Lost without Meaning

Jaden Ohanzee · 08-15-2012, 11:12 PM

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Now that I'm done failing... Dated for the 16th of July, 2012 PGP+12 Words-1200+

It was a heavy and suffocating thing this weight that now sat on his chest. Every minute of every hour of the last few days felt like this too. And worse, there was no hope for improvement… ever. Looking to the future, nothing looked hopeful. Nothing promised blissful happiness or pride. Life seemed dry and colorless.

What a retched thing, love. This was only one of the many spiteful, negative thoughts that often filled his mind. And every time one such as this intruded on his already terrible mood he would say to himself that it was wrong to curse something that so many found happiness in like that. He also found himself sometimes trying to find someone to blame for his pain. To this he would assure there was no one to blame but himself. But when trying to find a reason not to blame someone or why cursing love was wrong, there was nothing. Love had rendered him beaten and defeated not once, nor twice, but three times. Three times he had loved, fought, and lost in that order. Not one relationship had been similar to the others but all ended with agonizing pain.

As for the desire to pin blame on another person he could take out his pain on, he knew it would be extremely easy to find a target. But he couldn’t live here as he had promised he always would if he hated one of the pack’s members. What a horrid thing to promise, to suffer here for someone who didn’t love him. That thought sapped his already diminished energy. It wasn’t horrid. It was all he had. The one thing he could look upon and say he was doing that was worth something was being here for the woman he still loved. To curse that would leave him with nothing but a dreary life to grow bitter and resentful over.

The man sighed and tried to dismiss his thoughts as he walked along. They did him no service other than taking his energy. He was rather nude compared to the when he usually carried weapons and their sheaths decorated with furs. All he carried was his satchel. This was another effect of his mood. There was simply no reason to dress up or take weapons he had no desire to train with. Moping about with them was less comfortable with them than without anyway. And yes, he was moping. That didn’t matter either. If someone thought it lowly of him, he dared them to say it.

His moping took him into the heart of his packland. He was walking along, mind filled with all sorts of dreadful thoughts when he came to a sudden stop. Something made him stop. He’d been here before. Looking around and suddenly distracted from his thoughts, he felt a dreadful familiarity with this clearing. The trees looked the same as they did every day and the grass wasn’t special either. It was just something… a feeling. And it wasn’t that he’d been here recently. It felt like years, maybe even a lifetime ago. Something important had gone on here.

But what had it been? The desire to know this consumed him in place of his previously foul mood. He sat in the field’s center, sniffed around at the plant life, and wandered about its border before returning to the center. He held his head in both hands and tried hard as he could to recall. Still he had nothing. So he took a more logical approach to it. How many times had he ever been this far north before the founding of Sangi’lak. Only once… more than a year ago when he’d been on the run from his birth pack…

A cold feeling settled in his gut. This couldn’t be the same place. The odds that his home would be built to include this point were ridiculous. But there was simply no other explanation. With slow but deliberate steps he began to feel around gently in the grass. Now and again he would stop to reach down and uncover a lightly buried rock or piece of rotted wood. But it wasn’t long before he found what he was looking for. One piece lead to the unearthing of a sickening sight and once it was done Jaden could only step back and gape at what lay before him.

It was the skeleton of his child hood friend. This clearing had become her final resting place along with her mate. Both killed by the Issum’s own hands. And like that horrible day, all he could do for hours was sit and stare hollowly at the remains. So much had changed since then and he suddenly felt that things were all too similar. Running for his life on a desire to live simply based on his first mate’s dying wish that he do so. There had been no other reason to fight and kill when his friend found him. And after he killed her, there still was only the wish of a dead woman that kept him alive. Such a small reason to live after losing absolutely everything and he had pulled through.

That had been his reason to live but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that it no longer was. His desire to live… his hopes for the future… it all rested upon his beloved friend and this pack. Did that change now that her love had faded? Would he forsake this pack as a memento to all he’d lost?

No.

To do so would be an insult to his dead friend and first mate’s final wishes. Live for me. The image of her last seconds was still clear as day in his mind. She had given her all so he could escape and find something else. This pack was that something. But he could never lead it under the crushing sadness of loss. He had to accept what he hoped would never be.

It was impossible. Plainly impossible to not feel a sickening loss at the love he thought he no longer had. But he needed the illusion of acceptance to move forward. He needed to confront her and proclaim that they could still be dearest of friends even if they had once been more. Jaden pulled off his satchel and rummaged through it until he found what he was looking for. He drew out a pair of cords with cougar teeth braded into them. They had been planned as a gift before all of the drama. Made from the cougar whose death brought about a reunion with his cherished friend, they were a symbol of his and X’yrin’s relationship. Maybe they would be more fitting now as the two had only been close friends fighting together that day.

He would finish them and present one to here as an offering of peace and something material he could hold onto whenever longing for her love struck him. Then he would do his best to dedicate his life to his pack and its wellbeing. But first, his once best friend needed a memorial. It would be weeks before Jaden actually crafted something he thought to be worthy of marking a grave. Until then, a simple pile of neatly stacked stone would have to suffice.

Jaden does. Jaden speaks. Jaden thinks.

#00+

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