Aurora Weber, Nightmares or Dark Memories?

[Aurora Silverwolf]

I've lived with keeping my childhood memories suppressed for a long time now. Lately however I've been waking up in cold sweats after having nightmares I can only even vaguely recall the details of. But I always wake heart pounding in my chest, sweating and shaking in fear. The feeling of something "hunting" me picking at my thoughts.

They do say that it is good for me for my soul to get such thoughts down on paper. To that end here is my attempt at a telling of my past.

I was born in Thay, in the city of Benthzaar. MY parents were Malvius and Nellaa Thane.
My parents always doted on me I wanted for nothing. In fact they spoiled me at times. I remember them being gone a lot they worked in one of the cities temples. So I had a happy if not a bit lonely childhood, I grew up steadfast and strong.

I remember it was so till my 14th birthday. Father and mother were excited on my birthday dressing me in my best gown and telling me that I would receive a great honor. I was excited myself having been spoiled for so long I wondered what surprise they had for my 14th birthday.

I was puzzled when they took me into a temple in the city, father still telling me I was to be honored today. I was confused to say the least. But I was quick to alarm when father bid me lay upon the altar I asked him what was going on. He didn't answer but bound me to the altar despite my protest and crying.

"Quiet child you receive a very great honor today!"

I cried out as mother made a small cut in my palm collecting my blood into a small bowl. It was then I saw the great Dire wolf chained by the Altar, my eyes going wide in fear as I winced in pain at the stinging cut. I watched in horror as father then turned the blade upon the Dire Wolf killing it and mixing it's blood in the same bowl.

I was horrified and terrified at the same time I'd never seen father kill anything before.
I looked around the temple seeing a brazier off to the side with a glowing hot brand in it's coals before father turned me over to my stomach making sure the manacles held me there. I cried out for him to let me go telling him I'd be good and asking what I'd done wrong? He only kept telling me it was alright I was to be given a great honor.

He moved aside the covering for my left shoulder baring it, then dipping his finger into the mixed blood he traced something on my left shoulder, I could feel the still warm and sticky blood on my skin. Father stoking the brazier containing a branding iron it's metal glowing brightly.

I cried out to mother asking her what I had done promising to be good if they would just let me go. She told me I was being honored and bringing great honor to the family as was my duty as their daughter. Telling me everything would be ok. Father started to recite a dark chant, almost sounding like growls to my ears.

The Prayer summoned what looked like some massive malevolent beast with glowing eyes and a red furred face/head, so huge it seemed to fill the temple. It's voice a low growl and dark. I heard the name Malar spoken in the dark chanting from father... what was this horrific beast?

Continuing the prayer to the thing while mother presented a bowl to the creature as they chanted, the great beast cutting itself allowing some of it's blood. black as pitch to fill the bowl.

Father tended the brand continuing the ritual, his words in a language unknown to my ears, harsh, beastly and dark. I sobbed against the pillow my head rested on pulling frantically at the manacles as father walked towards me raising the brand to the great beast as if in honor, mother making a small cut on my left shoulder, mixing some of the great beasts black blood into that small wound. Then tipping some more into a small golden goblet marked with runes before handing it to her father.

I could only watch in terror as father smiling raised the red hot brand pressing it against my left shoulder, I screamed then as it burnt into my flesh filled with agony from the hot metal. Father burning the horrific brand deep into my flesh ensuring it could never be removed.

I sobbed and shuddered laying on the alter sobbing in pain, almost unconscious from it. Father smiling as he continued chanting and praising Malar as he continued what I now know was a blood ritual mixing the blood of his lord Malar into the freshly branded mark upon my left shoulder as he chanted louder.

Voice rising to a fevered pitch. The Great beast that was Malar smiling and licking its fanged maw as it watched the ritual. The dark spoken words i now know were meant to bind me to Malars service .. my soul his my body his vessel and tool.

No no no noooo... * I screamed at the top of my lungs sobbing and denying Fathers words. My
body aching from the pain of the brand .. the black blood from that horrific beast being poured over the wound doing only partly soothing the agony from the fiery brand.

I vaguely remember slipping into darkness as mother tried to force her to swallow the black blood from the great beast she supposed was Malar intended to fully bind me to him i suppose. Yet I but tasted only a trickle of that foul thick blood trickling down my throat before I convulsed in pain from the brand instead spitting it up the majority of what had not made it down my throat, it only spilling from my lips as I slipped then into blessed darkness from the pain .

