Back on the road, they reached the outskirts of the city.
Said the traveler, "If all this is true, then I wish for Purity only and not one the others. Courage, which I once desired above all else, has no true strength of its own."
Said the old man, "This is also partially true. The weakness of Courage is that it can only stand alone for a time. But this is also its strength, a strength the others lack."
"Can Hope stand alone? No, faith without strength tells us that some can continue, but not us."
"Can Wisdom stand alone? No, understanding without strength tells us which way to go, but to know without walking is to be dead."
"Can Intelligence stand alone? No, knowledge without strength tells us only how to survive, without strength how will we continue living?"
"Can Purity stand alone? No, love without strength to endure to the end will always become defiled."
"Courage cannot continue forever alone, but perhaps it can continue long enough. Perhaps if we have these five, but the four are taken from us, we will still live for a time."
"Perhaps, if we live, we will have faith enough to continue."
"Perhaps, if we live and have faith in the right thing, we will understand the road that we walk."
"Perhaps, if we live, have faith, and understand life, we can gain some knowledge of how to keep on living."
"And only if we live, only if we know how to keep living, only if we understand which road is right, and only if our faith is in the right One,…"
"Maybe then we will be Pure."
So saying, they reached the gates of the city and entered.
AN PS: Okay, so I really didn't write this to be pretentious. The original idea was to write a Nightopian/Nightmaren philosophical document about how Courage was different than the other Ideya (i.e. those little 'maren can't steal it from you in the game). Then it mutated, like an evil alien space spore, into a theory of how Courage could be stolen.
Then, I just kind of slapped it up on It's an experiment. Whatever. I'm done.
"And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure."