(no subject)
Rau stood silently, his fists dripping blood onto the cold ground. The Exarch simply waited, knowing that the question would come, but it had to come from the depth of the spirit, in the words that only the young man himself could shape. When it came, the voice was like a needle wrapped in cotton; soft, but with a sharpness buried inside it. “Is this how it will always be then? Seeking one chance after another, moving from opportunity to opportunity? I train and I fight and then I train and the world is no closer to being in balance than when I began. I could sacrifice myself to save one person or a thousand, but they would all still fall in time and… I am disconnected from those around me. I work to become something and in doing so I find that I have lost the chance to become so many other things. Each choice pushes so many others away and each step means that there are dozens that are now denied to me. How does it not become futile? How does it not become... hopeless?”
The blind face turned in a completely natural gesture and the sightless gaze of the old man still had weight to it. “The battles don’t define you, Raumornie. You could survive thousands of them, emerge from countless fires and be marked by the experiences in ways that ill forever be on your body and your heart and your soul and yet this is still not the definition of you. A tree can be cut into a chair or a table or any other useful thing, or perhaps it will be used as fuel for a fire or even simply left to grow and provide shade. Regardless, it is still the same substance, the same thing, regardless of what it may be used for. This is the same for the warrior, the stalker that is the blood of the shadows. The warrior is where he is, doing what he does, because he has found that place that best suits his essence, rather than claiming that it was the place that shaped the essence itself. The essence of a person is shaped deep inside, where the will and the spirit can reach, and it would take the deepest of wounds to change it.”
“Do you move only from battle to battle, from training to training? Life is found in the inbetween times also, the moments taken from between one thing and the next when the defining essence of who you are is poured into a different vessel. You are the same substance, but the movement lets you see the fullness of what that substance truly is and how it feels when it is touched in unfamiliar ways. Training for combat may not teach you about dealing with boredom or love or hunger or any number of other things, but you may be poured into all of those vessels at some point or another. How will you fill them? It is sometimes said that the ultimate test of someone’s character is ahead when they want a thing they cannot have, but the fact is that this test is no different than any test of battle or training. The difference is only one of familiarity, both with the test and with the results.”
“Maybe I don’t fit...” His words were a murmur, the morning breeze wiping them clean before they could travel far, and yet the Exarch did not miss them. It was the heart of the matter, and little could be said that would reach the heart without first saturating the mind. The old man turned and walked away, but words formed gently near Rau’s ear, as though the universe itself was answering the most important of questions.
“You can be wherever you choose, Raumornie, but here is the place where you are most deeply known. The worth of all other things you might find become magnified in such a place. Whatever difficulties you may find there, do not forget the virtues of where you truly belong...”
The blind face turned in a completely natural gesture and the sightless gaze of the old man still had weight to it. “The battles don’t define you, Raumornie. You could survive thousands of them, emerge from countless fires and be marked by the experiences in ways that ill forever be on your body and your heart and your soul and yet this is still not the definition of you. A tree can be cut into a chair or a table or any other useful thing, or perhaps it will be used as fuel for a fire or even simply left to grow and provide shade. Regardless, it is still the same substance, the same thing, regardless of what it may be used for. This is the same for the warrior, the stalker that is the blood of the shadows. The warrior is where he is, doing what he does, because he has found that place that best suits his essence, rather than claiming that it was the place that shaped the essence itself. The essence of a person is shaped deep inside, where the will and the spirit can reach, and it would take the deepest of wounds to change it.”
“Do you move only from battle to battle, from training to training? Life is found in the inbetween times also, the moments taken from between one thing and the next when the defining essence of who you are is poured into a different vessel. You are the same substance, but the movement lets you see the fullness of what that substance truly is and how it feels when it is touched in unfamiliar ways. Training for combat may not teach you about dealing with boredom or love or hunger or any number of other things, but you may be poured into all of those vessels at some point or another. How will you fill them? It is sometimes said that the ultimate test of someone’s character is ahead when they want a thing they cannot have, but the fact is that this test is no different than any test of battle or training. The difference is only one of familiarity, both with the test and with the results.”
“Maybe I don’t fit...” His words were a murmur, the morning breeze wiping them clean before they could travel far, and yet the Exarch did not miss them. It was the heart of the matter, and little could be said that would reach the heart without first saturating the mind. The old man turned and walked away, but words formed gently near Rau’s ear, as though the universe itself was answering the most important of questions.
“You can be wherever you choose, Raumornie, but here is the place where you are most deeply known. The worth of all other things you might find become magnified in such a place. Whatever difficulties you may find there, do not forget the virtues of where you truly belong...”