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Literature in the Description

Recent Geopolitical events have been weighing very heavily on me right now so this is a vent concerning a lot of things I'm wrestling with right now.

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Coffee and Afan pushed through the crowded marketplace of the Sander waterfront. As usual Afan was attracted to exotics venders and specialty shops. The well-traveled soldier was an eternal xenophile and would always frequent these unusual venders to come back with bizarre unknown food items. This was sometimes a treat but other oddities were just awful. Coffee could tell that his fondness for them was most likely related to some fond memory or experience from his past adventures. There was just no way some of the things he made her try could be enjoyed for their own merit.

They were now exploring, an exotic tea shop filled with stone and copper brewing sets that looked more like fantastic laboratory equipment than items for food perpetration. Lange aromatic bins of dried leaves, seeds, fruits, and flowers lined the opposite wall with and assortment of scoops, scales, envelopes, and small paper sacks.

Coffee’s attention was arrested by a strange patron that she noticed in the shop. She was unfamiliar with his species, the figure was a male with a goat’s head and long curving ibex like horns that were easily a meter long each. His eyes were yellow with horizontal slit pupils. He had a short beard and hoof like configuration of the hands that ended in large heavy nails. His body showed a figure that had long been hard an lean but had recently put on a bit of heft. He was dressed oddly it seemed that he had selected clothing that was similar to how most local people dressed but was out of touch with what was in style or how it was worn. His shirt was tucked into his pants without a belt and his collar was open too widely at the neck exposing much of his wooly chest and a collection of heavy gold chains that would have been seen as gaudy and excessive for a male to wear.

Coffee was quietly observing the figure as he studied the brewing equipment. She was doing her best to not look like she was looking when suddenly Afan Shouted beside her.

              “HAMMET! Hammet that’s you Oh my God!”

The figure froze at the exclamation a look of visible fear swept his features until he looked up in Afan’s direction. When he recognized Afan a look of happy surprise softened his tensions.


“By the grace of the Prophet, Sargent is that you?” He laughed, the two griped each other by the right forearm in a greeting that Coffee hadn’t seen before.

              “When did you get here to Eveningland?” Afan inquired.

              “Only a few months ago, you are living near here?” Hammet replied

              “Yes, my wife and I have a Café in Riverbend not far from here, you should come by some time,” Afan’s face darkened, “Oh Hammet, your family they made it here too didn’t they?”

              “Oh yes, yes, thanks be to God, they came here with me, we all made it here,” the two men both paused and placed their hands over their hearts, another gesture unfamiliar to Coffee, Hammet pointed at her with a hooved finger “Ah and you are married now? This one, she is your wife?” said Hammet with a gesturing at Coffee.

              “Oh excuse me I should have started with introductions,” Afan waved for Coffee to move closer, “This is Coffee, she is a close friend of mine who lives with us and works at the Café.”

Hammet, made no movement to take her hand as he had with Afan. He looked her over in an odd sort of way that Coffee couldn’t recognize because of the unfamiliar nature of his eyes, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know what judgments or assumptions were being made in that gaze.



    “Hello,” she chirped shyly. To which Hammet only made a quick dismissive nod then returned his attention to Afan. Coffee felt that this was very rude, but she was content not to have to confront this stranger in further conversation. Afan and the odd goat man proceeded to catch up with one another as Coffee studied the tea shop. Her attention was draw back them when she noticed the tone beginning to take a dark edge and their voices became lower.

              “What became of the village in Haazka’Gar,” Afan said in a hushed voice.

              “I think you can guess that already, the darkness took it all. They knew that whole valley was sympathetic to the revolution. After your people departed there they came, I left before the calamity but I heard of it. That place is no more all died and none can go back to it.”

              “Yes, that’s what I heard had happened too.” He shifted his eyes to the ground, “We tried to do what we could, I wish I could go back or do something or…”

              “Friend, friend, I know what you are feeling but nothing can be done for it,” he nodded, “Let us not talk about it, it is not good for us hearts.”

