Way back when... a couple of years ago I guess... is when things really started happening. I was born into Shkrill's main enclave, in the Mangarth mountains. Sharrah was ruler then, and she had been for generations. Almost 200 years, some said. She was our ruler, and I worshipped her, and feared her. And that's how she liked it. Now... well... now I know how wrong and evil she was.

I was mostly a scout. I'm not real big, but I'm ... well... I was pretty endurant. I still like scouting. I'm sneakier now.

This early stuff is sorta hard for me to remember... IC and OOC... if something's wrong, that's how it is.

So anyway, I was pretty normal... just another vicious little Shkrill hen. *g*

So... I find this gryphon from Windhaven, Surukk. He's on our lands... but I'm alone, so I can't really just attack him. So I land and push him around a little (Windhaveners are pretty big, but they're softies. Buncha flowerchewers.)

He tries to talk to me, but it's just confusing. I'm not stupid!!! He just doesn't make any sense. The things he says... the ideas... they're just totally outside anything life under Sharrah, and the Shkrill way of thinking, could have prepared me for.

I drive him off eventually. Few days later I find him again. I think... maybe I'll try and find out some things about why he's here. What he's planning.

He goes on again, about things like how to make lots of food for the herds to eat, so they'll grow large again. A lot of what he says I misinterpret... like the idea of using centaurs to help, I take as enslaving them, and other fun little twists that just make more sense for me, IC.

We met a few more times over the next weeks, and I'm starting to feel pretty proud of myself. I've got this Windhavener telling me (what I think are) all kinds of secrets. Ideas about exploitation... and how the Windhaven are thinking of expanding their control. And I even start to understand that maybe he really wants good things for all of us... even if I totally don't understand how, or why.

So, when I think the time is right, I report to Sharrah.

Where I thought to gain favor from telling her all that I had learned, and what I hoped to gain, she raged at me for not killing the Windhaven traspasser outright. Raged, and attacked... and had me chained. And punished. She had ... things ... done to me. And did them herself. Bad things, that tore and hurt me.

She left me in chains for many days, jerking feathers from my wings, and tormenting me in little ways. Without food or water. But all I had ever known was Sharrah. I thought... somehow I had done something wrong. I just didn't understand what. Perverse and strange it may sound now, but I couldn't help but be further tied into Sharrah's web. Devoted to her more than before. I don't understand it now.... I hate myself for it. But it happened.

A New One came, and Sharrah let me free. I'm a little hazy on the exact order of things. But... after he had been there a few hours (days?), Sharrah told me to attack him, and kill him.

I tried. Skies, how I tried. He was only a New One... weak, and lacking a lifetime of the fightings I had enjoyed. But five days of being chained almost motionless, underfed and underwatered, took their toll. It shames me more than I've ever told him, but he beat me. Sharrah told him to spare me, and he did.

Skies.

I have to stop.