A sliver of the moon waned in the sky above the Goblet, a clear night that covered Thanalan under a blanket of twinkling stars. The lights of the main pathways helped to down out the sight of the heavens but away from them, or as away as one could get without falling over a railing, helped Warren stare off at them. The kick of the alcohol had done its worse by then, though he wasn't in much headspace to rush home.
The subjects of destiny and fate had come up more often in recent time than he thought they had ever previously. The sorceress was fatalistic to the point of nihilism at times, the seeress believed fate was guaranteed unless it wasn't, and now someone else added to the idea that regardless of what he had chosen, Warren would have wound up in the same place. The world was a large place, larger than he thought anyone realized - including himself - and there were forces in play he felt operated on a level that no one could understand. Still, he couldn't bring himself to consider that his choices were not his own.
Tensions had driven him to the breaking point all those years ago; Arguments about what was best for the caravan. Already groups had splintered off to find their own headings, and what Warren remembered as a traveling colony of well-meaning folks seemed more and more to be fracturing away from each other. It would have been more difficult to leave in the first place if not for the anger that only young men seem to possess, but he made his choice in the morning.
...except that wasn't quite how it happened. It was a coin flip, not a decision to leave. In a moment of clarity he chose to figure it out in the morning, going to sleep angry and knowing that a mistake like this could leave him dead in the road within a few days. Was the choice truly his own, then? A turn of the gil in the air could have shifted his life in dramatic ways. She had said that he may have found his way eventually, regardless, but was that possible? He'd been in Ul'dah for only a short while before running into the woman who would change his life, and that couldn't have happened if he hadn't
run away
left when he did. But was that even true? Finnegar had found his way to an axe, after all, despite growing up a bit of a troublemaker. He'd stayed behind to protect what he believed in and he caught an arrow in the back for it. Warren remembered him as a skirt-chasing free spirit, but in the years that transpired he'd become a family man, and he left behind a safe, protected trading group and a wife he had longed to provide for.
And so Warren sat, gazing up into the stars and contemplating what came before, what came now and what would come. How did those he'd left behind remembered him? He and Finnegar had been thick as thieves. What would he have made of the way their lives turned out? If destiny was truly an inescapable path, why did it wait until the man was dead to let Warren find out he had a brother-in-law?
The subjects of destiny and fate had come up more often in recent time than he thought they had ever previously. The sorceress was fatalistic to the point of nihilism at times, the seeress believed fate was guaranteed unless it wasn't, and now someone else added to the idea that regardless of what he had chosen, Warren would have wound up in the same place. The world was a large place, larger than he thought anyone realized - including himself - and there were forces in play he felt operated on a level that no one could understand. Still, he couldn't bring himself to consider that his choices were not his own.
Tensions had driven him to the breaking point all those years ago; Arguments about what was best for the caravan. Already groups had splintered off to find their own headings, and what Warren remembered as a traveling colony of well-meaning folks seemed more and more to be fracturing away from each other. It would have been more difficult to leave in the first place if not for the anger that only young men seem to possess, but he made his choice in the morning.
...except that wasn't quite how it happened. It was a coin flip, not a decision to leave. In a moment of clarity he chose to figure it out in the morning, going to sleep angry and knowing that a mistake like this could leave him dead in the road within a few days. Was the choice truly his own, then? A turn of the gil in the air could have shifted his life in dramatic ways. She had said that he may have found his way eventually, regardless, but was that possible? He'd been in Ul'dah for only a short while before running into the woman who would change his life, and that couldn't have happened if he hadn't
run away
left when he did. But was that even true? Finnegar had found his way to an axe, after all, despite growing up a bit of a troublemaker. He'd stayed behind to protect what he believed in and he caught an arrow in the back for it. Warren remembered him as a skirt-chasing free spirit, but in the years that transpired he'd become a family man, and he left behind a safe, protected trading group and a wife he had longed to provide for.
And so Warren sat, gazing up into the stars and contemplating what came before, what came now and what would come. How did those he'd left behind remembered him? He and Finnegar had been thick as thieves. What would he have made of the way their lives turned out? If destiny was truly an inescapable path, why did it wait until the man was dead to let Warren find out he had a brother-in-law?
![[Image: yEROfKO.png]](http://i.imgur.com/yEROfKO.png)
