Is there a part of your childhood that you especially miss, Dochallot? Do you find yourself reflecting on certain ages more than others?
If you're looking for nostalgia... at this moment, especially, that is an easy question. Maybe starting at 11 years old, when the reality of the responsibility of my bracelet came to me, Brandalloch and I would spend dozens of nights sitting on the wind-balcony, in the center keep, at the highest tier of the city, looking out at everything below us. The houses, the lives within them, the fields of snow and forest and mountains stretching into an eye-blur beyond.
Knowing that we were privileged with a great duty that tied us to this place, our youthful excitement creating great fantasies of our future heroics that we would overlay on the sight before us.
At that time, I vibrated with anticipation of taking up my place in this world. As I grew older the familiarity turned this into routine, into expectation, but now, as I'm on the eve of being... sent off?
A part of me dearly wishes to be that child again, lit up with imagination at the possible futures ahead of me. The futures I had imagined for myself here are not to be mine, it seems.
I know I'm not very old, but I think I'm already no longer young enough to view my suddenly very divergent future with the same sort of excitement. If I could recapture that Dochallot's enthusiasm I would do it gladly.
Having a defining point on my leaving Tzlatz will create a definitive barrier between my life here and my life There, and a pre-emptive nostalgia is consuming me.