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Storyline Update: A Hero's Welcome |
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I... I failed.
Again.
Ariana was right. Worse: Lucifer was right. It's true: no matter how many petty thieves I take down, and no matter how many times I thrust myself into harm's way, putting myself in the perfect position to dig further, I always come up empty-handed. But this time, empty-handed would have been welcome.
I got up. That's the only credit I can give myself. Despite the absolute humiliation I'd been through that week, I took the pain, sacrificed my clothes to slow the bleeding, and I walked back to the infirmary with the support of my pitchfork. I didn't want to go back there, but a hospital wasn't a choice, either. I don't want the police finding out about all this. Not if I can avoid it.
I've never said this before, but I could use a drink. I've got memories to erase if I'm going to shove on. I'm going to have to at least numb them, because I don't think I've escaped my recent past just yet. I don't know how I'm going to tell Amu that my only lead on Lucifer is the one who tried to kill me, but I'm going to have to.
...Maybe that should wait. Maybe, instead of worrying about the jack of spades, I should consider the other paper I have in my possession: directions. To Valdus, as Ariana suggested. Maybe if I'd gone there first and trained with Amu, none of this would have happened. We could have been well on our way, picking through the Marketplace again--the clean path--like we've done for over a year now. Right. No, infiltrating the mob was a reasonable idea. Of course it made sense to track down Lucifer from the other side, and who was to know when the opportunity would arise again? No... It's not that decision I should be regretting. It's what I did when I got in. Who I went after.
Have my confessions been this disheartened before? I've felt like a failure before, sure, but never have I felt so trapped. I'm going to have to track my own attempted killer down again, and there's a million reasons why I don't want to. I'm humiliated. I'm injured. I'm completely disadvantaged. I'm heartbroken. I just don't think I can do it.
But then, who am I if I give up on the one chance I have? If I were going to do that... I should have just laid on the ground and bled out to death. If anything, I owe it to myself to choke through this. Certainly I owe it to Gaia. I promised them a hero. I'd better start acting like one.
Ky and Amus Outrage · Sat Aug 24, 2013 @ 02:34am · 0 Comments |
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