The first year with Abigaile had gone by too quickly. Now her little girl was walking and starting to talk, and more and more, Daniella had started to feel the urge to return to the field. Jaedon was adamantly against the idea, but it was clear that the more he protested, the more he knew that it was inevitable. Neither of them could cease to be who they were. Daniella would hug her daughter, sing to her, and kiss her small hurts away with the power from Toran to heal them as any mother would, but she began to grow more and more distant with each new report from her men and women in the field. She was a leader, but she was not a ruler. The arguments between her and Jaedon grew more frequent about her role within their relationship and her role as one of Toran’s own. Raised voices were common in their section of the castle, but Daniella’s heart panged with guilt whenever their daughter was near during one of their spats.
“Jaedon, we can’t keep doing this to ourselves. It’s not fair to either of us, and it’s not fair to Abigaile,” she finally told him one morning.
Jaedon frowned. “You know my thoughts. Why do we have to go over this again? You simply keep fighting me.”
Daniella fought her instinct as she could feel the ire rising within her. “I’m not trying to fight,” she said as calmly as she could. “I’m trying to put a stop to the fighting. We need a solution.”
He looked at her, and then at his plate. He was silent for a few moments. She continued slowly, testing the waters. “I’ve been thinking about this a great deal. There’s simply something missing. I can’t keep hiding here and pretending that this feeling doesn’t exist.” She took a deep breath. I’ve been here with you now for two years, but I just keep feeling like my time is up. It’s like…” she pursed her lips in thought. “It’s like the air keeps being taken from my lungs. The longer I stay, the harder it is to breathe.”
He didn’t look up. “So that’s it then? You said you would be my wife, and yet you’re going to leave? What about our daughter?”
It was Daniella’s turn to look at her plate.
“Daniella, she needs a mother.”
“I know,” she whispered quietly.
Jaedon pushed his chair away from the table and walked away without another word. Daniella looked at her plate, feeling the emptiness of the room and the blossoming ache in her chest. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Jaedon Siphe. She did. The life he promised her was one that would be a welcome challenge, and it was one where they could be a family with their daughter. But it wasn’t her. There was an emptiness in her being and the distance she felt from her god was palpable in this place.
It had been many months since she had made that final decision and left the Siphe Principality. The yearning for Toran had become unbearable, and she knew it was the only thing left to do. But leaving her daughter had been one of the hardest things she ever had thought she would never have to do. More than once she had considered turning around and going back to them. Once she had even started to, but deep inside she knew there was more that she still had yet to do. Her duty wasn't finished, and she had an oath that she still had to uphold.
At first, when she reached her old home in Trelania, the place seemed foreign. It was like stepping back into a former life, or perhaps awakening from a long dream. In this house there was no sign of motherhood. The little dresses and toys that she had grown accustomed to with Abigaile weren't simply gone, they had never existed there in the first place. Here was a home that had been designed for the lives of soldiers. It was clean, and well-organized, and perhaps fit for a different sort of family, but not for children. Swords and shields remained polished and at ready, and showed plenty of signs of use.
As Daniella ventured up to her own apartment within her house, there were other things that sparked memories from times past. A well-worn letter and old, dried flowers from Aeronn Kirath, and the many books, letters, and other things that had once belonged to Chaynce Baldu'muur. The weight of all of the love lost dropped down on her like a lead blanket, and for some time, she did not leave the house or even her apartment. The lights remained out, and the ache in her heart swelled to fill and surround her like a thick fog.
She wasn't certain how long she had existed like that when she was startled out of her haze by a soft giggle and the sound of things being thrown against the front of her house. Crack. Crack. Crack. She rubbed her eyes and pushed her hair out of her face and looked out the window down at the ground below.
Alton. He had apparently resumed his semi-regular assault on her house with a whole basket of eggs.
Daniella stood in the window for some time, simply watching him. Her expression remained distant as she watched her dead lover's best friend deface her house. Some things never do seem to change. Even after Alton ran out of eggs, Daniella watched out the window until he had gone. Then she sighed. At last, she pulled on a fresh set of clothes and tied her hair back. The eggs would need to be cleaned before they started to smell.
