Kalon Name: Hiro
Prompt:
Extra:
The worry stone felt comfortable in the grooves of Hiro's paws. Weighted. Reliable. Familiar. He traced over the worn spots, the brass worn and smooth, crevices oxidized and tinted green from many years of love... and undoubtedly, a few tears shed. The cat's small head and tail rounded, shining brightly where Hiro most often ran his paws along.
Hiro circled his thumb absentmindedly over the crevices, all the familiar edges and lines, musing. What an odd thing to love, and yet, it was nearly the only constant that remained in his life. Friends, family, combat partners, even the forests that were his childhood stomping grounds, and the villages nestled against them... Gone. After everything Hiro had seen, everything Hiro had endured as the true nature of the calamity revealed itself to him. The weight of the grief Hiro carried, the desires and wishes of his closest allies, whispered to him in their last moments together... Hiro bore the brunt of it all. There weren't many left like him, no one with which to share the cacophonous swirling of a fight started eons before them, the undoing of men before them now staring the brigades down. A hopeless war left for them to finish, or die trying, as so many had before them.
So then, how could Hiro deny himself the comfort of familiarity? If familiarity was the small brass worry stone Hiro held in his hands? The only possession Hiro had been able to hold onto all these years? So be it. Hiro exhaled, letting go of a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. It was ok to find solace in the little things, Hiro thought, and tucked the small cat-shaped figure back into his satchel.
In the face of everything, perhaps to so unabashedly love the small joys that remained was Hiro's own act of rebellion.
[308 words]
