He left it long ago, behind him, the last whispers of the trail he took. A long stretch rose in the emptiness of his thoughts, a sigh like the shimmering remembrance of all that he had overcome, it was let out slowly and at length, then dissipated into the emptiness once again. ‘The past and your current purpose are things that hold such a weight on the present’. He pondered the endless inevitabilities of each direction of course. His mind felt the toil and time and tediousness of each obstacle that would need overcome.
Another sigh. This one short and sharp followed by the inhalation of a man whose quickly grabbing the breath needed to bare through the moment. His body was still strong, his muscles still taut with a strange lasting youth, but around his eyes there were the wrinkles that showed his age. In the setting darkness it looked like the pattern of little bird feet that had jumped around the corners of the orbs of his eyes. And his eyes.
Green like a devil, but tired, tired like the last man in a hill fight, like a horse that’s ran for endless miles. His breath he sucked in, he gained control of the charade of the future his inner mind acted out. He lifted himself in his cocoon of connections, the pathways between each thought. He found the doubts that he awaited, but with no way to face yet, he slew them from his mind. Demons are all but what we face. Doubts would be dealt with once the path grew close.
He stirred. His eyes lit anew, like the eyes of an animal, the green of the unhumbled jungle, the spark of the noble savage. His mind set, his foot stepped, one by one to the way of his wild, the place he knew well, the heart, the hearth of his inner fire, it burned now driving his motives. Illadin would do what he always did, what he could do, what needed done.
The Wordsmith 