Curse of a Firstborn
I am not a good person. I have fled and I have lied. Still, I have done all that I could; I swear this under the Light of the Great Sun.
It wasn’t enough. Nothing ever was. But how was I to make sense of it all? My scarred and burnt body wrapped in silk, reaching for a weapon… or sometimes a goblet. Gold turning red, servants marching from room to room – my eyes, bleak and hollow, follow their rugged steps… but all I see is the marching of velvet bodies through mud and blood, dimming the light in the eyes of others. And I march and I march and I march.
I was trained to protect, to always guard, to never question and never bend. Yet, I hesitated when my hands gripped the hilt, bleeding, for I was to strike with no aim. The will of this body had been lost long ago. It is now only waiting.
Ah, but I saw the Light before my brother, and I know I will lose its grace way before him as well. He will rule, safe and sound, upon the ghosts of my bones, and I will look up at him with a smile, for I know it was not his fault. It was not his fault that I was cursed not to be born second – or born at all.
– Confession of an unnamed Santilli firstborn, found among the open records in the Ishpanery of Dawnfell