Post by mandi on Apr 3, 2017 5:54:00 GMT
To become stronger, you must first admit weakness.
Admit weakness. Accept the flaws for what they are. It’s easy to say the words, harder to mean them. There are things, histories that while she’s never been tight lipped about them, never ashamed, they are not the gentlest of subjects to broach. The product of assault, born into a home of violence and abuse strength was a thing she had to find at an early age. Find it, or die. And the past leaves scars, some buried deep beneath the surface, invisible to the naked eye, but there, all the same. And she’s no different. Nightmares, no inaccurate, night terrors that bring screaming awake make sleep difficult, sometimes impossible. Claustrophobia and a fear of the dark ensure that she avoids closed spaces and total darkness with any excuse she can find without admitting the fears openly. An almost crippling fear of heights ensures that her combative style keeps her more or less grounded. But her fears, have never been a thing she lacked the strength to face down when necessary. When forced to. Because above all things, what she is, what she has always been...is a warrior. When she was a toddler and her father was putting her in the hospital with broken bone after broken bone. When she was in school, being mocked and bullied for being the youngest and smallest in her class. When she was being bullied and mocked for shunning the usual activities in favor of martial arts, gymnastics and ballet. When she badgered the gym into taking her on for training when she was fifteen. When she signed her first professional contract. Every step, of every day, has been a battle. So for someone, who has always struggled to maintain an air of strength, for survival, the admission of weakness is a thing that does not come easily. And yet...it comes.
To be remade, you must first be broken.
Broken. Shattered. Confidence and faith rendered into ashes. To reach for a thing, and have it slip from your grasp again and again. To shape your life around something, and realize that it may not be meant for you. To see everything you’ve fought for, worked for, slipping through your fingers like grains of sand. The Rising Phoenix match had been the last straw, the breaking point. Losing it. Failing. Tipped the scales, drove her off social media, caused her to shut the world out unless it became absolutely necessary to deal with it. So she trained, she came home, and she sought refuge. And it is there that she retreats now, kneeling before the shrine disheveled and lost.
”Ares, impetuous one who takes joy in strife.
Keen-bladed god, beloved of Aphrodite.
Steadfast Ares, friend of those who struggle in vain,
Giver of might drawn from desperation-”
She’s forced to pause mid prayer, her voice first trembling, cracking, then breaking entirely. She draws in a steadying breath, that trembles on its own, like the hand that lifts to dash the tears from her her cheeks. Another breath to collect herself, drawn in, slowly exhaled.
”Of skill born of muscle and bone, of devotion
To one’s comrades, of proven worth, I honor you.
Bold Ares, fierce champion, unyielding foe,
You who survives, I pray to you.”
To be tempered. You must first endure the hammer.
We are shaped by the lives we live. Every encounter, every fight, every injury, physical or emotional serves as a thing that shapes us, the hammer that beats us against the anvil. What takes form from beneath the hammer blows is up to us. We can allow life to destroy us, to render steel shapeless and without purpose, or we can use it to hone ourselves, turn the ugliness, the misery, the grief, frustration, and yes, one supposes even the frustration, into the hammer and tongs, the bellows of the forge that creates a weapon. She has found her weakness. Been bent, and broken. And now, to be reforged. As she speaks, she calms, the emotion drains away, rolling like water off her skin.
”Peerless Ares, in the single strike, the killing blow, I see you.
In strength of will, in battle joined in faith or fear,
In an unbroken spirit, I know you.
Grant me strength, son of Zeus,
Guide my hand at need, and my heart at impact.”
The last words are not much more than a whisper, not that they need to be. She never prays out of a sense of expecting an answer, but as a way to center herself. To ground and find focus and clarity. So when she rocks back on her heels, she’s puzzled by the familiar warmth, that old fire of determination. The one she thought was snuffed out and dying. And for a moment, she thinks that there’s a brief touch to her shoulder, the briefest caress of a powerful hand. But there so briefly it can only be a figment of her imagination. The product of an emotionally charged prayer and wishful thinking.
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