Topic: The Truths of Man

NightRunner

Date: 2012-12-25 06:23 EST
The Truths of Man
Wind

"If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees."
--Khalil Gibran





It was calling.

He knew the call and wondered how long he could resist it and remain here on this continent. It was a funny thing, the call and Renne knew he would never be able to ignore it for long. Briefly, he thought back to his days before Rhy'Din. They had been spent largely at sea, but he didn't have the fortune then of learning the way of shipmen beyond what he heard them say. In the last thirteen years of his travels, Renne had found the call come to him more than half of that time.
And now, it called on the back of a question.

The creature had come to him as he sat on the docks listening to the freezing ocean. Half of him still wondered what was out there, beyond the next horizon. Half of him cried out for what was lost. Its radiance was missed on him as it approached, whispering its eternal question. It placed an hourglass beside him and as it drifted away again, like a wraith on the wind, Renne began to seriously ponder the question posed him.

"What would this world be like if you had not come here?"

The call stirred in him upon the question's voicing.

Memories came to him as he thought on it, both bidden and unbidden memories. By now, he was able to go through these moments in his life as stone-faced as a hardened soldier. Something of him had returned through these events and he had felt a layer of the jaded stone in his heart return. He could survive alone -- it was how he lived most of his life. What had made him seek out the futility of friendship? He knew the answer. And Renne faced the answer down. He didn't like it, but in a brief nutshell, he had known that not much at all would have changed if he hadn't found his way to Rhy'Din.

The creature was smart enough to not examine further into the logical conclusion for now.

And it was calling him.

The wind threaded into his hair, blowing back the makeshift hood of his yeti fur cloaking. Renne rose to his feet and called Ty'Rekh; a hand sweeping the hourglass into his pocket for safekeeping. Here was not a deserving place to go further into such things. He wasn't sure where would be such a place but Renne knew that Rhy'Din was unlikely a deserving place to see it.
He valued himself enough for that.

NightRunner

Date: 2012-12-26 18:15 EST
The Truths of Man
Stone

"Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart."
--William Butler Yeats






Ty'Rekh took him wherever she willed. He liked to let her roam wherever, for he never knew where the little pony's will might lead. Beyond that little pony, Renne held no trust for life-forms out there -- there was not a reason to. As they wandered though, the now masked creature's mind wandered equally as far.
They went north as his mind went inward. They passed a fountain with little more sound than Ty'Rekh's feet on the ground.

"What would the world be like if you had not come here?"

As they left the roar of the sea behind, they passed through the city and soon enough, left it too. They wandered wherever a pony wished to. She grazed when she found grass and when she snorted to signal want for a meal, Renne dismounted and produced for her grains, hay and oat. This little animal... The one constant, the one unchanging factor in his existence.
Ty'Rekh chuffed, eating happily as her rider pondered a burning question. The Ophanim's voice whispered in his mind, echoing. He took the hourglass out of his pocket and listened, holding it up to his face. He could not undo pasts, he could do little more than semi-randomly hop through universal existences.

A voice spoke like flame against rock.

"A world without you."

The storm that had carried him across many seas and worlds still blew. He was not there but he knew the year -- 1999, according to the calendar he had learned. Were he not there, he would not have learned such a calendar. The eradication of his kind would have been complete. Without exception. He tasted 1999 and heard it without him. The world was not yet too wildly different. Whether he had sailed through those storms or not would have had no change upon that.

He tasted 1999 again, never meeting Silver, never knowing the Isle of Shadows. The NightRunners still dissolved, falling apart like snow disintegrating in the spring. He was not there to infuriate the demon called Silver. He was not there to lose a heart-complex he didn't exist to have.
Renne's face remained stony. His skin turned gray as he kept listening.

2000 came to his ears and he shuddered involuntarily. Pendrell Vodalia still lived, still met Kyra Blackstone, Artyr and Odin. He still was the strong hero Renne had so loved and near-worshipped. But Renne was not there to meet him.

When Pendrell died, he was not there to fall apart. He was not there to lose his mind locked in a self-built tower shut away from the world below. He wasn't there to get his mind back together, to overcome the grief and come out of the tower either.
Kyra, Odin and Artyr still drifted away on the wind.

2001 whispered by. He wasn't there to meet Archie or Harold. The McGraths still came that night, still set fire to the tavern. The shots still rang through the building and, as Jarlath set the tear gas, Brynna and Ainnle set the building aflame. He was not there to be shot or left behind. He was not there to help rebuild.
They still drifted away. Sirin, Ranyor and Pacey left. They walked away, two to never return. Harold and Archie soon drifted off on their ship. Renne had not been there to be scolded.
At least he hadn't been there to wonder if he was on his own.

