[Pyro]

A pocket-sized black book bound in leather and smelling distinctly of ozone and iron. The writing within is, unless otherwise specified, painfully neat. Almost like it was machined.

I. A reflection of self

    It has been approximately eight hundred and thirty-two and a half days since my awakening and somewhere drawing upon three hundred since I discussed with my sister the concept of writing thoughts in a journal. My dallying has taken far too long, and now it is time I put thought to pen, and pen to paper.

In these two years, the discovery of self has become my primary focus upon this green earth. I have tread every continent and dined upon its wildlife. Savored the flavors of their blood and the richness of their meat. I have breathed their air and listened to their culture from afar, an interloper in the guise of a god-blessed. I have been made witness to what it is that makes a man good and what makes a man bad. Seen the broken and destitute, and broken bread with the frivolous and rich. I have broken hearts and bones, and then mended them all the same. Played the part of a noblewoman and knight. Danced about in plate too heavy to be considered useful, that which I woke up within and have steadily soaked in my blood and sweat, and even the tears I still do not understand.

Yet, what do I have to show for it? Who was I, and who am I?

When I look in the mirror, I see the face of a corpse of someone I do not know, and will never know. I have seen someone with my exact features and felt fear, knowing that my existence is a farce cobbled together from the divine earth, a body taken from some street, and the blood of twelve beasts. I stand in a mirror and shape my expression like I see people wear when they are out living their lives. I smile and see the maw of teeth that will spell the end for years to come. I shed tears, and feel nothing. I contort my features in anger, yet I do not know what someone is supposed to look like while angry. I could squish them together and force my lips into a snarl, letting the world see all-consuming jaws that they rightfully fear. Yet, my face does not naturally contort so. Nor am I able to craft my expression into such. People are afraid to be angry around a pretty face like mine. Or my meek appearance. Or they are soothed. Or I stand at the back and watch. Anger is a feeling I cannot fully express, yet I feel it boiling within me like a great serpent that will inevitably uncoil and hurt someone I care about. I feel the joy of breaking someone's limbs soothe it. I feel the joy of having my ribcage shattered by a Dullahan, and that only causes it to rise higher and higher. I know not when it will reach its crescendo, only that my blood burns hotter and hotter and hotter, and my body continues to heal despite all the pain I endure. I broke my hand on Garrett's armor and it healed within the week. I thought that was the crescendo, but it was only an expression of my desire to inflict unadulterated pain upon another in the heat of combat. I wanted to stick my claws through his visor and let him feel the sting. Let him know sharp pain and not the dull clanging that goes through his body when someone batters that indomitable plate. But. I also like Garrett. I still have the flower from my second visit to Dormeho, when he showed me the park.

Yet, I also feel the same way for my sister. She towers over me. She trains me and has tended to me while I have had my body battered and my back broken. Lingering within, I feel a desire to hurt her and my other siblings. To feel them cower beneath me. Shiver. Shake. With pain. I know that pain is what they will grow from. Learn from. Every ounce of pain is a new opportunity to learn, to grow. Yet they are also not the vessels of change made of divine mud. I could hurt them and they would hurt for years. They could hurt me, and I would hurt for weeks. I feel my spellcasting grow more and more with my rising anger and desire to inflict lasting pain. The poison becomes stronger. The flames of death burn hotter. To see someone afflicted by my curses brings an otherworldly joy that nothing in this plane can match.

But there are still pains that sting even when the body is healed. The pain of the mind. Love is a harsh, addictive thing. I hate it. I hate it. I hate all these feelings. I hate human feelings because they cannot be controlled or healed like the body. I cannot drink a potion and make my longing go away. I cannot drink a potion and have a childhood. I cannot drink a potion and make my desire to cry and scream and shout go away. I don't know why I cry. I don't like crying. I can cry as I desire, but it doesn't make a difference. When I cry from feelings it stings and hurts and the muscles in my face twitch and I cannot stop them, and I cannot stop the crying when it happens. I do it when nobody can see so they won't know I am weak like that. I don't want their comfort. But I want their warmth. And I want their comfort. But they won't know how to help me. And I don't know how to help them. It makes my body numb and my limbs tingle when I see Red crying and I don't know what to do and I panic and I stop and I have to think and I don't have a solution. I can only hold her and pet her hair. I am afraid of people that cry.

