Nawain/Logs/20240831a

She lays on the painted floor of the workshop, gazing listlessly at the empty apothecary cabinet. Her hair is a disheveled mop and her eyes are puffy and pink-rimmed, but she ran out of tears a few hours ago, and now waits for the next torment in her personal nightmare to reveal itself. And it does. 

Nawain convulses around herself, wrapping her arms around her middle with a despondent groan as the sudden and immeasurable weight of Enelne’s displeasure drills into her soul. The miserable little cleric recalls her invocation from earlier, when she’d drawn the attention of Mrod, Coshivi, and Enelne to her project for the first time. She’d asked for their blessings, and Their fury that she had invoked Their names in conjunction with the birth of an abomination shredded the last bits of her inner fortitude and she shuddered on the floor of the dark room, gasping for breath.   

A distant, petty thought wormed its way into her self-disgust, angrily reminding her that it was only to connect fully with those self-same Gods that she’d ever created a godling in the first place. Just a few days ago, after she’d first felt the full weight of Immortal attention, she realized that she’d never felt the eyes of her own Gods upon her in the same way. After all these years, she was only passingly familiar with the Gods she’d devoted every moment of her existence to, and now they, too, were abandoning her. 

Even in the depths of despair, her upbringing firms her thoughts against blaming the Gods for her failure. She had failed Them. She had failed them all, and it was right and proper that she should suffer for it.  A thousand people. A thousand souls made Knife Clan their home, and they were gone now, snuffed out because she couldn’t keep her godling reigned in. She’d practiced, over and over again. Trained Sihmiauri to move where she wanted, how she wanted, and when she wanted, to keep the streams separate. Had it been playing with her the whole time? Had her small and mortal will ever been enough to command the godling, or was it only once it consumed unfathomable amounts of energy that it was powerful enough to shake her control? And did it even matter anymore?  

Those damned tears are back, and they blur her vision as her gaze falls to the little piece of birthday cake on the workbench, candle burned down to a sad nub. “Happy birthday to me,” she whispers into the gloom that surrounds her, invades her. “I’m so sorry.”```