Kenjai

Is This What Wisdom Really Is?

I am Kenjai, Atal’Shango, Devotee to the Loa of Storms.

Son of Zul'Zenji, Atal’Bwonsamdi, Devotee to the Loa of Death.

Son of Onja, Artisan and Mother.

I have heard the bray of the great beasts of Zandalar and the call of the Loa, I have heard the whispers in the deepest earth in Kul Tiras. But, I have also heard the call to war, and it concerns me.

I am a wave-speaker. 

I have spoken with the rivers that run through the world, I have heard the old wisdom of the deepest currents of the ocean floor.

I am a medicine man. 

I have taken what the earth and the soil have given me, and I have used it to heal the sick and dying.

I am a guru, I am a mystic, I am a seer, a conduit for old wisdom, old magic, and things yet to be. 

I see things unseen, hear things unsaid. I see the gossamer threads that connect us all and I have heard the way they thrum when plucked by emotion, circumstance, and time. I have heard the heartbeat of the world and the song the universe sings.

I fear nothing, and no thing fears me.

I am also a storm-caller.

I have been to the heart of the storm at the center of the world. I have been touched by lightning and remember each bolt as a fond visit by an old friend. 

Until now, I have lived as I thought the storm should. I followed where the winds took me, I brought rain to drought, I lived with tranquility inside me, even as chaos swirled around me.

I have done so with rhythm in my step, harmony in my soul, and love in my heart.

But, I have been naive. Caught up in my own youthful arrogance. I have never fully acknowledged the truest aspect of the storm. I was chosen by Shango to call the winds and rains, but I have also been chosen to call the lightning and thunder, the wrath of the sky.

It was easy to justify using it on the Broken Isles. The creatures of air and darkness, wrath and chaos, they were unnatural. They were abberant things from the underbelly, and the dirges they sang were dissonant to the song the universe sings, the song that each of my brothers and sisters knew a part of, the one that we all sang together. It was easy to banish them, to destroy their unnatural souls.

But, this war is different. The Alliance and the Horde, Orc and Human and Troll and Elf, they are all my brothers and sisters, they are all singers in the choir, and they are all in pain. I cannot stand to sit idly while people are hurt, and I cannot protect some without hurting others.

If I do not act, if I do not choose, am I not responsible for those people that I could have saved?

Am I forsaking my path? Am I forsaking who I am to relinquish myself over to violence? Am I forsaking my brothers and my sisters by choosing a side? By choosing one people, one tribe, over all of them?

Maybe this is what wisdom really is. To know when to close an open palm into a fist. To know when to be the rain or when to be the storm.

I will need to fight in order to help. 

I will not enjoy it.

I will do my best to not sever any of the strands that connect us all. I will do my best not to kill.

I will do my best.

I will be kind, I will be honorable, I will be strong.

I will not stop loving my brothers and my sisters.

I swear it, I swear it, I swear it.

These things I vow to the spirits, thrice-sworn by my power. 

These things I vow to myself.

Perhaps, in my next life, when I sing the next part of the song, I will be able to atone for the violence of this life.