by Irowyn on February 19th, 2013, 2:20 am
"Yeah," Irowyn responded with a smile that accidentally revealed the emotion on his face. It was meant to be a shallow, polite smile but what was created was a soft, sorrowful, aged smile which showed his subtle relief. He didn't know what he was relieved at. Perhaps it was the presence of a traveling companion, maybe it was the relief from his inevitably returning panic attack. It may have been the ability to speak frankly about his tragedy. "It's been a tiring night.
Whatever it was, it brought back a few tears that Irowyn thought he had finished shedding. After he had returned to his tent, the panic came back. He knew it would, this didn't particularly bother or surprise him. The shaking, the anxiety, the increased heart rate and the sweating all made the sorrow harder to deal with, however. What should have been a sweet moment of mourning and remembrance was made a little more unsettling and frightening by the presence of the attack.
The real problem, however, had been that tonight was just too much excitement for the shattered traveler. Immediately, Irowyn took Nix's story upon himself, all of that injustice she had seen. The ugliness of slavery, the young and unjust death of her companion, the randomness of one's birth circumstances all suddenly became a point of fixation in Irowyn's mind. It was as if he had to right all of these wrongs for Nix and for everyone else who suffered at Leth's hand.
Irowyn didn't know what "fate" was meant for him. He neither knew or cared what "path" he was supposed to be set upon on that day when Dira took his friends. This was the path that he would choose. He chose to rail against this concept of a fate which was outside the hands of its bearer. He was going to destroy all of the people who preyed upon people like Nix, the disgusting people who eliminated free will. Anyone who promoted slavery, anyone who blackmailed, bullied or abused another. They had to be found. They had to be made to hurt. They had to cry out in suffering. Afterall, if this was not Irowyn's purpose than what could be? What other reason did he see, for himself, to continue moving forward? This was the path he had chosen and he had stumbled right across a fellow sufferer. He had met another victim of Leth's particularly grim sense of comedy through chaos.
His limbs quivered and his abdomen felt tight and uncomfortable. He slept, that night, as comfortably as he had come to expect lately. "You will have your chance to decide, Nix. I petching swear upon it.
