Chapter 5 - Journey begins

5 Duskar 499 CE

This is tiresome

I rejoined with the others outside. They are all eager to leave. Agenor however, wished Aetala to join with us. With some convincing from Magna however, he pulled back. Another emotive expressions of apparent care from others. I have grown to somewhat disdain it. How does it matter if she comes or not? Why does it matter if she feels like it? Why must your decisions be decided with a simple impulse of the heart? How fickle are you, heroes of the land, that your emotions overtake your executive functions? It tires me.

Why was I taught to feel anyway? Would it not just be better of me to be an unfeeling automata? A tool that can do any job in efficient manner, that includes ruling and being a hero. I don't know the importance of these things, emotions. I do have them, but I can only see the disadvantages of having them. I do not know how to regulate, so I feigned. I bottled them up, stored them in an empty vase deep within my soul. I feigned my cool by smoking, again.

Again and again and again I wracked my head around trying to maintain the everlasting peace of this island, while its people harbored everlasting hatred of one another. Men kills for money and past mistakes. Women defends the men's wrongs with whatever they could. Children die of poverty and starvation. All the while the Gods prance around doing whatever they liked doing, in blissful ignorance of the suffering their people are going through.

If all prophecies are bound to happen, then it matters little what we do, right? If we are all bound to keep the peace, then what use of us trying? What would be the difference between good and evil then? If predestination of events are real, what use is free will? Is there anything in life beyond living?

Is logic the end all be all of life? Are these chaotic stirs within me I call emotions really unreal? Are they not valid? I feel them trembling. There is no word in the entire lexicon of the many languages that I know that could describe this feeling, this paradox, of both deep frustration and complete emptiness. Of the fact that complete good and complete evil must exist with another. Of the reality that the act of creation, of building, requires the destruction of another.

By the time I realized my mistake of overthinking, we did not bring any tents nor maps. I was preoccupied with my own thoughts, that I had been walking in autopilot. I started to remember what my body did whilst it walked on its own. There was an apparent rain that I had not even noticed until we were at an alcove. I was searching for a tent, and the fact that we did not bring any snapped me out of my trance. The utter stupidity of such action stopped my train of thoughts. But I still had to feign my unblinking façade.

However fortunate we were, going on a journey without a shred of readiness nor information, hidden between the boulders of the alcove was a cave. A landslide, perhaps. Magna was sizing up the blockade. I for one, believes that actions speak louder than thoughts, thus I used the scabbard of my sword as a lever to try and yank the rocks one by one, but alas, I'm not quite the strongest woman out here. Seeing our plight, Li Wei does a little dance of her own and somehow, the force of friction between the geological objects lessened, and we were able to dig out the entrance in about an hour.

It was dark. And it was apparent everyone but me had some sort of night vision, akin to that of felines. But again, thankfully, Magna brought torches to light up the way around. It took us a moment to clear the area. There was another blocked entrance deeper within. But this was different, it has no gaps between the rocks. It is as if it was blocked in from the other side.

Confirming our safety inside the cave, I immediately made a small campfire on the recess of the cave, within reach of the second blocked entrance. As we laid down our rolls of beds, Fauna inquires about an alternative place for our encampment, in direct line of sight of the cave mouth. I am not in such a mood to argue, but I explained in simplicity that being in the light of sight of the cave entrance may let light out, and thus, reveals our position if someone is outside. Fauna took that well and went along with my plan.

Everyone began to take turns on night watch as they slept. For some reason I couldn't close my eyes and fall into slumber. I stared into the fire that slowly turns into embers of dark. There were so many questions in my mind. Questions doubting everything that I've ever known. Questions doubting the nature of man. Questions on what to do about it as a mere dame, and as a ruler.

Under these circumstances, we, no, I have little will of my own, except the actions I can enact. The ones I can control extends only to my body, and my mind. In that moment I had realized the absolute truth, about equanimity. The realization of life, that the events in which we have absolute control is minimum. Our will extends beyond just what we do with our limbs, and what we say with our mouths. What the world will is outside of my control. What the heroes will might as well. In this epiphany, I had realized ataraxia.

The wood crackles under my supervision, as if congratulating me on finally realizing. These flames within me, that was with me since the winter I was born in. It lights up not in ambition, not in reckless rage, but in deepened resolve and meaning. I may not have many answers to the meaning of good and evil, of virtues of man, of the human condition, but that is outside of my control as of this moment in time.

But I have my will. I have never once in my life considered what I want, what I will. Just the commands of my mother, and the feelings that I had harbored about certain things I thought I liked. About things that I thought would make mother and father happy. Not once did I stare myself right in the soul, and ask myself, what wills you?

I wish to rule. I wish to be known. I wish to stand atop of the world, and see this world for what it is. I wish for wings.

And as my first will of my own, I enact my first edict for the heroes that are sleeping beside me. "We need to go to Estoria"