Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer
This is my try on the Uplifting Primer every Guardsman gets before he joins his duty. Personally I always thought of it as a collection of stories and anectodes that shall motivate the Guardsman. That should strengthen his resolve for the cause. That should give him a soothed mind in hard times. A mixture of rules, philosophy, anectodes and preaching. This first chapter is the prologue. The very first anectode. I was heavily inspired for this chapter by Coelhos "Warrior of the Light - A Manual." It is a good book I guess, but personally it emphasized too heavily on religion rather than a universalistic point of view and that was a very alienating thing for me while reading it.
I am writting stories to better my english skills, so I am thankful for all critiques. To my shame I have to confess that only half the first chapter is actually my work. The other is Coelhos.
'Just off the beach to the west of the village lies an island deep under the sea. It was witness to a great battle.' said the man. The girl noticed that he was dressed strangely and had a veil covering his head. He was big, almost collosal to the eyes of the little girl. She had never seen a man like him before.
'Have you ever visited that temple?' he asked with a voice full of certainty. He awaited her answering in the negative with a simple head gesture. 'Go there and tell me what you think of it!' The last sentence was was phrased as a demand, but the girl did not have the feeling that the man trully wanted her to order something. Neither was is at challenge, nor a request. The girl felt that it was rather wisdom camouflaged as a demand.
Urged by the man's sublimity, the little girl went to the place he had indicated. She sat down on the beach and stared out at the horizon, but saw only what she had always seen: blue sky and ocean. No island, not witness to the great battle.
Disappointed, she walked to a nearby fishing village and asked if anyone there knew about an island and the battle that had apparently taken place on it.
'Oh, that was many Millenia ago, when our ancestors laid foot on this land,' said an old fisherman. 'There was an earthquake centuries ago, and the island was swallowed up by the sea, with it the great monuments of the victorious battle. But although we can no longer visit the monuments, we can still hear the vaunts from our fallen ancestors for Him."
The girl went back to the beach and tried to hear the canto of her firsts. She spent the whole afternoon there, but all she heard was the noise of the waves and the cries of the seagulls. Only nature had answered the call of her ears.
When night fell, she left for home. The following morning, she went back to the beach; she could not believe that such an exalted man would have lied to her. If he ever returned, she could tell him that, although she had not seen the island, she had heard the light vaunts flowing by the motion of the waves.
Many months passed; the man did not return and the girl forgot all about him; now she was convinced that she needed to discover the weapons and crafts in the submerged battlefield. She would help her people defending themself. If she could hear the vaunts, she would be able to locate it and salvage the means for her peoples protection and future.
She lost interest in schola and even in her friends. She became the victim of all the other children's jokes. They used to say: 'She's not like us. She prefers to sit looking at the sea because she's afraid of being beaten in our games.'
And they all laughed to see the girl sitting on the shore.
Although she still could not hear her ancestors obeisance to Him, the girl nevertheless learned about other things. She began to realise that she had grown so used to the sound of the waves that she was no longer distracted by them. Soon after that, she became used to the cries of the seagulls, the buzzing of the bees and the wind blowing amongst the palm trees.
Six months after her first conversation with the man, the girl could sit there oblivious to all other noises, but she still could not hear her ancestors.
Fishermen came and talked to her, insisting that they had heard the vaunts. They were of immortal beauty and soothing the mind from the hard works the fishermen had to provide for securing their peoples survival on this forsaken rock in the depth of the great dark sea. The sea was poor on eatable goods and not entirley save from undergrund creatures and the will the nature. And yet, the sacrifices and the hardships of the fishermen paled to the ones that their ancestors had to endure. So the fishermen honored their ancestors by giving their best. By enduring these harsh conditions. By ensuring the survival of their folk.
But the girl never heard the chants.
Some time later, however, the fishermen changed their tune: 'You spend far too much time thinking about the vaunts beneath the sea. Forget about them and go back to playing with your friends. Perhaps it's only those in need who can hear them.'
