First+Night+from+Kyar

//"Those without nightmares never dream."//

I'm hungry already. My feet hurt. I wonder if we're there yet?

"Hey master Viktor... are there yet?" He chuckled a little. His laugh is always funny, and it makes me smile. I know that we just left the mountain, and we've just settled down for the night. I have my bedroll, my spare clothes. My master told me that I should never let those go. Never ever! He and the brothers told me that there are things that you need to hold. Lots of things, and that I would know exactly what those would be when I find them. They keep telling me weird things. They keep telling me that I have to hold onto things, but that these aren't things that I can hold on to. Does that mean that I have to try to keep water? You can't keep a hold on water. It leaks alot. Speaking of that...

"Kirin, please don't..." I was lost for a second, and Viktor startled me a little. He sat with his back to a tree and a mug of something. I don't get to taste everything he has, I always wished I could.

The smell was awful. Since knocking the wood from the fire, there were only a few burning embers and coals left. I thought I was just helping to put them out. Afterall, it would be terrible if a spark jumped in the middle of the night and landed on someone's foot. Terrbile!

"Kirin, sit down. You need to learn some things." I sat down on my bedroll crosslegged, staring at master intently. "Kirin, keep breathing kid or you'll pass out." Ok! I have a bit of learning to do, it seems sometimes like that breathing and thinking thing gets in the way of my deep concentration!

"You picked up fighting well. I am very proud of you. You have already proven yourself to be a warrior with much talent, and still much potential. Very few of our own have managed to pick up on every one of our forms as easily as you have." I felt really warm then. When master said he was proud of me, I learned what pride really felt like.

//Did that describe purpose? Was this the lost piece... pride? Something I have never had until then. Before the brothers there was only life, survival, fighting and pain. Before the brothers, there were only a few, who shared that pain. Was sharing pain together really a bond? I had much still to learn about these bonds.//

"Kirin, there is something else that you need to understand, it's hard to describe, but it will help you, someday. It's the real reason that i'm proud of you." I listened intently. At least I think I listened intently. I have no real idea of what intently means, but I think i'm doing it.

"You don't compare. You don't compete. You realize that those in your brotherhood are good, and that they are your brothers. Those bonds are what you feel when you say 'Goodnight'. These are the strongest bonds that prove your life is worth living. These are the bonds of friendship. Remember them fondly, for in your journey to come you will have nothing else."

//It was then that I felt fear. Loss of those bonds, loss of those friends, the things that matter the most, if they could come that easily, couldn't they leave just as easily? If they are the most impotant thing, if they prove that life itself exists, why are they as hard to hold as water? What's the point of devoting your entire life to something so fickle? So impossible! Is life then just a struggle to maintain something impossible to maintain?

I chose it that way, that night. Regardless of whether I understood or not, I had chosen.//