Huff. Huff.
The hands holding the glaive relaxed and pulled the blade away from the training dummy. “You said yourself,” Sherry said in between breaths, “you can never train enough. I can’t stop now.”
Sherry would have sighed if she’d had the air to do so. Instead, she took a step back, placed the butt of the glaive on the ground, and leaned on the weapon. “Are you trying to tell me to stop before I hurt myself?”
“You know,” the trainee shook her head as she desummoned the glaive, “those are kind of mixed signals you are sending. ‘Train more! Stop now! Train harder! Give it a rest!’ The daily regiment never seems to be enough, but anything more seems to be too much.” Sherry stretched her arms as she started toward the dorms. “Shouldn’t we be alright if I just do what I feel like doing?”
Sherry smiled. Armagnac was referring to the week the weapon had been in her own golem. It had been easier, for training at least. Sherry had to admit that. Armagnac had showed her a few things, and put her through her paces. The time they spent not on the training field had been a bit more trying, but just as fun.
Right. ‘The old fashioned way’ meant Armagnac barked orders and Sherry followed. Sherry gave a nod of greeting to a few hunters exiting the dorms as she entered. It’s not that bad, though, is it? I mean, we work well that way. It was, of course, Sherry’s own opinion.
Sherry laughed. I suppose I have gotten used the voice in my head. If someone had told me a couple of years ago I’d be having a conversation like this and I was not in the loony bin, I’d have laughed.
“I guess I did,” she chuckled as she opened the door to her room. “It just took some getting used to, I suppose. Normal people don’t have voices in their heads.”
Sherry hung her coat on the lone hook in the room. She was silent for several longs moments. “Do what I do?” she whispered. Her mood shifted as the words repeated in her mind. It seemed like a little piece of gloom had descended upon the room as Sherry gathered her things for the shower.
“It is,” the trainee whispered as she walked down the hall to the shower.
Sherry, for her part, was silent until after she’d reached the shower room. Do what I do? Do you know what I do, Armagnac? I fail. Sherry reached in and turned on the water. She watched it fall for a few moments before addressing the weapon again. I fail. I…I came here to fight the shadows. I came here to get stronger and protect people. I can’t even do that. I can barely survive all the things we do. I am just…a failure.
This time the weapon was silent for several moments.
Yes. Sherry stepped under the water. It felt good. She’d been training hard for the last several weeks, and few things felt as nice as a shower.
“How many times?” How many times must I try to tell myself next time will be different? How many times will I be a failure?
Is that what you want? Someone stronger than me? She blinked, water running down her face. Someone who won’t fail?
I… All words, vocal or otherwise, fled from her grasp. She was numb; vaguely aware that she stood in the shower with water running. Her mind was flooded with memories.
She remembered waking up on a beach in a mask, and not knowing who she was. She remembered dying in that room with the moving walls. She remember the first time she saw the Sahara and she remembered the bodies there. She remembered the monsters of Halloween and the cold of the Antarctic. She remembered running and fighting and dying. She remembered crystals and madness and vines. She remembered the hunters that didn’t return. The hunters that fell and were taken, and hunters that didn’t come back.
“There were so many. So many…and yet here I am. How does that even make sense? I am not strong enough; I am not as good as they were.” She was probably crying, but she would not have noticed.
“But it doesn’t make sense. I am here, just little me, a failure. And good people die out there every day. People who won’t be coming home. And yet I come home. I come back to my little room and carry on.” Sherry stopped. She was repeating herself. She’d had this conversation a hundred times before. She wasn’t strong enough, she wasn’t good enough.
I do. But…is that enough? Am I enough? Sherry wasn’t sure. Everyone else seemed so much better, so much stronger. But she was still here, and she still had a job to do, didn’t she?
Sherry already had her answers.
She was a soldier in a war. Just like they all were. She might never be famous, and she was going to die horribly someday, but it was war. That’s how it went. It was fought by soldiers, little cogs in the machine, just like her. They hadn’t been afraid of dying, and their deaths were not failures. They were little pieces in the war, little pieces that died, or went home to carry on. Sherry didn’t want to die, but she accepted death as inevitability. She never questioned that.
Failure, however, was something that could be prevented. She just had to be to be the best hunter she could be. She’d been chosen, she’d passed the test, and hell. Even Armagnac had chosen her. And the fact that she was standing here right now, planning to improve herself meant on thing: she hadn’t failed yet. Not completely. There was still room to improve. Room to make it so that next time, she wouldn’t walk away feeling like some kind of failure. It was all simple, really. She just had to step up, train more, and carry on with life.
Why don’t you stop me before I get this far into it? I always ask the same questions and end up at the same conclusion. The fire in her gut was back. The fire that drove her to improve.
“I know.” Sherry turned off the water and a few minutes later was on her way back to her room. She still had watch this evening, then she’d catch a bit of sleep. She dressed, feeling much better about things.
“Armagnac,” she said, as she slipped on her coat, “why me? Why did you…”
Sherry smiled. “Quitting is never an option.” Nope. This was her life, and she fully accepted that.
“Yes. You know, next time I end up in one of these moods, you could just squash it by saying that straight away.”
Then why don’t you? Sherry slipped back into the hallway and moved toward the door.
Sherry laughed, Armagnac grumbled, and life went on.
