His head was spinning. This was all... so much. Gazimon didn't look much better, though at the very least it wasn't his life that got all... timey-wimey.
"So... the both a you've been through this whole... 'save the world' thing, before, then."
Taiki nodded. "Yes... I'd thought, hoped rather, that with my greatest foes all vanquished, the world might well stay saved for a time. And yet..." He gestured, vaguely, at his surroundings. "At times I feel like a maid to a particularly unruly nursery. As though I've just finished cleaning, only to find less than a bell later the place is knee-deep in filth again."
"So... why the hell did you volunteer? Clearly there's other people willing to help. Did you even sign up for this crap?"
"No," he admitted, after a moment. "When I left Kugane for Eorzea, my grandest dream was to earn an apprenticeship at the Weavers' Guild and master the craft. I took up adventuring work to make ends meet, and... well. All the rest was based on chance meetings."
"So why... bother? You coulda backed out at any time. It sounds like this wasn't your ball game, why even..." Gazimon trailed off.
Taiki glanced at Nara'a. "... When I was a boy, I left the Wood I had once called my home. There were people who took me in, people who were inordinately kind to me. And, when invaders came calling, seeking their land and their blood, because I could not help them, I fled as far as I could, to a nation overflowing with wealth and resources. Here were a people drowning in wealth, while the poorest among them scraped and bowed and begged for the merest scraps at their masters' tables- they could have done something. It would have been easy, left scarcely a dent in the piles of gold they'd stolen from years of exploiting those beneath them. But they did nothing. Garlemald did not threaten them, and so they were content to feast while others around them were conquered and enslaved. You're right, of course, in that it wasn't their fight. They had no reason to intervene... and the price of their indifference was innocent lives. My first home burned, my second conquered, my third a nightmare of poverty and disease... And I came so close to losing the last. All for the sake of the apathy of others. I don't know what Nara'a has endured, not all of it, at least, but I do know that, if we've arrived at the same destination, he must feel the same way. To ignore the plight of those I might conceivably save is not wisdom."
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Date: 2022-04-18 04:19 pm (UTC)"So... the both a you've been through this whole... 'save the world' thing, before, then."
Taiki nodded. "Yes... I'd thought, hoped rather, that with my greatest foes all vanquished, the world might well stay saved for a time. And yet..." He gestured, vaguely, at his surroundings. "At times I feel like a maid to a particularly unruly nursery. As though I've just finished cleaning, only to find less than a bell later the place is knee-deep in filth again."
"So... why the hell did you volunteer? Clearly there's other people willing to help. Did you even sign up for this crap?"
"No," he admitted, after a moment. "When I left Kugane for Eorzea, my grandest dream was to earn an apprenticeship at the Weavers' Guild and master the craft. I took up adventuring work to make ends meet, and... well. All the rest was based on chance meetings."
"So why... bother? You coulda backed out at any time. It sounds like this wasn't your ball game, why even..." Gazimon trailed off.
Taiki glanced at Nara'a. "... When I was a boy, I left the Wood I had once called my home. There were people who took me in, people who were inordinately kind to me. And, when invaders came calling, seeking their land and their blood, because I could not help them, I fled as far as I could, to a nation overflowing with wealth and resources. Here were a people drowning in wealth, while the poorest among them scraped and bowed and begged for the merest scraps at their masters' tables- they could have done something. It would have been easy, left scarcely a dent in the piles of gold they'd stolen from years of exploiting those beneath them. But they did nothing. Garlemald did not threaten them, and so they were content to feast while others around them were conquered and enslaved. You're right, of course, in that it wasn't their fight. They had no reason to intervene... and the price of their indifference was innocent lives. My first home burned, my second conquered, my third a nightmare of poverty and disease... And I came so close to losing the last. All for the sake of the apathy of others. I don't know what Nara'a has endured, not all of it, at least, but I do know that, if we've arrived at the same destination, he must feel the same way. To ignore the plight of those I might conceivably save is not wisdom."