have to do. The people in Pubton are counting on me to get something out of this trip, and I'll be damned if I'll let them down. But I don't think I'll ever be the same person again. Not really.

Gods damn my son. What little of me still loved Grayson has been buried in Edmund's coffin. Now he's just an enemy, as bad as the Non, maybe worse than the Non, and if I ever get the chance I'll...

I'll...

I don't know.

But I get the feeling that killing is easier the second time. That's all I'll say about that.

The snows are beginning to thin a little, mercifully, as we make our way further west. Plato tells me that this is common - we're headed to a desert, after all, and deserts are typically quite hot. So the lands surrounding them are warmer than average. I guess that makes sense.

We're also coming up on the lands surrounding Rodentia, capital of the Imperium. Plato's doing his best to skim us safely around even Rodentia's outlying farmlands, but he's never been to Rodentia before, so his directions are iffy at best. I suppose we'll see how that goes. I'm not eager to set foot anywhere near the capital, and I don't think anyone else is either.

I'm going back to work for a while. The rhino has a cold, and needs tending to. I doubt I could sleep anyway - Ed's face is always sitting on the insides of my eyelids when I close them.

Please forgive me, my friend. I did not mean it.

Sincerely,

Dragomir the Wanderer