I was watching Lord of the Rings when this idea popped into my head. Samwise Gamgee, eat your heart out.
Emmy
There are many types of loyalty.
The loyalty of siblings, fickle and ever changing. It never likes where it is, and always teams up against other bonds, killing one another only to breathe them back with a breath of life to start anew. It argues, it augments and declines again, eternally disliking itself. And yet, the loyalty between siblings is deeper than anyone non-related can fathom, an ultimate ad unspoken rule. Sibling stand for one another, though only out of obligation. Siblings are equals.
Loyalty between members of different generations, such as go between mother and daughter, father and son, are considered strong, and often are so. However, it is a loyalty that always breaks, either with death of the departure of the younger to become the old without the generation before. It is not permanent, not eternal. Perhaps no loyalty is eternal, but most comes closer than this. It is like the loyalty of lovers: fiery, passionate, and unbreakable... until it breaks. It is almost dutiful, the way that such loyalty falls. It is necessary, predestined. Preordained. Each lover is equal, just as each child will one day be an adult to equal what his parents were before him.
Then there is the loyalty between friends, the loyalty of the metaphorically blind and realistically stupid. The loyalty between friends is nothing more than convenience, or the mutual licking of wounds, at best. It is loyalty of hope, the eternal dream that maybe if you help someone, they'll help you. But that loyalty is unnecessary, and easily broken. This loyalty, too, is made of equal components, who don't understand that they are not right enough for one another.
The loyalty between a master and a servant, then, is the loyalty of true symbiosis. The two beings are not equal, nor do they need to be. The master is superior, and servant is inferior. And yet, the two cannot survive without the other. They are loyal out of necessity, out of not knowing how to survive in the most basic level without the other. And that is why the loyalty of a servant to a master is so special, so much more intense than any other loyalty that exists. There is no equality, only pure, raw dependence which resides in the loyalty that grows between master and servant.
It is the loyalty that I possess.
My master... he is strong. He has determination, will power, and intelligence. He has a powerful body, a brilliant mind, and something that many lack: the instinct to do as he must.
He is my master. I am his servant.
That's all that there is to it.
I don't mind. As many servants are, I was born and raised to serve him, my master. I have always done that and I intend to continue doing that until his death, when I will die as well. There is no other course of action that I can take. There is no other course of action that I have the option to take, and no other course that I would wish to take if I had the choice.
Call it weakness, if you wish. I am simply dependent on him. He is dependent on me as well; he would have died many a time if I had not been there to save him. My instinct just takes me over. My loyalty, to him. And maybe even to myself.
It's such a selfish thought, that I serve my master only because of how it benefits myself. It's the kind of thing that should always be kept hidden, if possible. It's dirty, a bad thing to say out loud. Shameful. Pathetic.
And what's worse, it's true: I, like every other being on this planet, and possibly the others, do what I do for myself, no matter what it is that I'm doing.
My loyalty is selfish, the selfish desire to have the sun over my head instead of rain clouds, the desire for him to live so that I can live. I serve him in the only way that I can so that he can live.
It's so pathetic. It's so true.
I am not even human. Literally, I am a piece of metal that is attached to my master's back with a chain and a length of cloth. I am used by him when he needs a sword to defend himself, or to attack others. I am his tool. I am his inferior, just as he is my superior.
His service can feel like abuse at times. It's a hard way to live, existing only in order to destroy in the hopes of saving yourself. Miserable. Destitute.
I know what I am to do for him, to protect us, just as he knows what he must do for the same cause. He knows how to use me, and I know how to move. A king and a horse, indeed, we are. But I am content to be the horse to my king. I understand that every king needs one, and if being the horse is all that I can do to save him, to save me, then I will be the horse.
I'm selfish like that.
It's ironic that loyalty is so respected, so valued among those who don't have it. Even those who do have it, or believe they do, don't understand. The only loyalty that is true is the loyalty between those who are not equal, those who only have anything to gain through their use of the other.
I am loyal to my master. I have a master, and he is what makes me strong, just as I, his subordinate, am what makes him, my master, strong. And neither of us would have it any other way, because we understand.
Loyalty is not giving. Loyalty is not blind. Loyalty is the absolute act of selfishness, and the show that one is willing to lie in order to save one's self.
He is loyal. He is strong.
I am loyal. I am strong.
Which is to say, I'm selfish.