A man I will never meet, once wrote in a book that does not exist.
“Every Rooster gotta die someday. What’s important some ain’t so much how he died, as why he lived. And that’s where his measure counts, mind, Gods or no. It’s what a Man left behind; what parts of himself he cut away in the long spans, and what he managed to keep, through and true, while marking his time. Every Rooster gotta die someday, and only his sons will remember why”.
The contemplation of a man’s legacy, what he leaves behind, when all else is cast aside, gives me pause for considerable introspection. I ruminate thus upon the lives and actions of characters like Wandering Star, Braiding Spectre; even Little Fire for all the precocious verbosity of his youth, and I marvel at the dichotomy between erudition and enigma that each displays, almost as if by another hand than my own.
What can a warrior hold to when all his wars have ended? In times of peace, is the warrior merely biding time for another conflict, emitting a secret breath of relief while all others regret the suffering and cost? The paradox of death being the only life he knows.
What does a scholar hold to when the very institutions that gave him his insight and wisdom are corrupted, dilapidated, and expunged from his world? Are the lessons he learned as important when the edifice of their very transmission has ceased? The paradox of memory being the sole key to his future.
What can a soldier, a family man, hold to when the cornerstone of his entire reason for fighting is gone? Does he lament the time lost, or cherish memories of the time he once had? The paradox of fighting against the one thing he cannot prevent.
Saga of Anaimon 