cauterize my heart

How did Eligos get so wise? Pyrrhic pinched his eyes shut in frustration as he considered his brother's words. His thoughts and feelings were a jumbled mess and he struggled to put them in order. For fear of getting them wrong and honestly not knowing what to say, he stayed quiet and hoped that by fixing on one feeling he could get them all straight and begin to make enough sense that he could not only understand where his head was, but be able to articulate that to Eligos. It was hard. This was a topic he had thought about a lot recently but had been careful to avoid the more painful aspects.

At last Pyrrhic sighed and in doing so opened the floodgates. "You're right. I got so focused on how I thought it should be I lost sight of who we are." They were meant to be adaptable; to be able to flow over the land like water and mold themselves to the shape of it and its inhabitants. If that adaptability didn't extend inwards what was the point of having it? Their father hadn't been so set in his ways, so fixed on how things should be, that he would have pushed him into the role. He would have found a place more suited to Pyrrhic and promoted another more suited to the rank of heir. "He would have wanted us to adapt. The world is changing and with it its inhabitants," he bit his lip, "some more than others."

"In my current frame of mind I don't think I am the kind of leader this pack needs," he admitted at last. "But I don't want to just let us go and no one showed interest in leading at the meeting. So who then if not me? Do I press on and try to make it work? I will if that is what needs to be done, but I feel in the long run I am ill suited to the crown."