The Path of Shadows

[IDii]

*Avar sits down in one of Hlint's darkest corners, slowly pulls a decorated book from one of his bags and opens it*

*moving his hand over the first blank page of the book he quietly whispers to himself* "I really thought I wouldn't open this book in a long time... Yet if there's another way other than what I was told... why waste the time..."

*he takes a quill and dips the head in a small jar of ink and then starts drawing a complicated symbol on the first page of the book*

*once finished, he looks at the symbol and nods* "Nightleaf..." *he whispers the word and slowly turns the page over and begins writing... slowly, decorating the text with symbols similiar to the one he drew before*



The Beginning

Long I've walked the lands... The dark forests, the deep canyons... and the dark corners of the streets. Yet not a single time on my path since leaving the tribe have I heard of the path of shadows... not before. Yet in the strangest of places...

Seems my arrival in Hlint after the strange dream wasn't just a coincidence. I've met another who knows of the path and the realm of the shadows. And she's not one of the elders, not even one of our people. Yet... Listening is the way she speaks of.

Perhaps I should learn to listen, instead of seeking like I have so far. Why would they lie to me though... Keeping the secrets to themselves. They frowned at my decision before, when I chose not to listen... I wonder what they would say if I told them their way wasn't the only way.


Yet... I know not of the other way myself... yet.


I should listen... carefully. It's too loud here though, it seems I'll have to return to where the winds are quiet and slow.

If that doesn't work, perhaps I'll have to ask... them? No... Would she tell me either? No... perhaps.
I shouldn't think about that yet in either case. First I must look... but perhaps after that.

Listen... Seek... Perhaps my way is both...


*he finishes the writing with another symbol and closes the book* "Suppose I'll have to see..." *he whispers to himself, stands up and walks out of the town gate, disappearing into the night*

[IDii]

*Avar looks around himself in the dark forest, after listening to the silence for a while he takes his journal and opens it*
"So I'm finally here... again as so many years have passed" *he quietly whispers to himself and begins writing down in the book once again*


Seeking

Sitting in the dire wood, surrounded only by the shadows of those long gone... I try to listen. No animals... the restless dead are silent as they so often are... Shadows and the darkness surrounds me.

Yet... I hear nothing.

I know they're here though. They have to be. Why I can't find them is a mystery... Or is it... I know I'm not ready, and still I've learned I could be. Which to believe... Am I not special?

Questions... and no answers.

Nothing...Nothing....No.

I hear something. It's no one else though, just myself saying that cursed word...

...Nothing.

I've been here for a while now... Sought them, listened to them... Sought it, listened to it. What exactly am I seeking and listening to...

Maybe I've been a fool, looking for something I obviously can't find, trying to listen to something my ears are obviously deaf to...

Answers... lead to questions...


*he takes a short pause in writing and looks at the text and symbols on the page, then grabs the quill one last time after a while and finishes the page with one sentence, closes his book and leaves the forest*


Seems I'll have to ask them after all.

[IDii]

*After a long journey - over seas of sand, water and trees - Avar arrives at the edge of a jungle on a small uncharted island. After looking around for a while he sits down next to a tree and opens the book he carries and begins writing and drawing the symbols along the words as he does so*


My Return

And so I am here. On the island where the shadows reside... Before me the forest.

I remember the first time I saw it... long long ago. How have I changed I wonder... Am I still on the path I wonder...

Looking at the forest makes me wonder... How has it changed? Or have my memories of it changed...

Maybe this will all just end here. They'll see I'm no longer on the path I once was and just get rid of me. Could be... Why am I risking it then?

Obsession? I never understood the whole point in it when I first arrived in the city of the humans...

I still don't... At least why I'm obsessed in what I am... and is it worth it?

...

Can't turn away now. Even if they don't answer my questions about the path, they'll have to answer the questions about... me....

We shall see if it ends here. I'll find what I'm seeking...

...One way or another...

[IDii]

Written with the same handwriting as the text before it, there are slight differences in the symbols drawn along the text in this chapter of the journal. They seem darker, as if they contained more or different ink than the other writing and symbols before them.


Night

Complete darkness. Death or simply not existing?

Everywhere and yet nowhere.

Everything and yet nothing.

All and yet none.

...One with everything... Everything in one...

Questions. New ones perhaps, but just perhaps. Important ones though.

How can one exist without being sure about existing?

Strange. Being full is the same as being empty... Extremes and opposites are what define everything.


Avoid the extremes... Stay away from them and you'll hear... feel... see...

...sense...

Nightleaf...

