For so long, his father had been his hero. He had known nothing else since boyhood, so why would that change?

You know what they
say
about heroes

What boy did not look up to his father, after all? Strongest man in his life, an all-knowing and ever-protecting force, the figurehead of boyish dreams and aspirations. His father did not need words to teach; he was a man of action, and his lessons were hard but necessary – how else was he to live in his father's shadow?

Those lessons hurt
his father
didn't pull punches

And he would do all, endure anything, to hear those words of pride. A father does not love like a mother. Love is earned, not freely given. Hard work to get a kind word, pain to get a soft touch. He knew no different; his mother was ethereal light, soft humming in his head. She was not tangible, she was not there.

Cold is cold
until it fools you
into thinking
that you are warm

It was funny, in a macabre way, how dreams could so easily slip into nightmares. And yet, his nightmares could not touch this terrible reality. He had wanted to be so like his father, but not like this. He wanted to follow in his footsteps, not step into his boots. His sleeping horrors had become something he brokenly wished for, if only to stall the waking terrors for a few more minutes.

Moonlight shining off
black and red
sparks fly
gold and silver in the
night

He didn't understand why. That night, had his father been brave – or selfish? Walking off into the night, disappearing into the moonlit forest for some duel with a past specter. His father, ignoring the same rules of combat that had been pounded into his skull, and falling to the blackness. He wanted to know why – why did rain in the dense jungle smell so familiar, why did primal roars of the beasts sound like the clarion call of a long lost friend?

Family abandoned
parents swallowed by the tide
of blood
children left to wallow
in the wake of loss

He had followed a hero's footsteps, chased after a legend's shadow. How was he to know that path was paved with blood and fire, pain and death? They do not sing about the skeletons that lay at the hero's feet, the innocent blood on his hands, the weariness that rots from the inside out.

Tears came to all
but him
a boy would cry
a man would avenge

Duty fell to him. He had not asked for these burdens, but they were now his to bear. The invisible weight of a nation settled on his shoulders, decisions that should not have been his constricted his chest so that he could not breathe as he once did, trying to keep those few he cared for alive made his heart heavy in a disturbingly empty way. A blade in one hand, lives stolen away; ideals held in the other, lives to be saved – or was it the other way around?

Titles were naught
but gilded words
yet they choked him
a collar and leash held
to take his life's control from him

When had the lines become so blurred? Enemy and friend, order and chaos, love and hate – hero and villain…Or had they always been so hard to decipher? If he had been stronger, if he had been able to intervene, would he never know how little he actually knew his father? There were so many lies and bloody secrets, he should feel betrayed, but all he felt was guilt at his own failure. So much had been left unsaid, and he did not have the words to fill in the gaps.

Action and reaction
lessons he had learned
they wanted him to learn peace
he did not know how

He was tired – so tired. A weariness in his soul, a tiredness beyond his years. Still, he didn't know how to stop, how to lay still and settle down. For all that he fought for it, peace did not suit him. A life of war had made him restless, and now he was stuck.

Conflict and war
breeds
heroes and villains
peace
kills them both

He did not understand himself anymore. He was his father's son, that was inescapable, though he no longer fooled himself into believing he knew what that meant. But, as he was now, he could not stay. He would disappear, like his father had – he was lost, and he would not find himself here, as much as it pained him to leave those who had been by his side.

I hate you for leaving
when we still needed you
I hate myself more
for following your
footsteps