Disclaimer: Maybe one day I should collaborate my disclaimers and create an archive...
A/N: Wonderous day. My knee aches, my chinese prelim is tomorrow, and my lamp light went out. Wonderful.
*
Daleria shivered slightly against the cold December wind, pulling her long selved jacket closer around her to shut out the prodding cold. They, as in the colonel, bridgadier, sergeant and herself, were sitting in a Gousim logboat, halfway down the river Moss and on their way to Redwall. The thought alone brought a smile to her face. Redwall. What a marvel, the red sandstone walls, hued in the colour of rust and that of the russet apple. The large corridors, the cozy ambience, a complete wonder of peace and tranquility inside a practicle safehaven for all who would acknowledge it. Friends of old were their, dear to her as anybeast could be, and furthermore, Daleria longed to see the dibbuns, friends of hers of which she mingled with considerably the last time she was there. There was also the issue of the food. The stunning amount of fare the Redwallers could conjure up in their massive stone ovens and giant kitchens was positively alarming, not that the captain was complaining. The vittles were as good as they could get in Redwall. The company to share the fare with was even better. Talks and debates in the great hall were common, mostly amusing and drawing humorous points from everybeast as much as they surfaced wise words of wisdom. Daleria clearly remembered one speech that Jemerian had directed to her.
There are many things in this world that should have been yours, and many will come to you also. Have grief for those that you have lost, but do not mourne you life as empty. There will be times where the path will not be as clear, not as smooth, and also times when the fog will engulf you and your senses. It will confuse, mislead and misguide you. But if you have faith, in you as your being here, as you in your living of your life and destiny, as you in the mingle of the roar of the waves, swimming onward, you will reach your path, may it lead off the beaten track, through the mud, and cross the bramble, as long as you listen to your heart, you will find a way. You will be helped, aided, counseled as much as you may be decieved, for there are many in life who have more wisdom than yourself, and many more that would be willing to give it. Do not be as rash or hot-headed as you can be, but rather think, be it not as often as most, of what you are, and what you can be, and what you will do that will affect all others in this strange world. Think not but a minute, not but an hour, but think a day, and within that day, the sun may dip beyound the western horizon, and moon may rise, like a sickle, cutting the sky, but you will know that the next dawn approaches, as the next day in your life, a next chapter in your story. You will learn to appreciate what has been given to you, may it seem unfair in your eyes, there will be many things that you will face, that nobeast else in history will, and that will be your test. You cannot be guided, you cannot be led, but as it is, you cannot be decieved. It will be you, and your conscience, and from there, it will be to your life, your experiences, your doubts, your fears, your ambitions, your achievements, your confidence and your very soul, that penetrates, deeper than the sharpest knife could cleave, lower than the hardiest mole could delve, and wiser, wiser than the wisest will ever be, for it will be your soul, your heart, your mind. It will merge, one day, and confuse you, and lead you on a path that is not any other. A path, which you must walk, without the tracks to go, and only your heart to guide you, only your head to warn you, only you soul, to feed you, only your being to take you, only yourself to lead, or mislead you. For someday, somehow, you will find, there will no longer be such a thing as fair, because in your eyes, you will dominate all your senses, and one day take control, of your heart, body and soul, until nothing seems shallow, nothing seems bounded, for everything has a way, a time, a place. It is not for you to decide who might live, breathe, or who might die and fade away, it is only their being who will say, and their truth which betray them, and guide them to your blade. It is not you whom they should blame, yet it is not them of who you should hold guilt to. Neither of you is to blame. For everything under this sky, will take the test. It will show, which path you will yourself on, something you are deemed to do, in your mind, or is it something you wanted to do in your heart, or something you were forced to do in your body? If you see, you will find, evil chose to be evil, it was not forced, it did not relent to some greater force, and it did not let itself be pushed, nor shoved, into being evil, because evil chose that path. The seed of evil chose to be sown into choas and power and greed and misery for the sake of what it craved, more than we crave, for they crave power, and wealth, and dominance over all others, and they choose to do it through forces to their own liking, for they blinded, by themselves, by theirs hearts, by their own soul, that it was the better path, the speedier, the proper, the equivalent of majesty. Evil chose to black, but others chose to be white. Good chose the path it takes, not because it did not want to be evil, for there is nothing such evil in an untainted soul nor something such as good. It is a path, shadowed on all sides, a shadow that is only broken by you walking past it and shining you inner light onto it. For in your soul, you will lead yourself to the lightest part of the shadow in your mind, and from there your heart will then show you the way. And while you walk that path, you will find that there is still not track, nothing to lead you, nothing to stop you, and that by any means, you can turn from your alighted path, choose another road, and live another way. Evil, will never truly be evil, until their paths stops in evil, and that is only in death, or the corruption of the total soul, when they find no other guide, and their light will not allow them to see any more from where they have stopped. And death is not for anybeast to deal out. Do not be quick to think that you can give out judgement as you please. My heart leads me not to your sword, and you, and you do not lead your sword to me, for you see me not as evil, and my heart, does not see you as evil to me. So do not be quick or hasty in your life, to plough through the shadow. For even the evilest, the vilest of all creatures has a heart and a light that can be turned. But in his mind, in his mind, it is not for us to meddle nor corrupt. For you, and only you, can take a path other than your own, and only counsel may shift it, be it only the slightest. But like an angle, in the long run, you run that appointed angle, and you find that the difference from the path you might taken is great, though the angle you shift is small. All are like this. Do not think your life is dominated by a path. You simply choose, it could a path, a journey, whatever you minds eye puts it to be, but we simply live, and we carve out another day out of our lives, thus we are carving another chapter in our book, another league in our road, another leg in our journy. We do not simply cut off from our path. You would not slay me, but you would slay Vaxial, for in your mind, in your control, you see Vaxial as the enenny. But consider this. Vaxial also thinks likewise of you.
Daleria smiled to herself. How right the abbess was. Trailing her left paw through the water, she let the scenery change her, from the seamless sands of the western shore to the bountiful greenery of Mossflower. Everything was at peace. The captain could not wait to reach Redwall.
*
Three Days On
*
The company of Guosim shrews and
Salamandastron hares had been trudging through the denseness of inner Mossflower
for a day since they had landed the shrew logboats, and finally, Redwall
began to come into sight. Daleria broke out into an all out smile as she
watched the sandstone abbey grow in size and majesty as their neared. She
heard the ringing of the bells, Methuselah and Matthias, and knew that
they had been spotted. The abbess might come out to recieve them, even,
if they were fortunate enough, which Daleria dearly hoped they would be.
What would she give to see her old friend as soon as she could
