Death Frost | Deathsworn #2

Chapter 5 ❆ Almost Done

"You know how to play?"

"I have an idea," I said, a little embarrassed.

Bish, I grew up in a musically-inclined environment. My mothers were high-class courtesans who specialized in entertainment. Though I wasn't any good at dancing, I was still trained in music from a very young age as core part of my education growing up. No matter how different stringed instruments were, they all had some commonality. This one was like a guitar and it was quite a common instrument known to this continent. However, unlike the typical guitar, this thing should have more strings.

"Fine. Don't break that thing or I'll break your neck like how you broke it."

I almost didn't want to take the lute with that threat, but I did anyway. I tenderly took it into my embrace and positioned it into my arms. I looked at the monk hesitantly and lowered my head as I imposed another question.

"Please excuse my incompetence. Before I begin...do you usually invoke your element while you play? I noticed nothing happened a while ago while you were playing. Don't you also trigger using your element when you try to establish a connection like this one?"

He looked at me tiredly, rolling his eyes. "You lucky brat. I don't do lectures to outsiders. But fine. How do you carry water with your hands without spilling it?"

I tilted my head to the side, confused. Though I somehow expected he would give me a philosophical question to answer my question.

"Simple," he said, noting my silence. "You don't. Your hands are not meant to carry water. If you try to hold something you're not meant to, it goes out of control and slips through your fingers. Remember how the world refer to us as."

"Conduits," I answered.

"That's right. We are things that can channel the energies of the universe, but it is never ours. The water is that energy. You simply let it flow in you and out of you and will it for the time it follows you. In the end, however, you are meant to let it go. Everything you have, everything you are, you borrow. And you will return to where you loaned your life from—the universe."

Was this the beginning of my journey to monkhood? Way to go making me question my existence, old man. But that was a nice thought. I seem to remember something similar which Mistress Veronika told me. She told me this before when we first got to Lovarda.

"We own nothing, not even ourselves," I recalled.

"So you know a thing or two about our teachings," said the old monk, gazing at me with a quirk of his brows.

I nodded. "So I stop thinking that...my abilities are mine...?"

"Hm." The monk nodded. "When you let go of thinking you own anything, you also let go of greed...even responsibility! And you become the perfect medium through which the energies of this world can pass through and materialize into our world."

"So you don't hold the water," I said.

"You don't." He nodded sagely.

"You drink it and pee it out after it's done its job because the best way to carry it is through your bladder."

The monk coughed and wheezed at my analogy. He didn't know whether to affirm or rebuke my thoughts.

I grinned.

"T-you...uh...that..." The monk stammered many times before deciding to remain silent finally, not knowing how to counter my argument. The unwilling look of defeat on his face was quite funny though. "Whatever. Stop wasting my time."

"Thank you for entertaining my question."

With that out of way, I began to focus on what had to be done.