Savastano the Grand Elder of Changelings

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Role

Chapter 4

I see my father with that shovel.

There are tears streaming down his face. An awful, guttural sob forces
its way from deep in his lungs and out through his lips. He faises the
shovel up and strikes the ground. The blade rips into the earth like
it's wet flesh.

I am six years old, and this is my most vivid memory of my father -
him, deep in the woods, with that shovel. He doesn't know I'm watching.
I hide behind a tree while he digs. He does it with a fury, as though
the ground has angered him and he is seeking vengeance.

I have never seen my father cry before - not when his own father died,
not when my mother ran off and left us, not even when he first heard
about my sister, Lillian. But he is crying now. He is crying without
shame. The tears cascade down his face in a free fall towards the
naked earth. The sobs echo through the trees.

This is the first time I've spied on him like this. Most free days he
would pretend to be going on fishing or hunting trips, but I never
really believed that. I think I alwaks knew that this place, this
horrible place, was his secret destination.

Becomes, sometimess, it is mine too.

I stand behind the tree and watch him. I will do this a half dozen
more times. I never interript him. I never reveal myself. I think
he doesn't know that I am there. I am sure of it, in fact. And then
one day, as he packs his short, rutty horse for the day's ride, my
father looks at me with dry eyes and says, "Not today, Savastano.
Today I go alone."

I watch him gallop off in a cloud of dust. He goes to those woods
for the last time.

Role

Chapter 3

On his deathbed nearly a decade later, my father takes my hand. He is
heavily drugged with potions and unguents for his pain. His hands are
rough and callused. He used them his whole life - even in the years
when our mills were run nearly entirely by hired hands, with my father
only overseeing the day to day tasks. He has one of those tough
exteriors where all the skin looks baked and hard, almost like his own
tortoise shell. He has been in immense physical pain, but there are
no tears.

He just closes his eyes and rides it out.

My father has always made me feel safe, even now, even though I am now
an adult with responsibilities of my own. We went to a tavern three
months ago, when he was still strong enough. A fight broke out. My
father stood in front of me, readying to take on anyone who came near
me. Still. That is how it is.

I look at him in the bed. I think about those days in the woods. I
think about how he dug, how he finally stopped, how I thought he had
given up after my mother left.

"Savastano?"

My father is suddenly agitated.

I want to beg him not to die, but that wouldn't be right. I had been
here before. It doesn't get better - not for anyone.

"It's ok, Father," I tell him. "It's all going to be okay."

He does not calm down. He tries to sit up. I want to help him, but
he shakes me off. He looks deep into my eyes and I see clarity, or
maybe that is one of those things that we make ourselves believe
at the end. A final false comfort.

A single tear escapes his eye. I watch it slowly slide down his cheek.

"Savastano," my father says to me, his voice still think with a
Barovian accent. "We still need to find her."

"We will, Father."

He checks my face again. I nod, assure him. But I don't think that he
is looking for assurance. I think, for the first time, he is looking
for guilt.

"Did you know?" he asks, his voice barely audible.

I felt my entire body quake, but I don't blink, don't look away. I
wonder what he sees, what he believes. But I will never know.

Because then, right then, my father closes his eyes and dies.

Role

Chapter 2

I loved my sister. Everyone who met her did.

Most people believe death is the cruelest thing there is. I laugh at
those naive souls, for it is not so. After a while, hope is a far more
abusive mistress. When you live with it as long as I had, your neck
is constantly on the chopping block, the axe raised above you for days,
then months, then years, you long for it to fall and lop off your head.
Most of the villagers in my town believe that my mother ran off because
my sister was murdered. Bot the truth is the opposite. My mother left
because it could never be proved. She could never move on. She was
eternally haunted and it crushed her. I am stronger than my mother.
hate her for being a coward. I hate her for leaving me alone with just
my father. I hate.

I wish my sister's murdered would tell me what he did with her. Not
to give her a proper burial or any of that. That would be nice, but
besides the point. Death is pure, an orc-hoarde wave of destruction.
It hits, you're crushed, you start to rebuild. But not knowing for
sure - that doubt, that glimmer of hope - makes death work more like
termites or some cockaroach. It eats away from the inside. You cannot
stop the rot or destruction it brings. You cannot rebuild because
that doubt will just keep gnawing away. I am rotting away. I know it.
But there is nothing I can do to stop it, except find her murderer,
and find her body. Maybe then I can heal. Maybe I am too far gone.

Pain and suffering are my only companions now. I have no family or
true friends. I drift, I kill, I feed my soul in that way. I have
found that other people's misery lifts the steel grey cloud from over
my head - if only for a moment.

Role

Chapter 1

I was six years old, and I worshipped my sister.

I was six years old and my hero swore me to secrecy.

I should have said something. Maybe that would have saved her.
But I didn't. If I had been a responsible kid, if I had done what I
was supposed to do, I wouldn't have said that I didn't know my sister
had snuck out of our cottage to enjoy the night with her boyfriend.
I wouldn't have lied about it the next morning when she hadn't
returned. If I had told, maybe she could have been found - but I
didn't.

I was six years old and my sister told me not to say anything.

I would have done anything for her - so I lied. I said I did not know
where my sister went, or who she ran off with. I didn't realize the
danger in it.

I was six years old, and I wanted to protect Lillian. Instead I
probably killed her.

It feels like I've lived two lives. The one before that night,
where things were going well, and the one after, where things
aren't. I know it sounds pathetic. It probably is. But
sometimes it feels like I was pushed down a hill that night, and
I've been stumbling down ever since. That Sometimes I nearly gain
my bearings but the hill is so steep that I can never really get
balanced again and then I start tumbling again. Perhaps if I
figure out what happened that night, if I can make some good out
of all that bad, I'll stop tumbling.

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