I didn't fully understand what they had done to me thinking I had somehow angered the temple or a red wizard to be so punished. I Never knew that they had sold my soul to Malar, binding me to him with blood. Over the next few years my parents chided and punished me repeatedly for failing in their worship. The distance between us growing more and more as in defiance and anger against my parents i followed the goddess Selune a more benevolent deity.

At every opportunity I now defied them and worked against them. Eventually stealing away on board a ship leaving Thay, making my way to it's first port. The city of Cordor, there I sought to make a life now free of them. Happy in my worship of Selune still defying and hating my parents for the pain of the brand that graced my left shoulder, unable to shake that feeling of something of the mark crawling and moving beneath my skin like something living, pulsing softly as with some thread of darkness like some dark beacon.

I still feel my path is not set my life my own, not what ever my parents and Malar wishes for my future thinking I have to believe I am finally free of it all .

Additional Journal entry some 2 weeks after arrival:

I was out hunting and attacked by one of the beasts, I thought nothing of it but found a simple scratch had passed on the curse to me. I cured it or so I thought. But yet when next the light of the full moon found me it twisted me revealing my curse and dark nature .. his "gift". It seems that Malar would have his due of me for the plant of the moon no longer works unable to remove Malars taint, "blessed" with his black blood and "Gift" again.

[Aurora Silverwolf]

Oh gods again I've woken screaming out in terror .. sweating, heart pounding in my chest!

In my dream from what I could recall I was running under the full moon. Running from something a beast with great glowing eyes, a red face. I got bits and pieces of nightmarish images .. and even though I"m awake I cannot help but feel "caged", trapped and I am terrified. I cannot help but feel as if "something" is hunting me ..

Yet I cannot see what it is but in my heart and soul I fear that Malar hunts me to collect his due so long ago offered by my parents.

[Aurora Silverwolf]

I spent time in deep discussion with a pair of friends. They brought up an interesting question to me that I had never considered.

It seems that there is a question as to the status of my soul owing to what my parents did to me many years ago.

Has that weakend my humanity, my soul? These questions had never occurred to me.

Do I have a choice in my fate? Was my fate made for me the day my parents did that horrific ritual on me? Do I have a soul. So many questions yet I have no answers for them .. but even as I write this in hopes of gathering my thoughts on it.

I cannot help but wonder if my path is my own choosing? Have I really escaped Malar and his binding, am I truely free? Yet even with doubts I still look over my shoulder in fear wondering if Malar even has interest in one so insignificant as me? If he is will he send others or will he, Malar come for me himself?

Have I truely escaped the binding my parents sought to ensure when I was a child or am I just foolishly deluding myself into thinking I'm free?

[Aurora Silverwolf]

I have survived the removal of the mark of malar from my body. A high priestess powerful and wise able after taking me to a sacred glade to lock onto that dark essence and blood within me bound to my soul and to pull it from my body and lock it away in an enchanted vessel. I was left feeling weak and listless. Finding out that I was pregnant only after the ritual. That was I believe the cause for such tiredness and weakness. I have taken steps to see that the child grows strong within me. Eating well, resting and continuing my meditations and prayers to Selune.

Always defying Malar and my parents will for me to serve that foul God by slaying malarites where I find them, keepng the forest of Despair cleansed of them. I grow stronger and my soul recovered by the ritual and restorerd to me and now my strength. I owe so much to those of the tower that aided me and that and more to the high priestess whose skills and power freed me from that darkness consuming me.

The nightmares and pain are gone from me with the removal of that foul essence. I curse my parents and the name of Malar for ever doing such to me!!. With each passing day I grow more confident and sure that I am fully freed of any of foul Malar's touch.

[Aurora Silverwolf]

It has been over a year since that day. My mind and body free of that dark influence. My son born healthy though a bit early. Strong and inquisitive like his father Mathias. We have married and to have a fully new life free of our pasts choose to change our last name to Blackmoore. To give our son a chance at a life not marred by any smudge or shadow from our old selves.

Ryko grows strong and healthy, inquisitive and intelligent. He is strong and as always the joy of my life. If not for he and Mathias I likely would have never kept my sanity or my faith. They are my life and purspose for being.

I am truely happy and joyous with our new family and life.