That's enough. I hate this.

---

II. A reflection on Humanity

    In spite of my previous distaste for notation of my thoughts, I have decided to try once more, with a more collected approach.

During my time wandering the Six, I have been witness to all sorts of men, both good and bad. And every time, I must ask myself, what is it that defines good and bad? I have attempted to decipher this, but come to no absolute conclusion. For a time, I suspected that it may simply have to do with cultural standards. Yet, even that did not seem right. Delving even further, I tried to discover what makes someone 'bad' and someone outright 'evil.' Were a hero to do something deplorable, would they be considered evil? Or merely bad? Can you be good, and evil? Are they contradictory states of being?

When I look upon myself, and my own actions, where do I fall? I threw myself at the raging Dullahan Rodrick in Greilland to defend the injured lying on the ground, for they could not withstand their barrages as I could. Yet, I also derived excitement and overwhelming joy from having an opponent who would bruise the arm that wields my shield and shatter the armor I wore. Does this make me bad, to have gained something in the process? An understanding of self? Would I have been considered a hero, or just another adventurer seeking thrills? Or is this merely my duty, as one who carries a shield?

When I gazed into the empty eyes of the children on Lordwain, I felt nothing. I reached out and incinerated it without a second thought because I knew they were cruel, vicious mockeries of what an actual human was. I could feel eyes piercing my back as I stood before it, the entirety of the collective of adventurers watching me. And yet, none judged my actions, at least not outright. None took issue with the fact I did not hesitate to kill these children. Does this make me bad? Was I a hero for slaying the monster, 'evil' for not even registering them on my emotional radar?

What of when we saw their memories, and I felt a burning, deep envy within? To know that they had childhoods to enjoy. Parents that loved them. It made my rage bubble and boil and my blood heat like molten metal. And I desired nothing more than to crush their tiny skulls under my boot because I knew they could not stop me, and I could wipe their memories from this earth. But it did not make me feel any better about my own envy. I only sought to keep hurting them for existing. When they touched me, I felt disgusted. Like I had stuck my hand in muck and could not pull it free. I slammed my shield into its head so hard I felt bones crackle and snap, and that did not alleviate my feelings. I froze them and shattered them and doused them in poison, and even that did not help. 

I spoke to Connor later that day. I don't think he knows how I really feel. But he didn't think I did the wrong thing by killing them. And still, I have second thoughts.

[Pyro]

III. The Right of Power


   What does it mean, to be born with power? Do you owe a debt to your creator? To the world? When a homunculus is created, do they earn the right to wield their power, or even their creator's?

   Is it the right of one given power to use it, or should they restrict themselves based on the preconceptions of others? Where does right meet responsibility?

When I was created, I knew how to draw a bow before I remembered how to walk. To string it if it were broken before I took my first breath after being drawn from the void of un-life. I rose off the operating table and I clattered to the floor in a pile of armor plating and my own body. My legs did not want to listen and my tongue did not agree with my jaw even in the common language. I looked up at my sister expectantly and she did not help me to my feet. So I laid there for the next several minutes, a struggling soul against a body that did not like being commanded. When I rose, I was fed. Like a dog.

Soon introduced to my other siblings, I was scolded for my lack of manners. Understandable, I suppose. But it stuck with me. Over the next week, before I was set upon my work, I spent much time in the courtyard of home with a bow and many, many arrows. I could feel the hints of memories in my mind; the thoughts that did not belong to me but were instead stolen from my father. His magic was mine, yet I did not properly understand how to wield it wholly. He may have given me the knowledge enough to use magical arrows and the like, but the darker arts were still locked away. Seeking a catalyst to be freed.

