0: The Fool

[shosen]

She had hesitated, when Leiral had suggested carving her name and stick-form into the tree. She had tried to explain the reason, but had failed. The words were awkward and fleeting, the feelings confusing and consuming. She settled on, well, being unsettled. Within herself, as herself, and Leiral has said she could understand it, which was reassuring, because she herself could not.

Sitting now on the edge of their campsite, looking out over the wilds of Feralas, she considered it, trying to hunt down the elusive explanation. What she found was not precisely comforting.

She did not know herself.

It made sense, perhaps, given what had happened to her. Two people into one, and when she woke, there were friends, family, of only one, and so that is what she went with. It wasn't a lie, as she was that person, but it wasn't the truth, as she was also another.

The intervening time she had spent trying to resolve that, but in doing so, she not only split her pasts, but her perception of herself. Her name with that stick figure, carved into a tree and lasting long enough that Leiral had grown up in between carving her own and now... What if it was assigning permanence to a falsehood?

It was no good simply existing, trying to get by. It was no good seeing herself in reflections and reactions to others. It was no good keeping herself split even in her own mind, with reactions or actions she considered more like one self than the other.

There was only her now, and she needed to know who that person was. From this vantage point, from this position high above the considerations and problems they faced below, it seemed like anything was possible. She could jump into this, face the journey to discovering herself and not fear losing pieces along the way. She could do this. She had to do this.

Face her pasts, face her selves, and in the end, find herself.

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Comments

[mintos.livejournal.com]

The card depicts Koani as a pimp. Awesome.