Desreal: I'll always be there looking over your shoulder ;; <i>to Severus</i>

alone I walk the winding way
it's over, no longer, I feel it growing stronger
I'll live to die another day, until I fade away
why give up, why give in...it's not enough, it never is
so I will go on until the end

- Breaking Benjamin, "until the end"

There was a time when I knew love, happiness, home, family. I was set for life and wanted for nothing in the plains of Meyene. Funny how the tides can turn, one night…one fateful choice and everything I knew was gone. I can never go home again and no other place can ever be anything to me without Lochsme. It broke poor Rondi’s heart to see me go but she understood, she always did. A good girl my Rondi, I wish her all the happiness in the world and sincerely hope she finds it. With what remained of my life hanging in shreds around me and the blood of all three Zandian princes on my hands I was left with no choice but to abandon my ancestral home.

Now more than half a year and countless miles later here I am…though I have no clue where here is. I hate to admit I am lost but I suppose I will have to ask for directions sooner or later, not that I have any destination in mind. All the same it wouldn’t be a bad idea to find out where I am. My intent is not to stay, at least it wasn’t when I entered the forest this morning yet the further I go the more it seems that there is no end to the dense vegetation and gloomy half light. I am getting an overwhelming feeling that I have come to the very edge of the world, that all roads end here and there is nothing beyond…nowhere else for an aimless wanderer like me to go to seeing as I can not turn back. It is not the feeling of a sane man but I never claimed to be sane, it is there whatever demented thoughts might have spurred it and I can neither explain nor shake it.

Darkness approaches, falling in on the towering trees and with it comes the sounds and shadows of the night. Forests were never my sort of place and as the hours advance closer to midnight this one becomes creepier and creepier. It is with something very near to relief that I take note of another equine life form moving off in the trees. A careful testing of the scents surrounding me determines the strangers gender without much difficulty. The fact that he is skulking about like some sort of criminal does not alarm me for I have engaged in similar conduct on many occasions myself. It occurs to me that he moves with a confidence that can only come from long familiarity with the ground under his feet and might be just the sort of chap I need to gather information from.

There is no sign of hesitation as I advance towards him, I move silently out of habit but hold no expectations of surprising him for I do not doubt that he has gathered my scent as surely as I did his. The strangers hide is pale and not at all difficult to keep track of now that I have spotted it. He stops abruptly and so do I still several strides behind, then he turns to face me and those piercing blue eyes nearly stop my heart…in a bad way. There is something very wrong in that gaze, something other, something not of this world. Then I have always been prone to an over active imagination. It seems that the breeze which delivered his sent to me moves in an unusual way around his person but that too could be the misconception of eyes wanting badly for rest.

Shaking of both observations I look beyond the air and the eyes but go no further than his throat where rests a disfigured and sharply pointed scar. This could be little more than a birth mark or old injury of some kind yet it appears in too specific, too deliberate a shape to be natural. Some part of me is immediately convinced that I am looking at evil beyond comprehension. The evil I perceive though undeniably focused on seems somehow disconnected from the male I face…which makes no sense at all. Regardless I jump to the quick conclusion that here is a truly dangerous man. That conclusion raises no emotions, no fear, no desire to flee…it is meet by numbness within me and so I proceed without backing down from my course.

“You there…what is this place?”

My voice is rough, demanding and nothing like my normal courteous and thoughtful tone. What do you expect from a man who has lost everything and has nothing more to loose?

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Call me JANTZ for that is my name. Watch out for my 16.2hh, dark LIVER CHESTNUT coated person for I have the potential to be deadly. Trust what I know for I have spent SEVEN long years learning it. The blood of DON, GRONINGEN, TRAKEHNER, MUSTANG, ARABIAN & FRIESIAN runs in my veins. Do not ask the names of my parents for I remember them not. Look for me in SOLIRA under the heading of TRAVELER, know my class as ESPIONAGE within which I hold the rank of NONE and mark my element as UNLEARNED. Tie my heart strings to LOCHSME until the day I die and trace my blood down to BILLIS & RONDI. My strings are pulled by the beautiful TZARRA who should be credited with both my creation and my words.