It dawned upon me what must be done, it struck like lightning, crackled against my skin and electrified my existence. It struck me down and suddenly I was lost, drifting and endless - I was everything, so much, I had been living my life believing that I was nothing, I had spent my lifetime convincing myself that there was nothing that would ever be less than me. But it hit me, harsh and wild while I lay beneath the roof of the Rotunda during a storm - I was too much, I was uncontrollable, I was wild and sick, I was not well kept or tame. I am a storm, a disaster, a catastrophe with a physical body, and nothing I ever do will be right. No matter what I try to do, how many times I break and rebuild only to fall apart before completion, no matter how many days, months, years, I spend thinking that I can get better - I will never make it any farther.

For I am marble, sleek and grounded, I am unmoving, unchanging - I am too stable for my own good, too comfortable in a life that is destructive and messy, the life I have lived has never been beautiful. Since the beginning, it has been nothing but a tragedy, a spiral of sorrow that will never have an end - because I am marble, I am weathered and breaking, falling apart at the seams with the scars of my past rooting deeper into the grooves of my skin. I am no longer so stable, no longer so confident in my slipping grasp on everything. I can feel the way my knees tremble, the way my body teeters at gentle gusts of wind, I can no longer withstand the calamity of storms and no longer am I unfaltering. I am breaking, bending, crashing.

I am spiraling down into a disaster, and I know that I will not make it out. This is the final decision, the decision that I am making for myself, not listening to the whispers, not listening to the Walker and Their deceptive tongue, I am pressuring Sameira into submission - she knows that it must be done, she knows that it's over now, for the both of us. She has kept me good company and knows well of my intentions, she accepts what it is I have concluded, she tells me she has known it was coming. I have too. Sameira remains quiet as we venture through the Marsh upon her instruction, looking.

The Damned, the Sin, the Fault, she is here, Sameira tells me that she can smell the child, gravitating towards the altar that rests within the Marsh now. It sticks out to me, a sore thumb against the Marsh that I know like the length of my leg, I know every hiding spot, every intimate detail, the notch in every tree - my life has been centered around this land, this has been my entire world for all of it, it's where I lived out my youth until the wraiths took over, until I was a wraith, until I ruined everything I had going for me, I crushed my best friend, I ruined her without knowing it. And after, I followed the Asylum to the Falls and found nothing but despair, I think back, and realize that that is where it ended - all of the potential within me was drained the moment Seele's body hit the ground, the moment she was laid to rest and the reality struck me. I have never been the same since, and I never will be.

I am reaching, calling silently to the growing child who stands before me, who speaks a tongue I only vaguely recognize. She whispers to the altar, demanding, superior, but so small, afraid - I know fear, can taste it in the way her voice rises, in the way she lets her shoulders remain stiff. I am rushing forward, sloshing through waters riddled with bodies that pass through me, with faces that bubble up to the surface and scream for me to turn back ("Forget the child!")("You're betraying us all! There's so much more for us to do, it's only you who wants this!)("Leave the hellspawn, she doesn't matter to us, to you!") And I'm there, taking in gulps of air that my lungs can't handle, a child before my own daughter, a disaster that beckons nothing but despair for us. "Valdís - I -" The words snag in my throat, claw their way back down as she is already turning to face me, as the haunting hollowness of her eyes meets my gaze and I feel sick. My body does not permit me to vomit, but I can hear Sameira retching behind be as she feels the same churning of the stomach that I do, gagging at the feeling.

I am paralyzed before her, shaking and silent as amber meets nothing - what is there for me to say? ("Goodbye, tell her goodbye.")("Apologize, she deserves to know you're sorry")("Leave.") And suddenly I'm suspended mid air, crashing, burning, I no longer register the racing of my heart or the sickness in my stomach, not the tremble of my chin or shake of my knees - I can only see her, grown and yet still small, still so much more innocent and all the while harsh, her presence becomes a threat, her body is a powerhouse of hate and I can feel it even as I stand a good distance from her, the way her features twitch as I step closer, into her bubble, crushing the personal space that separates us.

