Memory hurt.

Nuawahn could remember fragments of war and strife. He had survived two wars and many other horrors of violence and despair, despite his innocence and physical weakness. The fear and terror and uncomprehending pain of these moments glittered like gems in his mind, much like shattered crystal. They were stark and painful, memories he might have wanted to forget, but he had spent so long in endless forgetfulness that he was grateful for any memories he had. Even these.

Nuawahn had fought. He had been trampled beneath the feet of monsters. He had been captured. He had been hurt. He had fought again. All Nuawahn wanted – all he ever wanted - was to be happy, and for others to be happy. But, it seemed, bad things followed him wherever he went. Other people kept being hurt – dying – around him. That was the pattern of his memories, terrible messes of sadness, sickness, pain, and betrayal. Was this what he ran from when his feet carried him to the next horizon, this past of pain?

~~~

He had betrayed someone in Oba, long ago. That memory was blurred and incomplete, but the feeling was strong. He had been driven by fear, and had opposed someone he cared about. Who had it been? He did not remember. It had been so long ago... Had they ever forgiven him? Were they even alive? These were the sorts of questions he had not been able to ask, all those years ago. The fog had eaten his questions along with his answers. Without them, he had been nothing.

He had returned to Oba at some point, amidst a council of war. He knew that was what it was, now, but at the time, he had been blissfully unaware. He had been seeking someone... had he ever found them? He had found others on the battlefield, friends that he could remember only as bursts of companionship in a sunless sea of uncertainty, their names and faces forgotten.

It would be different now, with his medicine. He would remember everything. Would he want to, though? That was the question.

He had no choice. He could not go back to the fog. Better to remember all the pain and suffering than to forget everything. Better to remember sadness than to forget his own name.

~~~

Nuawahn remembered the potions. How long had he sat in the tents that had smelled of sweat and hide and herbs, grinding ingredients into powder and cooking potions for the Obans? Too long. He had been a good little prisoner for the Obans, he had done everything that they asked. They had pushed him around. They had struck him. Everything he had done for them edged on the border of being wrong, and he had lived in fear of their punishment and hope of their praise.

A good little servant. Given time, they probably would have broken him, turned him into a perfect, obedient, good little slave. It would not have been hard to finish what they had started; Nuawahn would have done anything to avoid the punishment of darkness, the terror they had inflicted on him once and would inflict again, if he wronged them. He needed the light, and so he did as they asked. He bowed to their will.

As he wandered Tendaji, even when the fog had been strong and had nibbled at his reason, Nuawahn had hesitated before entering the desert lands. The brown faces and blazing orange gems scared him, even now. And yet, he still walked through their lands on occasion. Many times, he knew, he had found himself in the desert, the hot sand burning his feet, their food tingling on his lips...

Their fists beating him, senselessly, into a wall...

He would probably return there again, soon, but whenever he passed the threshold between it and the other lands, he would forever freeze, paralyzed by memory. It was inevitable. Not even the fog could devour that fear.

~~~

Not all Obans had been cruel. She had not, certainly. He remembered her - An Oban, long ago. She had been nice to him. Kind. Her name had been eaten by the fog, but he could, just barely, remember her face.

She had been a swordswoman in the battle, fighting against the... what could he call them? The others? The allies? Tendaji? He never thought in terms of 'us' and 'them', he had not really been thinking of the battle itself, only his part in it and his desperate need to make sense of the chaos in the only way he knew how – with his magic.

He was a healer, and so he had healed her. His magic had strengthened her body and sped her steps, had knitted her wounds and protected her from harm. He had tried so hard to help her, and in the end, that had kept her safe. She was alive because of him, and she had appreciated it. She had told him as much. Was she a friend? Nuawahn did not know. He did not know if he had ever seen her again.

His magic was for helping and healing, and when he could use it that way, he was happy. Even when the world was falling apart around him, his magic could bring joy. It has been that way in the Alkidike battle as well – his magic had bolstered other people, had even saved them. He had not understood why there was fighting, or who was really fighting whom, but he had understood his part in the fight. He was a healer, a bringer of safety and aid. The fog could not eat that identity, and it was strong now, gleaming like a beacon of hope amidst the shards of pain. He was a good person.

Right?

~~~

Nuawahn was not a killer. War to a warrior was what they did, their duty. Why else would someone fight if not to kill?

What did war mean to someone who did not kill? Fear, certainly. Pain and injury, for himself and others. Hatred and betrayal and other unpleasant things.

Nuawahn did not like war.

Except, he was a killer, wasn't he.

He had killed before. In the mountain cave, alone save for the beast healer, he had cradled the limp form of the capramel who had cared for him for all his life, a beast that had been more his mother than his mother ever had been. She had led him through the fog, carried him through Jahuar, saved his life. He had loved her.

She had been dying, yes, but he had ended her life.

It was so that she would not suffer, but that did not change his guilt. And if he was guilty about killing her, the way she was, how would he feel about killing another person? Before they were suffering?

He did not want to think about that. He refused to think about that.