(( cw: talk of violence and death. and also cut because long tag is long, oops? )) Another little pause, considering it. "I hardly remember much from when I was far younger, but my life has primarily been spent as guardian to my forest. I would defend it from humans' more unwelcome intentions... not that they were always. Most often, their hunters were simply hungry, and would eagerly trade the life of their small quarry for an encumbrance of willingly given food, for which none had to die. But then there were some who were true monsters, who relished in sowing fear and causing pain and in ending lives. There was no understanding within them of murder being wrong. They felt themselves to be above others. They did not hunt out of need... they hunted innocent people that they refused to believe were people.
"And there could be no mistaken hope that they may not have been so twisted; I could feel that within them, just as surely as I can see this place around me now.
"Those, I would teach better. The fear they refused to hear in their victims' screams, I made them understand. Those animals they'd slain, which the ents and I could not save...." He'd gotten a little quieter, but took a breath and continued on anyway. "...Those, I felt also, and returned the experience to the ones responsible, that they would understand that which their actions had wrought, and then I sent them away again."
Another little pause. "I. Killed. None."
...That he was aware of, at least....
"I would disarm them, as well. They were fond of showy excess, even in their weaponry... of gold and silver and jewels. Those, I gave to the people who clearly needed such more, that they might better their poor situations." There, a confirmation that he understood something about at least basic economics, despite apparently being a hermit out in the wilderness....
Though he hadn't raised his voice once so far, he was a just a little quieter yet. "I may have also... returned a few arrows to their owners, while upset. If they so thought that limbs were acceptable places to put those, then they should have had no qualms using their own." He didn't sound sheepish or even halfway guilty about it, though. He very much wasn't. Those humans had earned their injuries, as far as he was concerned. It was the Golden Rule in action.
Finished with unloading another armful onto the shelf, he paused in working on that to turn more to Yen Sid, serious. The guy wanted to hear, he'd said... so he'd tell him. "I cannot say that I have no regrets. The battle in which I fell... I allowed the deaths of an entire family of innocents. Kin. Parents... children. They ran into my forest seeking safety, and I failed them. I did not reach them in time.
"I was not thinking clearly. I was too blinded by their pains. I hurried. I bid the ents lead the two parties apart, separate them, block the hunters' way and heal the family... and it was a failed gamble. By the time I reached them, they could not be saved. They were too weakened, too hurt... they'd exhausted too much of themselves, in attempting to heal their injuries, even with the ents' attempts to help... and I was never gifted in holding spirits to begin with, let alone ones so young and fragile still.
"I don't... quite remember exactly what happened after that. I think I remember those hateful ones breaking past the ents to reach us... and I most certainly remember being near blinded by grief and anger. I remember attempting to turn it on them, as I had other monsters like them, so many times before...." He shook his head, pausing briefly again to... well, it looked an awful lot like he was having to make an effort to maintain that calm, closing his eyes and apparently swallowing, but he continued on. "And then I remember yet more pain, but this time, it was my own."
He brought a hand up, indicating something across some of his chest's armor. It wasn't too terribly obvious; Yen Sid would have to look carefully to see it very well. If one didn't know any better, they might even think it was a few mere surface scratches from a pin or something, marks that may have been no more than superficial, maybe even scuffs in the polish of his plating that had happened simply by venturing too close to the thorns outside and being less than careful. And the thin, mostly straight little ridges, scars, really, in his armor, weren't only in that one spot. They were, if one were to look, rather scattered all over him, including one that suggested that the hunters had tried beheading him.
Or that they'd managed?
"I fell. And the ents did what they needed, to end the battle, that there might be something left of me. ...I remember that they'd had to gather my pieces... and they held onto me, that I might heal from it, and I let them. I was too exhausted to do more for myself... and I slept. I know not exactly how long it has been since then... others came to the forest, and it did as I would have done, giving food and protection and defending itself from attempts to harm it... and I think perhaps more than a few centuries passed, and I... could not seem to wake still, even when..." A slight pause, trying to figure out how to phrase it, "...When that tired kindred spirit came to find solace in my forest's company. Or after, when the brother who was so brilliantly joyful came, and led the forest elsewhere. Not until those dreams, which led me to meet brother Skisan, who helped me finally wake, and then here."
