In what was left of his childhood backyard, there was a boulder big enough to sit atop or lay over convex. Raev Sturlusson was out there, in leather pants and shirtless like usual. It wasn’t exactly the way he pictured himself when he first spent his days here, but life has many surprises.

A lit pillar candle was affixed atop the rock with its own wax. Raev lay across the boulder, writing on individual leaves of paper, then burning them.

i haven’t really thought of myself as someone living out a vendetta, though i know it reads that way in the articles. it seems to me that my part in this is coming to a close. i’ve assessed utility enough times to see the limits of my own. there may actually be an end to this; i know that for some the fight of a lifetime will last their entire lifetimes. if i can get out with this peak triumph, what would i become? i have normal skills for ordinary life, but would they seek me out again and again as they have?

this can’t become some kind of blood feud. i remember celebrating the ending of blood feuds in my childhood, when my father was a speaker. they so often undo any accomplishment. i should end my role before it becomes more and ever more of that. i wanted no throne nor to be a tool of a throne. our children were not required to inherit power.

yet i ask, what more can i, must i, do for this world? for people, the people, other people, and for myself as my responsibility? i remember having ideals, and i’m left with a lingering trace of them. what can my hands do with those now?