EATING FIRE IS YOUR AMBITION; TO SWALLOW THE FLAME DOWN, TAKE IT INTO YOUR MOUTH, AND SHOOT IT FORTH, A SHORT OR AN INCANDESCENT TONGUE, A WORD, EXPLODING FROM YOU IN GOLD, CRIMSON, UNROLLING IN A BRILLIANT SCROLL
I have never been a soldier.
I know of men who were born into it; who could see themselves as nothing save a fighter, a warrior. I know women who were the same, many of my own people, or others still.I think of one who was other, who was not my people, and her name is the shape of water—Boudika, there and then gone as soon as I think it. I think—even without her name—of how being a “soldier” encompassed everything she was, and more, more, more.
Perhaps that is the kind of dedication it takes, then, to be a soldier. Perhaps it takes a sort of self-sacrifice.
It is not that I am unfamiliar with that; I have fought for many things, in different ways. But the love for it has never been mine. I do not crave conflict; I do not need the expression, the assurance, that I can kill. Perhaps it had been in my nature, once, when I could become any creature that my mind could imagine. Perhaps it had been in my nature, once, when I needed meat to live.
I think of these things in the grand shadow of the Colosseum; I think of them because I step into sands where death is a way of life, where strange lemur-like creatures scatter from my shadow and take roost in the god-made pillars of the land. It is red, the earth and the stands, and the sun is creeping above one edge of the Colosseum to cast half in shadow and half in light. I stand between for a moment, blinking it from my eyes, trying to think of anything other than blood.
I am not here to fight; only to think. I hope to find soldiers practicing; and then realise that is not the purpose of the Colosseum, despite the disuse it has suffered after Raum’s tyranny. I walk a tight circle and stop when my back is to the light. I just breathe; I just try to understand the scenes that may have played out, the battles raged, the pride injured or restored.
I do not know how long I stand there, alone, before I hear someone approaching. The lemur-creatures scatter again, and I open my eyes to someone I do not recognise.
TO BE LIT FROM WITHIN, VEIN BY VEIN. TO BE THE SUN.
@Dondre || not my best! but the next one will be better!
