Role

Chapter 4

Apsalareia sat on her hard, unforgiving cot, gazing at the single candle ensconced within her room's lantern. All around her, the monastery was quiet.
It had been months and months, perhaps a year, since she was sent here. The discomforts of transitioning from noble life to monastic reality still needled her, but it had begun to fade.
Each and every day was the same. Lessons, and meditation. Lessons and meditation.
In truth, she very rarely focused on the lessons. The small journal of Baerinika's teachings was now dog-eared and rumpled from her constant perusal, held out of sight during such lectures.

Her every day was a monotony. Peace and tranquility, these were the teachings imparted to her, always in soft voices, always with a smile, but insistent. Her questions were stifled, as if they were worries and not inquiries.
Her requests to leave were kindly, but firmly, rebuffed. She was under their care, they said, and it would be a true failing if she ventured back into the world without the blessing of peaceful repose.
In truth, it was maddening. Infuriating. In her most uncharitable times, she thought harshly of them as secluded old men, avoiding the world at the top of their mountain.

This was her favorite part of the day, when the rest of the monastery slept, and she was alone. The journal balanced firmly on her knee, and her eyes unwavering upon that golden flame.
Was this how she would pass her life, hundreds and hundreds of years, without a place? Neither a noble, nor a monk, simply languishing inbetween? Doing nothing?
The spark in her chest flared at this, a rejection hot and bright and defiant. She would be just as passive then, as if she had remained with her mother.
Her dreams were haunted with the scenes she had seen on the way here, of evils done and darkness brushing a hand across the land. As she delved deep into the flame, she knew she would never answer those violations here, or in Darsylon.

"No. I will be the hunter," she murmured, and a shiver went through her, as if the words held more weight than the air that conjured them. "I will be the hunter, and I will be the flame."
Her mind made up, she lifted her treasured journal in one hand, and the candle in the other. She took neither gown nor robe, for neither was who she was.
It was time she found the Jaguar in truth. Peace was behind her. Ahead lay a hunt, an excision. She was no blade now, no flame. But as she crept away, she vowed she would be.