Do you live like your past is a God?
We live like the future is dead and lost.
Too young, the elders had said. Small hands cannot grasp spears. Little feet are too soft for breaking boards. Youthful hearts, they cooed in unwittingly patronizing tones, were meant to overflow with Spring, not harden against Winter.
And she believed them, of course. All Pandaren, from cub to student to apprentice, are taught to respect the wisdom of years. Aoshi swallowed that little knot of disappointment each time she was handed a broom instead of a blade, and each time she was shooed away from morning kata that little knot grew. She did not recognize what that dark seed had bloomed into, until one night the Alliance came.
A pale-skinned, furless being on some four-legged steed uttered two words, swung his sword, and condemned the village to destruction. Metal figures lurched through thatch-roofed huts, skinny robed things waggled their fingers and threw fireworks that caught and burned. Two words were enough to invoke impossible brutality.
Elder Tao-Cai fell heavily, all the grace stolen from his ample frame. Elder Yllishabel captured a streak of misty lightning and lashed out at the metal people, but it merely scorched their silver shells. Elder Usuke was a flurry of fists and heels. They toppled around him. He too fell, fire licking up the dark fur that had tickled Aoshi's nose all her life. Those mighty arms would hug, no more.
The knot grew. Roots spread.
Something shifted with a crackle of pain, and then Aoshi was someplace else. A place with no sound, and no fear, and no hurt. There was only red, and two words.
She shouted them over and over, as she snatched up a spear too large for her little hands. They were her warsong, as her padded panda foot dashed a helmet into itself. Her heart filled with neither Spring nor Winter but something too deep and too insistant to regard something as meaningless as season.
Rage.
It swept Aoshi up in its furious arms and shook her until all that remained was brutal purpose, and two words.
The village was a smouldering ruin when dawn came. The red in her vision seeped away, as the knot settled back into her bones like a flower closing upon itself. She gazed upon the work of the armored demons, and upon her own carnage. Metal demons lay in shattered heaps where children had once run and played. Not one amidst them stirred. Aoshi felt only the emptiness of where that knot had bloomed. She shivered and set to work.
Small hands that could not hold a spear could wield a shovel well enough. She was not strong enough to move the bodies, so she would simply dig beside them and push them in. A slow, difficult task, but necessary. Maybe if she planted them, they too would bloom.
It did not take long. Theirs was a small village. She packed provisions and took the curved blade from the broken gauntlet of the metal demon pinned beneath his four-legged steed. She could not remember delivering the horrible gash that split them both. It didn't matter. Two words mattered.
With no home, with no family, Aoshi shouldered her pack and set off into the wilderness where she had grown, with a blank heart and eyes forward. A column of smoke billowed silently from behind, the sole remainder wishing her well on her journey.
Months later, new home. No elders here, but much to learn. Fantastic people, skinny men with long ears, massive bull-people as strong as Yaungol. Little dead folk with incredible humor and stoop-backed blueskins with great teeth sweeping from cunning faces. Each with their own tales to tell. Aoshi never shared her own. When pressed, she would just smile her panda smile and stroke that burning knot deep in the core of her, repeating those two words.
“Me? Ah, I have no story to tell. I am just a Horde Sympathizer.”
We live like the future is dead and lost.
Too young, the elders had said. Small hands cannot grasp spears. Little feet are too soft for breaking boards. Youthful hearts, they cooed in unwittingly patronizing tones, were meant to overflow with Spring, not harden against Winter.
And she believed them, of course. All Pandaren, from cub to student to apprentice, are taught to respect the wisdom of years. Aoshi swallowed that little knot of disappointment each time she was handed a broom instead of a blade, and each time she was shooed away from morning kata that little knot grew. She did not recognize what that dark seed had bloomed into, until one night the Alliance came.
A pale-skinned, furless being on some four-legged steed uttered two words, swung his sword, and condemned the village to destruction. Metal figures lurched through thatch-roofed huts, skinny robed things waggled their fingers and threw fireworks that caught and burned. Two words were enough to invoke impossible brutality.
Elder Tao-Cai fell heavily, all the grace stolen from his ample frame. Elder Yllishabel captured a streak of misty lightning and lashed out at the metal people, but it merely scorched their silver shells. Elder Usuke was a flurry of fists and heels. They toppled around him. He too fell, fire licking up the dark fur that had tickled Aoshi's nose all her life. Those mighty arms would hug, no more.
The knot grew. Roots spread.
Something shifted with a crackle of pain, and then Aoshi was someplace else. A place with no sound, and no fear, and no hurt. There was only red, and two words.
She shouted them over and over, as she snatched up a spear too large for her little hands. They were her warsong, as her padded panda foot dashed a helmet into itself. Her heart filled with neither Spring nor Winter but something too deep and too insistant to regard something as meaningless as season.
Rage.
It swept Aoshi up in its furious arms and shook her until all that remained was brutal purpose, and two words.
The village was a smouldering ruin when dawn came. The red in her vision seeped away, as the knot settled back into her bones like a flower closing upon itself. She gazed upon the work of the armored demons, and upon her own carnage. Metal demons lay in shattered heaps where children had once run and played. Not one amidst them stirred. Aoshi felt only the emptiness of where that knot had bloomed. She shivered and set to work.
Small hands that could not hold a spear could wield a shovel well enough. She was not strong enough to move the bodies, so she would simply dig beside them and push them in. A slow, difficult task, but necessary. Maybe if she planted them, they too would bloom.
It did not take long. Theirs was a small village. She packed provisions and took the curved blade from the broken gauntlet of the metal demon pinned beneath his four-legged steed. She could not remember delivering the horrible gash that split them both. It didn't matter. Two words mattered.
With no home, with no family, Aoshi shouldered her pack and set off into the wilderness where she had grown, with a blank heart and eyes forward. A column of smoke billowed silently from behind, the sole remainder wishing her well on her journey.
Months later, new home. No elders here, but much to learn. Fantastic people, skinny men with long ears, massive bull-people as strong as Yaungol. Little dead folk with incredible humor and stoop-backed blueskins with great teeth sweeping from cunning faces. Each with their own tales to tell. Aoshi never shared her own. When pressed, she would just smile her panda smile and stroke that burning knot deep in the core of her, repeating those two words.
“Me? Ah, I have no story to tell. I am just a Horde Sympathizer.”
Edited by Liore on 4/9/2015 10:43 AM PDT