She spent the rest of the day cleaning those eggs from her house. And with each motion, she felt a tear fall down across her cheek for each pain. And with each tear, she said a prayer asking for forgiveness, asking for guidance, asking for a purpose, and asking for help to find her true path once more.
When she finally stood back and looked at her work, she realized that some of her dark cloud felt lifted. She took a deep breath and vowed that it was time to go back to work for real. She knew in time she would have the answers from Toran that she needed, but in the meantime, she would put herself to work. She didn't know if it would help lift her own dark cloud, but perhaps if she could lift the burdens of others, for now it would take her mind off of her own.
Well, at least now she had a word for how she had been feeling. Guilt. Guilt for losing her focus. Guilt for leaving her daughter- for abandoning her. She stayed awake many nights wondering if those that she had let down would be able to forgive her. She wondered if Toran would be willing to take her back to set her feet back on her previous path. Tired of staring at the ceiling above her bed, she walked in bare feet down the hall to her own private shrine to the Great Leader and pray for guidance.
It had been a long time since she had seen Brandon Steele. She knew him before she was a Champion, before she was the Chosen One, the Champion of Toran's Divine Will and every other title she had become known by. When she was just Daniella Stormhaven, a paladin in Toran's service. And even though the years had gone by, he still was able to help her simplify the issue at hand.
So with the guidance sent from Toran by means of one of his priests, Daniella began writing letters each night to the daughter that she hoped one day would forgive her for her choice.
Dear Daughter,
I know that you're too young to really understand this yet, but I hope that some day you will. I suppose I should tell you a little bit about me, and then maybe things will make a bit more sense to you in time.
I don't know that your father will really raise you with any sort of devotion to any god. I know that with his history, and I'm not sure how much he will have told you, he is very hesitant to ever offer his allegiance to anyone ever again. That being said, I do hope that you'll still be able to learn a bit about Toran from those that are still around you and the shrine that was built.
It's sort of hard to describe who I am because it goes back so far and it is so deep. I started training as a paladin as early as I was able. It was simply always what I thought I was going to do. It was my calling, and my life. So when I was still a fairly young woman and Toran called me to be his Champion, it didn't fully occur to me what I would give up in order to do that. And while there were opportunities that were lost along the way for a different kind of life, I felt fulfilled. I had two mortal men that I loved before your father. Both of them were lost forever. The second stood by me as I walked down the path for Toran even though it always led me away from him. He was patient enough and steadfast enough to make the sacrifice to come in second, always. He died heroically defending Hilm from Molvaren's armies as they marched upon the fortress. I think when that happened it was the first time my heart felt shattered. All I had was my faith and my work, and while I focused on that, there was something else that existed as well, but it wasn't until recently that I realized what it was.
When I first met your father, we were enemies on the battlefield. I was defending the dwarven fortress that existed before Fieroz City. It was then known as the Fort of Last Hope. At times, during the onslaughts and bloodshed throughout that long battle of attrition I heard some people whisper as they began to lose heart that a better name would have been the Fort of Lost Hope. I knew that we were simply holding the armies at bay to give the rest of our forces in Hilm more time, but that didn't make the lives of those who fought so bravely and died so cruelly any less important.
I met your father during a brief time of ceased aggressions. We discussed a few things about the battle, and we both knew that my forces would not be able to hold out against his for much longer. But I could also see that he wasn't pleased with his position, or those around him. Your father had an honor about him that I had not previously thought could be attributed to someone aligned with Molvaren, let alone his General. Your father gave us information that let us destroy a device that was going to starve us out by ruining our food supplies. He also showed his honor by ceasing his aggressions every sundown to allow our troops to rest before returning to the war at dawn. I do believe that had he been able, he would have stopped the advance, but as long as his allegiance was given to Molvaren with no way of escaping, he also was trapped. And so we continued the dance of war until we were able to find a way out. With shared information, my troops were able to escape the castle before the dragon Ractrafieroz, your city's namesake, destroyed the fort completely. But as Molvaren's Drach Ori raided the castle and took it after our departure, your father's then Drach Garra that were loyal to him remained at a safe distance, so that only Molvaren's minions were killed by the dragon.
