The Path Of Repentance

The Path of Repentance

They say family is the greatest gift of all, that the love and support you feel as a child and in your later years never leaves you. They say that no man is alone that has family and that his life and deeds are shaped by his families history. I say that family is the greatest curse in this life and the next, a set of unbreakable chains that binds you to every act of your family and is tempered with pain, loss and regret. Family is the shadow that you will never step out from.
You dont believe me? Come then, let me tell you of my family. Let me show you how my family has loved me, and how that love has made me what I am today.

My name, as given to me by my family, was Cartheron Desant Severus. The name of Severus has a long and illustrious history, one full of brave deeds and mighty victories. Aye, illustrious indeed. Few others within the Scarlet Crusade are as famed. Does that shock you? My dear father had been a priest within the holy crusade his entire life. Even his death wasnt enough to cool the flames of his fanaticism, his rotting corpse and spirit lingered on, justified by its need to 'teach' the younger members of the crusade. My youth was spent in the temples of the damned Crusade, learning its damned catechisms and prayers. I will not speak of the things I saw, the pogroms, the so-called holy cleansings of heretics or my own part in those deeds. Nor will I speak more of my father, not of his teachings nor of the day that led to my fleeing the safety of the Temple, the day that I saw what had become of my beautiful sister. Suffice to say that there is a reckoning due between the men of the Severus line.

My life within the Order, the quests and tasks I endure, these are atonement for sins. The line of Severus is steeped in sin, so much so that my actions alone cannot cleanse it. Try as I might, I am but one man, one of the sons of Severus who has turned to the True Light and I know that even my acts now may not be enough to cleanse and absolve my sins. But there must be an answer to my fathers words, to his actions and his deeds. When my soul finally leaves me and is judged, regardless of my fate I will find solace in the knowledge that the line of Severus ends with me.

So why struggle I hear you ask? Why attempt to cleanse the stain that is upon yourself when you know it is futile?

My answer is simple. Hate. Deep within me, my heart flows not with love, not with purity, not with righteous anger, but with pure unsullied hatred. I am no healer such as Penitence, no paragon of the Light like my brother Evangelist and I have not the font of Righteousness that erupts from dear Macloren. My hatred for the Crusade, for the stinking unholy disease that is undeath, for the weakness in men that leads them to find ways to cheat death, that is what drives me and it is my hate that nurses my wounds and guides my blade.

Look not to me for forgiveness, nor for guidance, I would have no other walk my path and I am no paragon of the virtues of the Paladin. My hands are bloodied with the souls of the innocent, and the Light has seen fit to accept my confession and my penitence.
Look upon and know me. Cartheron, Blade of Wrath for the Order of Illumination. See me for my true name - Hates' Edge.

Witness my repentance.