Lilliana Whitedawn

Need

Drugs only keep the urges numbed - quiet, and well-behaved. But it grows more and more - like treating hunger with handfuls of candy...it's instant gratification, but it doesn't do much for your actual hunger. Eventually the taste of sugar makes you recoil, and all you can think about is the meal you've been putting off.

That's what it's like on a daily basis - a pervasive itch I can't reach - though it used to be drugs, before I was corrupted. I was addicted to mana, and I thought that was bad. And it is - I'll never say it isn't. But that's a thing one can have treated, and overcome with time and effort. Now? Am I more demon than elf? I don't know anymore, but I know what demons feed on. I know what they want, more than anything. I fought them for years and years, and look at me now. Xannivard did this on purpose - some sick, twisted joke upon a paladin who lived to smite demons.

It is no burden to a demon, such vile hungers - but to retain myself, to be Elven and demonic both! Is torture. The twisted things that lurk in my subconscious, that haunt me, that whisper , that show me the horrors I could visit upon the world around me...

I find myself wishing Aram's skull would impart more of those memories - I am perversely delighted at the prospect of the Light being wielded in so vicious a manner. I dream of such crusades - some Crusader I am - only with fel in one hand, and my blade in another; hooves, wings, fangs, and tail...I am all but an Eredar in these nightmares that leave me panting with a lust I cannot quantify. Blood, souls, pleasure, pain - theirs or mine, it doesn't matter...though their pain is more fulfilling than mine, usually - chaosreigns, and it is sweet, so sweet.

"You're not a demon," Hyrall has told me. How many times has he said that? I'm grateful, but I'm frightened. For me, for him. For Eryth. Even for my daughter. What am I becoming? Can I stop it? Have I stopped it? Am I merely slowing down the inevitable corruption that Xannivard left me with? Does the damn demon get the last laugh, even if he went down with the Legion that hunted him?

I pace in my flat, and my diminutive calico watches me from the rumpled covers that are a testament to another night of fitful sleep - how long since I fed? My fucking hair is in my face, and I can't pull it back. The hawk is watching me, as well. Eos - it feels like Elaeryn's judgemental, pitying gaze. I am unreasonably angry at this thought. Damn him. Damn the Ranger Lord, and his soft gaze. I don't need his pity. Hyrall says don't run, so I don't. But I don't know how far is too far. I don't want to send the wrong message by disappearing into the Broken Shore for a few days, but I could stand to pick off straggler demons. Maybe even store souls in gems, for the coming drought.

What do I do when the demons are gone? 

I become one. The whole fucking cycle starts again.

Does he know what he's bound himself to? The danger? No, he 'always wins.'

None of this disturbs him in the slightest.

It burns from the inside out, like my gods-damned flesh is going to peel away, and I can't think for how consuming it is. Is this what the withered suffered? Hovering on the cusp of madness as persistent hunger haunts them? That's why my relationship with - no, I can't even think his name, but that's why it worked. The Nightborne understood. Heunderstood. For a moment, I'm with him again - my dusky skinned prince, and we're sharing a glass of arcwine. It's potent, and I'm clearheaded for the first time in recent memory.

And then it's all bodies, and missing people, and the bodies of little children broken in the street, and I hate them - the nobles that sip wine in comfort as their kinsmen are slaughtered and fed to demons. I hate the fucking revolution, and I hate Elisande, and I hate myself most of all. I wasn't here. I'm never in time - and the hunger is back, and even blinking my eyes is like sandpaper, my heartbeat is a bass drum and I'm distantly aware that Eryth is on his way but I have to get a grip, gods I just wanted to be cleansed! Was that so much to ask, not to have to live with this fucking hunger day in, and day out, not to want to break the people around me for the hell of it? Just to see the way their blood spills like so much wine...

And then the burning is real, very real, as I plant my hands on my old Argent armor - imbued with the Light, my Light, still. Perhaps someday the enchantments will fade, but not yet. The pain is stark, and both beasts in the room cower from the stench of burning flesh, but I'm here. I'm sane. I'm Lily; and as I slump to the ground to cradle my blackened hands - cracked, and oozing fel - I'm glad. I deserve the pain. I deserve this. I keep the memories locked away, but I still know what I did. And I am, perhaps, paying my penance in the only way I can.

My hands will heal, though it will ultimately take - no, no I don't have to wait, because Eryth is here, and he's mending them, that's right - my thoughts aren't where they should be, and the darkness lingers.

I always win this fight.

...until the day you don't. Nothing lasts forever.