After that, your father seceeded from Molvaren's rule and claimed the land he now owns from his victory over both my forces as well as Molvaren's. Not everyone, was pleased with him. In fact, no one really was pleased with him.
At the time, I seemed to be the only one in a position to negotiate between your father and the Hilm Protectorate, whose land had been usurped. I put a lot on the line in order to help your father create what he has now. I still believe that his position where he is is valuable to the stability of Belinara. And I found that while working with him, I was given something else to work on to distract me from a broken heart and the other negative feelings that I continued to hide from myself.
I told myself what I wanted to hear. I told myself that I was doing Toran's work, and that establishing a firm foundation for Him within the Siphe Principality would improve relations with the Hilm Protectorate, and shift the balance to our favor in relation to the descisions that would be made by the Horn Kingdom and Nesar Kingdom when it came to defending against the plague that is Molvaren's lands in Kuhl. Perhaps I was doing Toran's work. Perhaps I was right and those things would help Belinara.
But I now realize that I was also hiding. I was seeking an escape from things that had built for so long that I didn't even know how to deal with them because I had ignored them and didn't even realize that they were there.
I am guilty.
As a Toranite, and especially as a paladin or champion of Toran, my word is my bond. And yet, I've broken promises. Before I was chosen as Toran's champion, I promised to marry a man- the man I wrote of earlier. But as a champion, there could be no one else who came before my devotion to Toran. And so I was not able to marry him. I broke my promise to him. We stayed together for so many years until his death, but as I said, my life's path was not what he had wanted. And I was so devoted and so full and so busy, I rarely sat back and considered what my decision had done to him. I should have considered everything that he had to give up because of his devotion to me while my devotion was never fully returned.
After his death, and my work side by side with your father, I know now that I had already started to lose my way. I ached in a way that I didn't know how to deal with, and instead of dealing with the loss and guilt and anger over losing someone that I did truly love, I poured myself into another project, and found that the kinship I had with Jaedon filled some of the ache and took some of the pain away. Many people tried to warn me, but I didn't listen. I thought they simply didn't see what I saw in your father, and I sought to defend him. Perhaps they weren't trying to save me from him, but from myself.
When I became pregnant with you, I started to wonder if I truly could retire and stay in Fieroz City and just be your mother and just defend one city, one Principality, instead of the whole world. And the first time I held you in my arms I knew that my heart was yours. For a long time, there wasn't any room for anyone else. You needed me, and in many ways, I needed you. And at that time, though my faith in Toran has never waivered, I know that Toran released me to be your mother instead of His Champion.
And so, again, I broke a vow that I never intended to break.
I thought that I could stay with Jaedon and become his partner and your mother and that would be enough. But I wasn't myself anymore. I'd lost who I was due to grief, and guilt, and even love.
The thing is, I didn't leave because you aren't enough for me. I left because I think I can be better to you by trying to find my path again. If I stayed behind, even though I love you so much, I would never be the person that I was called to be. Leaving you was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my entire life. But I need you to be safe, and the best way I know to do that is to be out here doing my job. And in order to do my job, I need to find my focus again. I need to move forward without a mortal man to distract me from the guilt that I've built up over the years for so many soldiers lost under my command, for everyone that I haven't been able to save, for leaving you and your father.
I do still love him, Abigaile, and I will always love you, but I made a vow to Toran a long time ago, and that's where I'll be able to find myself again.
You're still so little, and I know it may be years before you even receive this, but I will try to always be there for you should you need me. I have not abandoned you.
My love always, and may Toran's Light always guide you as it has me,
Your mother
Once again, it seems Toran has sent a priest to challenge my previous way of thinking, perhaps in an attempt to guide me again. I've said that I want to find myself, and yet, I'm still lost. I'm still searching for the old path, and maybe I need to find a new one. Brother Brandon suggests that instead of denying myself and my daughter, to find my way back to my purpose without leaving her completely. It almost seems like it sounds to simple. To do my duty for Toran, but still be a mother to my daughter so that I can teach her as a leader and an example. And he has a point. If I leave her completely, what does that teach her of Toran who has never left me? I know that I won't be able to be there all of the time, but I can try to be there when she needs me.
