My Own Experience To Add On The Walking Front: On Relatively Level Ground, Especially With Proper Pathways

My own experience to add on the walking front: On relatively level ground, especially with proper pathways or roads, the walking distances hold true. Walking through craggy mountains without trails, the max is about 15. Helping along someone who is not doing incredibly well healthwise (say, extremely dehydrated, somewhat older or unfit in some way) while you're in the craggy mountains without trails, drop that to about 6 or 7 max. Basically, factor in the conditions of the paths being traversed and the people traversing them - marathon runners will be able to go further than 68 year olds, or a group which has normal people and someone injured or sick.

As an addition, biking can massively expand your range, given you have trails and are in decent shape - 10 miles an hour isn't too crazy, and 50 miles in a day isn't impossible either, depending on how much biking you're used to. If you're very fit, it can go up quite a bit more. However, weather plays a big part in speed and range, as headwinds slow you down and tire you out, and it's harder to keep rain off as you bike than it is when you're walking.

Sanc and Rowan

The Harbinger

“Being the Harbinger should put you at a level of respect with the Healer and the Judge, in my opinion. You’re as powerful as them, maybe more,” Catrin said. He said this seemingly out of nowhere. The two of them were spending time together in the garden, and they had been silent until that point. Yoruth was enjoying the time more so perhaps than any other moment in his life. He never wanted it to end.

“There is an excellent logic to why it does not command such a respect,” Yoruth said.

“Oh? And what logic could possibly be excellent enough to warrant a relative disrespect of the only man on earth who can see exactly what will come to pass, with no error or inaccuracy?” Catrin challenged. He scuffed his boot to tear a weed from the ground and looked at Yoruth, waiting for the explanation.

“Well, have you ever considered that I see what will come to pass, no matter what efforts anyone might make? I know these things, I see them, but if they are intolerable I can do nothing to stop them,” Yoruth explained.

“Surely there must be a way,” Catrin said.

“If there was, then I would be on a level with any paltry diviner. But any effort I make to prevent a future from happening will only feed into the continuation of that future. And if I accept the future, then that, too will bring the future about. I simply know exactly what will happen, including any efforts made to stop them.”

“And what is it like?”

“Oh, the seeing? It is like being there. I can know as clearly as I can be in the time I am in. I need only look. Even time seems to pass as if I were in that future, but I can always return, and no time has passed at all.”

“And in that experience, can you not attempt something different?”

“I suppose I might. I won’t necessarily remember all that I have tried, but even as fruitless as all that effort may be, I suppose I could try. I would if I needed to.”

“Ah, we pray that you never need to. Do you see any tragedy?”

“Not here, no. I saw the downfall of a great many to the west of here, which would have already come to pass, but not here. Not yet, at least.”

“Why did you not warn them?”

“I did, of course,” Yoruth said. He bent down to put his hand around a flower, pressing his nose to it to smell it – it was in full bloom, fragrant, and beautiful. He saw its eventual death, but that only seemed to sweeten this small moment. Perhaps the tragedy of endings sweetens the beauty of the present? It is better because it must end, Yoruth thought, though the ending was never any more pleasant.

“Yet you are sure it came to pass,” Catrin said, standing over Yoruth.

“Of course,” Yoruth said, standing once more. “All I see comes to pass. My warnings only serve to allow someone to mentally prepare for their future, not to change it. I told the Commander himself, who is more broadly being called the Wolf these days. He brushed aside the warning, so I told some others also. None of it will matter. Some will survive, many will die. Some will only survive in the short term, just the battle. And the world will change.”

“Change how?” Catrin asked, running his hand along a strand of grass to collect its seeds.

“In unpleasant ways. A sundering, in several senses of the word. Sundering of souls from body, of power from power, of society.”

“Will it reach this place?” Catrin asked.

“Yes. It will reach this place.”

“When?”

“It will do you only harm to know. Let us enjoy this moment. We will have others, but perhaps none as sweet as this.”

