To Temper (Part 5) (End of Act 1)
There was a rush of noise, rousing him from his reverie, he cracked his eyes open, and noticed the source: the door had opened. The sound was the edges of the cacophony of monks in training. The doorman - the burly pandaren who had drawn the rage out of him - looked around the room before meeting Hirrus’s eyes and beckoning to him.
Hirrus left the room in a similar clattering racket as he had entered with, only this time he was a bit shaky on his feet; his legs were wobbly from sitting for so long. How long had it been? It mentally felt like he’d only been there for a few minutes - an hour at most - but his body felt like he had been stationary for days.
After the meditation room door closed behind them, the doorman asked. “So. What did you learn from that experience?”
Hirrus furrowed his brow. “Forcing air through my lungs causes me to become very introspective.”
The pandaren gave him a sidelong glance before he started walking, motioning for Hirrus to follow. “I meant from your sha possession.”
Hirrus tilted his head. “I learned much about the fighting style you monks practice. It is very well-suited to dealing with enemies who behave like feral animals. I must infer that you have another style for dealing with more martially-focused foes, as the mantids are more militaristic.”
The doorman rolled his eyes. “Your anger. What did you learn about your anger?”
“Hm.” Hirrus paused. They approached a staircase that led back up to the catwalks that clung to the walls. “The sha did not turn my anger against me, as I expected. They supplant it. My will was compromised, but because I am so accustomed to embracing my anger, I did not notice until it did something that made no logical sense.” He tilted his head, looking down at the pandaren. “I did not even notice when it was behaving counter to my usual actions. For example, I could have killed you easily.”
The doorman furrowed his brow, but said nothing.
“If I had handled the fight more deliberately, as I usually do, I could have broken through your guard. If I had maintained the strong fundamentals that were drilled into me since youth, I would have had the proper stance to make those strikes hurt. If what was driving me was truly my own rage, I would not have overextended, and you could not have thrown me through the wall.” Hirrus paused. “And I did not notice any of that until afterwards. I may have continued flailing at you like a dumb beast for hours were it not for that bite.”
The doorman sighed. “I meant your anger. What did you learn about your anger?”
“Hm.” Hirrus frowned. There was a long pause as they climbed the stairs. “You want me to say that I learned that if I don’t control my anger, it will control me. But I’d bet I’ve known that longer than you have. You had documentation about my career and history from Undercity, so you should know that.”
“Then why,” The dorman smirked. “Would I want you to say that?”
“I’m… Hm.” Hirrus vaguely remembered something someone had said to him recently. “Knowing about a flaw doesn’t protect you from it.”
The doorman nodded. “I believe you never had reason to care before about controlling your anger. In circumstances where you lose control, you are generally in a situation where your anger is constructive.”
The warrior considered this point. “There have been times when I have been angry and it would not be helpful.”
“And what did you do?”
“I pushed it down.” Hirrus said. There was a pause. “Although, that was not me controlling it.” The doorman gestured with a hand for him to continue. “In such situations, I become uncomfortable and irritable, but I am forcing my rage down. Trying to squelch it.”
“And how do you feel about how those situations resolved?”
Hirrus thought for a moment about a woman who had been reduced to ash for no reason besides Hedva having stepped away from the interrogation. How the warlocks who had murdered her had never felt retribution besides an exasperated rebuke. A pile of ashes he’d buried himself, promising ‘never again’ while even then he knew he could not keep that promise. “Not great.”
The doorman stopped at a door off of the catwalk, motioning Hirrus inside. The small room had few furnishings. A spartan bed - more of a cot, really - with a short dresser at the foot of it. There were some clothes laid out and an armor stand in the corner. Hirrus’s sword laid on a small table by the door.
“Here is where you will be staying. Hopefully the accommodations aren’t too ascetic for you.”
“Hm.” Hirrus mused, unsure if he should point out that it’s nicer than his home.
“Think about what we’ve talked about. We’ll speak again tomorrow.”
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BETWEEN SIX AND EIGHT WEEKS PASS BECAUSE THIS IS SOME REALLY INTERESTING SPACE FOR ME TO EXPLORE IN SHORT STORIES AND THIS IS NOT NECESSARILY THE STORY I’M TRYING TO TELL RIGHT NOW.
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Hirrus glared at the burly doorman. Even after the weeks he’d spent, the memory of being kicked down two-thousand stairs painted the pandaren as “the doorman” to him. The last few ashes of a stick of incense fell to the end table between them. Hirrus’s rage bubbled deep within him, but did not overtake him. His training had consisted of the doorman making him angry with various degrees of speed and intensity, and then discussing it with him afterwards. Hirrus found himself thinking of the doorman as two different people. There was the one who was intentionally enraging him, who Hirrus had grown to detest.
Then there was the one who discussed it with him afterwards, who Hirrus could respect. Hirrus felt like he was learning as much from his answers to the pandaren’s questions as he was from the doorman’s own input. It was a teaching method he wished his teachers at the Order of the Silver Hand had employed. He may have led a much different life if he had learned about morality by being asked leading questions and allowed to introspect on the topic, instead of being lectured about it.
“So, how are you feeling?” The doorman asked.
“I,” Hirrus snarled. “Am feeling angry.”
“I see that.” The doorman smiled, but said no more.
“I…” Hirrus’s head began to clear as the incense in the air began to thin. “I feel angry. But I am not enraged.” Hirrus tilted his head. “That’s new.” The doorman nodded down at Hirrus’s hands. The warrior held them up and noted that they were still the color of bone and dead flesh. No sickly grey was creeping up them.
“You seem surprised.” The doorman remarked.
“Yes. I am still angry.” He tilted his head. “Shouldn’t the Sha be trying to creep into me?”