              “I’m happy you and your family got away, you are welcome here and this place will be a good home for you.”

              “Yes, yes, you spoke well of this place, so I visit, saw it is good and came to settle here. I am getting used to it,” another odd glace at Coffee, “Tell me what shops are best in this market.”

They returned to more mundane topics and then exchanged contact information and made invitations to visit one another. Coffee nosed around the shop waiting for them to conclude and content to avoid this stranger. Only wandering back when she heard them exchanging parting pleasantries.

              “I was good seeing you,” Hammet concluded, “And your friend.” He tacked on to the end, acknowledging Coffee but not directed towards her.

              “Things are less formal here,” smirked Afan “You can talk both of us.”

This proposal seemed to disturb him somehow, he made an odd face at Coffee and turned the clerk to make is purchase and departed the store.

              “What a strange person,” said Coffee as the mysterious Hammet disappeared from sight.

              “I knew him from that awful campaign that I went on before I met you in Goldhaven.”

              “Some place worse than Goldhaven… Oh God, you mean that desert with all the vampires, those witches, and ghouls! Didn’t they decide to quarantine that place because it was undergoing some kind of apocalypse event?”

              “It may be falling apart but I still feel there is plenty in that world that could be saved, it is good seeing they evacuated some people but more ought to have been done.” Afan’s face darkened, “That isn’t my call to make though.”

              “Well he made it out, he seemed kinda rude though,” she laughed, “can’t say I’m really looking forward to him coming to visit.”

              “Well he is from a different world Coffee, It’s a bit of culture shock, his world had some odd notions about women. It would have been scandalous over there for me to be out in town with a female who wasn’t my wife,” Afan smirked, “I’m sure he will get use to little things like that, being here. You met someone from his world before, don’t you remember Zeb?”

Coffee did remembered Zeb, he was a tailor Afan had introduced her to in Riverbend. Zeb was a happy jovial little fellow who held a hint of an accent. Zeb was a sheep with curly wool and two short horns and now that she thought about it, he was similar enough to Hammet that she could tell they were of the same kind, just slightly different races or ethnic groups. She was sure Afan had said he was also from the same world as Hammet. Afan had helped him get settled into the area visited him whenever they went to town in Riverbend.

              “Oh yeah, but Zeb is a sweetheart, that fellow was a bit spooky,” she shuddered.

              “They come from different tribes, every world has own assortment of peoples,” he paused to make his own purchase from the clerk. Afan bought something that appeared to be little dry black limes that smelled like wood polish, which Coffee decided she didn’t want to try and another mixture of tea that had purple and yellow flowers in it. The aroma of the second tea was floral and earthy, “Still I part of me isn’t happy to see him here. He should be back in his own world, seeing him here means he abandoned his duties and escaped. He should be leading troops and protecting the people.”

    “What about Zeb, he came from there and you worked like crazy to get him his citizenship here you never talked about him that way,” Coffee asked

They loaded their groceries and goods into the little hover truck and started the return trip home.

Afan had been using the pause to regather his thoughts before continuing the conversation. He would sometimes resume conversations hours or days later. It was just how is mind worked and She had gotten use to it over their long friendship.

    “That’s totally different,” Afan snorted, “ Zeb was a translator who placed himself in danger working for us so he could get himself and his family here. He deserves to be here because of what he did for us. That was his arrangement. Hammet was a military officer, that places him in a position of obligation to his soldiers and the township he was charged with protecting. His being here means that he abandoned that charge to save himself and his immediate family from harm.” He sighed, “I know that might seem like a fairly arbitrary distinction to you but if someone takes up that responsibility, they are bound to it. People were depending on him.”

A silence held heavily as both Coffee and Afan mulled on this and the hover truck buzzed on.

    “I always put the lives of my soldiers before mine…” Afan said under his breath.

    “You tried to get yourself killed to prove your virtue is what I saw you do,” Coffee interrupted “You didn’t think about the hole it would have left in our lives it you got killed over some scrap of wasteland in some impossibly far-flung part of creation.”

