BLEEDING HEART | ONC 2024

013 - HER

I'm an absolute mess, and I know it.

And yet, I lack the energy to do anything about it. I lack power, I lack motivation.

I, Druvena, have no idea what I'm doing, and it's a problem.

Days have passed since I woke alone. Since Az vanished. And yet I'm still suffering the consequences of his actions. I'm in pain—and this pain increases daily, growing worse, impossible to ignore.

It's a pain that affects everything. My motor functions are impaired, and I'm more impulsive than ever. I've thrown so many glasses against walls that Henderson has temporarily banished me from Hazel's Vale, out of fear for his dwindling supplies.

My moods are affected, too. I'm irritable. Borderline rude to my peers, too. I've been asked to leave most venues when I start to pick fights with other patrons for absolutely no reason.

My attitude is crappy, at best, utterly despicable at worst. And it shifts from day to day, sometimes slightly bearable, but mostly atrocious. I'm atrocious.

Angels aren't supposed to be atrocious.

We're peaceful beings. And while I'm known for my violent tendencies towards blackened hearts, I've never acted like this before. Ever. Not in the eons I've been alive and working my magic in Hazelvale.

And said magic is weakened, too. If there are any darkened hearts nearby, I either can't feel them, or don't care to. Everyone and everything bothers me to no end, and it's a feat if I can exit the temple without wanting to spit on someone.

I'm surprised I can even enter the temple. Its priestesses normally regard me with high praise—they know what I am—and grace me with all the things I need to survive. Food, water, a comfortable forest cabin to live in on the temple grounds. They launder my clothes and sheets, they tidy up when I'm out.

But now...they don't dare approach me with a ten-foot stick. They're afraid of me and haven't offered me any of their delicious meals or mouthwatering beverages in days.

Not since I returned from the tavern in a state so close to hatred that I swore at them all.

Remembering it all now, I wince.

I know what this is, loath as I am to admit it.

This agony, this moodiness—these are symptoms of a condition I know all too well and have been battling to contain for millennia. A disease I've been asked to prevent the spread of, yet here I am, the carrier.

Pain in my heart. Pain in my soul. Pain in the very core of me, digging into every cavity, infecting me with hostility and despair.

Something pinched inside me the day Az ditched me in the room above the tavern. Something I should have recognized immediately and taken steps to fix. But I was too sad, too frightened, and too depressed to try.

Now I suffer the consequences. I'm feeling all the sensations I was sworn to protect others from. I'm becoming the thing I hunt, the type of person I don't want in my world.

The type of person the goddesses wanted me to exterminate.

Or so, I think that's what they wanted. It's been so long since I received my orders, the words are blurry.

"Keep heartbreak out of Exivaria. Ensure it doesn't exist."

Did they say, by any means? I can't recall. Regardless, they never detailed anything to me. Never told me to stop, that my methods were impure. They're always watching, I know that.

So are they watching me now? Seeing me moody and sappy and stupid? Dependent on the love and affection of a man I barely know? And a demon, of all things?