Reiku/Logs/MyMastersJournal

Tell me Your Grace, have you ever been torn asunder? Gutted like a fish and left exposed for all that care to look to gaze into the very heart of your soul? Have you ever had hooks latched into your living flesh, the lines pulled taunt until you felt your skin shred and tear as you are ripped apart piece by piece? Immobilized by an overpowering force with nowhere to look but into a reflection showcasing your every flaw and misdeed. You lay there questioning everything… all you've done from your first breath as a babe to the choice you made that has landed you up on a cold slab facing down your overwhelmingly flawed existence. You are pulled apart bit by bit all while They, the Gods, stare down at you, enraged by the hubris you once held. No... you've never been torn asunder, Your Grace, not like this. To be destroyed mentally, physically and spiritually - I am sure you have made mistakes in your life Your Grace, you are mortal after all, but not such as the likes of me. If you had, you would know redemption is not an easy road for one such as myself, and yet through the Gods… it is possible.

To lay in agony for an untold time, under the weight of Their gaze, losing yourself in the exquisite pain their anger brings, wondering... what is that screaming? Who would torture some poor creature? Only to realize the guttural animalist sounds of strangled agony are your own. In that moment you know, there is nothing left of you, nothing but this cold pitch of rock soaked in your blood and the consequences of your own horrifying mistakes. You scream, writhe, and gnash your teeth until your tongue is no more than tattered ribbons as you chew it off, your palms spared the torment of the hooks only to be gashed open by your own fingernails until you are shattered, leaving nothing more than flayed meat laid bare for all to witness. They whisper into your very soul, Their malice and hatred for how you have squandered their gifts rolling from their tongues... But this divine punishment was not a process forced upon you. No,you realized long before this moment you had gone horribly astray, you had been lied to, and charmed so foolishly into thinking you had some semblance of power, of control. You feel it in what is left of your soul that you must atone, you must try to redress the chaos you have caused. So you chose to climb onto this slab, to willingly be shredded like tissue all if it means just a prayer of a hope that maybe... just maybe… They would let you back into Their Grace.

By some great mercy, they find something left within your corrupt and blackened core worth saving. Something worth cultivating and you are released from your torment. You struggle to stand, stumbling like a child new to its feet as you leave a blood-stained path to the altar. You stand before it, ready to submit once more not knowing what they will do this time. Not knowing if it will be more seemingly endless torture, but you do it anyways. You place your entire existence once more into the hands of the divine. Though this time you are faced with the same choice you once took. One you took, in my case as a heartbroken and grieving youth of 15, for reasons too painful to share but the choice was made nonetheless and at that moment you threw your arrogance and your rage in the face of the Gods themselves. You stare at your own instrument of chaos, the weight of your blade becoming like the weight of the choice, too much to bear. A hand of the divine grasps you, and you stare into their judgment, and before where you once insolently turned away, this time... you do not. You lay down your blade until it and you are purified in their light and their voices now soothed tell you... you will be of use to them once more. You are to be a beacon of Their wrath, an instrument of purification. You are to be their weapon, your blade shall no longer cut but mend the deeds of your past… but only if you will drive the darkness back into the void from whence you once so eagerly called it. So you accept, for a half-life as their weapon, is better than the darkness of their absence.

You sit in the warmth and comfort of godly beings, swallowing down your own ego to allow yourself to trust not just yourself but those around you again. A hard task coming from a community that would flay their own kin to achieve their goals. You lose yourself in the warmth, feeling the hot stream of tears cascade down your cheeks, kind hands taking gentle care of you as you are eased back, exhausted of your purification only to realize within your consciousness... your heart has stopped. As you slip into the all too familiar experience of death all you can truly understand is.. something still awaits you. I will not speak of what occurs next... the memories are too beautiful and painful to put into words.To stand in the presence of the divine... to feel their love and warmth is indescribable.

Your Grace I write these things not for pity, for I am a monster, and as such, I do not deserve any. I write these things Your Grace because I wish for you to understand, though we are few, we have suffered in equal merit to the harm we have caused, reliving and experiencing the pain and torment of every moment we have inflicted upon others tenfold. I want you to understand, though we are few, we understand the enemy on a level you and your ilk will blissfully never be burdened with. I know I am a monster, even if I am a redeemed one. I do not expect forgiveness or ask you to trust me. I ask only that you trust the Gods and trust in their power to transform even the lowliest of creatures as myself into something useful. I ask to be allowed to walk freely through the realm, including your land, so that I may do the work the Gods have now set upon me. For the Gods have called me Your Grace, and I have answered. I ask only that you no longer bar the way of what the divine have commanded of us. We have walked in the darkness for so long, let us fight for them, for you, let us mend the wrongs.The Gods have allowed us back into their grace, we are watched, we know the punishment should we fall again… I pray you, Your Grace, follow in their example. We know there will never be acceptance, we merely ask for tolerance. Let us prove we are worthy of living upon the fringes of society, allow us to glimpse the light.