    “Life doesn’t cost more just because it is closer to you,” he said dryly, “Someone out there loves everyone as much as you love the people you care about. Still having a family now changes how willing I would be to take on a responsibility like that now.”

    “You know that Plum, your son, and I are more important to you than any other lives in the universe, would you lose us for a stranger?” she leaned on him placed her head against his shoulder.

    “And if some one let one of you die just to save their own interest. I could never forgive that, the pain of it would ruin me. That random scrap of wasteland had husbands, wives, and children. Some people chose to let all those people die to save their own families and selves. While it is easy to understand that choice. I don’t have the cruelty in me to even tell you about what I’ve seen the monsters in that world do to children. Being a father now makes the value of a life feel deeper.

    “People we chose in our lives are more important,” said Coffee. “We are responsible for what is dear to us that’s the nature of loving something.”

      “It is an easy thing to protect what you love this is a simple virtue could even be called selfish,” he said taking her hand with his. “Taking up the responsibility to protect someone is an act of love failing to do that is also universally recognized as a sin and there is blame that comes with any loss, who should bare it, who could?”

    “Are you blaming Hammet for letting those people die or are you taking than on yourself?” She looked up to see that his face was blank, but she could feel the storm of things he was locking away to focus on driving, “It isn’t really on you those are things decided by gods and governments, not something people can blame on themselves.”

     “When you step into it you become part of it. How we must wrestle with the consequences of what we chose to do are a mater between a person’s soul and God, we are specifically told that we can’t judge about these things because we can’t feel another hearts pain. Our obligation is to be there to comfort and console each other. So in whatever way Hammet needs we should be good friends and neighbors to him.”

Coffee thought about this and wondered if it was really an answer to what she had been trying to ask. It wasn’t a deflection. He was trying to tell her about a burden that he had taken on that he didn’t have the words to explain. When a person places their life into that storm assuming obligations and responsibility for other people’s lives. There is shame and blame that come from taking on something so heavy.

Was the man in the market feeling all this too, or was having saved what he cared for the most really a justification? Coffee had spent her life living simply and avoiding the grimness of the world as best she could.

Coffee had at one time tried to take on a responsibility for the many. When she had been tested she had chosen to save someone she loved instead of protecting people she didn’t know. That person sat by her now and while she had been discharged from the service for it, whenever she looked at him she believed in what she had chosen to do.

Yet the days discussion made her question if the act of avoidance did make her complaisant it the pain and torment that affected others. People had died in a distant world that she might have been able to help. This conviction closed in around her heart making her feel small and cold, like she was tiny and alone in a great darkness in spite of the heat an brightness of the warm sunny day and the closeness of her friend by her side.

She wondered why anyone would go out into something like that. Afan had and would again if asked. Was their comfort for him in having known that he had tried. Did his successes make it easier for him to deal with the lives he couldn’t save, surely there must be some consolation in the lives he had protected? She wasn’t sure if that was enough to quiet a storm like what she had just experienced.

“I’m sorry I’m being so dark Coffee,” Afan smiled pushing his own reservations into the some mental gulf that he evidently possessed, “I just need to vent some times. Poor Plum has had too many dark chapters of her own life for me to talk about this kind of stuff with her. I’m glad you’ll humor me.”

              “Oh don’t worry about it that’s what friends do, you’re so quixotic.” I think all that stuff is behind you, just worry about your own little part of the world now,” she stretched out her legs and put her feet on the dashboard as they drove on over the verdant jungle below them.

              “Just my own little world now…” he muttered.

The smell of the tea from the shop was thick in the cab as they flew, she closed her eyes and tried to relax her mind after all those heavy thoughts. The foreign smell of the tea and drone of the engine were all that she noticed now. It made Coffee think of a small fire in a vast empty place under a dark starless sky.

___________________________

Is my Hero arch over? The things that have happened, for better or worse will be what they are now. As I enter a domestic chapter of my story how should I feel about what I was?

