Memoirs: Enough
Jan. 15th, 2006 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shosenIt was a scrap of paper, randomly handed out as a carnival souvenir. It was even numbered, but I kept pulling it out to read the trite words emblazoned on the surface.
Let not the tides of war wash you away.
War, in its many different forms, had been on my mind quite often when that paper was handed to me. I was trying to help with the war effort by given what supplies I could, mostly providing the required bandages, and filling the ironic need for Peacebloom. It wasn’t much, but it was something, and I wanted to help. That same desire had taken me on the University’s trip to Elwynn, where were we both welcomed, and attacked. It had taken on the Dean’s tour of the Silithid Hives, a rather disturbing experience. It was also a humbling one, for I could see just how much I had to learn, and how unprepared I was to face even one of the bugs that lived near the Scarab Wall.
But there were all external battles. These I could face, could use to distract myself from the greater wars within. The trip to Elwynn, watching those amongst us who fell, and our outrage over those attacks, it changed my perspective on what I was being asked to do in service to the Horde. It seemed that all I was being told to do was kill. Humans, Elves, Lions, Bears, Dryads, Orcs, Trolls, even poison that damn dog, all of them in the end, dead. Perhaps not at my hand, but to my instruction, for Thokdok only landed the killing blow upon my command. For so many reasons, I killed, but it didn’t matter, because dead was dead, whatever the reasons, and whatever we are, we can die, like everything else.
Or, we should. Another war, that one, buried so deep and waged without my acknowledgement or consent, but still there. I should have been dead, apparently had been, but if I wasn’t any longer, then what was I? Scourge, Undead, Forsaken, all names for something that should not exist, but does, and with little understanding. It was the plague that raised us, of course, but that was the how and not the why, and I desperately wanted a reason, an explanation. I wanted something that would give what I had gone through a place in the order of existence, to give it some meaning.
And that was the final war, always there, always waging, but never faced. Why had this been done to me? Myself against this form that had changed more than just the loss of life. A form that felt like a constant Hallow’s End costume, and prompted others to constantly remind me that who I had been could no longer be seen, would probably never be seen again. The stranger’s face that look back in the reflections of ponds and windows and tempted me to find out for certain if Forsaken could die like everything else.
Too many wars around and within me. Too many tides pulling me under. Too many years spent running from such problems rather than learning how to face them.
And it was enough. Sitting in the corner of Undercity, Darneth mocking the instructor of a nearby summoning class, I had simply had enough. I stared at that small scrap of paper, and then with a word ignited it. I let the ashes fall to the ground, watching them scatter.
I would not be washed away. I would fight these wars, make peace where I could and ensure victory where I could not. For once, I would not run, would not take the easy path. And in the end, I would find my answers.
Let not the tides of war wash you away.
War, in its many different forms, had been on my mind quite often when that paper was handed to me. I was trying to help with the war effort by given what supplies I could, mostly providing the required bandages, and filling the ironic need for Peacebloom. It wasn’t much, but it was something, and I wanted to help. That same desire had taken me on the University’s trip to Elwynn, where were we both welcomed, and attacked. It had taken on the Dean’s tour of the Silithid Hives, a rather disturbing experience. It was also a humbling one, for I could see just how much I had to learn, and how unprepared I was to face even one of the bugs that lived near the Scarab Wall.
But there were all external battles. These I could face, could use to distract myself from the greater wars within. The trip to Elwynn, watching those amongst us who fell, and our outrage over those attacks, it changed my perspective on what I was being asked to do in service to the Horde. It seemed that all I was being told to do was kill. Humans, Elves, Lions, Bears, Dryads, Orcs, Trolls, even poison that damn dog, all of them in the end, dead. Perhaps not at my hand, but to my instruction, for Thokdok only landed the killing blow upon my command. For so many reasons, I killed, but it didn’t matter, because dead was dead, whatever the reasons, and whatever we are, we can die, like everything else.
Or, we should. Another war, that one, buried so deep and waged without my acknowledgement or consent, but still there. I should have been dead, apparently had been, but if I wasn’t any longer, then what was I? Scourge, Undead, Forsaken, all names for something that should not exist, but does, and with little understanding. It was the plague that raised us, of course, but that was the how and not the why, and I desperately wanted a reason, an explanation. I wanted something that would give what I had gone through a place in the order of existence, to give it some meaning.
And that was the final war, always there, always waging, but never faced. Why had this been done to me? Myself against this form that had changed more than just the loss of life. A form that felt like a constant Hallow’s End costume, and prompted others to constantly remind me that who I had been could no longer be seen, would probably never be seen again. The stranger’s face that look back in the reflections of ponds and windows and tempted me to find out for certain if Forsaken could die like everything else.
Too many wars around and within me. Too many tides pulling me under. Too many years spent running from such problems rather than learning how to face them.
And it was enough. Sitting in the corner of Undercity, Darneth mocking the instructor of a nearby summoning class, I had simply had enough. I stared at that small scrap of paper, and then with a word ignited it. I let the ashes fall to the ground, watching them scatter.
I would not be washed away. I would fight these wars, make peace where I could and ensure victory where I could not. For once, I would not run, would not take the easy path. And in the end, I would find my answers.