Oh, to be sure I have had my fair of poor students-- the unwilling, the unable, those who simply refused to learn. No teacher is blessed to never know what it is to try to teach someone who does not wish to learn. That is the risk we take.
But the reward-- oh, the reward!
When you find a willing student-- someone who not only wants to learn, but needs it! When you find someone like that it makes teaching worthwhile.
A teacher is not necessarily the same as a scholar, though the two are not mutually incompatible.
Tielekku, my mentor, was a scholar. She enjoyed learning for its own sake-- and she would share with anyone who asked of her, but she did not seek out students. She certainly had no intention of sharing her discoveries with the mortals who worshiped us.
I, on the other hand, could see no reason not to.
Mortals had minds that thought and hearts that felt. Indeed, their mortality, their fragile flesh-- it made them more ardent students than any god could ever hope to be. They were not immune to the elements. They could not create comfort with but a thought and a wave of the hand. Humans had to build, to make ... they had to learn.
And I had to be their teacher.
At first, Tielekku was pleased-- and even Hequat saw no reason to gainsay me. The more we taught mortals, the more they stood in awe of us ... the more they worshiped us.
And worship is most appealing to a god ... even a god as kind as Tielekku.
So no one spoke against me as I helped mortals learn how to forge metal, to record their language in a written form. No one opposed me when I taught them about weaving, about agriculture. No one stood against me when I even told the humans something of science....
But then I showed the mortals magic ...
Tielekku-- kind, caring Tielekku-- grew angry at me. And Hequat ... her fury was like unto that of a storm. She struck me and swore that the people I had shown favor to would be wiped utterly from the face of the Earth. She would destroy all that I had built, all that I loved ...
Perhaps my people would have been served better if I had been more of a warrior and less of a teacher. Hequat overwhelmed them, cast them from their lands. Razed their cities and slaughtered their young like cattle.
And I ... fled.
I took the survivors and led them across the sea to a land unknown to my fellow gods.. We built a new city, grander than all the ancient ones combined. We created-- or rather, they-- created Oranbega.
And for generations, my people learned and thought and grew wise.
And I thought they were safe ...
But I had spent so many years among mortals that I had forgotten just how patient a god can be. Hequat spent generations making a nation of sorcerers, a race of warrior mages that could kill with lightning, with hatred, with a fury that would not be slaked until the last drop of Oranbegan blood was gone.
And I failed my people.
I knew that we could not overcome the Mu on our own, so I went back to my mentor, back to Tielekku. I asked her to intercede for my people-- I begged her-- to save them....
And in response, she bound me, stripped me of my power, leashed my magicks so I could do nothing for my people ... not even lead them to flee once more ...
But I could watch.
I watched my people die.
And what's worse, I saw them become ... twisted.
Akarist, Archus, Senestrus-- the greatest scholars of their time, my most promising students-- when they saw that heaven could not-- would not-- help them, they reached out to the infernal regions.
They made the pacts that damned them all.
And I could do nothing but watch.
Tielekku released me when the Great War was over. When my people were destroyed-- worse than destroyed-- when Hequat's Mu had likewise been devastated, she let me go. When there was nothing I could do, she pronounced the sentence of my exile and stated that I would never again possess my full might, that I would never see my celestial home again.
No ... I would spend the rest of my immortal life among the mortals that I had taught. Stripped of most of my power, I would walk among them and watch them fall into darkness again and again. Thus would I learn the folly of helping mortals, of believing in them ....
Thus spoke Tielekku ...
And she was right.
Under countless names I have seen humans rise to glory time and again. Cimerora, Athens, Rome, Camelot ... always it seems that human frailty, human hate and fear, destroys whatever they build ...
And yet they rise ever again.
They still build. They still dream. They still learn.
I have always been a teacher.
Oh, to be sure I have had my fair of poor students-- the unwilling, the unable, those who simply refused to learn. No teacher is blessed to never know what it is to try to teach someone who does not wish to learn. That is the risk we take.
But the reward-- oh, the reward!
When you find a willing student-- someone who not only wants to learn, but needs it! When you find someone like that it makes teaching worthwhile.
A teacher is not necessarily the same as a scholar, though the two are not mutually incompatible.
Tielekku, my mentor, was a scholar. She enjoyed learning for its own sake-- and she would share with anyone who asked of her, but she did not seek out students. She certainly had no intention of sharing her discoveries with the mortals who worshiped us.
I, on the other hand, could see no reason not to.
Mortals had minds that thought and hearts that felt. Indeed, their mortality, their fragile flesh-- it made them more ardent students than any god could ever hope to be. They were not immune to the elements. They could not create comfort with but a thought and a wave of the hand. Humans had to build, to make ... they had to learn.
And I had to be their teacher.
At first, Tielekku was pleased-- and even Hequat saw no reason to gainsay me. The more we taught mortals, the more they stood in awe of us ... the more they worshiped us.
And worship is most appealing to a god ... even a god as kind as Tielekku.
So no one spoke against me as I helped mortals learn how to forge metal, to record their language in a written form. No one opposed me when I taught them about weaving, about agriculture. No one stood against me when I even told the humans something of science....
But then I showed the mortals magic ...
Tielekku-- kind, caring Tielekku-- grew angry at me. And Hequat ... her fury was like unto that of a storm. She struck me and swore that the people I had shown favor to would be wiped utterly from the face of the Earth. She would destroy all that I had built, all that I loved ...
Perhaps my people would have been served better if I had been more of a warrior and less of a teacher. Hequat overwhelmed them, cast them from their lands. Razed their cities and slaughtered their young like cattle.
And I ... fled.
I took the survivors and led them across the sea to a land unknown to my fellow gods.. We built a new city, grander than all the ancient ones combined. We created-- or rather, they-- created Oranbega.
And for generations, my people learned and thought and grew wise.
And I thought they were safe ...
But I had spent so many years among mortals that I had forgotten just how patient a god can be. Hequat spent generations making a nation of sorcerers, a race of warrior mages that could kill with lightning, with hatred, with a fury that would not be slaked until the last drop of Oranbegan blood was gone.
And I failed my people.
I knew that we could not overcome the Mu on our own, so I went back to my mentor, back to Tielekku. I asked her to intercede for my people-- I begged her-- to save them....
And in response, she bound me, stripped me of my power, leashed my magicks so I could do nothing for my people ... not even lead them to flee once more ...
But I could watch.
I watched my people die.
And what's worse, I saw them become ... twisted.
Akarist, Archus, Senestrus-- the greatest scholars of their time, my most promising students-- when they saw that heaven could not-- would not-- help them, they reached out to the infernal regions.
They made the pacts that damned them all.
And I could do nothing but watch.
Tielekku released me when the Great War was over. When my people were destroyed-- worse than destroyed-- when Hequat's Mu had likewise been devastated, she let me go. When there was nothing I could do, she pronounced the sentence of my exile and stated that I would never again possess my full might, that I would never see my celestial home again.
No ... I would spend the rest of my immortal life among the mortals that I had taught. Stripped of most of my power, I would walk among them and watch them fall into darkness again and again. Thus would I learn the folly of helping mortals, of believing in them ....
Thus spoke Tielekku ...
And she was right.
Under countless names I have seen humans rise to glory time and again. Cimerora, Athens, Rome, Camelot ... always it seems that human frailty, human hate and fear, destroys whatever they build ...
And yet they rise ever again.
They still build. They still dream. They still learn.
And I am still here to teach them.
I am Ermeeth of Oranbega.
I am a teacher.
And now I live in a City of Heroes.
My COX Fanfiction:
Blue's Assembled Story Links