Achaena's Diary, Page Four

I don't want to talk about it. But I suppose that's when I need to most.

Everything I know has been set upside-down.

My family - my Master - lied to me. They told me that my mother had abandoned me. That she hadn't wanted me, hadn't loved me.

But that was a lie.

I spoke with her ghost yesterday. She told me what they had done. They had killed her. My guess is that the house, where I'd lived all my life - was also the house where my mother lived, and died. Otherwise, how would her spirit have been there in death? So they killed my mother, took her house, and made me into a murderer like them.

And how was I to know? I was young and stupid. I accepted everything the Masters told me as absolute truth. They were all the family I had known - what else could I have done?

An example though - the farce known as "pain training." There was a woman who could get into your head. She did a kind of magic, and inflicted terrible, unimaginable pain, all without leaving a visible wound. Undeniably, it worked, at least for me. I can withstand all but the worst pain indefinitely.

But was it necessary to torture children? Really? I suppose in their eyes, it was; we could hardly be effective if we broke down crying over every little scrape like - like children!

And why children in the first place? Is it because no one would suspect a child in a poisoning? Or a knife in the dark? No - I suspect it is the complete obedience, the absolute loyalty. None of us knew any other life, any other family. We were slaves, worse than slaves, because we loved our Masters. We would have died for them. Looking back, I doubt they would reciprocate our devotion.

As much as it hurts now, though, this betrayal was in the past. There isn't any point in dwelling on it: it belongs in the past.

I spoke with the worgen, Raphael, to try and sort everything out. He's wise, maybe even as much as Kelgrim, and more importantly, I was able to locate him last night. I'm glad, honestly: he just seems more ... real, somehow. It's easier to accept the idea that there might be a few good people in the world when he says it, because - well - because I know that he knows the ugly side of the world. He has that kind of a person inside him, just like I do.

He asked me about what my mother's ghost said.

She wasn't happy with the life that I've led, the kind of person I was raised to become.

So he pointed out that I can be whatever I want, do whatever I want.

I don't know what I want, ultimately, but I know that for now at least, I want to be useful. I've been bored, even practicing every day. My mind and body are sharp as ever - why shouldn't I help in the fighting?

I'll contact Foranth tonight. It shouldn't be hard to pretend to be a few years older. I don't even know that a dwarf could tell the difference.