Description

Literature in the Description

Recent Geopolitical events have been weighing very heavily on me right now so this is a vent concerning a lot of things I'm wrestling with right now.

________________________________

Coffee and Afan pushed through the crowded marketplace of the Sander waterfront. As usual Afan was attracted to exotics venders and specialty shops. The well-traveled soldier was an eternal xenophile and would always frequent these unusual venders to come back with bizarre unknown food items. This was sometimes a treat but other oddities were just awful. Coffee could tell that his fondness for them was most likely related to some fond memory or experience from his past adventures. There was just no way some of the things he made her try could be enjoyed for their own merit.

They were now exploring, an exotic tea shop filled with stone and copper brewing sets that looked more like fantastic laboratory equipment than items for food perpetration. Lange aromatic bins of dried leaves, seeds, fruits, and flowers lined the opposite wall with and assortment of scoops, scales, envelopes, and small paper sacks.

Coffee’s attention was arrested by a strange patron that she noticed in the shop. She was unfamiliar with his species, the figure was a male with a goat’s head and long curving ibex like horns that were easily a meter long each. His eyes were yellow with horizontal slit pupils. He had a short beard and hoof like configuration of the hands that ended in large heavy nails. His body showed a figure that had long been hard an lean but had recently put on a bit of heft. He was dressed oddly it seemed that he had selected clothing that was similar to how most local people dressed but was out of touch with what was in style or how it was worn. His shirt was tucked into his pants without a belt and his collar was open too widely at the neck exposing much of his wooly chest and a collection of heavy gold chains that would have been seen as gaudy and excessive for a male to wear.

Coffee was quietly observing the figure as he studied the brewing equipment. She was doing her best to not look like she was looking when suddenly Afan Shouted beside her.

              “HAMMET! Hammet that’s you Oh my God!”

The figure froze at the exclamation a look of visible fear swept his features until he looked up in Afan’s direction. When he recognized Afan a look of happy surprise softened his tensions.


“By the grace of the Prophet, Sargent is that you?” He laughed, the two griped each other by the right forearm in a greeting that Coffee hadn’t seen before.

              “When did you get here to Eveningland?” Afan inquired.

              “Only a few months ago, you are living near here?” Hammet replied

              “Yes, my wife and I have a Café in Riverbend not far from here, you should come by some time,” Afan’s face darkened, “Oh Hammet, your family they made it here too didn’t they?”

              “Oh yes, yes, thanks be to God, they came here with me, we all made it here,” the two men both paused and placed their hands over their hearts, another gesture unfamiliar to Coffee, Hammet pointed at her with a hooved finger “Ah and you are married now? This one, she is your wife?” said Hammet with a gesturing at Coffee.

              “Oh excuse me I should have started with introductions,” Afan waved for Coffee to move closer, “This is Coffee, she is a close friend of mine who lives with us and works at the Café.”

Hammet, made no movement to take her hand as he had with Afan. He looked her over in an odd sort of way that Coffee couldn’t recognize because of the unfamiliar nature of his eyes, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know what judgments or assumptions were being made in that gaze.



    “Hello,” she chirped shyly. To which Hammet only made a quick dismissive nod then returned his attention to Afan. Coffee felt that this was very rude, but she was content not to have to confront this stranger in further conversation. Afan and the odd goat man proceeded to catch up with one another as Coffee studied the tea shop. Her attention was draw back them when she noticed the tone beginning to take a dark edge and their voices became lower.

              “What became of the village in Haazka’Gar,” Afan said in a hushed voice.

              “I think you can guess that already, the darkness took it all. They knew that whole valley was sympathetic to the revolution. After your people departed there they came, I left before the calamity but I heard of it. That place is no more all died and none can go back to it.”

              “Yes, that’s what I heard had happened too.” He shifted his eyes to the ground, “We tried to do what we could, I wish I could go back or do something or…”

              “Friend, friend, I know what you are feeling but nothing can be done for it,” he nodded, “Let us not talk about it, it is not good for us hearts.”

