Hydaelyn Role-Players

I wake up on the La Noscean beach to the curiosity of scuttling crabs. They seem to wonder what I am doing sleeping on their beach and come to ask me. They have a crazy way of asking, which involves using their claws to pinch my face off.

After a quick morning stretch, I find myself eating crab for breakfast.

Once I've had my fill, I take a bath. This is usually the highlight of my day. I wade out into the ocean, past the breaking of the waves, with my giant wooden board, and I find a big enough wave, and I jump on it, then stand on my board. This is an important part of the bath process, because the salt spray is good for my skin. I ride the board until I fall off, or the wave is no longer able to be ridden. Usually I fall off.

Sometimes when bathing, I see a shark or think I saw one, and I think about years ago. I used to call myself a shark. I was a hunter, and considered by many a good one. I felt like I had no natural predators, like sharks do. I was the apex of the food chain. In those days, when I rode the waves I imagined that I was a shark, hunting for prey, making a kill, and moving on gracefully and perfectly through the water. Not a single wasted motion, just killing perfection. But an apex predator is still a plaything to nature. A shark can't swim if the tide doesn't allow it.

I remember the day I was taught this lesson, and the five years it has taken to sink in.

Now, on this beach, I understand. I shouldn't try to be the shark, I should strive to be the ocean. I should be the gentle lapping at people's feet, and the violent crashing of a storm's tide. What's an apex predator to the ocean current?

Now my work begins. I take it where I find it. The Maelstrom, the Pugilist Guild, Blue Skies, Soliloquy, family, friends, strangers. If it's good work, I'll take it. Hell, somedays I'm not so concerned about good work, but I try to keep my nose as clean as possible. It would be a lie to say I'm a law abiding citizen, but money's money, and I figure sometimes it's better that I be the one doing the dirty deed, and not some of the psychopaths I seem to find myself rubbing shoulders with. Some poor sob can't pay his debt. I try to reason with them. I'm always very sympathetic. Give 'em something to bite down on. Let them have their dignity if they want it. Sad to say sometimes they don't. Even then the worst I'll do is maybe give someone a black eye. Maybe break a nose or a rib or something. Not everyone's like me, though. I've heard stories. The honest work, though, for whatever weird reason, has me usually fighting animals.

I like fighting animals. See, fighting's mostly mental. I'm at least quasi-sentient, right? So I can usually get into the minds of people. Animals aren't like us, except for that they are. We've got this level of pretention to us. Animals don't, and that makes them much harder to predict. They start off fighting for their lives because they know no other way. When you fight an animal, you've got to come correct. They've been places you'd never go. Done things you'd never do. You have no frame of reference. Us civilized types have civilization on our brains, and it takes a lot to get through that. We constructed these sets of rules, and we cling to them even when we have no reason to do so. You break through that civilized indoctrination, and you've got yourself a real fight against an animal so dangerous nobody's seen it since the discovery of agriculture. Animals that even before we remember, bowed out of the natural order and declared itself a winner. An apex predator so bad it decided to retire while it was on top. So you goad this animal out of hibernation from its den stone pillars, religion, and math. The only thing that can beat it is nature itself.

I know this sounds grandiose. To most, it would appear that I punch things for a living. I do more than that, though. Every punch I throw is a conscious choice. Every kick is a decision. Every breath I take is fuel I need for power. Every heartbeat is an act of will. The purpose of training is not to make rote forms and motions that I don't have to think about as I do them. I train to think about each movement more with every repetition. There is danger in doing things without thinking.

Occasionally I have a scheduled fight. For honor, glory, and coin. I was never one to be motivated by honor or glory, and while the coin is nice, I make enough to consider myself more affluent than my needs. I'm a little embarassed by it, actually, but I find it's useful. At least I can say my father lives well off of me.

I work, and I train, because I can't stand the alternative. The idleness seems too much like silence, and silence was once the end of me. When the world felt like it was ending, at least the crashing and explosions, and screams let me know it was still there. When the world was silent, I knew I was standing at the the hells' gates. The fear comes up. It takes hold of me and it won't let go until I lose myself again for a while in drink, or in moko grass, or in women. The quiet wipes away all the civilization on my brain, and leaves me with my animal needs. This is the real fight.