"I'm so, so sorry." I manage, throat crushed beneath the grip of her shrouded gaze, a gaze that does not exist - it doesn't exist because of me. And I'm feeling the way her flesh felt between my teeth, a solid grasp on saintly skin, newborn and still soaking in my blood and body fluids, and I'm collapsing and sobbing before her because I truly am too much. "I never meant for things to turn out the way they did, I never meant to do what I did to you, oh Val, I never meant anything - I never meant to bring a life into this world when my own life is falling apart, I never wanted to have a child because I knew that I couldn't handle it. And oh baby, your eyes, they were gilded and too much and I am so sorry, look at what I've done to you. Look at you, look at how much you've grown, it's been so long, oh forgive me. I was never meant to be a good mother, I shouldn't have let it happen, I shouldn't have done this to you, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, baby." I'm weeping, falling to my knees and I'm crushed, crashing before my child as I fall apart at her hooves, looking up to her, pleading for her forgiveness.

But I can already see it in the darkness of her gaze, the way she looks down at me, watches the warm tears drip down my cheeks and then looks beyond, towards Sameira, towards the world that I have turned my back on - she grinds her teeth, she furrows her scarred brows until I can feel the rip of stiff scar tissue. She is turning her face away from me and giving a frustrated grunt.

"There is no reason I should forgive you, you have never done a thing to prove that you're worth it - you think that just because you're sobbing on your knees, you're begging for me to let you off the hook - I'm going to do it? Do you know how fucked up everything is? How fucked up I am, how fucked up you are? Because apparently not if you're doing this. I never wanted this, I don't want this life you gave me because you gave it to me broken and used, you gave me something cursed and you look what you fucking did to me. Don't... don't think that just because you're crawling to me now so pitifully, I'll forgive you. You're lucky that I'm talking to you, because as far as I'm concerned, you're just a stranger to me - the others in your head, they're closer to family to me than you are because they've done something to help me grow, they're taught me things, and you? You've broken me, I hate living, I hate it because of what you did. So fuck you," She's spitting in my face, with a fury that I wish I didn't recognize as my own, with the all too fed up of being all too little, of being the nothing. And I'm falling forward, I'm leaning towards her, to tell her goodbye but she's already leaving me behind, and I'm laying there as if there's nothing more for me to do because there isn't.

I'm laying there until the sun is sinking below the horizon, until the day is over and the stars are creeping out from behind the clouds and whispers of sunlight, until the moon is looking down at me with pity and the altar glows and hisses. "It hurts, Sameira. It hurts so much." I feel empty, as though I'd given her the last of my soul, the last shred of my existence that mattered to me, first offered to Seele, to Sikeax, to Val - never to myself, never kept sacred and hidden, instead I am ruined wholly, and it is the final moment. It is the last time I will look over the Marsh, the last time it will know my presence, sweat, tears and blood soaking into the dirt as my teeth find my foreleg and I chew, I'm chewing, no longer nibbling at the barren flesh but tearing, I am pulling myself apart the way I did to my own child, the fruit of my womb, bitten and broken only moments into life.

I am screaming into the open wounds, I am yelling and panting, I am furious - I want it done now, want to forget about going to the Heart, to forget that I have a job to be done and instead rot where I've spent too much time, the place that has devastated me the most. Perhaps I should spill my blood over the sands where I first came to be, the same sands soaking with the blood of my dam, the tears of my sire - maybe I will return to the Falls, to spill my blood beside Seele, but I will not be a hero when I do it, but a tragedy, a terrible ending rather than something full of courage and honour. It won't be a passionate, selfless act, but something defeating and disgusting, I truly am selfish.

"Do we go now, Amara?" And I am taking flight, I am soaring and howling into the night as it slowly begins to shift once again into morning, light breaking the horizon and my blood dripping onto the world below as I head towards my grave.