It's an odd thing, a blank piece of parchment. Infinite untold ideas. Infinite untold stories.
Infinite untold possibilities.
A blank piece of parchment is a dream that's yet to be had. Perhaps, one day, I will have it. Until then... who knows? I will struggle on.
"Whatcha doin'?" Garet asked, moving over clumsily. His foot caught on a rock, but he corrected himself and balanced before it knocked him over. Sighing with relief, he sat down next to Isaac, who merely glanced at him sagely over his scarf, which was flying loosely about his face in the wind from the lake. He looked back over the face of the water.
"Not too much. Writing a little, y'know? Trying to keep a record of everything. Trying to remember everything."
"What do you want to remember?" Garet posed curiously. Isaac smiled at him.
"I don't know, yet. Something. Anything. Everything. I want to remember who we are, now, before we change too much," he said, his eyes glittering as they took in the morning sun.
It hadn't been that long, he figured, since they'd left Vale. Even less time since they'd met up with Ivan again, and they'd begun traveling together. But somewhere along the way, he'd started to change.
He didn't want that. He promised himself when he left that he would end this journey quickly, so that he wouldn't have the chance to change, so that he would be able to go back home to Dora in a month and be the same teenager who'd left.
And yet somehow, he knew, he wouldn't be.
"Have we changed?" Garet wondered.
"How have we not?" he replied. "Look at us."
"We can't be scared to change," Garet supposed. "We can't be scared to learn and experience. We can't be scared to become someone else, over time."
"Who said I'm scared?"
"Who said you weren't?"
He didn't answer. He turned back to his parchment.
Somewhere in this parchment, within the infinite possibilities, the untold dreams, and the record of my struggle is me. Somewhere in these words is me, who I am, right now, and who I must return home as. I won't change. I can't change.
"I'm going to help Ivan get breakfast ready," Isaac said, at length. "Hold on to this, would you?" He handed Garet the parchment, folded up, and turned to leave.
Garet stood, looking over the piece of paper in his hands, turning it over, examining it. He already knew what was written there, what was said within its words, and what it meant to his friend.
Isaac was scared of change. Of becoming a leader. Of becoming a hero. This paper was his way of holding onto himself, so he could become who he once was again, when it was all over.
Garet stared at the paper one last time, then burnt it and scattered the ashes in the lake.
There was no such thing as going back. Not anymore.