              “I’m happy you and your family got away, you are welcome here and this place will be a good home for you.”

              “Yes, yes, you spoke well of this place, so I visit, saw it is good and came to settle here. I am getting used to it,” another odd glace at Coffee, “Tell me what shops are best in this market.”

They returned to more mundane topics and then exchanged contact information and made invitations to visit one another. Coffee nosed around the shop waiting for them to conclude and content to avoid this stranger. Only wandering back when she heard them exchanging parting pleasantries.

              “I was good seeing you,” Hammet concluded, “And your friend.” He tacked on to the end, acknowledging Coffee but not directed towards her.

              “Things are less formal here,” smirked Afan “You can talk both of us.”

This proposal seemed to disturb him somehow, he made an odd face at Coffee and turned the clerk to make is purchase and departed the store.

              “What a strange person,” said Coffee as the mysterious Hammet disappeared from sight.

              “I knew him from that awful campaign that I went on before I met you in Goldhaven.”

              “Some place worse than Goldhaven… Oh God, you mean that desert with all the vampires, those witches, and ghouls! Didn’t they decide to quarantine that place because it was undergoing some kind of apocalypse event?”

              “It may be falling apart but I still feel there is plenty in that world that could be saved, it is good seeing they evacuated some people but more ought to have been done.” Afan’s face darkened, “That isn’t my call to make though.”

              “Well he made it out, he seemed kinda rude though,” she laughed, “can’t say I’m really looking forward to him coming to visit.”

              “Well he is from a different world Coffee, It’s a bit of culture shock, his world had some odd notions about women. It would have been scandalous over there for me to be out in town with a female who wasn’t my wife,” Afan smirked, “I’m sure he will get use to little things like that, being here. You met someone from his world before, don’t you remember Zeb?”

Coffee did remembered Zeb, he was a tailor Afan had introduced her to in Riverbend. Zeb was a happy jovial little fellow who held a hint of an accent. Zeb was a sheep with curly wool and two short horns and now that she thought about it, he was similar enough to Hammet that she could tell they were of the same kind, just slightly different races or ethnic groups. She was sure Afan had said he was also from the same world as Hammet. Afan had helped him get settled into the area visited him whenever they went to town in Riverbend.

              “Oh yeah, but Zeb is a sweetheart, that fellow was a bit spooky,” she shuddered.

              “They come from different tribes, every world has own assortment of peoples,” he paused to make his own purchase from the clerk. Afan bought something that appeared to be little dry black limes that smelled like wood polish, which Coffee decided she didn’t want to try and another mixture of tea that had purple and yellow flowers in it. The aroma of the second tea was floral and earthy, “Still I part of me isn’t happy to see him here. He should be back in his own world, seeing him here means he abandoned his duties and escaped. He should be leading troops and protecting the people.”

    “What about Zeb, he came from there and you worked like crazy to get him his citizenship here you never talked about him that way,” Coffee asked

They loaded their groceries and goods into the little hover truck and started the return trip home.

Afan had been using the pause to regather his thoughts before continuing the conversation. He would sometimes resume conversations hours or days later. It was just how is mind worked and She had gotten use to it over their long friendship.

    “That’s totally different,” Afan snorted, “ Zeb was a translator who placed himself in danger working for us so he could get himself and his family here. He deserves to be here because of what he did for us. That was his arrangement. Hammet was a military officer, that places him in a position of obligation to his soldiers and the township he was charged with protecting. His being here means that he abandoned that charge to save himself and his immediate family from harm.” He sighed, “I know that might seem like a fairly arbitrary distinction to you but if someone takes up that responsibility, they are bound to it. People were depending on him.”

A silence held heavily as both Coffee and Afan mulled on this and the hover truck buzzed on.

    “I always put the lives of my soldiers before mine…” Afan said under his breath.

    “You tried to get yourself killed to prove your virtue is what I saw you do,” Coffee interrupted “You didn’t think about the hole it would have left in our lives it you got killed over some scrap of wasteland in some impossibly far-flung part of creation.”