Such catalyst would come with utter humiliation. I was a mediocre archer at best. I could run. I could hide. I could shoot arrows, but none of those made me good. To be thrashed in the arena and humiliated in front of spectators. To tackle my brother to the ground and begin beating him until my sister kicked me in the ribcage. These were the beginnings of the growing anger within my blood. And in a way, I suppose I am thankful. My fear and meek attitude turned to hatred, and that fueled my father's teachings. To hex and curse, to see someone tremble and shake beneath my boot because I had filled their body with poison and their mind with terror. The idea grew with great excitement within me. And I asked my sister if this was wrong, and she said you could not be wrong in fighting. I took up the spear, and I learned that to let blood by hand was much more satisfying than to use a mere arrow. The impact of the blade piercing plate caught on bone and severing muscles as it passed through. The scent of blood so close to my hands. To see it dripping down the searing blade, sizzling and filling the air with the scent of iron. Fuel for an even greater desire to fight.

I must ask myself with my growing power, stolen from my father; does this belong to me? Am I skilled, or am I merely playing mimicry of his greatness? Was I not to be using this power, would I be wasting the potential he instilled in my body? Is it my right as his creation to wield such power and use it to crush my enemies? I believe it is my responsibility to advance his work and utilize what I was given to grow in strength.

Would he be proud of me?

[Pyro]

IV. True Freedom

    What is the truest definition of freedom? Without conjecture and bias, pain and pragmatism? The preconceptions of those born today, and those born a thousand years ago?

    Is it something we can acquire within the surly bonds of physical form and earthly spirit, or must we reach past the veil of life into nothing to become truly free?


I had a dream a year ago. Or perhaps it was a year and a half when the butterfly still wandered in its hunt. A time short for many, but half my life thus far. A time when my rising anger was nothing more than gutwrenching anxiety and fear. The beginning of what and who I am today. My brother and I stood in the arena, the sky and trees and grass ablaze and turned to glass by the sheer inferno that surrounded our dance of death, for I knew he would kill me if I lost and I knew I would kill him if he lost. It was simply fated by that point. Words had long since been lost to the primal grunts of battle. The sweat and blood that filled the air and splattered the ground. My armor tarnished and my body battered. My perfect skin marred with black burns and blue bruises, plate dented and worthless. His form scratched, burned, bruised like mine. I could see where my spear had struck true. His blood had sizzled and his skin had cooked. 

A parry. A strike from the side. The world spun and sickness overtook my skull after the felling of a blade's blunt back against my helmet. I panicked and faltered, my knees gave out. I dropped to them in the mixture of dirt and glass we had created from the ground, and I stared up at the looming shadow of my brother. I felt twisting fear, anxiety and terror. Quelled rage and shrill desire to deliver him to pain.

And then... He cleaved. And I felt not pain, nor shrill, primal feelings, but relief. Not the masochistic ecstasy a true monster feels at being felled, but the relief of my bonds being released. My arm severed from my body, the red hot blood filling the air with screeching steam. Yet, I did not panic. I had entered a sense of serenity unlike any other. The gap that divided life from void bridged, and I felt myself linger between it as the weight of armor and limb fell from my form. And so, the dream ended with bliss, and not chaos. For it is the body that binds us here and gives our souls weight. Something only the living may feel and, in turn, embrace. For it is this weight that holds our forms to this green earth and gives us meaning. To toil is to live, yet to be in ecstasy is to live as well. With purpose comes the lack of.

Yet, this is only a dream. But I have felt the gap between life and death bridged as the blood seeped from my wounds on the fields of Lordwain, and the white abyss of Purgatory, or the halls of Greilland, crimson seeping from my mouth and filling my sabatons. I have felt the chill touch of the other side and embraced it, but yet, not in full. Come to understand that there is pain in living, but not death. Yet, it is this pain that also gives us meaning to exist. Every ounce of it is an opportunity to learn.

To answer my previous question, I have discovered that a man is defined by his actions in the end, rather than the beginning. His legacy which carries on from this world to the next. He may slaughter and maim and kill and be called evil, but if he gives his life protecting the innocent, forgiveness is granted for he can no longer change what he is, only pass to the other side. Yet, this also applies to good men doing bad things. A hero who decapitates the bandit feeding his family by stealing bread is the villain, plain and true, for that is how he is defined in that moment. 