…

Several weeks later, the constant badgering and complaints about shadow magic came to a crescendo. The island gathered and spoke against the practice of the magic, banning it entirely. Of course, in the case of many, that would be rather vague. Yoruth, for one, could not be detected using his magic. Except of course his shadow form, which was an unsettling creature with the body of a great bird and a human head. Others might be more effected, but ultimately, it was a measure to ensure that those without shadow magic felt safe.

Catrin was not a shadow caster, but he felt it unfair to ban the magic his friend had only used for the good of others.

“This is an unfair thing to do,” he would say to anyone who would listen. “What have Yoruth and the others ever done?”

“Oh, he has done plenty,” said one woman. “Every bad thing he says comes true, no matter what I do. He’s cursing us,” she said.

“No, he isn’t. He isn’t able to change the truth and neither are you. He only reveals the truth.”

“I wish he wouldn’t, so it wouldn’t be hanging over me,” the woman said.

“It’s not Yoruth, not really,” said a man. “It’s shadow magic. Not Yoruth’s fault, but he has an awful magic that poisons the earth.”

“It never once did, until all this negativity came into being,” Catrin said.

“Nevertheless, can’t have all my plants dying, can I?”

Another man, a bit older than the last: “Well, it’s not so much that Yoruth is an issue. Or the others, really. It’s just that if we become known for our acceptance of shadow casters, they’ll all come flocking, and then we’d have a problem. We can’t support them, and they’d steal all the resources from the rest of us. It’s them coming here that’s the problem. And not just for us, for them, too.”

“And you believe they don’t deserve sanctuary anywhere on earth?” Catrin asked.

“Oh, somewhere – it only cannot be here. We cannot support them, so none of them should come. Some coming over would be a slippery slope.”

Catrin continued to try, but he soon realized that his efforts were fruitless. He kept himself appraised of the news, and tried to use that knowledge to show the destruction being caused by all of them, but they wouldn’t listen.

“The Healer is dead. He has been killed. And he is the Healer, the most respected mantle of all time. He was killed. And he would not have found sanctuary here. Perhaps if he had, he would be alive and able to help us all work to fix this issue. At the very least, we would have good medical care!” Catrin said on a street corner.

“We didn’t kill him, though, did we? So it’s not really our fault. Just unfortunate,” a man said as he passed.

Catrin told Yoruth all about his struggles, and Yoruth nodded. Unfortunately, he had known that these efforts would fail. He also knew that similar efforts would also fail. Truly the inexcusable actions of a few had poisoned the reputation of the many. There was no going back from that, it seemed, and things would need to get worse before they got better.

“Are the others, like you, are they all going to die?” Catrin asked, exhaustion and the grief of ongoing failure crossing his face.

“No, not all,” Yoruth said, smiling grimly as he handed a mug of tea to Catrin. “Many, though.”

“Who? Will they all be killed?”

“Are you sure you want that answer?” Yoruth asked.

“Yes, I must have it.”

“The Plantwright is to starve herself, trying to repair the dead fields, promising she would not eat again until it was from the field she was working on. That field will not produce for many years after her death is forgotten.

“The Reckoner is, even now, being hunted. She has the power to change things, unlike me, but I can see everything she will change, and she will eventually be caught, and killed. The Steelwright will die many times, his deaths undone by the Reckoner, and he will die a final time after watching her be killed.

“The Commander died in the battle, as I told him he would. He was set to agony by a man named Liam. He was killed by the same one who will kill the Reckoner. There is nothing any of us can do to stop him.

“The Healer died by his own oath: never to harm. He could have defended himself, but he defended his patients. Without his care, those patients also died, except one, who will go on to live a life of sorrow, never knowing why his caretaker was killed, or why his mother died next to him.

“The Bookwright will lock herself away, recording all she can with her pen and her hand scrawling details she never knew. She will record most of this era of pain, before her hand will write of her own discovery and death, and the book she wrote will be destroyed by the orchestrator of this all.

“The Stonewright will be thrown from a great height, which he will survive. And yet he will die when his works, deemed evil and profane, are thrown from the same height and onto him.

