Role

Chapter 20

I made my way to the Androsphinx as quickly I could, stating I had had an
unpleasant dream and felt the need to seek his counsel. He began our
conversation with the statement, Dreams tell us things we need to know about
ourselves, to which I replied, It is about the boy, I think, the boy who died
in my arms, I don't know what happened, but it weighs on me.

The androsphinx replied, Speak of what you do know... Speak it plainly
and with no ornament or obfuscation.

And so I did and the androsphinx listened but then told me I knew of death
before that boy and that I could defend that death, perhaps, and call it
justice, even righteous. He went on, The legacy to which you were born is not
one which reveres life, it reveres power and it operates with utter disregard
for those it does not consider important... Your birth, your blood, IS you; it
is not what you WANT, but you nevertheless are exactly what you were born to
be.

And then the androsphinx said, You spoke of your mind going elsewhere. He asked
me where. I told him to my brother and to my father... to the main deaths I've
tried so hard to escape. He replied that I was not meant to escape and that the
boy is dead because I, in the moment when I should have been aware of him,
protected him... I went somewhere else.

He went on, And with your judgment gone, with your awareness in the ether of
the past... You were exactly what you are. A murderous drow.