It was the dawn of the day that began my torment. The lady, elvish, who took me in those years ago, gently awoke me. It was time to depart for the mountain, that for which I longed more than anything else in life. The smell of fresh, thin wind, which used to bring memories of aimless beginnings, now comes to me bearing only this one. Celeste lead me through the town, across the plains, which stood out so dreadfully flat next to the peak that I admired, and to the base. She annoyed me sometimes, treating me like the child I was when she found me, but when we climbed, there was not a being in the world I admired more. The elf, who, by being one, shared half of my heritage, began up the steep slope. I followed, ecstatic. It was my seventh birthday.

A long, arduous climb, which, despite the labor involved, never discouraged me, ended in our arrival at that damned place I loved so much. The fresh, thin wind tousled my umber hair as I looked over the city, so small, weak, below me. I couldn’t discern it immediately, but there was a third presence atop this peak: a concealed, dark presence. In a moment, I felt the desire to crush the tiny town below my weight, to destroy all that built my childhood. The next moment, more joy. More fresh, thin wind.

Celeste, poor, fey woman, stared off into those dreadfully flat plains. She asked me a question; I couldn’t hear it. Shadows filled my ears with noise of an origin inside my own head, the sound of my own heartbeat smothered by endless, indecipherable whispers. Celeste turned to me, obviously worried; she must have thought her gift to me wasn’t enough.

“The view is beautiful,” I whispered in my deafness, thoughtlessly. I don’t know if she heard it. There remained only a few more moments before my bane. I took in a deep inhale, I smelled that fresh, thin wind, the final time I would relish it.

The shadows took my vision as well. They took my body in that moment. I was drowning in a scarlet sea. Those dissonant whispers in my mind grew louder and cloudier, and my only emotion was fright. I heard His voice, my new patron, my leader, speaker of my word, keeper of my inner flame. All reality faded as He descended upon me. Through His endless, immortal power, without so much as a quiver in His lip, I knew my seventh birthday would be my last. I feared death, but I soon found that the message had a different meaning. The scarlet sea drained, the only remnant of reality, the smell of that fresh, thin wind, fading with it.

Celeste sang me into consciousness the next dawn.

The elf took great care of me for the weeks to come. She was far from unaware of the change in my psyche. If anything, she might have been the only one to understand it. She was there with me, not only on the mountain, but since the beginning of my life. Two years prior, I awoke atop the very same mountain. I had no name, no memory, and no purpose. I had simple robes and a mystical grimoire, filled not with fantastical tales nor powerful spells. I was greeted by this world with blank pages, both in my mind and in my book, an emptiness that surrounded the validity of consciousness and the boundless joy of free will. Life without purpose is not life at all. I was nothing then.

Celeste was the quill with which the cruel fates of this world filled the blank pages of my mind. Celeste, by giving me purpose, gave me life. Celeste, by giving me a name, wrote the first word. I had collapsed from the exhaustion of scaling down the damned mountain, and later awoke in silk sheets and breathed in warm air. Celeste was sitting in front of me.

“I am Celeste,” she had told me, her voice a confirmation that her graceful features and soft eyes were no illusion. She was truly as tranquil as her appearance and abode led on to be.

“I have no name.” They were the first words I ever spoke. They became the cornerstone of all my following years. Those simple words defined my life. They took on a new meaning after Celeste shattered their validity moments later.

“Karna, then. The lost, beautiful spirit.” I still, to this day, know not why she chose the name so quickly and with so much certainty. Nevertheless, I continue to embrace it. My name is my purpose.

Such a story, however, is far in the past. The week during which I departed from Celeste gave the meaning to those first words I uttered. Karna was my name, but I was still nobody. I manifested at the age of five, brought into the world with developed cognitive abilities despite a lack of any semblance of recollection. I did not belong on Molorak. Perhaps that scarlet sea on the mountain was the next chapter in the cruel story the fates were writing. This realization came with the fear that the fates had retired their broken quill. It was of no use anymore. The edge was blunted, causing the ink to soak the pages and bleed through.

It was a tearless goodbye. Celeste swore to find me again when my wanderings came to a close. I could only hope she would keep her word. I took the final steps out of the first chapter of my story. I took respite in those dreadfully flat plains, at the base of that damned mountain upon which flew that fresh, thin wind, and I opened my palms and shuddered at realizing that I carried a droplet of that scarlet sea. The tears came quickly, and deserted me likewise. The human in me was devastated that my humanity had been removed so cruelly. The elf in me was ecstatic for adventure, as much as I futilely attempted to suppress it. That third part of my mind simply smiled, maliciously watching my every move. I had time to try and understand that third part.

I left the mountain, walking slowly, directed away from that poor, fey woman who saved me and damned me. I left that town, and the memories of my abruptly-halted childhood, behind my back. I left those dreadfully flat plains that rolled around the mountain, taking in its essence. I left that fresh, thin wind in my past, as its feeble presence forced me onward, into the unknown.

I spent the following years replacing quill after quill. The most recent one is dangerous. Like Celeste, and like me, it has a name: the Reverie.