2002 and 2003 came by in a blur. The nations still rose and fell without him there. He wasn't there to explore, to learn and fail at changing his appearance. He wasn't there to force his appearance into a humanoid shape and thus, acquire the notch in his ears. The Rhydin slave markets ran as they did. His only regret here was that the few slaves he had managed to rescue to freedom did not get that chance this time.

Yule came. Harold spent the night alone in a quiet, reopened tavern. Lilith and Stacey still emerged. He and Lilith still fell in love, leaving Stacey to drift with barely a goodbye. Ranyor still dropped by on occasion. Harold didn't need to write that note to Renne this time, telling him to stay put. Renne wasn't there to disobey the message. He wasn't there to meet Vicfryn as they got him out of the Underdark.
Vicfryn took his place as cook and for a while, things passed by without a change. Until they too, drifted off again.

2004. 2005. They blazed by with little consequence. The Less Crowded Inn survived Nyarlathotep's attacks. They saw through Rena's freedom and second child. They saw through Zonker and Melkor's reunion from Asgaard. Xyvoria rose and fell. Sendaria was but a spot on the map before it too, faded away. He wasn't there for Kavanagh to betray him. He wasn't there and nearly nothing changed.

2006 whispered in. The Maritime reopened for a while. Archie's return was celebrated by only Harold and a new woman named Maia. Lilith appeared. Kaori Hotaru still drove a wedge between the once-solid friends, Harold and Archie. Renne simply wasn't there for Archie to save him from another bullet. He wasn't there to encounter Nancy and her troubling storms.

As 2007 rolled in on the cold, thawing spring, Harold still left. He didn't need to write a message to one who never existed. Renne wasn't there to find out and in the following months, he wasn't there to be ridiculed. He wasn't there to lose his mind again and become a killer, unconscious still of the acts he had committed. Harold still came back.
He still fell in love again, withdrawing from all but a few. Archie still vanished. The only differences had been Renne's absence. He wasn't there to need Kitty Helston. He wasn't there to go to Port South.

Rhydin easily lived on without him.

2008 brought the Enterprise. Or it would have, if Renne had been there. But he was not, so the ship never came. It never met him, so the silver ship sailed on. The men still fell in love. The crew still drifted apart as the sun rose on 2009.

2009 went by in the blink of an eye. He wasn't there to learn about an Eltarian wizard, to later be regarded as a god. He wasn't there to learn the art of human betrayal again. The ship he had been on didn't need to drop him on that wasted rock of a world. He wasn't there, so he had no bonds to try to save. He wasn't there, so he didn't need to search the Multiverse to find a golden needle in a yellow haystack.

2010 and 2011 weren't enough to recognise.

Life blazed to the present and through the entire hearing of all that had been, a realisation came down in a heartbeat: The Multiverse could easily do without him.

It didn't take long for the proverbial heart in him to harden once more.

NightRunner

Date: 2013-01-07 19:26 EST
The Truths of Man
Fire

"Men are only as loyal as their options."
--Bill Maher





Face it.

-No. The truth is not this.-

Yes it is. You are inconsequential. The Multiverse can do without you.

-I will find worth.-

In what? Faded memories and a chain of betrayals?

-In me.-

You. You, one who is not supposed to exist out here in the first place.

-Yes.-

His head swam. He rode Ty'Rekh wherever she liked until the whispers and the Hourglass finally got to him. With a gentle command, he guided her to the north. At first, it was a steady walk. The steady walk grew into a trot, then a canter, then a full-blown run as if predators were at their heels.

Ty'Rekh felt the anxiety and snorted. She didn't like the Hourglass and, more than once, tried to nip at it.

Wind whipped at their faces, running frozen fingers through a pony's mane and her rider's long hair. They rode for hours, for miles not caring of the snows or the icy wind. There was something that needed to be done and Renne had to know what it was. He had to find something out, even if it killed him. The voice and Hourglass still whispered as they progressed further.

They passed the Evergreen without a glance. They ventured into the grounds unexplored before now. Ty'Rekh slowed down when she wished -- she knew her instincts and her rider knew that. Renne bowed to the wisdom of his mount and companion.
They went North, past a pile of ruins unrecognised. They turned to the east, following a path that neither was sure what would be at its end. The snow gave way to snow-dusted sand and crashing waves. For miles, they ran along this unknown coast.
Until at last, they came to a stop.

Face it.

Renne dismounted Ty'Rekh and stood several meters away from his beloved companion. He stood, waiting for something beyond the voice that whispered insignificance.
The silver device on his arm gave a shrill series of beeps. A voice came through, made somewhat hollowed by the tiny device. Renne listened to it.
It was a command.

"Remember your oath. Without you, the Oath is meaningless. Do as your Oath dictates. You will persevere."

Face it.

"Find yourself again. Steel Ranger."