Chornicles of the Black Wolf - Dreyco's Journal

[Dreyco]

The only consistency in this world is change. That is how it always has been, and that is how it always will be.

I have seen my children grow up so fast that it can hardly be said to have happened at all.

I have witnessed the events of my life scream by day after day, city to city, friend to friend, alliance to alliance.

Sometimes I can't help but feel like begging for the wagon to stop its turbulent, out of control ride down the hillside. At the same time, however, what fun would life be if it did?

I've lived for five-hundred years now, and i've never written anything down.

It's time to change that.

[Dreyco]

So many events have come and gone over the last few days that it grows harder to keep track of them all.

My swearing to Isaera's cause, and through that, finally, acceptance. A group of people who understands. No longer feeling like I have to run and hide, or the crippling worry that grips me day in, day out, of being in the wrong place at a very unfortunate time.

That is how it always was, back when I was a denizen of Qeynos, I had to walk on fragile shells, feeling as though instead however that my scaled feet were treading upon the whole of their predecessor before and that one false move would bring nothing short of disaster.. Even then, one cracked, spewing the rather pugnant stench of rotten, foul betrayal. A threat to alert the Qeynos Guard. A friend lost. A need to flee once again.

Perhaps he felt good about himself for doing the right thing. I wonder if there is any guilt for what he did, or if he rocks himself in front of his alter to the Peacebringer for the terrible injustice that he brought a simple man. A man only trying to live at the time.

Those times are gone.

Now, near a year later, I am able to retrospect. Is it believable that the definitions of good and evil upon this miserable little planet are as perverted as some Western Freeport District sleeper? Those who claim to be good punishing honorable choices made while harboring murderers. Those who claim to be evil showing tolerance that Qeynos could not. How amazing is that. Or is it even surprising at all.

To me anymore, it is not.

Even now, one of their barking dogs is sniffing out my trail, claiming that I am responsible for a massacre. The irony. I wonder if her cognitive dissonance is giving her reason to pursue so that she doesn't feel as guilty for biting the throat out of that innocent man. She seeks now to punish me. In that, I will reward her... by ending her pain.

This is a time that I am tired of being chased. A time that I am tired of being pursued. Of being threatened. Of sitting idly. This is a time that I am now sick of fearing for my wife, my children, and now my blood brother, an old friend that I met and trained with long ago whom he and I have agreed to support one another as family.

I'm not going to anymore.

They hate me, they fear me, because I am a werewolf.

They will face more than just a mangy beast if they dare to cross me.

They will face the man behind him.

Their expression will be the judge of which is more terrifying: their features locked in terror as they breathe their last.

Hunt me.
And Face the Hunter.

[Dreyco]

Telis is afraid. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to act. He doesn't understand which is right or wrong.

Perhaps I can understand his conflict. But only the naieve would dare see good in terrible people such as the one he tries to defend: People who can't control their compulsions, their urges, and their desires to any extent beyond what their vicious instincts dictate.

You were a man who stood by me before. Why not anymore. You know just what she is doing. I told it straight to you when we met yesterday. Yet you refused to believe.: You either refused to believe, or you were so beguiled by your self doubt and pity knowing the truth that you couldn't make yourself act.

Now your friend faces death, and she will die if she dares to draw any weapon or claw against me. Five centuries spent knowing all my own weaknesses. They are shared. It is hoped that you act, for I won't hesitate if she dares show her wretched, dirty face to me. Your friend, indeed, at that moment, will die.

And what then? Will you hate me? Will you despise me then even more for ending her life in defense of my own? Will your conflicted emotions feel validated?

Decisions to make, my old friend. You can lose one friend because she acts on a whim and seeks to murder, just as she did before. Or you can lose both of them, one dead, the other now a killer in your eyes.

The choice is yours.