For every medal awarded
hundred heroes die alone
unsung and unremembered.
-Inscribed into a helmet,
Fort Llast cemetery
I can chose my wishes:
I wish that one day, in the scent of a sunny evening in autumn I see children chasing around a dog in piles of fallen leaves laughing at each other, that someone holds my hand resting a head against my should and I know that this is my family.
I wish that one day, when darkness encloses us, my faith shines above all else even if I know that my time is done, and I will be a beacon of light to set the spark of hope ablaze in the heart of many.
It was good to go. He would have liked to help the people there, but he did not have the time to bother with Jaedon and Daniella. It like betraying those he helped, protected, fought with. Well, not that Jaedon or Daniella cared – or if they did, they still had to prove that to him. On the other hand, others were probably better with words and such work.
Blind fate...we're going the fast road into some real trouble soon enough.
He had noted a few last words in his notebook, it was nearly full now. Nearly. A few pages remained, and he intended others to fill them, when the time came. While the carriage to Sundance bounced over the rocky so called street, he noticed that with little people left, Fiorez would have quite something ahead of them in terms of economy. But, faith overcame everthing, no?
This is going to be very interesting. So, they play their games, I shall play mine. Let's see where the things I learned lead me, apart from into new pits of suffering and pain.
Nobody dared to speak with him after they noticed the ankh around his neck and on his cloak. It was time for a plainer cloak, so he wasn't sticking out like a sore thumb all the time. Again, that would bring him into trouble with other followers of the Great Leader, and he didn't think even the oligarchs in Port Hempstead could afford it to pay him for another debate on dogma and other such things with any cleric or, worse, the Chosen One. A shouting match with her would, most likely, help improve his rhetoric, and the punishments afterward steel his body.
We need more spellweavers and clerics...different tactics as well. Different training, different recruiting, or the price of blood we pay with each of these wars will be too high one day. It was too high already. Not that it bothered anybody, so it seemed. He knew too many graves and too many ways to die by now. One would think we could prevent these things from happening in the first place. Best way to prevent war is to win it before it begins. Or if you wage it, at least wage it better.
He hadn't seen Daniella doing something in regard to the dead. Only a lone bard of Ilsare – a certain Andrew William Reid – who sang for them. Because that's what bards do. He had been nothing but a companion who walked the last steps with so many. So far, he could keep their faces in check, their words and wishes. He had done what he could, wrote their families, buried them with what they wished to be buried. Had been respectful. No woman or man should die alone or with false hopes. Dead were statistics, and the living got some pieces of metal they called medals. He found it pathetic. Personal opinion, of course. They would be forgotten before the year was out, memories blended into meaningless nothingness, with some rousing speech value, perhaps. They took it too easy in his opinion. Maybe they were afraid of death, and of the dead, of memories and the hurtful past. Maybe.
And on the last page, with some free at the end, only stood:
From sacrifice comes endurance,
From sacrifice and endurance comes conviction and humility.
From conviction comes duty and doubt,
From duty and doubt comes understanding for the path
The Great Leader walked before us.
Honor him, understand him, serve his ideals the best you can
He expects nothing less, and nothing more.