Hello again. Today was bloody, and not in the fun way.

I had no idea just how bad a civil war can get. Apparently, when the ones you are fighting aren't those guys over there, but rather, those idiots just down the street and around the corner, things really get personal quickly.

I had assumed we were simply going to have a handful of the most powerful nobles have a go at the queen. But I guess I didn't understand how that would affect the average citizens of Tower. The first few shots and stabs were hidden from the public eye. Late night assassinations by our lovey Ms. Onica, and some early morning strikes back at the presumed perpetrators.

But even before sunrise the people were tense, and whispered conversations were being carried out in secluded doorways. Gossip and rumor, but grim gossip, and dark rumor. They spread like a wildfire, and by noon it was all but confirmed in the minds of the citizenry that someone had done something terrible indeed.

The who and the what shifted dramatically, and as time passed those who ascribed to one theory or another gathered together into wary little clumps of people.Suspiciously gun shaped packages started being passed around, and before long streets were being barricaded and windows boarded up.

In some extreme cases, entire segments of the city were cut from their moorings and sent drifting away from Tower. Those were the smart ones, because what happened next was insanity.

The personal armies of nobles started moving. Piecemeal at first, but after the first few were surrounded and gunned down by the queens better trained and numerically superior soldiers they appeared to start banding together. These forces, both the nobles and queens, marched in weird and seemingly random paths through the Iceni capital. Being hailed and let through neighborhoods and streets that supported them, and jeered and cursed at from behind the barricades of those who didn't.

Well, they didn't much like that latter reaction. Not one little bit.

There were shouted orders of surrender and the like. These were normally laughed and jeered at. The people of Tower oddly confident that their ramshackle barriers would allow them to hold off all who came to attack them. Then the soldiers swarmed the barricades, and those dream like thoughts fell away even quicker than their shoddy defenses.

The citizens that the soldiers had been formed from and trained to protect fought fiercely to keep their homes and businesses away from their neighbors and aggressors, and the waves under the contested neighborhoods turned red from spilled blood. Friends, neighbors, family. They tore each other to shreds in the fighting.

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And for what? Perceived loyalty to someone who stayed safe and cloistered in their stronghold? A national pride, or deeply ingrained sense of belonging? They died, slaughtered like cattle. And their bodies were dumped into the waves. From our position in Lenas submerged tinglewood vessel we saw swarms of vicious looking, giant, razor mawed fish come speeding through the water. They tore into the bodies, and I started getting an ache between my ears.

I haven't felt something like this in a very long time. Not since the time with those undead things, or when the airship I was in crashed. That last one was before I even met Lena. I think this means I'm going to be getting more of my memories back.

Considering what is bringing them back, and the pain their return always brings me. I'm not sure I want these memories.

Then that ache blossomed into a brilliant crimson bloom of agony. I know exactly what caused the change. Two young men, so identical to one another they had to be twins, or brothers at the very least. They were screaming at one another. One gesturing wildly with a cutlass at the barricade behind him, the other waving about his gun as they argued. We couldn't hear them.

Oh, by the way. We could see what was going on above us because Lena managed to make some sort of a jinky pipe thingy out of tinglweood with shiny ice sheets inside of it. When you look into the end of the pipe you could see clearly out of the other end of the pipe. No idea how that works, but it sure is neat. She's so smart!

Anyway, we could see the brothers arguing, and then the one with the cutlass's face changed. From frustration and desperation, to disgust and rage. Then he just reared back and slammed his blade directly into his brothers head. In that same moment I felt a bolt of pure pain lance through my own head, almost in sympathy of the others wound. The stricken brother toppled slowly to the ground. His descent seeming both incredibly slow and far too fast at the same time.

I watched in a daze, my mind pretty much fully occupied with the sudden raging hurricane of pain locked behind my eyes. But I can still remember, the way the living brothers face changed. The anger bleeding away, leaving him alone with the true feelings he'd been hiding under angers blinding. Fear, shock, worry, and as he gazed down at his fallen brother I swear I thought I saw another face superimposed over his own. I didn't recognize it, but they matched looks of horrified realization.

Then his blade slipped from his limp and nerveless hands, and he started bending down over his brother, his hands reaching, his expression unbelieving, his lips pleading.

And he got shot in the head before he could reach his brothers body.

That's when the fires started. I don't recall making the flames, or casting them over the entire massive city like a net. But the others assure me I did. I'm not sure how extensive the damage is. I don't want to think right now, just rest. The pain has only been growing. 

The others stepped out a little bit ago. I don't know what they are doing, and at this point I don't really care.

I need to sleep. I hope these new memories are gentle. But I doubt it.

Goodnight.