Граф Орлов
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“Is that… all? I can’t even call this a victory.”
Kenjiro looked skeptically at the pile of ashes.
A ridiculous end to a ridiculous life. Perhaps a man like Melesar was already tired of himself. Suddenly, like a hurricane on a clear day, a sorcerer appeared, mixed everything up, and vanished in a matter of minutes, leaving them to deal with the aftermath. Kenjiro sighed silently – it took an unusual effort of will to do this with his ethereal lungs. What a fuss. You can be a loyal servant or a mad sorcerer, live quietly or brightly, live long or short – it all ends, and nothing remains. It has all already happened, and there is no need to worry. The samurai cast a farewell glance at the slaves, now doomed to starve to death here. The fates of people are endlessly diverse, and if their suffering and aspirations meant anything, one would have to admit that the world is too unfair, too full of pain. But the world is what it is, and if someone cannot accept it and their fate, let them suffer.
“Well, the deed is done, the rest doesn’t matter. Let’s go from here.”
Kenjiro wandered through the sands for many hours, surprisingly and with pleasure noticing that neither thirst nor the heat of the day nor the cold of the night bothered him anymore. The body always causes much more suffering, and the best pleasures are accessible only to the mind, and yet the loss of his familiar flesh weighed on the warrior. The muscles no longer spring with each step, the silk of his clothes no longer rustles against his skin, the wind no longer blows on his face, and Kenjiro no longer feels that natural, animalistic sense of unity with the whole world. Now he is even more alien to this land, and the feeling of loss becomes more bitter when he looks at the lights of the night Barsa beyond the dunes. The samurai tries to sit down, but he doesn’t feel the ground. With a translucent hand, he begins to sift through the sand, assuring himself that he still exists.
Kenjiro was accustomed to thinking that he did not have any particular attachment to life, and therefore, to his body. How absurd – he has everything, and even more, in this new form – another person would spend his whole life in a ninja school trying to even remotely resemble the silent, invisible, all-pervading, deadly shadow that Kenjiro is now, and the samurai is not even happy with this gift of fate. Didn’t they teach him to live as if his body was already dead? If they only knew what they were talking about! Even the weight of armor and the pain of wounds – Kenjiro already misses these sensations.
“You are a foolish man, Kenjiro. Your eyes see the beauty of the world, your ears hear just as well as before, you are an even better warrior than before, and your mind is free from trivialities. But you are a fool, and you cannot rejoice in this.”
But he will definitely learn.
Kenjiro looked skeptically at the pile of ashes.
A ridiculous end to a ridiculous life. Perhaps a man like Melesar was already tired of himself. Suddenly, like a hurricane on a clear day, a sorcerer appeared, mixed everything up, and vanished in a matter of minutes, leaving them to deal with the aftermath. Kenjiro sighed silently – it took an unusual effort of will to do this with his ethereal lungs. What a fuss. You can be a loyal servant or a mad sorcerer, live quietly or brightly, live long or short – it all ends, and nothing remains. It has all already happened, and there is no need to worry. The samurai cast a farewell glance at the slaves, now doomed to starve to death here. The fates of people are endlessly diverse, and if their suffering and aspirations meant anything, one would have to admit that the world is too unfair, too full of pain. But the world is what it is, and if someone cannot accept it and their fate, let them suffer.
“Well, the deed is done, the rest doesn’t matter. Let’s go from here.”
Kenjiro wandered through the sands for many hours, surprisingly and with pleasure noticing that neither thirst nor the heat of the day nor the cold of the night bothered him anymore. The body always causes much more suffering, and the best pleasures are accessible only to the mind, and yet the loss of his familiar flesh weighed on the warrior. The muscles no longer spring with each step, the silk of his clothes no longer rustles against his skin, the wind no longer blows on his face, and Kenjiro no longer feels that natural, animalistic sense of unity with the whole world. Now he is even more alien to this land, and the feeling of loss becomes more bitter when he looks at the lights of the night Barsa beyond the dunes. The samurai tries to sit down, but he doesn’t feel the ground. With a translucent hand, he begins to sift through the sand, assuring himself that he still exists.
Kenjiro was accustomed to thinking that he did not have any particular attachment to life, and therefore, to his body. How absurd – he has everything, and even more, in this new form – another person would spend his whole life in a ninja school trying to even remotely resemble the silent, invisible, all-pervading, deadly shadow that Kenjiro is now, and the samurai is not even happy with this gift of fate. Didn’t they teach him to live as if his body was already dead? If they only knew what they were talking about! Even the weight of armor and the pain of wounds – Kenjiro already misses these sensations.
“You are a foolish man, Kenjiro. Your eyes see the beauty of the world, your ears hear just as well as before, you are an even better warrior than before, and your mind is free from trivialities. But you are a fool, and you cannot rejoice in this.”
But he will definitely learn.
E si sui vius, er mi grans benananza,
e si ieu muoir, er mi grans deliuriers
e si ieu muoir, er mi grans deliuriers