    “Life doesn’t cost more just because it is closer to you,” he said dryly, “Someone out there loves everyone as much as you love the people you care about. Still having a family now changes how willing I would be to take on a responsibility like that now.”

    “You know that Plum, your son, and I are more important to you than any other lives in the universe, would you lose us for a stranger?” she leaned on him placed her head against his shoulder.

    “And if some one let one of you die just to save their own interest. I could never forgive that, the pain of it would ruin me. That random scrap of wasteland had husbands, wives, and children. Some people chose to let all those people die to save their own families and selves. While it is easy to understand that choice. I don’t have the cruelty in me to even tell you about what I’ve seen the monsters in that world do to children. Being a father now makes the value of a life feel deeper.

    “People we chose in our lives are more important,” said Coffee. “We are responsible for what is dear to us that’s the nature of loving something.”

      “It is an easy thing to protect what you love this is a simple virtue could even be called selfish,” he said taking her hand with his. “Taking up the responsibility to protect someone is an act of love failing to do that is also universally recognized as a sin and there is blame that comes with any loss, who should bare it, who could?”

    “Are you blaming Hammet for letting those people die or are you taking than on yourself?” She looked up to see that his face was blank, but she could feel the storm of things he was locking away to focus on driving, “It isn’t really on you those are things decided by gods and governments, not something people can blame on themselves.”

     “When you step into it you become part of it. How we must wrestle with the consequences of what we chose to do are a mater between a person’s soul and God, we are specifically told that we can’t judge about these things because we can’t feel another hearts pain. Our obligation is to be there to comfort and console each other. So in whatever way Hammet needs we should be good friends and neighbors to him.”

Coffee thought about this and wondered if it was really an answer to what she had been trying to ask. It wasn’t a deflection. He was trying to tell her about a burden that he had taken on that he didn’t have the words to explain. When a person places their life into that storm assuming obligations and responsibility for other people’s lives. There is shame and blame that come from taking on something so heavy.

Was the man in the market feeling all this too, or was having saved what he cared for the most really a justification? Coffee had spent her life living simply and avoiding the grimness of the world as best she could.

Coffee had at one time tried to take on a responsibility for the many. When she had been tested she had chosen to save someone she loved instead of protecting people she didn’t know. That person sat by her now and while she had been discharged from the service for it, whenever she looked at him she believed in what she had chosen to do.

Yet the days discussion made her question if the act of avoidance did make her complaisant it the pain and torment that affected others. People had died in a distant world that she might have been able to help. This conviction closed in around her heart making her feel small and cold, like she was tiny and alone in a great darkness in spite of the heat an brightness of the warm sunny day and the closeness of her friend by her side.

She wondered why anyone would go out into something like that. Afan had and would again if asked. Was their comfort for him in having known that he had tried. Did his successes make it easier for him to deal with the lives he couldn’t save, surely there must be some consolation in the lives he had protected? She wasn’t sure if that was enough to quiet a storm like what she had just experienced.

“I’m sorry I’m being so dark Coffee,” Afan smiled pushing his own reservations into the some mental gulf that he evidently possessed, “I just need to vent some times. Poor Plum has had too many dark chapters of her own life for me to talk about this kind of stuff with her. I’m glad you’ll humor me.”

              “Oh don’t worry about it that’s what friends do, you’re so quixotic.” I think all that stuff is behind you, just worry about your own little part of the world now,” she stretched out her legs and put her feet on the dashboard as they drove on over the verdant jungle below them.

              “Just my own little world now…” he muttered.

The smell of the tea from the shop was thick in the cab as they flew, she closed her eyes and tried to relax her mind after all those heavy thoughts. The foreign smell of the tea and drone of the engine were all that she noticed now. It made Coffee think of a small fire in a vast empty place under a dark starless sky.

___________________________

Is my Hero arch over? The things that have happened, for better or worse will be what they are now. As I enter a domestic chapter of my story how should I feel about what I was?