“And I will die-”

“Stop.”

“Sorry?” Yoruth asked, interrupted from his seeing.

“I do not want to know how you will die,” Catrin said. “Who will live?”

“Oh, about half. They will be successful in hiding. The Patriarch will be among them, dying of an illness after denying his friendship to the Crystalwright.”

“All of these are so incredibly sad. How do you handle it all?” Catrin said.

“It was a learned thing. I started knowing of many deaths, in detail, when I was young. So I have practice. The first fate I learned was of the Soulwright,” Yoruth said, thinking back.

“And what happens to him? Another victim of all of this?” Catrin asked.

“No, no – he, then she, then she, then he, and all of them for generations will die as children, just as their power is manifesting. The power will sunder several years from now, but then each will die separately in the same manner – being hunted by various hired assassins.”

“Oh, Yoruth, you have known that this whole time? That is what is in your mind?” Catrin said, pityingly.

“Not only that. A great many good things, too. But those wane with time as we enter a darker age. I should say that my successors may be haunted by an even greater darkness for some time, sorrow more consistent than sorrow should be.”

“Do you know that for certain?” Catrin asked.

“No. No, that one is a guess. I can see none of my successors. Perhaps they shall be happy.”

…

Some months later, and Yoruth had been stepping outside less and less. He had seen increasingly hostile looks and seemed to be unwelcome anywhere, so he went nowhere. Catrin had been kind enough to help him get what he needed, but of course, Catrin’s association with him had marked Catrin for hatred, also. So eventually Catrin took as much food and water as he could and holed up with Yoruth in the hope of waiting out the harsh feelings. Yoruth had no such hope, but allowed Catrin to have it.

And then, the day came. The sun rose as any other day, but it seemed redder to Yoruth, with his knowledge of what it would bring.

Knocks on the door were the start. Yoruth and Catrin did not answer, but the knocks grew more insistent, to the point that Yoruth knew they were not knocks made with hands, but knocks made with axes. It was not to be long, then. Yoruth, doomed, held a knife. He would try, do his best to save Catrin. He would fail.

The door burst open, and Catrin stood in front of Yoruth to block the path between the angry mob and their target. The axes and torches were too much for a singular knife, and Yoruth watched as his best friend fell at their hands, victim due only to his unwavering friendship and for no wrongdoing.

Yoruth saw all of their deaths. The people in the crowd would die in a variety of ways. One of them, by Yoruth’s hand. Just the one who had landed the killing blow on Catrin.

Yoruth saw himself pushing his knife into the man’s neck, which would kill him. But before it did, the others descended on Yoruth. Yoruth knew that if he cast his shadow, he could survive a few moments longer – but he didn’t want to. He wanted to save Catrin, to find some way to prevent his death, fruitless as it might be. Whatever previous attempts he might have made, this one was not fruitful, and the shear fact that he was still doing this meant that none of them had been. He would have to repeat what he assumed he had done many times before.

Yoruth voluntarily forgot all that he had learned in the months of looking into this future. Then, if he was lucky, he would be able to stumble upon a decision that would change the outcome as he looked again. He didn’t think it was possible. But even fruitless, he had to try. To him, it would be an endless loop for all eternity – he would never give up. But for the rest, this horrid fate would continue on, and Yoruth and Catrin would die.

As he forgot what he had learned, he found himself once more, in the garden, with Catrin. An eternal moment of silence, of bliss. And he began looking once again into the grim future, trying to find a path to get at least Catrin out of this alive.

I think the funniest student-mentor dynamic that's possible is "you're like the caring parent that I never had" and "I chose to never have children because I knew they would just turn out all fucked up. Wait shit."

Normalize super close friendships instead of assuming there must be a romantic and/or sexual factor—friends are a wonderful treasure

I definitely don't have like at least 7 of these kinds of pairings in my current WIP...

hey bro can we like adopt paralleling themes and symbolize opposites but in a two sides of the same coin kind of way? it doesn’t have to be weird. wait what do you mean thats gay