Lore & Chronicles

Mother,


We’ve never been close. You’ve always been more engrossed in your researches and your mentor than in your own family. I believed that Lea Lenardi’s friendship would allow me to rise through society. That, thanks to her, I could find a place in the Court. Make a name for myself. Not be the daughter of Bravichi’s pupil anymore.
And then the tyrant Jinovitch came along and you fled.

I don’t know anymore if I should thank you or curse you for that. Maybe I would never have met Zane. Despite all these years, I’ve never known why she approached me. Oh, I know well that she was looking for something. I’m not that naïve. Was it your mentor she was aiming at? The future Karan through his betrothed? Or something else?

It doesn’t matter.

She has shown me that there was something else. Another path. Another way to not being your daughter anymore. Of course the philtres of the Dryads must have played a role, but I wouldn’t have tasted them if I had had a mother to prevent it. If you had been my role model instead of the total opposite, if you had offered me something more than a menial position in your shadow, then I wouldn’t have betrayed Lea.

No. I’m deluding myself.

I would have joined Zane anyway. Lea was already lost to me. I found her to be distant. I believe that she was also trying to find her place. How strange. Now that I think of it, I’m wondering if we haven’t, both of us, fought to be ourselves. To not be the daughter of... The spouse of... Maybe I have, in a sense, been luckier than her.

Strange thought.

In the end, maybe that’s the reason why she asked me to recover her father's chest. To prove to her husband that she could be valued for herself. And not only for the heir she would bear. How ironical! Proving one’s value through the remnants of another one. But it’s exactly what I’ll be doing myself. Oh, how I understand Lea better now than I did then!

In a while I’ll hand Bravichi Lenardi’s chest to his daughter.

This chest that this servant, whose name I’ve forgotten, had given to you by chance in your roaming. He was afraid, thought himself chased, he told you. I’m wondering what happened to him. Did handing you the knowledge of his master save him? Did he find safety far away from his native country? Or did he wind up, as you did, among strangers who barely tolerated him?

For you were tolerated, mother.

Entrusting the Dryads with Bravichi’s chest so that his knowledge would never be used again might have offered you protection against the kitins as part of the bargain, but you’ve never been one of us. Of them. Zane’s mission was much to get useful bits of information as to watch you.
I know that you were aware of this. Unlike me, you haven’t tried to follow their path. To understand them. To preserve Atys’ purity against the doings of homins such as your previous mentor. You did what was needed to be left in peace.
Except for that day… You shouldn’t have acted like that, mother. You had managed to become forgotten, more or less. You should have stayed in your place.

It doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve left my guilt about them in the Grove of Confusion.
I don’t want to believe that my gradual intolerance to the potions and philters might be the result of your action. But since I cannot be a Dryad anymore. Since now I can only hear a faint echo of the plant's song. Since I’m just an old homina, alone and tired. I’ll follow the last path still available to me. Meet up with the last friend I have. If she’s still a friend. To try to renew with her the thread of our carefree time.

Or at least not to die alone, as you did.

Maybe I can finally be rid of you by being rid of the inheritance of your mentor.

I hate you, mother.