He eyed Yen Sid again, taking another slow breath to make sure he was still at least seeming calm outwardly. Despite how much time had apparently passed -- though to be fair, he'd just claimed he hadn't been properly, or even mostly, conscious during it -- he was still quite bothered, and pushing it aside. If he was going to let himself be upset about it, it wasn't going to be here and now. "If my ending up here was because I made the wrong choice when it mattered, rather than because I am needed here, or because it was indeed mere chance... if my failure so long ago is the deciding factor in all of this...? I would have even more questions about how just any of this could possibly be."
It didn't sound like he was intentionally leaving anything out, at least. If there were more to be recounted, either he wasn't aware of it, or didn't consider it important enough to mention. The fate of the hunters that'd hacked him to bits was probably a case of the latter, considering how he'd phrased that, but if he were being accurate about it, he hadn't even been the one to do anything to them directly. He'd mentioned what was probably him having control over the odd trees, even remotely... so him having been in literal pieces on the ground at the time might not have ruled out the possibility that he'd actually been behind it anyway.
But how often was anyone a truly objective, reliable narrator, when it came to their own stories? Everyone had a bias, though some were far better than others about recognizing it. Just because he'd said he was certain he'd sent all other the human hunters away alive didn't mean they stayed that way, did it? How many had had things go wrong for them after the injuries he'd inflicted in areas that wouldn't have otherwise been life-threatening to have an arrow or sword shoved into? ...How many had he utterly traumatized over the centuries, ruining their lives despite never once drawing blood in dealing with them? It really wasn't clear at all. Nor was it, what established laws in the area he or the hunters had broken, exactly, or whether his forest was even subject to any in the first place.
"The funny part about all of this, however... if indeed there is any humor to be found in it so far...." He turned to step aside again, beginning to gather another armful from the box. It was easy to tell that he was making an effort to stay calm despite the subject... and it was also easy to tell that whatever he was going to say wasn't actually funny to him in the slightest. "...Is that I have ended more lives since coming here... than I have in all my centuries prior to this, combined." ...So he meant the fish he'd been catching for everyone. He was counting those.
no subject
(( cw: talk of violence and death. and also cut because long tag is long, oops? ))
Another little pause, considering it. "I hardly remember much from when I was far younger, but my life has primarily been spent as guardian to my forest. I would defend it from humans' more unwelcome intentions... not that they were always. Most often, their hunters were simply hungry, and would eagerly trade the life of their small quarry for an encumbrance of willingly given food, for which none had to die. But then there were some who were true monsters, who relished in sowing fear and causing pain and in ending lives. There was no understanding within them of murder being wrong. They felt themselves to be above others. They did not hunt out of need... they hunted innocent people that they refused to believe were people.
"And there could be no mistaken hope that they may not have been so twisted; I could feel that within them, just as surely as I can see this place around me now.
"Those, I would teach better. The fear they refused to hear in their victims' screams, I made them understand. Those animals they'd slain, which the ents and I could not save...." He'd gotten a little quieter, but took a breath and continued on anyway. "...Those, I felt also, and returned the experience to the ones responsible, that they would understand that which their actions had wrought, and then I sent them away again."
Another little pause. "I. Killed. None."
...That he was aware of, at least....
"I would disarm them, as well. They were fond of showy excess, even in their weaponry... of gold and silver and jewels. Those, I gave to the people who clearly needed such more, that they might better their poor situations." There, a confirmation that he understood something about at least basic economics, despite apparently being a hermit out in the wilderness....
Though he hadn't raised his voice once so far, he was a just a little quieter yet. "I may have also... returned a few arrows to their owners, while upset. If they so thought that limbs were acceptable places to put those, then they should have had no qualms using their own." He didn't sound sheepish or even halfway guilty about it, though. He very much wasn't. Those humans had earned their injuries, as far as he was concerned. It was the Golden Rule in action.
Finished with unloading another armful onto the shelf, he paused in working on that to turn more to Yen Sid, serious. The guy wanted to hear, he'd said... so he'd tell him. "I cannot say that I have no regrets. The battle in which I fell... I allowed the deaths of an entire family of innocents. Kin. Parents... children. They ran into my forest seeking safety, and I failed them. I did not reach them in time.
