“does that fear ever go away?” ↺ @wheelmans.
for years now, it just feels like everything constantly keeps moving, in a way alden doesn’t always notice. he loses someone or something, he ends up somewhere new, and time just keeps moving him to a different place entirely, before he even realizes he’s not where he wants to be. sometimes, things just happened; he was forced to do something he wouldn’t normally do, all because it feels like the only choice. he realizes now that it never was ---- that there was always an out, he just needed to find it. and he found it here, not just a place of tranquility, but a place for a new beginning. for himself, for the people here, for those like him who had been looking for an escape but never had the opportunity before. he wants to provide that kind of hope, to show people that this life is worth living in ----- not just going through the motions, not just going along with things and calling it ‘ survival, ‘ not just waiting for the next death, but building a future.
❝ i believe in hope. now, i know i ain’t ever gonna convince everyone that havin’ hope is worth somethin’, but i think maybe, it happens day by day. ❞ it’s the little things he has learned to value most and to use to inspire others. he’s starting to expand the community, to build something bigger for all of them ( a real future, one worth finding home in. ) ❝ we’re always gonna find somethin’ to be scared of, huh? i don’t think it’s about waitin’ for it to go away. i s’pose it changes. we grow outta our fears, then we find somethin’ else to fear ---- ‘til somethin’ else comes along, so we keep movin’ on again. ❞ what alden fears most right now is who he had to be when he wasn’t where he should be. but at hilltop, he gets to be the man he always wanted to be. he gets to be a man he’s proud to be, and as long as he has that, he has something to cling to whenever anything else starts to feel like too much.
❝ what’re you scared of, huh? ❞ the question isn’t asked to dig, it’s asked in hopes that there’s some way he can help.