Trial of Sacrifice: The Name of a Grim

[Qabian]

Dearest Grim,

Some of you may already know my surname, Amberlight. (I would point out to Khorvis the lack of an "f", but his absence is sharply felt.)

If you have had a keener interest in me than necessary, you may have also noticed that I have distinctly avoided using that name myself since my return. The reasons for this are many, but they focus mainly on the obvious, and that is the name's connection with family.

When I was very young, it was made clear to me that my family or at least my small branch of the family under the Amberlight name had fallen from grace. We had once had status, but had been stripped of it. We had once had money, but had become poor.

It was also made clear to me very early that my family's future rested on my shoulders. For some, perhaps this is a reference to legacy, to providing an heir. In my experience, however, my family's future depended not on offspring, but on redemption, about proving to Silvermoon that we were still a force to be reckoned with.

When I first joined the Grim, I was well on my way to accomplishing that goal. With the application of an early life of focus and competence, I had single-handedly dragged our name out of the mud.

My father met his end unceremoniously during the Third War. However, it was only after I had been with the Grim for some months that my mother met an even less honorable demise, murdered in her sleep. And it was only after her removal from my story that I truly began to question any real need for family redemption, any real truth to the strength of this soft name Amberlight.

In the time in between, I worked on constructing a new reputation for Amberlight, separated from my past, my history, and my family.

But in the light of what happened with the Bronze, that construct lays in pieces, many of them missing or worn with repetition, and they cannot be put together again. The possibility exists that the Amberlight construct, the name and the people both, have continued on separately from me. I must divest myself of them. My parents are dead. My family is gone. My reputation is meaningless. I must begin again from nothing.

I am no Amberlight. I would give that name to the Grim. I would sacrifice that name on the Grim altar, burn it on the pyre of Annihilation.

In its place I would take up a simpler name, lighter with history but heavier with truth: Grimfire.

This is no title. It is no honorific. It will never be inherited. The Grim is not my family. I have no family. I have no need of family. But the Grim and the Mandate are essential to who I am, and I would declare that every time I sign my name. With this name, I would build myself anew, as a willing and perpetual servant of the Grim.

There is arrogance to this request. I would be less than myself if I did not admit to and indeed revel in that arrogance. So be it.

Peace through Annihilation.

~ Magister Qabian Grimfire