One Who Seeks the Light

I’m leaving it all, my love: The village, the temple, this life we’ve built, and you.

I don’t expect your forgiveness, but even so I’ve loved you since the day we met, and I love you still. I didn’t tell the temple, I can think of no good words for them, but for you above all I wanted to leave an explanation, a reason, if only to ease my own guilt.

It’s clear to me, through our arguments of the last few weeks, that it is time to Wane. Though my heart breaks, I invoke that Rite for it is clear you will pursue the Moon and I can longer call myself Luminary. Though this may seem sudden, please know that the old pilgrim was not the beginning but the final phase. As I think on it now, it began when I was seven: when I first grew aware of the Light on the Horizon. I wanted to know what it was, where it came from, why it was there, so, of course, I was brought to Temple. I was told, then, that the path of the Luminary would reveal all in time, and so my course was set. Even so, in all these years of study, my questions remain unanswered.

The answers of our forebears was only to say, “Our work is to bring the Horizon here. Continue your study, continue advancing in the knowledge, and surely the Light will come,” It’s to that end we’ve established the Rites of the Moonstones to reflect the light, to illuminate the darkness, and teach us to live well in the night. But despite all my studies, despite all my advancements in the temple, I’ve never felt closer to the Horizon or understating it.

And so my sins against the Temple are bound by my questions. We’re taught from the beginning not to look at the Light, but to use the Rites and Stones as intermediaries. But I always have. None of our rites have filled me with the comfort that staring at that Light has brought, why shouldn’t we look at the Light and contemplate it? The Luminaries could not explain why I shouldn’t. They defer to the ancients, to the laws, to the Rites of the Moonstones. When pressed, they only grew angry.

My other sin, my question, is why we couldn’t walk to the light. Rather than build so many things here, perform so many Rites and rituals, prayers, and powers, why do these things when the Light doesn’t move. They assure me it’s drawing closer, that if we persist the Light will surely come to us. But when I look to the Horizon the Light is constant, but unmoving.

These have been my doubts of our belief, comfortable as we’ve been, as lovely as our village is, these doubts have persisted in my heart of hearts for many years. And then the pilgrim came through, desolate and ragged, but so full of hope as she journeyed towards the Horizon.

Perhaps she was insane, as the Luminaries declared, a mere wandering soul, but she instilled in me the knowledge that others seek the Light. That it’s possible to proceed. Oh, how my heart burned when she said there was one long ago who had come from the Light, who was the Light itself, one who set forth the Way, and they called that person The Word of Hope, though who he was, or she, is lost to the Night.

Then, oh then, how she pointed to the Stones and said, “It is said that these were made by the Word to show the Way. Look close, look close and listen and you’ll see they point to the Light. They aren’t made to be worshipped, but followed.”

And so we’ve argued. How I wish you’d come with me, how I wish you could understand how ineffective the Rites of the Moon seem to me now and how wasted my life feels. Perhaps it’s foolishness, but I want to follow. I want to walk towards the Horizon myself and seek that Light.

And so, I choose to Wane. I resign from all things. I reject the Temple, the Rites, the Moon, the Stones, and all that was this life. I do this of my own will, and by my own hand. Though it is, by Rite, yours already, I leave you all I possess and convey my title to you. I pray the Temple will be merciful to you, as is suitable of the Luminaries, and I attest that you resisted my every probe and plea to the very end.

For good or ill, I recognize in you a true Luminary, a true servant of the Moon.

I take my leave of this life, of this village, and shall call myself dead to this village, never to Wax again, as is our custom. I don’t know what lies before me, nor what to expect on this journey ahead. But know that I choose to press forward to my goal,

Signed,

One Who Seeks The Light.