A Warrior’s Peace
Chapter 1: Prologue
By: Ricardo Nixon
The wind blew through his brown robe, jostling the wooden beads hung low around his neck. He made his way through the woods at the bottom of the mountain trail, making contact with the ancient trees that gave shade to the inhabitants of the forest. He felt the life of each tree, feeling the life coursing though each of the trees countless powerful limbs. Reaching the center of the wood he found what he was looking for, one of the tallest of the trees had met its end, and it fell upon him to return her to the Earth, lest she rob the nearby trees of their sweet sunlight. It was part of the natural order of things; he just provided a little kick.
He let out a sullen sigh as he positioned himself before the great plant, placing his right foot behind the left, and placed his left hand to barely touch the tree’s brittle bark with his open fingertips. “ Sorry, my friend.” He muttered as his left hand was almost instantaneously replaced by his right fist, sending splinters of bark and twigs flying, leaving the tree intact. He turned his back and walked away, “ 10….9….8.” , followed by a loud crack. “ 7…6…5…4…” the wood warped as the great tree began to buckle. “ 3…2…1” he turned around to see the canopy of the tree dive below the others, accompanied by the sound of Earth shaking. He admired his work for a negligible moment before the all to bittersweet feeling returned. “ I am a man of peace, those things are behind me.” He told himself, holding back his memories of the men whose lives he had taken. He held no hatred for them, no scorn. They had been bad men, warmongers, drug lords, and bringers of pain and suffering that needed to be eliminated in order to bring peace. “ I did what needed to be done.” He ruminated on this as he was unsure if he was talking to himself about the tree or his past.” “JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!” Jack cringed as he heard his mentor’s shout reverberate from the top of the mountain. “ I must have lost track of the time, Mentor will be most displeased.” And with that he made his way up the trail, back up to the summit.
Jack slowly chewed on his turnip as he observed the ancient figure in front of him. Mentor had long since forsaken his name, believing that it tied him to his less than peaceful past.
“Jack, how long have you been here with me…”
“ Five years, Mentor”
“ And why did you seek me?”
“ I was told you could help me.”
“ Help you… what?”
“ Help me seek peac..”
Before he could finish his once quiet, docile Mentor was upon him, with his knee in his stomach and his calloused hand at his throat.
“ Why are you here!” he shouted as he flung him through the door of the wooden hut.
“ You told me I could find peace!” Jack shouted before unleashing a barrage of well-timed strikes at his mentor, all of which would be deflected.
“ Peace? You’ve killed more men than you can count and now you seek peace?” Mentor struck him in the throat with his open hand causing Jack to land on his back, clutching his now closing trachea.
“I can’t here you!” Mentor yelled, throwing off his cloak to reveal the musculature that might as well have belonged to a boulder.
“ For five years you’ve slept here, but you live in the past, so tell me why have you come to me!” He lifted his leg above his head preparing to end the man before him, only to have it meet solid ground. Jack sprung to his feet to see his Mentor cock his arm to deliver a world-ending punch.
“I don’t know!” Jack coughed out, absorbing his Mentor’s punch and throwing him over his shoulder and onto the ground.
Mentor quickly lifted himself up with his hands, trying at a kick while tossing himself back onto his feet.
“ I would suggest another answer.”
Jack and his Mentor charged at each other in a dazzling display of combat prowess, Mentor locking Jack’s arm and Jack reversing his hold and Mentor tossing him to the ground before dropping his leg on Jack’s chest.
“ WHY ARE YOU HERE!”
Jack stopped moving, and stared straight up at his Mentor.
“ I….am… Tired.”
“Keep going…”
“ I.. I am tired of this world, tired of our race, tired of myself. Every time I found myself hunting down some criminal, or war monger, I thought I was changing the world, proving that a human could change everything, that there was something wrong with them and that they were standing in the way of peace… of harmony. Now I know, it’s not them, it’s me, it’s you, our race, our world is a sad one, and it will always be, there is no peace…”
Mentor removed his foot from his student and held out a hand, “ That is where you are wrong.”
“ What?!”
“ Peace does not exist in… this world.” Mentor said with a smile. “ Peace exists within, meditate on this…my friend.”
Jack stood up and started walking back to the hut.
“ No, not there.”
Jack stopped dead in his tracks. He sensed that this would be the last time he would see his Mentor.
“ Then where, Mentor?”
“ The tree is still alive.”
“ What?”
“ The tree you felled. It was still alive, start there.”
“ Thank you M..”
“ Don’t call me Mentor.” He interrupted. “ Call me friend…”
Jack’s breath grew heavy. “ Thank you… friend.”
Mentor gave his student one last look. “ Peace be upon you… friend.”
With that Jack made his way down the trail to the sight of his transgression. The tree lay there in two, the stump just a foot tall and the rest of the colossal plant slumped over in decomposition. He peered over the stump to find a green center inside the rings of grey, dead cellulose. He put his feet up on the stump and with a sigh, sat down on his fellow living being. He took a deep breath as he emptied his mind, reaching the void that those like him only find in meditation and combat. As he felt himself slip away he could swear he heard chanting…
At the top of the mountain Mentor sat as he peered down at his student, tears in his eyes and his hands buried in the ground, channeling some of the only magic left on this Earth. “ Live well my friend, find your peace.”
Jack looked up at the figure on the mountain and saw it collapse. He began to tear up and the wood around him came to life, wrapping him an a cocoon of living wood as he drifted off into a trance. The tree enveloped him and the top reformed into a great umbrella of leaves and vines
Years passed by. Countries rose and fell. Jack was right, humanity couldn’t keep itself together and eventually they met their end by their own hand, until the hand of fate chose a new successor. After the fall of man came a new species of sentient beings, an equine race that flourished under the wings of friendship, a society completely free of the weakness of humanity. Until one certain orange pony bucked the wrong tree.
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