"Would you say that fire is evil?"
Greg's eyes opened when Morpheus broke his now month-long silence. His brow furrowed as he considered the question. For all his eccentricities, Morpheus was still far more experienced and in touch with the world's laws than he was. Odd as the question sounded, Greg wasn't willing to disregard it. "No, I wouldn't say that it's evil," he replied.
"What if you watched it burn a whole village, would you then say that it's evil?" Morpheus pressed.
"I'd say that whoever started it is the evil one," Greg replied after pausing for a second.
"What if it wasn't started by anyone? What if lighting struck a dead tree, setting it on fire? What if that fire spreads to other trees around it leading to a forest fire? What if that fire then spreads to a village nearby, burning those living there to ashes? Would you then say that fire is evil?" He questioned.
"I... I would say that it's tragic that so many people died, but no... fire is not evil," Greg replied.
"You are like someone who learned about fire by watching it burn a village of people. This is a brothel, Greg. People don't come here to meditate on the grander mysteries of life. They come here to indulge their basest desires, sometimes even to their own detriment. To use this as your basis for understanding desire is like trying to understand fire by listening to the screams of those it burns. Just like the fire, there is nothing inherently evil or good about desire. It's all a question of who is in control. If you are controlled by your desires you're like a man on fire, burning until you're eventually consumed. On the other hand, if you take all desire away from a man, then he becomes no different from a doll that draws breath. Feed him and give him water and he'll go on drawing breath. But, is he really living?"
"To lose yourself to your desire is not good, neither is completely ridding oneself of them. Rather, like the hand holding the steering wheel, you need to stay in control. Desire is the vehicle that drives you to where you wish to be, but only if you never take your hand off the steering wheel. The road will be treacherous. And like an untamed steed, your desires will not want to be controlled, But so long as you never let go of the reins, you will never lose yourself to your desires," Morpheus spoke with the force of an unbending will. The deity didn't make use of his powers, he didn't even let a smidgen of his aura leak, and yet, Greg had never been more keenly aware that he was sitting before a deity. Looking into the old monk's eyes, Greg got the sense that it would be easier to move a mountain than to move him. Hell, once his will was set on something, the whole world would be moved before Morpheus was. That was the kind of unbreakable will Morpheus possessed. A will that would see the world bend and break before it ever did.
"Thank you," Greg stated genuinely. To begin with, the deity's correction had been essential. To mistake what he saw here as the entirety of desire would have led Greg to have a flawed understanding of the law of desire. He didn't need to be a genius to realize that starting with a flawed understanding of any law would leave one unable to get far in the demi tier. The correction might have seemed trivial at first glance, but in reality, it was like starting in the wrong direction when you needed to travel a thousand miles. In the first few steps, the deviation might seem trivial, but the further down the path you went, the more impactful that initial error would prove to be.
Even more than the correction, however, was the extra demonstration that Morpheus had given. Thus far, Greg had been lost in trying to understand the law of desire and hadn't put any thought into how one's will played into taking control of a law. It was one of those things that only became obvious once one thought about it. The laws of reality weren't going to be bent by one who didn't have the requisite force of will to get them to yield. To manipulate the laws of the world, you didn't ask nicely. You needed to impose on the world a will even more unbending than the very laws that it operated on. Greg recognized that he hadn't caught a glimpse of the deity's will by accident. Morpheus had put it on display for him as a guidepost. A marker of how tempered his will had to be if he wished to climb to the heights that the deity had.
Seeing that Greg had gotten the message, Morpheus smiled darkly. "All that said, just because you weren't entirely right, doesn't mean that you're entirely wrong," he said, his gaze moving to the people around. "Desires uncontrolled can be a chain. A shackle around the neck that people will willingly put on." The smile on his lips turned chilling as he turned back to him. "But if they are slaves to desire, what will they be to the one who controls desire itself?" He questioned...
***
"Count on you to make a trivial thing overly complicated," Nerissa spoke with a roll of the eyes.
Calyn had been forced to share her doubts with Aunt Lina in Nerissa's presence. She had tried to get her cousin to give her a moment of privacy with her aunt but with a smile on her face, Nerissa had flatly refused. She had been sent here to safeguard the clan's interests, and that's exactly what she intended to do, Calyn's desire for privacy be damned. In a way, Calyn couldn't fault her. She had been given a task by the clan head and was seeing it through to the best of her ability. That's what any loyal member of the clan should do. On the other hand, Calyn could clearly see it in her eyes, the pleasure Nerissa took in the fact that she didn't allow her any privacy. Calyn was once again reminded why she had been so adamant that her marriage to Deriel be called off. It wasn't that she cared all that much about the faithfulness of the scoundrel. It didn't matter to her one way or the other who the young man chose to sleep with. Rather, it was her cousin that she'd wished to get away from.
"Tell me, cousin, if Roka were to order you to do something right now, would you do it?" Nerissa asked.
Calyn was tempted to ignore her cousin just on principle. She, however, realized just how childish she would look and didn't want to give Nerissa that win. Besides, her aunt had remained quiet meaning that she saw some merit in what her cousin was trying to convey. Choosing not to focus on Nerissa, Calyn turned her attention to the question itself. Through both his words and his actions, Roka had made it clear that he didn't have any interest in holding any power over her. But now that she thought about it, Calyn realized that should this change, she could only lower her head and comply. Even if the deity didn't show up, Roka's guard was a lethal threat to her. Calyn had sat in on enough of their training fights to know this without a shadow of a doubt.
Even Roka, with all his strength and speed, regularly left their training bouts beaten and bloody. He might have an edge on Olivia in terms of pure brute strength. Olivia, however, had him beat when it came to speed, and as far as skill and combat experience was concerned, they weren't even in the same world. Roka might as well have been a child trying to fight a skilled adult. Despite this gulf in fighting ability, Olivia was completely loyal to Roka. If he ordered her to kill Calyn, she'd probably find her throat slit even before she could think to defend herself. Just because Roka didn't lord over her, didn't mean he didn't have the power to. She was only free in so far as the young man allowed it. "Yes," she found herself replying, her tone relaying just how unsettling she found the prospect.
"Then what dilemma is there?" Nerissa questioned. "Whatever freedom you still believe yourself to have is just an illusion and nothing more. Should he wish it, you'd be on your knees and serving him every which way he desires. You cling to an illusion of freedom out of some misbegotten pride and allow that to blind you to the monumental opportunity before you. Rather than a slave he had to force into his bed, you have the chance to take the reins into your hands and use what little feminine charms you still have to win him over. Rather than make it an antagonistic relationship, you could give him what you know he wants and gain his favor that way! How is this not obvious to you?" Nerissa questioned. Despite the subtle barb that her cousin had slipped into her diatribe, she seemed genuinely confused.
