Warden

[Rhaegor]

Before he deigns to answer, King Warden gestures to a path which I know leads to Tephra's mighty volcano. Once again, my mind turns to Kavi, to vines, roots, and strange and wonderous birdsong. It makes sense that my family line would end up here, destined forevermore to return whenever they took a hiatus. Even now my memories of Hyaline, my birth home, seem distant; I cannot begin to imagine what a trip home might feel like. Tephra homes me, now.

So much has changed.

The political landscape of Beqanna included.

I saw fires in the Loess and in the North, in Taiga. Dragonfire. Magicians were drawn to it...

Mention of the east, of my homeland, drops my stomach. All of a sudden the setting of my childhood memories regains it meaning in full force; foolish, to think that such significance could be eradicated with just a touch of adulthood. I see the lake, the grotto, and my triplet siblings as clear as day; sometimes, the visions are of the past. Versions of the future that might have been. I blink hard, sending them away so that I can focus. When Warden mentions fear for our families, I find myself ailed with a similar apprehension.

How is it we can see the future and have no power to stop it, Rhaegor? We can see the devastation but are powerless to thwart it?

The earth underhoof turns to sand and ancient lava rock before I know how to answer. The level of comfort we each share with total silence in one way makes me feel lucky right now, but in another, it just makes me feel morbid and, as Warden said, powerless.

At last, however, the words come.

Before I answer, I must confess that my visions plague me a drop compared to your ocean. I look him in the eyes as I think this to him. But... I will share with you something my grandfather told me as a colt plagued by aching and chaotic visions. He told me, "Rhaegor, you see the future with great clarity." Despite the grave tone of our conversation thus far, I cast my eyes to the cloud-ridden horizon around us and cannot help but to smile. And then he said, "So do I!" I laugh, an empty clicking sound at the back of my throat. I argued with him about this as he hasn't the gift -- cursed as it may be -- but he would not let up, and at long last, he said to me this:

"Rhaegor, you see the future with great clarity. It comes to you in a way I can only imagine. But know, child, that the future comes to us regular folk, too; we, too, live with the looming anxieties of tomorrow. We see the world around us and make our own best guesses about what's to come. And in those guesses, we have a choice: to focus on the potential for good or on the potential for pain. So in a way, we aren't so different in the end; gifted or not, we see our futures and make our way as best we can toward them. We make our way toward them every day, every minute, every second, directing our thoughts to either hope or despair."

I look now to Warden, feeling more as though I speak to him directly now than as if I paraphrase my grandfather.

And the thing is, the future is coming no matter what. The bad parts and the good parts all the same, whether we see them by choice or by rumination or what have you. And it's tragic that the bad parts must come... Tragic, even more, to have to experience them many times over. I grimace at this. But no amount of bad precludes the good. Warden, the good comes, too. My heart pounds in my chest as my vulnerable monologue continues. No one has the power to change that. In one way or another, whether we are here or not, whether we experience the future once or twice or infinitely or not at all, the good and the bad will come all the same.

With this, I halt, unaware of my surroundings but assured in the knowledge that Warden, burdened as he is, pays me his full attention.

That familiar silence joins us once more. My final words take their time formulating; I do not mind.

Warden, I think at last, turning again to look my uncle in the eye, what I learned that day was that my visions are just visions. That I can only contribute my part to the future and no more. And I learned to take the beauty and the warmth out of my visions and to focus on them instead of on the tragedies... Because the tragedies will come.

Tears fill my eyes. A vision, aptly timed, takes me as I allow myself to dwell on the tragedies; I watch as my loved ones die in such specific ways that I can taste the reality of their contents like I can taste the iron in blood. I do not have to say anything for Warden to know what visions ail me now. But as I cry, I must also smile and remember my own words.

But the good will, too.

.

@[Warden]

this is a mess xoxo