After almost a year, the girl thought: 'Perhaps they're right. I would do better to grow up and become a fisherwoman and come down to this beach every morning, because so I would hear them eventually and provide my people the means for a better life. So that the fishermen may not need the vaunts any longer. That no one would ever need their ancestors vaunts for keep going. She wanted the vaunts rather to be heard by her people as a happy remainder of their history.'
If the legend is even true. If the chants even exist. Doubt was clouding the girls mind. And yet. She believed. She had faith. She would become a fisherwoman. There was no need to concentrate on the chants of her ancestors any longer. They would come with time.
That afternoon, she decided to go back home. She walked down to the ocean to say goodbye. She looked once more at the natural world around her and because she was no longer concerned about the vaunts, she could again smile at the beauty of the seagulls' cries, the roar of the sea and the wind blowing in the rare trees. Far off, she heard the sound of her friends playing and she felt glad to think that she would soon resume her childhood games.
The girl was trully happy and - as only a child can - she felt grateful for being alive. She was sure that she had not wasted her time, for she had learned to contemplate about her role and act accordingly to it.
Then, because she was listening to the sea, the seagulls, the wind in the palm trees and the voices of her friends playing, she also heard the first verse.
And then another.
And another, until, to her great joy, she heard them more clearly. She cried.
Years later, when she was old enough to take up the profession of a fisherman, she returned to the village and to the beach of her childhood. She no longer dreamed of finding treasures at the bottom of the sea; perhaps that had all been a mere product of her imagination, and maybe she had never in fact heard the submerged vaunts out on one lost childhood afternoon. Even so, she decided to stay true to the path she had chosen.
Imagine her surprise when, there on the beach, she saw the man who had first spoken to her about the battlefield and its glorious vaunts.
'What are you doing here?' she asked.
'I was waiting for you,' he replied.
She noticed that, despite the passing years, the man looked exactly the same; the veil hiding his hair had not faded with time. The glorious aura had remained. His presence was now more real than the last time she had met him. The first time his presence was more like a reflection of somebody far away. But now he was really unfundamentally trully standing in front of her. His very presence was soothing. His touch on her shoulder was soft and gave her peace like anything else had ever done. And yet the hands seemed to belong to a body of tremendous power, wisdom and clarity. It was not physical, but only something she felt.
He handed her a notebook full of blank pages.
'Write: a guardian of the stars cares for his people. He puts himself back.'
'What is a guardian of the stars?'
'You already know that,' he replied with a smile.
'He is someone who stands when others falter, someone who is willing to go forward alone when others seek comfort in idleness. Someone who us fighting to the last for something he believes in - and hearing the vaunts that the waves set echoing on the seabed.'
'He is someone who defends his people, even if the price is solitude. Someone who is honouring his ancestors that provided the land he stands on. Even if it is a rock with unyielding life condition. He honours his ancestors.'
'You did all of these. You are already one of them. And you just joined them in duty.'
She had never thought of herself as a warrior of the stars. It was said that her ancestors once came from the stars. But she? A warrior? She had never fought in her life.
The man seemed to read her thoughts. 'Everyone is capable of these things. Everyone has his way of fullfilling his duty to the cause that unites humanity. It differs from person to person. And though many do not think of themselves as guardians of the stars, we all are.'
'The stars?'
'It is true. Your ancestors came from the stars. Their duty was to bring humanity on this rock, despite knowing that they may never see other humans again in their lives. Nonetheless they took up that duty and fullfilled it. Every generations after them managed to survive through the hardships. They also fullfilled their duty, so that someday humanity would find its way to their offsprings.'
'We are not alone?'
'Not any longer, my child. Humanity has returned. But know this, my child, you were never trully alone. Through duty we were always one. You always had been guardians of the stars by fulfilling your duty.'
She looked at the blank pages in the notebook. The man smiled again.
'What is my duty, then?' she asked the man.
'You already know, my child. Write about that, guardian. Write about being a guardian.' he said.
'Write, my child.'
Duty is the anchor that binds us together.
The warrior who acts out of honour cannot fail.
His duty is honour itself.