What is it, to change? Can we truly be different from how we were crafted by this world, molded by the touch of a cruel father and saved from hellfire by the gentle touch of a mother?

[Pyro]

V. Death

    When I pass from this world, I want to be burned on a pyre. So that I may be remembered as I was, and not what I will be.

    My spirit will be retained, and the future will hold untold mystery.


I will pass my knowledge as my father did unto me.

[Pyro]

VI. Lurking Highlands

    When presented with opportunity, one is faced with two choices; pursuit, and sedation. If one were to not chase an opportunity granted once in their life, do they condemn themselves and waste what has been gifted? Or are they considered sound and mindful?

I have come to a conclusion as I continue my studies; I am stifled by my own knowledge. Or, lack thereof. In pursuit of the future and the advancement of power beyond what I hold now, I decided to trace old trails which I had not wandered in months. The countryside of Kysei, befitting for my ilk. A mage clad in dark cloak and pointed hat weaving across paths like a specter. The march made without heels. I loathe the sensation of high heels after a long day, even if they keep my posture fine. Crossing into the slums of Karaten I grew familiar with my surroundings and was not hassled by the rabble, for they knew better than to approach the higher ilk I posed as. Eyes of daggers and a low head. I crossed the alchemist's shop and weaved my way further and further. 

And when I finally entered the Highlands I sought and remembered, there was naught. I traced my steps from many months prior and remembered where I had been with my trio of companions, the wracked earth proving a welcoming sight to serve as a landmark. And when I realized I was where I needed to be most of all, the next step in my plan to bring forth the being of poison maw and blood. I appeared next to a deer and left a harsh pain down its hind, allowing it to scream into the sky, and my efforts were rewarded with the appearance of the one I sought. His rugged looks; that eyepatch, blonde locks. When he realized there was not danger but only myself, the Wyvern invited him into his cave. It had begun to grow dark, after all. And things more fierce than myself clambered the land in silence; wyverns, mostly. Something I am not yet suited to battle.

Once in His cave, the Wyvern invited me to sit, and we got to speaking. I had worn a very particular dress that hugs the form but drapes and glitters, a perfectly dark but bright highlight for my porcelain skin. I knew, of course, this would draw his attention. But when we began to actually discuss, I soon discovered a great distaste for my own games. I had grown to realize how little I actually cared for playing with heartstrings and the idea of love, and it soured my stomach and heart. So I soon made my intentions more obvious to the man, as to not drag him along. And he soon stated that it would not be possible for me to learn the Draconian tongue, for my tongue was, unfortunately, not crafted in such a manner as to speak it. So I decided that I must either study the tongues of Wyverns to remodel my own, or take their gift from them with my own nature. To advance and become stronger, unrelenting, and understanding. 

And when the moon hung high over Kysei, and a dinner of ewe served, we talked deeper. And I grew to understand the Wyvern and his past, and that I shared great similarities with his upbringing, but his was not the path mine would go, for his was without freedom to begin with. And I was not as tragic as I thought. I dug too deep for an initial meeting and hurt him, but I told him of my own existence, and he naturally grew curious. The third eye which sees stars and alignments draws the attention of the curious inevitable.

I soon slumbered. He gave me his bed; and slept upon a pile of gold like it was from a story. Charming, even with the great wings of a beast and a maw of flame and poison.

The next morning, breakfast was served and meat was had. I was happy, frankly. The freedom from stress of studies, work, binding of thoughts for others and without the chance of discovery. I was alone with a kind person, and I wouldn't have traded that for anything. Over breakfast, we talked further, and he asked me a question.

"Do you wish for freedom?"

And I told him,

"No, I don't want for freedom, because I have taken it for myself. And if anyone were to try and steal it away from me, I would step on their throat."

But it is in reflection that I realized I told him yet another lie. I was not a noble. I was not of a house. And I most certainly did not have my freedom. I still belonged to someone; some thing. The Company. And I feel a peculiar rage boiling inside me when I realize that I had not wretched freedom from the grasp of my oppressor but simply laid down arms and pretended to be sweet and innocent to avoid their ire. In a way, I feel a fraud. And in another, I know that to be true, for it is the basis of my existence that I commit fraud of self and of others.

