bantoras

The ref raised his arm. “Welcome to the fifth round of the tournament! We start with our remaining winged combatants, Roc and Ingram!” As the audience cheered in anticipation, the two foes glared each other down. Normally, Roc would enter the ring with a stoic scowl, sharpening his mind for battle while spitefully feeding on the boos from beastman haters, but this time, he was smiling.

“Considering the regeneration serum you already gave me, I have no doubts as to the quality of your work. My old injuries, that not even potions and magic could fix, were completely mended,” said Strauss.

Maybe you and I do deserve to suffer for our wrongdoing. If that’s so, then it means that when things get painful, when things get difficult, we don’t have the luxury of quitting. We don’t get to end our lives to escape what we did. Whatever form the pain takes, we bear it, we endure it, we welcome it, all while we try to make this world a place where people like us, like how we used to be, have no place, and the people who would be hurt can instead live in peace. The next time you encounter an obstacle you cannot overcome, when you just want to curl up into a ball and quit on the world, remind yourself that you don’t deserve the peace of surrender. You have to keep working, to keep fighting, to keep suffering, until the day when you’ve fully repented.