Curse of a Firstborn
I am not a good person. I have fled and I have lied. Ah, by the Sun! I have done all that I could! I swear this by the sweet light of Essolang. Yes. I have done my best. I swear, I swear.
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. Oh, I know this, trust me. Yet, I hesitated when my hands gripped the hilt, bleeding, for I was to strike with no aim – no aim at all. The will of this body had been lost long ago. Ah, Essolang, look at it; this body of mine is now only waiting.
I saw the Light before my brother, I did. And I know, oh don’t 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.
– recorded confession of an unnamed Santilli firstborn, found among the open records in the Ishpanery of Dawnfell