2 Alisdair

2 Alisdair

Once I wore my past, a crown of thorns, a cloak of penitence.

I killed those who did not deserve to die, coveted what they had, and took what should never have been mine, pillaging without

a backward glance. A brute of a man, I hammered my way through the centuries, pounding to dust all that did not yield to my

will.

Now, with nothing but time to contemplate those centuries, I see myself for who and what I am, and know I deserved my fate.

Yet not at my enemy's hands, for my enemy is no better than I. In truth, my enemy merits far greater punishment.

Still, once, we were two of a kind.

I suspect, were humans confined to solitary, as I have been, and forced to face themselves for a long enough period of time,

they would either descend into despair and terminate their miserable existence or get a fucking clue and evolve.

I met despair unwillingly, was dragged kicking and raging into that dark, devouring vortex until the time came when I craved

nothing more than to cease to exist—a release I am forever denied.

I reviled despair, held it in contempt, perceiving it as I did all emotion: weakness. I struggled against it, swinging my

mighty hammer to obliterate it.

The harder I fought, the more obdurate despair became.

At last, weary of battle, tired of closing my eyes to avoid the bloody wreckage of my life, I dropped my hammer and opened them. Wide.

The abyss of despair stared at me, and I stared back, unflinching. Then, with a snort of laughter, I leapt into that bottomless

gorge of madness.

To my surprise, I found the abyss had a bottom and, in the depths of that merciless chasm, I discovered the still place.

There, I came to understand one does not do battle with despair.

One must walk differently within it. One must step sideways, lightly, as if passing over the surface of quicksand, and as

you continue stepping sideways, it becomes a sort of instinctual dance, older than time itself. A dance that can carry you

beyond the moment, through the dark night of your soul, into the dawn.

For as your spirit moves in those slow, certain steps you were born knowing, steps imprinted in the very essence of your being,

you begin to remember the finest of who you are, who you might have been were circumstances different, and who you might yet

be, because it's possible—each fragile fresh dawn you draw breath—to choose again.

Impossible, however, to forge a new path wearing the accoutrements of self-inflicted punishment, regrets for deeds that can't

be undone. You must relinquish the past, never forgotten, eternally part of your spirit, but only in the manner the cocoon

precedes the butterfly.

Some deem stillness and dancing opposites.

They are two sides of the same coin, and that coin is the currency of life.

You must learn how to be still. You must remember the dance.

Then, to do more than exist—to truly live—you must learn how to do both at the same time.

The young witch who approaches Watch Hill has mastered stillness.

But she has not learned to dance. She can't even hear the music in her blood.

My enemy awaits her.

It amuses the fiend that the fledgling Cailleach will never once see me, although she will certainly behold me.

I—who was once the most deeply feared warrior on any battlefield, in any century—am powerless to help her, and soon she will

know life as I do.

Hell without end.