[IDii]

Avar sits down by the pond in Hlint, opens his book and stares for a while at the last entry. "What sense does this all make then...", he quietly whispers to himself, takes his quill and starts writing on the next page.

Day
...

After writing down the word and drawing some small symbols next to it, he carefully examines the word and symbols and seems to compare them to what was written on the other page. "Difference...", he whispers softly and then continues his writing... The handrwiting seeming much clearer and the symbols drawn next to very different to the ones on the previous page... almost invisible to the eye...

...
Sitting here, me and my thoughts. A quiet day in Hlint, something I always welcome. Easier to concentrate in silence... whether it's writing, or listening... or both. This time it's just this though.

It's been quite a day really. Never know what happens when you ask someone a simple question about the essence of light and dark. Playing with opposites... I ended up talking to Lalaith for a good while, talking about out things... impractical things, mostly anyway. Things one shouldn't really care about, yet I do. I suppose that's always been wrong with me... or right. She told me some things she had no reason to tell me, things that really don't concern me in any way. And I talked about some things that I had no reason to tell her. Even secrets that mean death to those who reveal them to outsiders. But I'm probably past that by now anyway... Taking risks for nothing is something I don't do. Just wondering what I'm taking the risk for... Maybe I should think about it, or maybe I should forget thinking... just too practical after all.

I made a choice on my path anyway. Leave the one I was walking before... Following her for now, no idea for how long. Not really up to me, is it... What you hope for doesn't often matter that much. Then again, sometimes...
In the end it will be my path though... that's something I realized. Not the path of the shadowhunters, nor anyone else. But that's how it should be anyway. Of course the other paths are part of my path as well.
I left the path long ago in fact... but just realized it now.
What is to come, I have no idea. Interesting part of walking down a path unknown to you. Yet I'm not alone and not without guides. Dragons and roses, who knows what's to come.

And the feather... It seems she didn't have any idea what that was about. Of course I realize that myself. How could she if I didn't tell her anyway.

Impractical things...

[IDii]

The symbols draw next to the writing in this part of the journal are somehow stronger than the ones before, yet not as dark as they have been a few pages back... just more complex and detailed. Tribal patterns between letters and words, small drawings between lines and paragraphs.


Dawn

Here I am again. Back, yet things aren't the same. Once again in my life I have been on a journey... alone, far... for a long time.
I don't really belong anywhere though. So I haven't been gone from anything, anyone or anywhere. I have just been... like I've been taught. You are... you do not belong. There is no we... just many individuals. No home, no close ones.
Still I say I am back. I am different then... of course that's obvious after what I've done. I guess I am unique... well of course we are, but I'm just different... way different.

Still I search for a way to become one of them. One of those I left... but through my own means. And I am getting close... and it's almost frightening sometimes. Frightening, yet exciting... very thrilling to find out what there is... what possibilities there are in the shadows. I was only told stories, now I wish to find out myself. I don't have time for the path of theirs, I'll make my own...

Now after weeks... months spent seeking what lies within, I think I've realized some things, and some things I am not so sure about still. Shadows are things between. So what are the shadows that follow us? They're us, between... Between what. I know the place with shadows, the plane of shadows. Then there's light and then there's dark. Shadows remind people of the dark, never the light... so perhaps they're not exactly at the middle.

There's many kind of shadows though... the ones following us I think depend on who we are. Talking to them is possible, as they're a part of us.

I need to meditate more on this...

[IDii]

The symbols next to the writing here are extremely dark and detailed... much more than any before. They almost seem to glow with some kind of dark light as one gazes into them... the text within nearly illegible due to the symbols.


Dusk...

Just listen.

You don't have to talk... I can hear your thoughts and see your ramblings well enough.

But just listen... or read, whichever.

I am you, you are me. But yet there's no we. Shadowhunter teachings not conflicting with the Runner's teachings... as it has been.

But I am different. Seeking and listening on my own... to myself instead of others. Finding my place is not easy... but I have never listend to the others, just done how I should.

I'm right. They're all wrong...

I'll show the way. And I will follow. And you will follow.

Alone...

[IDii]

Once again the symbols next to the writing get much less darker and a bit less complex...


Improvement

Yesterday was interesting. Something had happened to an altar of Baraeon Ca'duz in the Berhagen Mountains and that caused spiders and hatred to spill to the ground from deep below... It was rather interesting. Spiders attacking people everywhere you went on Mistone... and I of course managed to join that group of hlintites sent to fix things.

