Will 'I' come to remember? Or is it best to forget and leave it all behind, never looking back?

After the trauma of the Sundering I suppose I can understand if all is forgotten. At the time my people were seen as gods, blessed with intelligence, longevity, and a certain sight among other things, but that was only Amaurot. Elsewhere it was more common to be born without blessings and be as leaves in the wind, to be called the unblessed and struggle for survival rather than research. Amaurot lent its aid whenever possible but quite often it was not. Either the unblessed could not meet the physical requirements to wield our magicks, or else their will was weak. Destruction born of greed and arrogance would follow in the latter case.

However the unblessed did not seek to understand. They had always feared and envied the powers of Amaurot, then hated us for refusing to lend our true strength to staunch their troubles. So few accepted the fact that they were better off if we took no one's side. Our powers should be used little by ourselves, not to mention the unblessed, even more those in the grip of bitter hatred. At last they turned instead to imitation, specifically that of our dealings with the place known as the Underworld. If they could not be given the power then surely they could summon it to their hands for but a short moment. Just...every now and then. Surely they could. Surely that was safe enough.

It didn't matter when their experiments began with failures and tragedy inflicted on their own people. Then again, I suppose nothing else mattered once they came upon their greatest triumph: The summoning of power from another place. A single mortal Hero became their beacon of hope and was tasked with turning their wishes into reality. As my feet were ever drawn to wander, never mind that my role in Amaurot commanded the action, I heard plenty of this Hero's works and occasionally witnessed them with my own eyes.

Over a period of time this man saved many lives, averted countless sorrows, and harsh trials were overcome one after the other. Cheers and laughter riddled the air. In spite of that a feeling of foreboding would grow each time I laid eyes on the Hero, for what I saw was a tender soul, almost as if a child had been summoned to the body of a man. The Hero had apparently been born in a land of peace where wars were few and far, far away. He had never seen the horrors of the battlefield before, and could not bear living through them firsthand. As I saw the man-child tremble with every life he cleaved from its flesh, I knew. Sooner or later he would break apart.

My suggestion to return the Hero to his home world was spurned with great scorn and half-hidden panic. The unblessed feared the end that would come without him. They claimed that I was one of the 'heartless demons' that had turned them away countless times before so I had no right to interfere with their business. On top of that had the Hero not rejected my concerns himself? He was glad to aid the piteous souls that shed pools of tears at his feet. He would not be so cruel as to abandon them forever!

Quite honestly I was tempted to break the Hero's legs and hold the cursed fool hostage until the unblessed agreed to send him home. I remember informing my friends of this, only to have them overcome with much amusement. My temper, though rarely lost, would always be lost with a vengeance.

...I remember the surprised looks and smiles that they gave. In my ears are the laughter that they tried to hide at first, only to be unleashed at full force a bare moment later. Those were the last glimmers of peace and pure joy that we would ever have. The very last that I would remember.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Time passed, and Amaurot came to notice a strange sound in the depths of our star, something rather odd and disturbing. It gradually reached the creatures living on the surface and spread madness throughout the populations of the unblessed. The most common symptoms were irrational fears that drove the victims to violence, or they would collapse to the ground with acute feelings of loss. Despair. Broken hope. None could be swayed from the belief that their homes and loved ones were far away, too far to ever be reached again, despite the fact that they were right outside their door.

Even Amaurot was struck down, slowly and mildly at first, until our creation magicks preferred to take the form of our fears and go wild. Many were more dumbstruck than panicked by this occurrence. We who were as gods were not supposed to be facing our fears but be lacking them completely. Why did they now appear? Why were they now so real?

My Amaurotine friends sought answers at home while I ventured further afield. Not an easy task considering that both land and sky were aflame at this point. Beneath the screams of fleeing souls there was quiet where tales of the Hero had once reigned, starting with the moment that the strange, madness-inducing sound had been born. It was frustrating to find that those who could tell me the truth were either dead or mad. More difficult was the goal of finding the few brave souls that would and could speak the truth to me, but my companions and I did find them in the end.

Their stories told me that some time ago the Hero had begun to have problems with his memory. He could not recall the appearance of his original world, nor the faces of his loved ones there, not even his own name, or at least not the one he had at his birth. Each time he tried to recall the past nightmares of the battlefield and cries for salvation drowned it all out. Wherever he turned for succor the Hero only encountered hands that turned him about and pushed him back towards the battlefield. The more he wished to rest, the more displeased and worried the unblessed became.

