by Glenn » Mon Aug 05, 2013 5:23 am
Ignorant child.
Didn't she see? She gave him strength. Catch had given him strength. This place gave him strength. There were things Glenn Burnie fed off of just as there were things she fed off of.
"A little bit of fancy?" He spun the walking stick with a trained motion. He had carried one of these for over a year after all. It was theatrical, but "You live amongst us. You hear our tales, the very heart and soul of everything we do, and that's what you think? That? And you call me ignorant? You're not a child. You're just another magical creature incapable of seeing what's in front of your face."
He planted the walking stick down upon the ground with a rather loud tink. He refused to lean upon it overmuch. "Stories inspire us. They help us remember our history, they help break the world down so we can understand who we are and why things matter. They are our way at grasping at truths larger than us. They're how we instruct our young and how we revere our elders. Stories are what separate us from animals and make us aspire to be gods.
"A boy, trapped in a life he did not choose, instructed to be something with no freedom and no future, can find just one book of tales and learn to imagine a greater world, to imagine something more, and it can alight hope in his heart. Stories can change his whole life, can give him a life when he had nothing at all before. A man can awaken, naked and lost, with no memories and no past, but with a desire to start anew. The stories he hears from those around him helps him decide not just upon a name and a direction, but upon morality. He learns from them. He sees them all laid out before him, and he picks and chooses to become the very best of any of us. Stories can advise and protect and comfort, tantalize and chastise and inspire.
"You're the fancy, you and your power, you with no creativity of your own, that just feeds upon our most holy possessions, our memories and our dreams and our hopes, our souls."
Her biting question at the end? Lost in the face of all of that. She might have to try again.