If I am to become my truest self, I must step on my Master's head until I feel metal snap. And I must not allow myself to be bound by anyone or any thing.

The next day and a quarter were a blur. I was out after another breakfast, under watchful gaze.

[Pyro]

VII. Present & Future

The curtain call has drawn upon the Company, and so the stage has been pulled out from its members. Over a hundred varied Homunculi have been scattered to the wind without form nor function because secrets have been laid low. And in some ways, I feel pity for them. In others, not an ounce. I feel no sorrow nor sadness for the siblings who saw fit to toss me into this world when I was naught but weeks old. An overwhelming anger and hatred exist within my heart; a desire to see revenge carried out upon them and their ruin brought forth. I would draw forth a hundred curses to carve upon their very bodies for those that abandoned me so. I feel nothing for them because if I were to offer them my love and compassion I would be abandoned once more. And I cannot accept being left by another. My heart has grown calloused and jaded and my feelings harsh and vengeful. 

It would be so easy to care for them. It takes great energy and mental fortitude to hate them so. To desire failure and downfall for those I once called my siblings, to continue to writhe in that which brings forth the most sickly of feelings. It is challenging because there is something within me that wants them to live long and fulfilling lives, but it is not those feelings that drive my blade or fuel my hexes. It is hate. It is sorrow. It is malice and malevolence which makes me strong. To purge the weakness from body and soul I must continue to harden my heart. No more will I be abandoned by those I hold close to me. No more will I feel the harsh sting of a partner without love. No more will I show mercy to those who would see fit to deliver me unto hardship. Those who would run and hide and cower like Ignis.

I have realized that this power is not my father's. My true father's, either. The power which I bask in is mine and mine alone, that which I have torn from this world and taken to better myself. Humiliation. Cowardice. Fear. No longer will I be tormented by these feelings when I realize that it is the spirit of the self that drives you, which is why I grow increasingly perturbed and judgemental of those adventurers and their obsession with the Ten of Greilland. Their continued revelry and worship of these dead or possessed figures will spell their downfall and I will watch those who placed their trust in higher powers falter for their own failure.

When we engaged the enemy upon their step at the throat of the mines and the Redtail, Tai, wanted to dance around and avoid the idea of destroying the mineshaft to prevent further spread of the Stagnant through that focal point. And it is this sort of overly optimistic hope that will bring ruin to those working to deliver Greilland from its strife. We fought and we bled and we continued to fight because there was no longer choice for us in this direst of situations, because the Stagnant continued to pour forth from this wound upon the earth. And we continued to bleed time after time again, strength burgeoning from the miasma of emotion that brings forth both weakness and strength in droves. I heard cries of those who had long died in my ears and those of my allies shouting For Greilland and a sour sensation filled my stomach. An utter sickness at the uncanny naivety, even as daunting and otherworldly power filled our souls. It would not, and will not be these blessings that bring both us and Greilland itself from ruins. They are unreliable; they are occasional and to pray for their return time and time again would force one to become reliant and pitiful. Weak and gullible.

I watched Connor's fire burn and blaze even hotter and even higher; brighter and brighter. The guiding star. Something outdoing my strength and power, driving onwards into the horde without care nor caution. Shrugging off blow after blow and exploding with flaming might because he felt some sort of hope in him. Some sort of acknowledgment that there were things greater that aided him. And it made my blood boil because I could not understand these feelings as they made him stronger and stronger, seething rage and jealousy developing within me. Even as Arden the First appeared, the tides of illness poured off me in spades and withered grass. Even as he drew his sword I continued to fight and fight and fight to prove my point; that we should not rely upon these chance happenings, and even Arden confirmed my own dogma. It is only us who can decide who we are, and it is through that resolution that we grow stronger and powerful. And it is the only way we will overcome what stands in our way.

We cannot become dependent upon these miracles; it is only through the resolute soul that one can achieve victory.