One withered and frightened man babbled to us a story about how the Hero was tricked into a cursed tower. He then became the tower itself, sending out his energies to mechanical golems that guarded the people in his place. As unbelievable as the tales were we had nothing else to go on. Cities were searched until we found a strange tower where the Hero was imprisoned within. Not an easy task considering that both land and sky seemed to be aflame.

Fragmented tales spoke of a holy tower at first, later changing the plot to a cursed tower that was closer to the truth. Inside were traces of a summoning chamber where the unblessed had called forth the Hero years ago, and that is where they came to imprison him in the end. He was forced to merge with tower and machine to lend his power to the golems outside, suffering the effect of being crystallized as he did so.

It must have produced a terrible pain, yet the Hero was conscious enough to beg for aid. Tradition and necessity forced me to deny it much as my people always had. His body and even his soul had been warped by the work of the machines, warped beyond hope of repair. The blackguards responsible for his condition had actually committed such sacrilege, and it was too late even for Amaurot's magicks to do some good. I could not aid him without knowing how to do so safely.

It was hardly a surprise that the Hero was most unhappy and raged at me with all the strength that he had left. He ranted and raved, abruptly grew silent, then randomly grew furious again, this time at beings that weren't even there. He sobbed like a child and wished to go home. On occasion he cursed us to suffer the same fate as his own. We should suffer as he had and lose home, direction, respite and memory, but never the yearning to have it all back.

I confess that my companions and I did not listen as closely as we should have. Each time the Hero's emotions surged it became easier to track the flow of his power. We realized that he was feeding not only the golems but also leaking into the leylines that reached deep into the earth. He himself was the source of the strange sound driving us to madness. It was none other than his cries of fury and hate that transformed his power into a curse, one that twisted man and nature into grievous forms. Unless his resentment was appeased it would not end. He would never let it end. Suffer as he did, he cursed us, again and again and again.

During one fleeting moment of calm the Hero thanked me for having tried to divert his path. He regretted having lent his aid to anyone. After those words he reverted to madness and forced away my companions and myself with his destructive rage. We could not breach his defenses without wasting a great deal of time and energy. It was agreed that we would separate long enough to gather resources and inform our peoples of what we had learned. Then we could approach the Hero anew with help at our backs.

In my case, however, I found Amaurot in a state of unprecedented terror. My people spoke of sacrificing our own to create a power to end the calamities caused by the Hero, and much to my disbelief they were serious about it. The more I asked of them not to walk the path of sacrifice, or at least not rush blindly into it, the more distressed they became. I tried to tell them that this path could go on and on until nothing, no one, was left, but they would not listen. They shook their heads and refused to accept that possibility. They claimed that this one method was guaranteed to work and all others seemed to terrify them.

I suppose there really is no use in blaming them for that. At that time they were so afraid, so lost in a state of mind that we just weren't used to. Many believed that I was preventing their salvation on purpose. I tried to speak with the Convocation but they were preparing the summons with which to kill the Hero in his tower prison. Something about it was not right. When I attempted to give chase the peoples left behind turned their fears upon a single target: Me. Concepts and steel alike were flung against my body without restraint. As I did not wish to harm them I failed to use my full strength and suffered grievous injuries, but I did succeed in making my way to the Hero's tower where the Convocation was gathered.

Shadows and power were bursting from the summoning chamber, knocking me to the floor where I could not rise, certainly not with my injuries. My attackers rushed in and raised a storm of noise about a battle between myself and the Hero's last birthing of demonic beasts. The only truth they uttered was how my life was hanging over the abyss of death.

Amidst their lies I thought I heard a familiar voice say something about steering our people-or maybe it was our fate-back onto the correct course and make everything as it was before. Something inside me warned that regardless of what took place, that was a future that would never come to pass. Many hands dragged me out as I fought in vain to respond, to stop the Convocation from sacrificing their lives like this. No one heard me try to warn them of the ominous form I saw in the center of the storm, and no one else seemed to see it either.

Zodiark came, and our world was dully cleansed of the Hero and his works. The planet ceased to rain fire and crumble. This I only heard of since I had been thrown into a prison of my own and left to die. My untreated wounds kept me weak as I heard tales of the Hero's curse being ended, except nothing went back to the way they were. The absence of madness made it easier to see the worn, fractured thing that our world had become. The remainder of the Convocation thought of using Zodiark a second time and with the same means as before, by way of sacrificing many lives.

An opposing group discovered that I still lived despite news to the contrary. They set me free with the hope that I would support them in stopping Zodiark to prevent further sacrifices, further deaths. They showed me how my surviving friends had turned into puppets that were possessed by a newfound devotion to Zodiark and nothing else. No one showed much interest in the fact that I was alive rather than dead, or were roused by the memories I tried to invoke in them. With every step they took I found myself losing my precious friends more and more.

