Editing The Broken Exarch (section)

==Part I==
I think I have walked too long on this path. Far, far too long.

My hands, stained with licks of paint - my ears filled with sounds of song and beauty. My hands weave in and out of their work - my obsession, my greatest... I cannot call it "joy". There is no joy to be had, not for us, not for me. We have had our fill - we have drunk deeply of the nectar of heaven, and paid dearly for the price, an eternal shame and torture the likes of which none others could comprehend.

There is the act - there is the correct path, myself nothing more than water flowing through the channels of time. I see what will happen, not with the mystic foresight of the seers, but with the perfect knowledge of the flow of the world. Each stroke, each movement a work of beauty and meaning in itself. My art is not a static one. The creation, a perfect moment etched into time.

I know that some artists of the lesser species find great satisfaction in layering meaning to their works - another story beyond the mere words or drawings they write. but they cannot compare to the artistry I employ. Every time my instrument touches my canvas, my thoughts are etched onto the world. I do not give meaning to some fictional, far-off tale - my thoughts and words are placed into the real world, this place of crystal and blood and bone. 

My spear and sword sing as they work, cleanly laying open the follies of those who would get in the way of...us? Sometimes I wonder if the glory of my people is what truly drives me. Is it for my people that I work, for my audience? Or have I walked too far? Have I taken that fatal step off the end of this path in life?

I cannot say. My inner voice goes silent when I question myself - a symptom of my actions or of my people, I could not tell. I could no more ask my canvas for help than myself. Both pieces of the same whole, a work of art beyond my own contribution.