Post by Young Grimwold on Oct 23, 2016 14:41:05 GMT
[OOC: YG was last referred to in The Spring and Queen.
The ogre has avoided meeting Treguard's eye, which he puts down to humility rather than rudeness, so any conversation will have to wait. Treguard goes from the tavern to the market, buys a few provisions, tightens his cloak and sets off for home.*
*Taking a break from his duties at the Crazed Heifer, Young Grimwold followed Treguard at a distance to the market, hoping that they might end up in conversation. But he was a slave to his shyness, as he had been at the tavern, and made sure the Dungeon Master left without noticing him. YG browsed the market stalls for a while but couldn't persuade himself that he deserved to own anything new. When the guilt of not supporting the stallholders' livelihoods became too much, he trudged away. Not yet ready to reimmerse himself in the stale air of the tavern, but afraid of what will happen if he goes somewhere quiet and can hear himself think, he approaches the square.
YG sighs, sparing the air the cruelty of an extended stay in his lungs. He is feeling the cold in his limbs but suspects it is all being supplied from within.
YG's employment at the Crazed Heifer is as stable, and as stabilising, as anything he could hope for. The work is menial so expectations are low, making it easy for YG not to disappoint anyone. The serving girls are friendly, able to look him in the face without betraying any repulsion, but not so friendly that he gets false hope. Staying in the staff lodgings upstairs allows him as much independence from his parents as he cares for. YG is in control.
In control of a life that will probably be the same each day until it reaches the expectancy for a half-ogre half-questionably-human, however long that is.
On a good day, YG can accept that he deserves not to feel sad or pained. Yet he cannot help wondering if he could, should, maybe, be doing more. He is strong enough to uproot trees and intelligent enough to have conversations in Latin. How remarkable, how enviable to be the brawniest and the brainiest one in the room, over and over; how pathetic, how shameful to do nothing with it.
Yet with the conceit that someone made him this way for a reason comes the conviction that he is not meant to succeed. He could pack a knapsack today and resume the hunt for his mother's lost pet or begin the search for his lost brother, but these demand ambition and he has none to give. Everything notable YG has ever done - touring the realm with a minstrel, battering a Dreadnort, helping to defeat Bloodfang, enduring the Battle Royale, fighting a magic flying fish, smashing that enchanted brick, riding a pegathor out of a burning forest - he has done because it was easier to say yes or impossible to say no. Everything except perhaps hurting a maid because she dared not to love him.
What if there was no reason for YG being this way, but also no reason for him not to have ambition? He could try to meet his demons head on and transform himself. But look what happened to those dungeon adventurers in the Fourth Phase when they tried to cast a transformation. It takes too long and the darkness won't wait. It humours only itself.
The embodiment of the dungeons' darkness was Mogdred, said to be the other face of Merlin. YG has never quite believed this. But if true, perhaps it shows the price of ambition, of being special: being "two-faced". It is dishonest, it is unsafe, it is complex, and a threat to the calm simplicity that YG knows he needs in his life. Would Merlin have given up his power to do good if it could have prevented Mogdred from doing evil? Maybe that's what happened. Worse to have an alter ego than no ego.
Reaching the square, YG has reached his usual temporary resolution: it's risky to thrive and it's enough to survive. Just like every other villager milling around here. Worthy enough folk, none of whom is a Treguard or a Hordriss or a Merlin, and they are content with that. Personalities but not participants. Non-player characters, staying safely out of sight of chance.
Except for that cook outside the church, courting attention by having a panic over some sort of blue club.
A cook who looks an awful lot like Young Grimwold's old acquaintance Callimpsest.*
*Taking a break from his duties at the Crazed Heifer, Young Grimwold followed Treguard at a distance to the market, hoping that they might end up in conversation. But he was a slave to his shyness, as he had been at the tavern, and made sure the Dungeon Master left without noticing him. YG browsed the market stalls for a while but couldn't persuade himself that he deserved to own anything new. When the guilt of not supporting the stallholders' livelihoods became too much, he trudged away. Not yet ready to reimmerse himself in the stale air of the tavern, but afraid of what will happen if he goes somewhere quiet and can hear himself think, he approaches the square.
YG sighs, sparing the air the cruelty of an extended stay in his lungs. He is feeling the cold in his limbs but suspects it is all being supplied from within.
YG's employment at the Crazed Heifer is as stable, and as stabilising, as anything he could hope for. The work is menial so expectations are low, making it easy for YG not to disappoint anyone. The serving girls are friendly, able to look him in the face without betraying any repulsion, but not so friendly that he gets false hope. Staying in the staff lodgings upstairs allows him as much independence from his parents as he cares for. YG is in control.
In control of a life that will probably be the same each day until it reaches the expectancy for a half-ogre half-questionably-human, however long that is.
On a good day, YG can accept that he deserves not to feel sad or pained. Yet he cannot help wondering if he could, should, maybe, be doing more. He is strong enough to uproot trees and intelligent enough to have conversations in Latin. How remarkable, how enviable to be the brawniest and the brainiest one in the room, over and over; how pathetic, how shameful to do nothing with it.
Yet with the conceit that someone made him this way for a reason comes the conviction that he is not meant to succeed. He could pack a knapsack today and resume the hunt for his mother's lost pet or begin the search for his lost brother, but these demand ambition and he has none to give. Everything notable YG has ever done - touring the realm with a minstrel, battering a Dreadnort, helping to defeat Bloodfang, enduring the Battle Royale, fighting a magic flying fish, smashing that enchanted brick, riding a pegathor out of a burning forest - he has done because it was easier to say yes or impossible to say no. Everything except perhaps hurting a maid because she dared not to love him.
What if there was no reason for YG being this way, but also no reason for him not to have ambition? He could try to meet his demons head on and transform himself. But look what happened to those dungeon adventurers in the Fourth Phase when they tried to cast a transformation. It takes too long and the darkness won't wait. It humours only itself.
The embodiment of the dungeons' darkness was Mogdred, said to be the other face of Merlin. YG has never quite believed this. But if true, perhaps it shows the price of ambition, of being special: being "two-faced". It is dishonest, it is unsafe, it is complex, and a threat to the calm simplicity that YG knows he needs in his life. Would Merlin have given up his power to do good if it could have prevented Mogdred from doing evil? Maybe that's what happened. Worse to have an alter ego than no ego.
Reaching the square, YG has reached his usual temporary resolution: it's risky to thrive and it's enough to survive. Just like every other villager milling around here. Worthy enough folk, none of whom is a Treguard or a Hordriss or a Merlin, and they are content with that. Personalities but not participants. Non-player characters, staying safely out of sight of chance.
Except for that cook outside the church, courting attention by having a panic over some sort of blue club.
A cook who looks an awful lot like Young Grimwold's old acquaintance Callimpsest.*