Nevertheless I refused the choice of summoning to bring an end to Zodiark. Every path suggested was still a path that called for sacrifice, and that was something I couldn't understand. Had all those lives been saved only to be used and lost like this? We should have been able to come with dozens of possibilities, hundreds and even thousands of them, yet we seemed to be trapped with this one choice. I myself could not find an alternative. No one really tried to. There was simply no way out.

Not too long after I refused to join either side, word came to me that a certain friend had separated himself from Zodiark. He had returned from the abyss! I knew not how or why but I did not care for details at that moment. Naturally I rushed to reunite with him, but it seemed as though all of Amaurot rushed to stand against me. Again.

Whenever there came a moment where only a killing blow would have sufficed, I hesitated. Time and time again my body would freeze in mid-action. Their faces were unrecognizable, void of the contentment that had been there long ago, and my cries for understanding were met with grim silence. The crazed panic thad driven them before had been replaced with cold determination. I was for certain their enemy. I had to die.

Yet I could not return the feeling in kind. As the battle raged I caught a glimpse of the young friend that had somehow returned. I reached for him but was struck down by my friends, my neighbors, my companions. With all the miracles we had accomplished before our ending should have been so different. I thought of that as my eyes dimmed for good. The last that I saw was the summoning of Hydaelyn, then her clash with Zodiark and how we all...shattered.

Strangely I continued to act the observer despite the Sundering. I saw how a number of my dearest friends survived whole, and their service to Zodiark was second only to their desire to restore our home. For that reason they ruined a number of worlds, plotted and schemed, tricked and tempted, and the countless lives who knew nothing faded into just that. Nothing. I saw the Sundered as innocent beings who did not serve to become mortar and clay, having done no harm and being ignorant of the past. My friends and their comrades made it clear that they did not hold the same opinion.

If only there had been another way back then. If only they did not take the same view as the unblessed and care little for what was lost, or rather what could be lost in future days. If only my friends could see another way to be together again. See the hope that says your way is not the only one. Don't hurt them. Talk with them. Work with them. Give love and be loved in return. The future may be different from what one desires, but that doesn't make it any less full of joy and promise.

Why can't you see this? Why must 'I' be the one to cut you down every time? Would you forgive 'me' if you knew the face behind the mask? Did 'I' truly feel nothing upon carrying out your death sentence? The questions echo unanswered as I tread upon these mirrored waters. A silent observer to their never-ending dream, because a dream can hardly end if it never comes true.

It seems that another aspect of myself has joined with the core. Soon 'I' may come to know of the danger that managed to survive the Sundering as well, perhaps because he orchestrated it from the start. I can see him lay his eye, displeased, upon the place where hope outweighs persists the most. His revenge is not supposed to go like this. It's entirely possible that 'I' will be induced to remember the past because of him, or maybe not. I wonder if it would be of any use, really.

"You risked censure for mere fruit!"

"Those grapes are their pride, Hades. Their culture revolves around the growth and harvest of those mere fruit. Small as it is, should those people have perished an entire civilization would have been lost."

"Had you put it that way before the Convocation you might have not risked censure at all."

"But there was no time. Furthermore everyone talks as you do. It's so easy to lose sight of the value in small things."

"I can never know you to be a fool or a rare-What are you doing?"

"Forgive me, but in return for his favor Hythlodaeus bade me grant one favor in return."

"Ah, my dearest Azem, you have captured our quarry!"

"What? Unhand me!"

"Now, now, Hades, do set yourself at ease. Behold, I have brought our favorite victuals and a most comfortable sheet to eat them upon."

"You are daft to believe that I would suffer such frivolity."

"True, but my journeys have taught me to prepare for the worst. Ahem. Hades, Emet-Selch, honorable member of the Convocation, dare you say no...to THIS face!"

"...Elidibus?"

"Er, hello. Greetings. Pray tell, what is happening?"

"They call it a 'picnic', emissary. An outdoor meal to be enjoyed at leisure with close companions. Thus I have endeavored to kidna-Er, convey you with all due haste to this rare gathering."

"Oh? Oh! What a quaint and wonderful idea. However, does this not take time away from your duties? I hear that you are to embark on yet another journey, Azem. You have but returned briefly to submit a report, have you not?"

"Well, yes, but the rains have ceased, and we have been graced with yet another beautiful day. We should all be here to see it."

I suppose some things should be remembered even if they do cause suffering.

Let the past remain the past and the future unwritten. I will be here, waiting, for the day that 'I' remember all.