You Don’t Know Who You Were Until You Finish
3rd place in Derby #236: Watercolors, with 647 votes!
One hundred years ago there was a savage warrior. No one knew who had taught him the craft, and no one knew where he had begun to kill. All they knew was that one day, he had walked into the village with no life in his eyes and the blood of his enemies staining his armor and hair. And then, without stopping, he climbed to the halfway point of a nearby mountain where the gods were said to live. Quickly the mountain was covered in clouds. And no one saw the savage warrior again.
Over the days ahead the gentle town wondered what they should be doing. This savage warrior had stood at the front of many wars, slaughtered many armies. His name was known to every general and every king. And the rumor was he had found no true challenger on the Earth, so had walked to storm the very gates of Heaven itself. Were they in danger? Was there any risk? But none of them were brave enough to cross into the clouds. Fearfully, they waited.
In a month, the clouds moved away. A few of the braver townspeople decided to walk up the mountain and see for themselves. As they neared the halfway point they saw scars across the rock, like a great whip had fallen. As they neared the peak they saw strange glowing rings too heavy to lift, as though an impossible armor had been chipped and broken. And at the very top of the mountain, they found an open space where the stone had been pressed down like wheat. And at the center of this space was a tree.
Within a generation, the savage warrior’s name was forgotten. No one knows it today. His victories and conquests have all been pushed aside like the scraps from a poorly made meal. But on the top of that far away mountain, in the center of an unnaturally flat clearing, there still stands a tree. And that tree bends with branches that reach toward the sky, and the leaves still hang like bloody hair.
Wear this shirt: because beauty extracts its own revenge.
Don’t wear this shirt: too boldly. Remember, though art mortal.
This shirt tells the world: “It’s not what we’ve done. It’s how we’re remembered.”
We call this color: Time Can Turn A Dark Soul White
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