a way that dreams easily allow, because it can all be compressed into a mere concept that was the atmosphere of the dream, by morning:
I approached him, on his hilltop, and searched for what to say. I had already told him, during a past meeting, "I'm so sorry, Tanen. I did everything I could to save you." To which he replied: "You can't save everyone, Vant." This time, I started whereabouts we had left off, then;
"I know I can't expect to save everyone, but I was wrong, Tanen. Right, but also wrong. It's me, as well, who needs to soften," I admitted, and then began the process of explaining; “I thought I was one of them. The Serbaens. I've spent so long with them, admired them from day one, and learned from them all these years... I came to believe what they did, and heard stories about their country and loved it as they did, and became familiar with the plights they face and... became a defendant against that, as if I were one of their own.
"I think of them as my family and fight for them as if they are. And they've always accepted me as if I were one of them. But... aspects of my duties have hardened me, in other ways. I would wish to humanize people on their behalf, but I am de-humanized myself. I wasn't born with their sense of faith and harmony, and I have to quench my fear when I go out in that field every night to sing among the prowling wardogs; and I have to remove myself from the harm that I inflict when I fight someone over... necessities in the city. The darkskins are so peaceful in the ways they think, and in my mind I aspire to that, but then I go and kill someone to provide for us. And it just seems to clash so much with what I've learned from them, and what I aspire to – but the maddest thing is, in the face of that, they maintain that harmony that I attributed to them. They maintain that...'nature takes its course, and justice will be done' mindset. And the truth is, I'm confused. I love what they believe, but I don't practice it with the grace that they do. I can't; I struggle. I think I know who I'm aspiring to be, but am I able?
"And not actually being one that is responsible for forgiveness where Serbaens have been wronged, I fill only with bitterness when I hear of the things that happen to them. What the whiteskins do to them isn't mine to forgive. So I am only angry. And not just angry. The duties which have jaded me have reinforced other attributes. The fact is, I am proud... And I am...stubborn. And those are things I have painstakingly become.” I glanced down at my hands, who were no help to me, and back up. “And acknowledging a thing doesn't change it. To reverse the process is just as painstaking.”
He considered all this, seemed to see what I was getting at, that I was awarding him the confession that I had been as wrong as him, in ways, but also that that wrongness now required additional soul searching, and therefore I could not award him the additional things one might also expect to come with discovering I had something backward and righting it. But he had his own ideas – and instead of expecting me to tie off the confession with some act or deed that finished making things up to him, in some way, he looked at me with more understanding than I could boast.
“Perhaps you should not reverse the process,” he suggested gently. Fondly. “Maybe you are proud, maybe you are stubborn... Maybe those are things that you are. Recognizing it is good. If you recognize it, you can manage it. You don't have to change it. Maybe together, used in a civilized manner under said recognition, those things simply make you...independent. Maybe you are independent, Siren, and that is just who you are. Who you have become, who you are supposed to be.”
“Confused?” I challenged. “Is that who I'm supposed to be? Stuck between two spectrums? The duties I was born into, that shape me, and the conscience I would rather live by? I am violent, and I want beauty. I fight for peace, and I fight for my life – both on a daily basis. I come home with blood on