March 15: Fel.

Fel, my ribs still ache. I wonder if this is a bad sign. I need healing...real healing...not just a potion or a healthstone. I wish that I could let Felest

I don't even know where to begin. In the course of a week, I've gone from having my normal, static life with studies and research to feeling elated and also terrified. Elated for the most part, but terrified still sits deep in there somewhere. I'm not sure how it works, either.

I almost died this week, and I'm consciously aware of it. Granted, I've almost died before, but this was different. I'd gone with Jhonian to a village in the Alterac mountains where Kyras said there'd been reports of demonic activity. Our task? To subdue them and enslave them, and for me to ascertain Jhonian's abilities. We'd found a few satyrs, and handled them easily enough. But then, the door to the crypt we were in slammed shut, and we were mobbed by ghouls. Jhonian was no help at all. He simply cried and clawed. It was left to me to destroy them. And, I have to confess, a part of me enjoyed slaying a wall of foes, enjoyed being powerful.

Something blasted through the door, and knocked Jhonian out, and so I dragged him out as quickly as I could, only to find that our true foe was waiting outside. It was huge, and dark, and had wings like a bat. And it wanted us dead. It summoned a wrathguard to finish us, and then disappeared in a cloud of bats. Kyras says that it was a Nathrezim, one of the dreadlords from the void. They're extraordinarily powerful, and extraordinarily cunning.

It terrified me. It terrifies me still! It will know by now that its wrathguard failed, and I can sense...I just know...it will come after me. And, Gods, I am not prepared to fight it!

My ribs, Gods, they still ache. That Nathrezim's wrathguard bashed me in the side as he was dying, and broke 3 of my ribs, punctured my lung. It was bad. Kyras did his best to fix me, but warlocks are not priests. My ribs have knitted, but they just aren't right, and I don't think another potion will help. I need treatment, but the Light makes me so ill...poisoned. I don't know how to reconcile this. I know that if Felestrien knew they still hurt, he'd pin me down and fix me. But, I'm afraid of how that would feel.

Oh, Felestrien. Felly. Delightful, sexy, funny, copper-haired Felly! I met him randomly outside the city, and we got to talking deep into the night. He's...got a lot going on. It seems his wife left him right after the birth of their daughter. She made up some stupidity about needing to get back into fighting form, but really, I think it was likely something else. Anyways, she obviously broke his heart. Or, burned it, really. She's left him with two children.

He's a mess. He's so angry, and so hurt...but at the same time, the marriage was arranged, and I think he's starting to sense his freedom. Part of that freedom is chasing after me, it seems. And I...like this chase. I really like him. He's funny, and he's caring, and he's smart. Honorable. Brave. Ruggedly handsome, yes. I'm just...incredibly drawn to him. We haven't even so much as kissed, but when we touch it's just...molten.

Still, I worry that when all of this anger and pain dissipates, that he'll want his wife back. I mean, she's absolutely beautiful...hair like sunlight, skin like porcelain, and a paladin like him. It makes me think I should hold him off, or push him away altogether. I just...I can't handle being passed over again. I can't do it. I can't put myself through the pain of wanting someone, and them wanting someone else. I can't be gutted so completely again, because I have nothing left to dig out. I'd rather be alone, and abused by Kyras for an eternity than to ever have to feel that again.

What should I do? I want him. I want him to fix me. But I'm afraid the fixing is going to hurt, and I just don't know that I can handle any more pain.

And that Nathrezim. Gods, it's coming for me! I just know it. How can I knowingly put anybody else in its path? No, I need to face it - and destroy it - alone. Somehow.