The doorman smiled. “What did you think the results of this would be? We feel no anger? No sadness? No pride? What sort of a life would it be, to be an emotionless husk?” The doorman paused. “No offense.”
“I admit, I expected to be purged of my anger. Not to be…” Hirrus furrowed his brow, searching for the words. “At peace with it.”
“Yes. And that is why you have had to be here.”
Hirrus thought for a moment. “I don’t understand. I’ve always been accepting of my anger. I’ve embraced it time and again. I have had issues with embracing it too readily, but I don’t know what has changed.”
“Ah, that’s where you’ve been wrong this whole time.” The pandaren smirked at Hirrus. “Your issue hasn’t been with embracing it, the issue has been with what you do when you don’t embrace it.”
“Hm.” The warrior considered for a moment. “I see. I have been denying myself my anger. But it doesn’t make sense. How has holding it back has been giving it free reign?”
“It hasn’t been. Take a moment. Consider your time as a thrall under the scourge. I know the memories anger you, but really think. What was being done to you? How did you react to it?”
Hirrus scowled. “I was being squandered. I was being wasted despite my-” Hirrus stopped short. A flash of realization crossed his face. “I was being held back and ignored when I could have done the most good. And I-... Given half a chance, I broke free and turned on them.” Hirrus stared at the Pandaren. “I… I am-”
The monk chuckled. “Yes. You have become what you hate most. If it makes you feel better, you were doing it to yourself, not to another being.”
Hirrus shook his head to clear it. “But then, why has it stopped? I haven’t changed anything, not really. Is it just practice at being angry that I needed? Because I would have believed I’d had enough of that.”
The doorman grinned. “In that, you have only yourself to thank. What have you been thinking about when you meditate?”
Hirrus frowned as much as one can with only the upper half of a mouth. “Life. My life. My unlife. Who I am. The mistakes I’ve made. How I would do those things differently now.”
“Yes, you’ve been thinking about the times you’ve leashed your anger. You’re - for lack of a better analogy - making a deal with your anger. Promising to let it out rather than bottling it up. Anger is not a lever that is either engaged or disengaged. There are ways to let it out besides violence. Now that you’ve resolved to explore them, you don’t react to your anger by fighting it or embracing it. That is what the Sha exploit. You don’t recognize your own anger. The Sha infested it - and you - while you were focusing on ignoring your anger. It was able to reach your mind, stoking your anger, encouraging you to give in to it.”
“Hm.”
“And when you do give in, you give in wholly.” The doorman continued. “And you are so familiar with giving your will over to anger, it is not so different to be giving your will over to the Sha.”
“And even when the Sha are not a factor,” Hirrus mused. “Anger stifles my judgement. It stifles my ability to think and reason. It makes me hesitate.” He stared at the doorman for a long moment. “It has been stopping me from doing what needed to be done.”
The doorman chuckled. “Is it your anger doing that?”
The warrior furrowed his brow. “No. You’re right. It’s me concentrating on holding it back.”
“Yes.” The monk nodded. “What did you do in those situations?”
“I watched. I considered. And later, I regretted.”
“And what will you do now?”
Hirrus considered for a moment. “I will act. I am not a watcher or a thinker. I should stop doing it.”
The doorman smiled and nodded. “Yes. And that is why you are in control now. You allowed yourself to be angry. Not only that, but by now, you should be somewhat desensitized to the memories the incense is showing you. But you are still as enraged as ever. Why is that?”
“Hm.” Hirrus scowled. He was no longer feeling the sudden anger about what happened when a memory began. Instead it was slowly building over the course of the vision. “I’m angry about being forced to relive it.” He hesitated. That wasn’t quite right. Then it hit him. “I’m angry because I can’t change it. I’m angry because I just have to watch myself make a mistake that could have been fixed by acting instead of hesitating.”
“Yes. You ache to act instead of hesitate. You feel the urge to fight rather than rationalize.”
“Justice begins to trump loyalty.” Hirrus nodded.
The doorman grinned. “Well then. I believe you are ready.”
“What? Already?”
The pandaren shrugged. “Well, if we were supposed to give you the perfect spiritual centering of a true Monk, it would take years more yet, but we only needed to teach you how to control your anger. You’ve proved a quick study, but I believe it comes from your subconscious mind more than from you. Your anger wants to be an asset to you just as you want to be an asset to your Dark Lady, and I imagine you have that to thank for your meditations being so beneficial.”
“Hm.”
“I hope you don’t mind if we skip the formality of a ceremony. I have been receiving letters from Undercity requesting that I hurry it up.”
“What?” Hirrus stood to leave, but hesitated. “What did the messages say?”
“They’ve assembled your team. You will leave for Outland within the hour of your return to undercity.”
“Then it’s time.” Hirrus nodded to the doorman. “Thank you.”
“Yes,” The doorman picked up the file on the small table, next to the pile of incense ash. “I think I know you well enough to not expect to hear from you again, but I would appreciate if you would at least consider sending a message about the success of this mission.” He looked down at the file. “All of Azeroth would have an interest in thwarting this if they knew it was happening.”
“It will be stopped.” Hirrus clenched his fist, feeling the thrill of anger within him as it rose. It flashed behind his eyes. “He will not return.”
“I should hope so. I shudder to think if he should return and turn his eyes on this land.”
“I would be worried enough for the lands he is more familiar with. There are more than enough precarious situations in this world that a reborn Dreadlord would significantly complicate.”
“And this Dreadlord in particular-”
Hirrus cut the doorman off. “It doesn’t bear any more thought. He will not return. I will slaughter every cultists in Outland if that’s what it takes to ensure that Mal'ganis remains in the Twisting Nether.”
