Ramblings

Sometimes trying to develop a new character is interesting and revealing. I get the chance to look at things from a slightly different perspective.
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Within the confines of my own thoughts, I pace. Counting out the steps as I go. The wisps of memory, the smoldering vestiges of hope, the lingering caress of dreams. Cataloguing them with each step, each pace, one foot followed by another, until I reach the end. Then I turn, reversing my course, to start the process yet again.

Counting again.

So much, and yet so little as well. So much left undone. So little, accomplished. And so little time. Behind me, the span of decades lost. Wasted. Thrown away in the name of … what, exactly? For want of money? Power? Hatred? Revenge? Glory? Freedom?

Or was it fear?

So pitiful. I see it now, so clearly. Caught in a web of lies, though I did not know it at the time. Lies I was told, and believed, because I was too foolish to stop and question. But still a web of my own weaving. And so the blame lies on me, and me alone.

The past cannot be changed. It is what it is, and nothing more. The years lost cannot be taken back. No amount of regret can turn back the course of time.

And yet, regret lingers. Cannot be banished by reason, by understanding. Such things are under the mind’s purview. Emotions, under reign of the heart. Emotions such as regret. Such as guilt. Such as longing. Such as hatred and desire as well.

A lifetime of such, I’ve had.

Enough. No more. My sword I lay down, here and now. Never again will I wield it in battle. Though through the generations my family has borne it in honor, never again shall it wield me. No more for me, this path of rage and hatred. Another path I shall find, old as I am. Another way.

They will not look kindly on this act, that I know. But such is the price to be paid. I will pay it. My name, my rank, my clan – these things, I give up. My family lays shattered already, broken beyond all hope of repair. My son, dead from following his father’s path, my path – the path of the sword. My wife, near-mad with grief over our boy’s death, filled with anger and blame. My daughter, filled with youthful zeal and belief, unable to see beyond the web of lies and illusions they use to beguile.

I am alone. I am myself. And somehow, some way, I shall find my path.