I'll tell you about the most beautiful sight I've ever seen in my life. I was nineteen, and like the idealistic little twerp I was, thought I'd go out and see the beauties of the world that poets write about. I worked aboard a fishing ship which sailed through an archepelago in the cold, frigid north... farther north than Highland or Harmonia. In the seas there exist exotic fish not available anywhere else on the planet, fish that rich folks such as Agares Blight or Emporer Barbossa like to buy just to prove they have more money than anyone else, and throw little dinner parties where everyone lifts their pinky when they drink, wear a big metal rod up their ass, and refuse to have any fun.

Right there, some people would say that the floating icebergs and the crystalline ocean and the endless, near-white sky is the most beautiful sight on earth. But it's not. It's just big and empty and it smells like salt and dead fish.

The northern seas are full of little, tiny islands. Too tiny to be put on any significant map. Islands usually coated in thin frost, like tiny little rocks floating in a huge, icy soup. The whole thing gives you a sense of isolation and loneliness. Some of the more masochistic poets would write that they are the most beautiful site on earth. There's a name for people like that- cannon fodder.

There are a lot of dead, volcanic islands there, too. One of the brawny, jaded sailors told me what happens during a volcanic eruption. Tons of molten rock and ash or vomited into the sky, coating the land for miles around in fire and thick, grey dust. I saw many of these islands. The cold, vast expanse of grey. Grey is an adjective, usually, but once something becomes grey enough all sense of matter falls away and the word ceases to describe. At that points, it begins to epitomize, to overwhelm, to be . When things become that grey, they lose all form and meaning. A grey personality, a grey sky, a grey anything is all the same. Like an infinite pool of grey that lends itself to anything that gives a sense of despair, sadness, or grief.

I sat on one of those molten islands for about half a day while all the fishermen were casting their lines. I looked at the grey, and I examined the grey. It fascinated me. I began to see things. Once, this island was lush and full of life, like many of its neighbors. Perhaps animals lived here, penguins or seals or whatever the hell else lives on islands too cold for their own damn good. Once there were little bushes here. Maybe trees. Maybe a tiny village with a chief and a witch doctor. Maybe a kind of insect that lived here, and nowhere else in the world. Then the mountain blew, and everything was destroyed. Everything was buried under the grey, and the grey would eternally refuse to be lifted. Whatever was here was forever lost to the outside world, and yet the outside world continued to move onward.

How many years, I wondered, until the whole of the earth was coated in the grey? How long before all that man has accomplished, all the wars they fought and the stories they lived, was annihilated by the grey? Where would man be when that happened? What about his legends and his laughter? What about his twenty-seven guardians, the true runes?

I think it's there, at that moment, the realization came to me. Life, in itself, is useless. There is no purpose for it. In the end, we're all gonna die anyway. In the end, all of this civilization will be gone anyway. How futile our struggles seem, when measured against the cosmic scheme of things. We're mites, clinging onto a hair-thin existance amidst a hurricane. In the end, who cares what happens? Who cares who wins the war?

That's what it seems like, anyway. But it's not true. Humans certainly can't take pride in the product of their labor, of their lives, since they die before they get a chance to enjoy it. But the process is meaningful. The journey, not the destination, is what matters. That's what I saw in that mountain of ash. Sure, whatever was here was buried in the volcano's eruption, but what was there meant something. Little critters lived out their lives, vegetation grew and died, and if men lived there then well, they lived and died too.

I was making my way back to the fort, smoldering under Luca's flames, when I suddenly realized that I was no longer saddened by the fact that Jowston's time on this planet was coming to an end. I probably never was sad. Jowston, as a nation, took a shot, had some fun, and it was time to leave the stage. Doesn't mean I was about to give up, though. No way in hell. Maybe my actions wouldn't have any affect on the outcome of the war. Maybe I'd walk right up through the burning gates of Flik's fortress and get planted by some prepubescent Highland bloke. It wasn't the point. My destination didn't matter. The way I reached my destination is what was important now.

Sounds cliché, no? Hell with that. I've seen how one man's decision can have an impact on a war like this. Without me, my buddy McDohl woulda been strung up in Gregminster long before he became a hero. By that logic, you could say that I'm a hero in my own rite. Well, that's some pretty twisted logic, but you see what I'm saying.