Widargelt Beake meditated on the top of the hill that overlooked the ruins of Sothern Thanalin. To anyone looking at him he was the picture of monk like stoicism. It was only the slightest of movements he made in his breathing that confirmed he was still with the living.

Inside however, he was a whirlwind of conflict. He was a man defeated, and he deserved it. There was no excuse for what he did. He attacked Yujo, someone who had trusted him as a communial brother, to kill her and awaken the final chakra gate.

To her, he was a confidant away from her duties with the Scions and the Immortal Flames, the sholder she cried on after the waking sands masacare, and the person she trained with daily for over six months with in the martial artes of Rhalgar The Destroyer.

He had thrown all that away, and… for what?

Glory? Pride? Power? Vengence?

All worthless in the clarity of the after.

And yet, when it was all said and done, she had not admonished him, shouted him down, nor punch him- not that someone else didn't do that for her imediately after. She simply offered her hand, her tiny hand, to help him back up.

He had been defeated, compeltly and utterly.

"I figgured this would be where I could find you."

His eyes opened. He didn't need to see to know who had come to meet him in such a place.

"Erik…"

The professor looked over him with the same look of disapointment that followed the anger in his punch after his assult on Yujo. For a man of such… academic… stature, he absolutly towered over the monk.

"Come to mock me and call me a buffon? I ceratinly deserve it after what I did."

Erik closed his eyes and took a breath. "No. Nothing of the sort."

He sat down next to the monk and looked out into the horizon.

There was a long and uneasy silence between the two men before Erik spoke up. "I, along with my wife, were one of the first people to flee when King Theodoric was slain. I knew the moment he was dead that Van Baelsar would tear the resistance apart and spread his banner."

He looked up at the early evening sky.

"When I got the missive from the resistance that my son had died, I lost myself to the bottle. I said and did things to my wife that would disgust the man that I have become. I fully expect- if she dains to even care- that she will spit on my grave. It would not be undeserved."

Widargelt listened, surprised that Erik was being as forthright as he was.

"I reached the lowest I would ever get to, and I needed to make a choice. I was going to become a new man and I needed to choose. Huddled in the corner of Little Ala Mhigo and at the bottom of the last bottle of cheap wine, I needed to chose there and then if I was going to get up and become the person I knew I could be and find a proper porpose for my life or spend the rest of my life destroying myself with drink."

"I…see", Widargelt said before adding "but I don't understand what that-"

Erik jabed him in the sholder and gave the monk a smile. "What I am saying, you buffoon, is that it is not over. You draw a line, learn the lessons you need to learn, and then you move foreward."

Instinctively rubbing his sholder, Widargelt thought about that. His mind had been so clouded with thoughts of reclaiming Ala Mhigo's atonomy that he could never see the "what then" afterwards.

Now, that dream- a nightmare, by admission- no longer viable, he had no ambition to call his own.

Only his fists.

It was that stray thought that inspired him.

He stood up, taking Erik by surprise.

"I will do it. I will take that step foreard."

Erik's eyebrow shifted, "That was swift. What are you planing to do, exactly?"

He gave Erik a smile. "Revive the First of Rhalgar."

The sound of confusion out of Erik made it clear he didn't follow.

"Long has Ala Mhigo's history been of that of fighting each other, and to no great end. The Fist of Rhalgar is all but gone, taught to only a few people after the purge. I say it's time I become a teacher, and taught the artes to the people of Eoreza. To fight together and stand, instead of dying alone."

A scoffing laugh came out of the professor as he stood up. "Well said. And with that." he pulled a coin-sack out of his pocket.

"What's this?" Widargelt asked.

"Your pay for serves rended- such as they were- let it never be said I don't pay up when my debts are due. And also- and I do sincerly mean this, Widargelt, good luck."

Erik held his hand out to his fellow man who looked at it, smiled and shook it back.