By Any Other Name

There are so many things in this world that until you experience them are just a poorly understood concept. Take a sunrise for example. In the eternal twilight that I grew up in they were little more than that, a concept that I couldn’t understand. In my mind it was something like a bonfire suddenly appearing around a bend in the cave.

It would be bright, sure, but nothing like the blinding beauty that a true sunrise is. That glorious source of light peeking over the horizon and blazing across a brilliantly blue sky as the light slowly increases, filling all the dark crevices with it’s illumination.

How do you describe these concepts that have to be perceived to be truly understood? They are not the cold certainty of logic. They are not knowledge. I can tell you how the human body works. I can describe to you the processes that drive the heart and fuel the organs. I can explain the nature of the spells I use or the powers of the mind that I push out into the world.

These things I can quantify because they are meant to be understood, not felt.

The senses are not meant for a second-hand explanation. They are emotion. They way that a sunrise strikes upon you can be described logically, but the way that it uplifts you can’t be. It is the emotion of the moment, the joy and pain that enact upon you, those moments of ecstasy and despair that change you forever.

It the depths of my torment, a torment that was kept from me by the mercy of the gods, a single face appeared to me, a person who came back with me. A balm on my flayed soul.

For the first time in my century of life I realize that there is something more than existence and for the first time I truly curse my lot. I had assumed that for such as I there would be no…attraction of any sort after I relinquished my people and birthright.

I watched as those around me found love and family, partaking in their solace from afar. I thought I understood what these emotions meant like the theorist believes himself connected to his work.

Oh how wrong I was.

I was but an academic. Now I feel this burning and realize the pain it holds at the same time. I am unworthy of the object of my appreciation. Even were I to be human, something I have never wished in my life, I am old and flawed. Too old and set in my ways to change for another human being.

It is times like this that I believe that the gods have a sense of humor. In the time to come I’m sure that I will eventually look back upon this and laugh, but for now I simply want to cry.

Were that your name was anything but Rose, for from this point forward shall I never look upon that flower without remembering your face and the kindness you offered while in a dungeon of the dark.

Asher