The path to discovery almost inevitably leads to wonderment, an emotion (is it an emotion? or a phenomenon?) one associates almost exclusively with children. In a land like this, in times like these, we all become children or we surrender to the mark of time and the marks of others and we fall. It is wonderment, renewal, that permits us to continue-- that _drives_ us to persevere-- and so we shuffle on, from one impossibility to the next, our days falling like dominoes both forward and back.
Friendship
It isn\'t so much the companionship that I seek. Actual physical nearness has no meaning for me-- conversation either. What does is the knowledge that others hold me in some esteem. No matter they consider me the most powerful warrior or merely an equal, so long as some regard is kept I am content. I remember their names.
Aging
I have travelled far in this land. I can show you this in every scar on my body, and in each wrinkle around my eye. The land-- the journey-- has made its mark on me. It is only my wish that when I am gone I will have proven that I also made my own mark. My passing will be noted either in these archives, or in the rough-hewn path I have cut away for myself, through my enemies and through the dense forests of these realms. |