"I was not thinking clearly. I was too blinded by their pains. I hurried. I bid the ents lead the two parties apart, separate them, block the hunters' way and heal the family... and it was a failed gamble. By the time I reached them, they could not be saved. They were too weakened, too hurt... they'd exhausted too much of themselves, in attempting to heal their injuries, even with the ents' attempts to help... and I was never gifted in holding spirits to begin with, let alone ones so young and fragile still.
"I don't... quite remember exactly what happened after that. I think I remember those hateful ones breaking past the ents to reach us... and I most certainly remember being near blinded by grief and anger. I remember attempting to turn it on them, as I had other monsters like them, so many times before...." He shook his head, pausing briefly again to... well, it looked an awful lot like he was having to make an effort to maintain that calm, closing his eyes and apparently swallowing, but he continued on. "And then I remember yet more pain, but this time, it was my own."
He brought a hand up, indicating something across some of his chest's armor. It wasn't too terribly obvious; Yen Sid would have to look carefully to see it very well. If one didn't know any better, they might even think it was a few mere surface scratches from a pin or something, marks that may have been no more than superficial, maybe even scuffs in the polish of his plating that had happened simply by venturing too close to the thorns outside and being less than careful. And the thin, mostly straight little ridges, scars, really, in his armor, weren't only in that one spot. They were, if one were to look, rather scattered all over him, including one that suggested that the hunters had tried beheading him.
Or that they'd managed?
"I fell. And the ents did what they needed, to end the battle, that there might be something left of me. ...I remember that they'd had to gather my pieces... and they held onto me, that I might heal from it, and I let them. I was too exhausted to do more for myself... and I slept. I know not exactly how long it has been since then... others came to the forest, and it did as I would have done, giving food and protection and defending itself from attempts to harm it... and I think perhaps more than a few centuries passed, and I... could not seem to wake still, even when..." A slight pause, trying to figure out how to phrase it, "...When that tired kindred spirit came to find solace in my forest's company. Or after, when the brother who was so brilliantly joyful came, and led the forest elsewhere. Not until those dreams, which led me to meet brother Skisan, who helped me finally wake, and then here."
He eyed Yen Sid again, taking another slow breath to make sure he was still at least seeming calm outwardly. Despite how much time had apparently passed -- though to be fair, he'd just claimed he hadn't been properly, or even mostly, conscious during it -- he was still quite bothered, and pushing it aside. If he was going to let himself be upset about it, it wasn't going to be here and now. "If my ending up here was because I made the wrong choice when it mattered, rather than because I am needed here, or because it was indeed mere chance... if my failure so long ago is the deciding factor in all of this...? I would have even more questions about how just any of this could possibly be."
It didn't sound like he was intentionally leaving anything out, at least. If there were more to be recounted, either he wasn't aware of it, or didn't consider it important enough to mention. The fate of the hunters that'd hacked him to bits was probably a case of the latter, considering how he'd phrased that, but if he were being accurate about it, he hadn't even been the one to do anything to them directly. He'd mentioned what was probably him having control over the odd trees, even remotely... so him having been in literal pieces on the ground at the time might not have ruled out the possibility that he'd actually been behind it anyway.
But how often was anyone a truly objective, reliable narrator, when it came to their own stories? Everyone had a bias, though some were far better than others about recognizing it. Just because he'd said he was certain he'd sent all other the human hunters away alive didn't mean they stayed that way, did it? How many had had things go wrong for them after the injuries he'd inflicted in areas that wouldn't have otherwise been life-threatening to have an arrow or sword shoved into? ...How many had he utterly traumatized over the centuries, ruining their lives despite never once drawing blood in dealing with them? It really wasn't clear at all. Nor was it, what established laws in the area he or the hunters had broken, exactly, or whether his forest was even subject to any in the first place.
"The funny part about all of this, however... if indeed there is any humor to be found in it so far...." He turned to step aside again, beginning to gather another armful from the box. It was easy to tell that he was making an effort to stay calm despite the subject... and it was also easy to tell that whatever he was going to say wasn't actually funny to him in the slightest. "...Is that I have ended more lives since coming here... than I have in all my centuries prior to this, combined." ...So he meant the fish he'd been catching for everyone. He was counting those.