Goodbye,Eze

Hello friends,

It’s Eze, back in Hamitsdown after a long and largely unplanned walkabout.

Circumstances have changed for me recently, thanks, in no small part to the dedicated, crazy, and dedicatedly crazy friends I have made in my time here at the Holler. It is thanks to these friends that I find myself with oodles to tell you.

First, my name is Eze Clearwater.

Eze for being the same backwards as it is forwards, and Clearwater for being substantive but transparent. I was given this name by my four parents and my grandmother, which is how things are usually done in my clan. I come from a small collection of nomadic Interlokai; I was born with scales and a tail and other useful appendages, but found most aspects of myself mutable as I’ve grown.

I was brought to Katallist from my native continent by a wizard called Murdoch Cantorum, and by brought I mean I was summoned against my will and bound into the service of a man I’d never met with powers that were beyond my understanding.

I was bound to Murdoch’s service for many years, more years than I’ve yet been back out of his service, and in that time I was compelled to act against other creatures in ways that I can only describe as repugnant, depraved, and cruel. A tool in Murdoch’s hands, I was deprived of any ability to act on my own beliefs or confront his authority. I very nearly lost all sense of self, and was resigned to an existence of hoping, beneath the layers of Murdoch’s influence, for relief.

It was only after a cosmically unlikely stroke of luck that I was able to rip myself free of Murdoch’s control and disappear.

I spent years in hiding, unable to reunite with my family, unwilling to lead Murdoch back to them even if I could, terrified of being taken advantage of again. It was hard to trust, impossible to relax, and the road I was headed down was not particularly safe or sustainable. By all rights, I should have landed in a ditch somewhere, a story in a different kind of paper.

And then one day I ran into a gnome in the middle of a market in Mittflare. If you’ve read Al’s (ridiculous, revealing, very sweet) account of how we met, you know what happened next. I found the Holler, and I never looked back.

Al taught me how to live again.

I learned how to trust, how to think, how to question, how to decide for myself what kind of person I wanted to be, and what kind of world I wanted to live in. I learned how I could act to make the communities around me stronger, more understanding, more attentive to it’s needs. I met people. I got to know them through their passions, by listening with an open heart and an open ear to their loves, fears, worries, hopes. I made friends.

Very recently, I had another run in with Murdoch. It was. Uncomfortable. To say the least.

There was a moment where I was worried that I was going to be unable to continue my work at the Holler, that the people I’d met along the way had seen the last of me, and that I was going to disappear into a wizards tower again, but that this time I would never make it out.

But I made a lot more friends than I’d realized.

The creatures I have met since my time at the Holler have shown up for me in more profound ways than I thought possible. They heard me when I was scared, when I was vulnerable, and they came without prompting. I didn’t have to point at what I was afraid of. I didn’t even have to ask. They heard I was in trouble and they put their money where their mouth was without a lick of complaint.

Murdoch is no longer an issue for me, or for any of the (many) creatures he held bonded. There are others whom he was working with, a collections of warlocks and wizards that share he ideology about power and subjugation, and not everyone is free of their influence. There is a growing belief that abusing good faith, taking advantage of others, and allowing the vulnerable to be left behind are acceptable standards of being. I can only hope that I continue to see and contribute to the kind of community that helped me when I was at my most vulnerable to turn this around.

As you can imagine, the experience and excavation of some past events has been a bit traumatic, and I have some things to sort through. To this effect, I am going to be taking a bit of a break from the Holler.

Nobody panic, I will be back!

One day. After I’ve had a chance to relax a little and live my life without the specter of kidnapping and indentured servitude hanging over my head for a bit. I’ve got some old friends to reconnect with and some new ones to appreciate, and I’d like to dedicate some serious time to them.

I will never be able to repay the depths of friendship and care that I have received from them, but I will spend the rest of my life trying.

Thank you to everyone who has bothered to pick up this column and share a moment of your time with me while we’ve been in action. Your support and attention has been invaluable to me.

I look forward to rejoining you all a better, happier Eze.

Very much alive from the Holler,

Eze C.