Well we did eventually do that. After numerous battles with various kinds of spiders we reached the temple and sealed the portal near the altar that seemed to bring the god's hatred forth  I have to say I was pleased... Wasn't much for the reward but yet I was satisfied... defeating my enemy. Guess I haven't changed all that much... I should venture down the Underdark one of these days to see what the drow are truly made of... but not yet.
All the venom sacks I managed to pick up were nice though. Actually managed to improve my poisoncrafting quite a bit, a talent that will surely be useful in many ways. Even though most of the poison the spiders carry is rather weak... something more potent would surely be welcome. Like the poison of those underdark spiders, it was simply lethal... death. Now that would be something I'd like to possess.

The other pgoress I've made lately has been impressing me as well. I can use the shadows to conceal myself from most creatures... move silently within them... And I have learned some things about the shadows within myself. Listened to them... yet I still have much to learn, but it's a start. I think I've walked forward on my path lately... much more than in the earlier years ever. Perhaps something triggered that, perhaps I just realized it was the way for me...

And now I am sitting in Hlint. I'm somewhat bored in fact... Perhaps I should try to meditate again and to draw... it...

[IDii]

The symbols in this part of the journal are extremely dark and detailed again... an obvious change to the writing on the page before.


Darkness

Alone...

Wandering... Lost...

Restless...

Anxious to find me...

Here I am, unseen.
Not to be found.
Nothing to find.
Already there...

Not lost. Not wandering.

Waiting...

[IDii]

Once again the symbols look more "normal" along this part of the writings... not too complex to cover the text and not too dark to trick the eye, still they're different from ones before somehow...


Light

Once again the morning arrives... Sitting here to watch sun rise... the dawn changing the world so. I remember a time when there was no such thing as dawn... for a while. Things change though, the world changes... and the people change, most important of all.

It blinds my eyes after all the time in the darkness... after all the time spent meditating and then opening my eyes to the blinding light. And  the light changes me much the same way it affects the shadows. Making them visible now... more clearly. Darkness is absence of light and vice versa. And shadows live between those two...

I do wonder what it would be like to be a shadow. Where do they live... or do they live. Some say shadows are undead and beings of another plane. I don't think they're just that though... or that all of them are that. No, it's clearly different. Even during my few years trying to really understand them to use my skills better and to learn the path of a shadowhunter, I've made observations... and I know others there know more than I do. Maybe I should find out... ask. Then again is that really my path... I decided not. If I did...

Still the only real change to me for now is that it's a new day... new things to do and so on. Never know... At least it's not night anymore. Suppose I'll have to just open my eyes and go look.

[IDii]

*slightly dark and less intimidating tribal symbols decorate the following text that is written in fine elven handwriting*


Perceptions

To see is to see. Eyes deceive in more than one way. They don't see where they should and see where they shouldn't. Many in this world are blind, some more than others and some not so much. Once I was that as well, seeing things I should never had, it leading me to do things I never should have.

Yet that has led me here. And I don't regret walking down that path.

To know is to know. Eyes might be the way to believing but knowledge of things is the truly dangerous and deceiving thing. Once you know something, you know it... you're right... and when you're wrong, it hits you quite bad. Being wrong because of being led to believe lies, or even worse... doing so without anyone's help. Knowledge is dangerous. Sometimes it's better leave knowledge to those who can not survive without it. Practical people... I'm not all that practical. I don't do things because they're practical. Even though in a way I was raised to do so... and in a way I was raised to not be practical. Depends on what you believe is practical I suppose.

Knowledge is power. But power can either help you or harm you.

To feel is to feel. Once again exactly what it sounds like. Feelings are perhaps even more dangerous than either mentioned above. They take over you in a much worse way than either above. You have to let them... and if you don't, it'll still hurt you. Both ways they'll end up being bad... and in a way still good. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Then again perhaps it's good to just be weak sometimes... Nothing is more dangerous than feelings. Nothing is more impractical than feelings... Perhaps that's one thing that has always attracted me, feelings. I was not taught to have many of those... Be strong, be a hunter... practical and yet working on your instincts. Not feelings though... Instincts are different, and they go against feelings often. I have conflicts... Had them always and probably always will. Then again my conflicts do guide me in a way neither feelings or instincts alone could not.

Feelings are powerful... but they are also something you can't control.


And just how practical am I in the end... And does any of it really matter... I am who I am anyway, and change has never really happened. Nightleaf I once was... then I no longer saw myself worthy and I became mere Avar... a nameless name, name among many others... just not mine. Now however I know I was wrong there... but then again that was just the way Nightleaf changed. Avar is Nightleaf, Nightleaf is Avar. Translation from another language to other, from one time to another, from one man to the same... and from one man's shadow...