I'm shaking, hands on my knees, panting. Let the monsters come. Let them come forever. Let them climb the piled bodies of their dead. I don't care. That's the thing I do better than anyone. Not care. Let them come in their hundreds and every one will die at my feet. I don't care about their homing rockets, their exotic matter slugs, their blades from another dimension.
"I am the wall against which Darkness breaks… I am the wall against which Darkness breaks… I am the wall against which Darkness breaks…"
I don't care because I cannot be moved. I am the wall against which the Darkness breaks.
I repeat these words amongst the rubble. Smoldering heaps, scarred earth; the warriors and their spoils. This is victory. This should be the moment where everything clicks. All I feel is emptiness.
Malphur can turn his gun to fire and Shinobu can dance with lightning, but when the horrors run out of the dark, I am the one who does not move.
No one thinks of Titans as meditators, but I can think of no better provocation than the comedown after battle. All that I am is tied up in combat. And when it's over, space itself crashes in around me. In the old days, I stayed there, in agony. The urge to escape that feeling would gnaw at me, so I'd find a reason to start something. Anything. Just to watch the sparks fly. Now… I meditate.
I am a wall. And walls don't move. Because walls don't care.
In time, I learned to thrust my enemies into this same anguish. When you aren't prepared for it, the weight of your own insignificance measured against the vastness of the cosmos can be debilitating.
I still must confront the silence after glory; I feel the nature of the Void most keenly in these moments. I have begun, I think, to look forward to them.