The more I pray about this, the more my heart seems more at peace. Toran has many to look after, to guide, and to protect, and yet I know that throughout my life He has been there when I needed Him. I'm not Toran, but I can take a lesson from Him. So, my bags are packed and I'm headed back to Belinara, to brave whatever wrath Jaedon may have for me, and to try to see Abigaile and hope she hasn't forgotten me.
And even though I'm sure that there is someone there that could teach my daughter of Toran, I will teach her what I know.
I received word of the many tremors and earthquakes that seem to have been rocking various parts of the world. I then received further reports of an adventuring band gathering to investigate a cause, and what seemed like something in relation to the Five and the Hall of Seven that I've been researching along with a few others in the Toran Archives. So far, we have found nothing, but it seems that I am best used in the field than in a library.
When I stepped closer to the group gathered in Center, it was difficult to gauge the feelings or determinations of those gathered, and in fact it seemed as though many people, perhaps even myself, did not understand at all what it was we were going out to try to accomplish. The little well-versed, but often long-winded halfling of Lucinda, Acacea, never seems very forthcoming with information that isn't soaked in anything but rambling, and thus it's hard to just get a simple answer from her regarding anything.
There was evil among us as well. I could sense it around me and in them, but while I could sense it there, they seemed to be serving, at least on the surface, the greater purpose. These were not my troops. They were disorganized, unruly, and chaotic, but they were trying for the most part to work together.
As we delved deeper into the unknown, though, it became more and more evident that there was no leader to this rabble, and without one, we could easily become hopelessly lost in the realm of the darkness.
Troops or not troops, Toranites or not Toranites, I couldn't bear to stand in the background any longer and simply let them get lost. If deeper was where we needed to go, then deeper we would go until we found where we needed to go, and hopefully we would discover this legendary Hall of the Seven.
It came back to me easier than I had thought it would, raising my voice loud enough that they could hear me. There was a path, and I would go. I asked who would follow me, and to my surprise.... everyone eventually followed. Even those who prefered to mock Toran or mock the faith in Him seemed to at least understand that we needed a direction. And so I served. Toran was our light in the darkness, at least to me, though on the events of late, He has seemed silent. The gods involved in these happenings do not usually concern Him overmuch.
Deeper we went until we did in fact reach our destination. It felt strange to be leading those such as a dark elf who in the Deep no longer bothered to hide his true physical nature, and the notable assassin G'ork. But my job was not to wage a war against them. Not that day. Not when they were actually helping. The Hall of the Seven was indeed a hall with stones depicting each of the gods that are in the moved constellations. And there was a divine presence not of Toran, but increasingly strong. It had a feeling almost of a consecrated temple, and yet it was not, and while I felt the need to stop and pray before entering the domain, it was not a temple after all. There were depictions and statues that told a story of sorts. Most of them had been well preserved even after all this time, though some had fared better than others. Five races. Human, Elf, Halfling, Dwarf, and Gnome.
Beyond the outer chamber was another room and inside that, the presence of the Divine grew stronger with each step. In the center of the room was a crystal that glowed with power. I'll never know why whenever there is a stone that glows with power, there will always be fools that wish to touch it. And even after people are thrown across the room for doing so, someone will always continue to make the attempt.
Some of them succeeded, some of them did not. The dark elf apparently died somehow, and yet...
Now I wonder ater having stood in a room that was dedicated, to my own feeling, to seven gods where only one of them is even thought of friendly by Toran, what is my purpose in this? And so I pray nightly to know what is it that I am supposed to do for Toran in these recent events. I cannot seem to stop people from disappearing. I cannot stop them from returning again and meeting a horrible end such as what is being called the Liquid Death. Am I simply to be the leader to weild a torch through the darkness of the Deep so that they may leave once again in safety, or does Toran have something else in mind? Until then, I will continue to simply do what I can. I suppose that is all any of us can do in anything.
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Topic: Daniella's private journal (Read 1598 times)
