We all see emotions as such a cardinal thing, yet, in truth it is quite complex. Emotions are so rudimentary in human nature, often we don't come to think, "why do I feel this way?" Most times we just feel, pure, raw emotion without any coherent concept of what we feel.
We never realize what it would be like without those emotions. What it would be like to be completely and utterly deprived of emotional sensations. You probably think it wouldn't be that bad, or you probably assume it is better to be devoid of such detrimental things as emotions.
How wrong you'd be.
Being numb is a cursed thing, an indescribable sense of bitter cold, like ice running through one's veins and rubbing their flesh raw.
You can't understand or feel your own senses, yet deep in the cage of your heart you can feel something stir. You feel the pain, the sorrow, all of it, but you cannot comprehend it no matter how hard you try. You can't even realize you feel it, as you aren't even able to acknowledge it or act on it.
To be numb isn't to be without emotions, it's the inability to realize you feel them, the inability to understand yourself. That is the worst pain of all, to feel an urge to cry, but never does your expression ever change, only being locked in flat and blank serenity, like a corpse.
Imagine it like this. Let's say your emotions are locked away within a cage deep in your beating heart. They exist, but they can never come out. They are imprisoned within you, locked away, building up, and up, and up. Like a glass filling with water, until, that water comes to the lip of the glass, bubbling up. And then the water's surface tension breaks and it all spills over.
An explosion of everything you've been feeling with burst from you, the emotions flowing between the bars of the cage like flowing water. Each beat of your heart sends waves of confused and chaotic emotion rushing through your veins, crashing through your body and sending you into a mad downward spiral.
And then it is over.
You are blank once more, a single tear being the only thing you could manage before that cage seals once more, the key turning in the lock.
There is a difference between being emotionless and numb. What I've described to you is the fact of being numb. In fact, being completely devoid of emotions at all is an impossible feat. You could claim you have no emotions if you so wish, but in reality you are just numb to the things you feel.
In the end that singular tear will roll down your cheek, leaving a trail in its wake as it beads at your chin, refracting the light of the vivid world that, only to you, appears so colorless. And then the tear will descend, scattering and sinking into the soil below your feet.
Now that I've described this well, I hope you've payed attention till now. Because the hero of this story, if you should call him such, is one of the few who exist in this cold numb existence. He has no way to understand his own emotions, and he never shows them.
The only time his emotions come out, is when he is in the midst of combat, the brilliant flicker and sparks of glimmering swords clashing, edge grinding against honed edge. Swordplay, to him, is not just a sense of combat or intent to kill. No, it is a dance, a glorious show of skill and focus, his emotions that labor him down, the feelings he cannot comprehend flowing through the veins of his arms, into his fingers and down the edge of his blade.
With every flickering clash of metal, his emotions explode in sparks, ebbing away his pain and easing his mind, the shimmering light of the blades flying through the air like fireworks.
This is the heart of Alaric Mortadire, fourth son to the Royal Family of the Mortadire Clan. The greatest swordsman of his clan.
This marks the end to the prologue, and the beginning to an epic, yet gentle dream. The tale of a boy who fights for not just honor and fame, but also for the sake of his own heart.
"Sanity is to sin… as a leaf is to flames."