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Mama wants me to start journaling my thoughts so I don’t bottle my emotions. I don’t have much to put in here, but I guess I can try.
Papa took me ice fishing this morning. I like to be out on the ice. It’s very quiet, and Papa tells me stories. We sit out in the middle of the lake, and he tells me about monsters and men and heroes.
I think I’d like to be a hero one day, or an adventurer. I don’t tell anyone that, though. My sisters will make fun of me.
Mama and Papa are angry with Roza. She kissed that boy Aleksa who works at the blacksmith’s again and Papa caught them. Tamara and I told her to stop being so obvious.
She’s probably better off, though. Aleksa isn’t that pretty, and I’ve seen him throw pebbles at birds. He’s kind of an asshole. He’s also not that good at blacksmithing.
Roza wants to know what I’m writing. None of her business, that’s what.
We went ice fishing again today. Papa told me that story again, the one about the man who shares my name. He fought wars on distant shores and held off armies by himself, armed only with a spear.
He was a hero. They’re all heroes in Papa’s stories, and they conquer and rescue and protect. Even when they die, they’re heroes.
It’s not like the stories most adults tell kids, where good always wins. Sometimes the heroes lose, but it’s not like when the baker’s daughter drowned under the ice last winter, or when the barkeep was found mauled by wolves. Bad things happen, and people go, but heroes are still heroes. They’re still brave and strong and good.
I see members of the Adventurer’s Guild come through Morepesok. I want to ask about their adventures, but Mama tells me not to bother them. I don’t think I’d be a bother, though.
I like Papa’s stories, but the adventurers must have more to tell. And their stories would be real. Just imagine how much more interesting their lives must be, all adventure and danger.
I bet they’ve seen the whole of Snezhnaya, not just one little village. Maybe one of them has seen the whole of Teyvat.
I dream about Papa’s heroes, but then I wake up, I’m just in Morepesok. I wake up, and Roza is braiding Tonia’s hair, and Teucer is rearranging his toys, and Anthon wants to play, and Tamara and Papa are chopping wood, and I remember that I’m not a hero. I’m just Ajax, and Mama is telling me that I have chores to do.
It’s so peaceful out on the ice. I love the warmth of my crowded house, but sometimes, I love this more. On the ice, I’m the hero in Papa’s stories, and every time we make a catch, one adventure ends and another begins.
There are a million little things that make up life at home. Wood crackling in the fire. Teucer crying at midnight. Roza and I cooking together.
It’s home, and I’m happy, but I still look under the ice and imagine lakes that never freeze over. I hear wolves howling at night and I wonder what they look like, all howling together.
I love my home. It would be a lovely place to come back to, if I ever left. If I had a quest of my very own. If I had a place to go and a reason to go there beyond selfish wonder.
I hear the wolves howling, and I want to know what they look like. I want to see them all together, and I want to know what it’s like to be brave what the wilds look like, all buried in snow without a hint of a lantern to domesticate them.
In the stories, heroes never cut down the wild. They survive it.
Papa tells me stories, and I dream, and I have nightmares, and then I wake up, and part of me wants to go back to bed. But I don’t want to be a hero when I sleep, or out on the ice. I want a quest of my very own, and I want it to be real.
Maybe I have to run away to be a hero. Lots of heroes start out as underdogs. Once I’ve had my adventures, I’ll come home.
It’s a nice idea.
If I ran away, I would battle wolves in the woods with the sword Papa taught me to use, and I would eat off the land, and I’d be a myth. A hero knee-deep in the snow, a shortsword hilt-deep in a ferocious beast’s chest. That’s how I’d tell it. That’s how I’d live it, if I wasn’t such a coward.
I know what my family would say if I told them what I dream about. “You can’t run, Ajax, where would you go?”
I don’t know where I’d go. I think that’s the point. But then they’d tell me that they need me here, and I wouldn’t want to leave anymore. So I can’t tell them. Not that I’ll ever actually go.
Roza is in trouble for kissing another boy. Tamara is berating her, and Anthon has jumped on the bandwagon, and it all feels so normal. It all feels so repetitive.
She didn’t even kiss someone interesting, like a foreign stranger or a hunter. He’s just an amateur baker, born and raised in Morepesok, and likely to die here too.
I keep rereading those words. Born and raised in Morepesok, and likely to die here too. I don’t think I want to die here. I don’t know. I just want to be more than a kid writing down his dreams in some little book.
Once, I got sick, and my siblings took my chores for me. They did them with hardly a care. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t there, not really. Maybe I need to journey to find my purpose, like some heroes do. Maybe this is a sign I should go for it.
Another day on the ice, and I just stared into the hole we carved, at the deep, freezing water, and I dreamed and dreamed and dreamed.
I wonder what would happen if I did it. If I picked up my sword and left. I’m not stupid— this is Snezhnaya. I know I might die out there. But what if I don’t?
I think I want to go. Not for long. I just want to see what it’s like, and then come home. I want to know what it feels like to be brave, to be someone. Once I know, maybe then I can be just Ajax again.
I think I’ll do it. I think I’ll do it.
Tonight. I’ll do it tonight.
I didn’t do it last night. But tonight I’ll do it. Or tomorrow night might be better. Tomorrow night, I guess. All of my little plans seem so much more real now. I don’t know. I guess I’ll really miss all of this, even though I won’t be gone for long.
Picture me. Ajax of Morepesok with nothing but a shortsword in hand, sinking into the snow, surviving until he knows it’s time to come home.
That’s how I’ll tell it. Maybe that’s how I’ll live it.
It’s sad, really. Looking back at this journal. I nearly forgot about it. I was so stupid, and I don’t regret it, but everything feels wrong.
I went out into the forest with my sword and Mama’s bread, and it was cold, and there were bears and wolves. And I fell.
I fell a long, long way.
It was so dark down there. Papa always said the Tsaritsa is everywhere, in the snow and waters around us, but she wasn’t down there, in that darkness. It wasn’t a place for gods. It wasn’t even just darkness. It was something else.
I almost forgot, down there. I almost forgot about Tamara’s laugh and Papa’s eyes and Teucer’s wails in the middle of the night. I couldn’t recall any of it.
But I was alive. I was surviving. Everyone thought I was dead, but I was alive. I was always alive, even when I thought the blood under my fingernails might stay there forever.
They say it’s only been three days, but it hasn’t. I know it hasn’t. Down there, it was longer.
My chores are too simple. My bed is too soft. My peers are too gentle. Is this really what Master wanted to send me back to? I missed home, I really did, but I feel wrong here. They all look at me as though I’m wrong here.
Down there, the darkness didn’t end. It was everywhere, and it was in me, too. It still is.
I’m different, and everything here is the same. I’m happy to be back, but something has to change. If Master taught me anything, it’s that I’ll have to change it myself.
I finally lived my story. It was worse than I ever expected, and much, much better.
Ajax of Morepesok survived the Abyss. And I’ll never tell a soul.