• Being a hero is hard.

    I mean seriously, in so many stories they focus on the anguish and turmoil of the princess. Yeah, she does have a tough life. Yeah, it's filled with a lot of waiting, and learning of impressive skills, and then probably the struggle of being oppressed by whatever captor she has.... I'm not saying that princesses' lives aren't tough; I'm saying that heroes just don't get enough credit.

    "Oh, but it's so cool how they slay dragons and they get all the fangirls and awesome s**t like that! Heroes are so dreaaaamy!"

    ...Okay, so maybe that's an extreme paraphrasing of what I tend to hear.

    No. They don't get it. That's not the kind of credit I'm talking about. While we're on the topic though, that kind of credit has little to no meaning to me. Slaying dragons? Crossing lava moats? Getting a huge a** sword that it should be physically impossible for me to carry but I do anyway? All of that, that's easy. That's second nature. Doing that stuff, it comes to me so in the moment, that it's identical to breathing. The strength part just develops over time. Fangirls? Those are overrated. They're actually pretty annoying. They don't seem to get that I set out on this quest to save a particular princess, and not... become the national sex symbol or something like that. I guess, in general, people seem to acknowledge heroes like me for all of the wrong things....

    The hard part of being a hero is walking. I know that sounds silly, because immediately you're just like, "Can't just about anybody walk?" No, see, there's more to it. You realize -- just think about this for a second -- you realize that we often have to cross /countries/ to get to the place of where our beloved princess is.... Stories are written about our encounters. No one, NO ONE talks about the walking. No one knows about the hard s**t we have to go through when we journey for miles on end, probably because that doesn't interest them and they find it extremely insignificant.

    "Well okay, Mr. Hero, what the hell could be so difficult about walking? You're clearly physically able." Oh it's not a physical issue at all. It's that we're left to ourselves, and we have to think -- I mean we don't even have a choice in thinking. Scenery can only entertain you for so long. Shouting, yelling, nobody hears that.... We travel through countless countrysides, wide open spaces, where not even little animals pay attention to you. We can think out loud, as loud as we want, and we'll get no response. Sometimes it even echoes, if you're in the right location. The loneliness, we can handle -- it's for our princesses. No. It's the damn ******** doubt.

    Yes! Heroes have doubt! I bet you didn't see that coming!

    You may find our exploits impressive, but just THINK about it. WE'RE PEOPLE JUST LIKE YOU! We're everyday people, living everyday lives, and then something awful happens to our beloved and we choose to go save them probably because we're just extremely messed up in the head. I don't even know. I don't think I'll ever know. That's what I spend so much time thinking about when I have to go on those freakishly hellishly long walks. Wouldn't you too have doubt? I mean, wouldn't the common sensible person just be like, "Oh, I mean, I'm so sad that I lost them , but there's nothing I can do about it so I should probably just sit around and mope for the rest of my life with the small possibility of finding another"? Or maybe a really desperate sensible person would be like, "I should really hire someone else to go save them right now. I don't care how much it costs; I'll get the money."

    NOPE! NOT US HEROES! For some reason or another, we're incapable of doing that. For me, personally, when I set out, I was dirt poor. I've actually been dirt poor my entire life until I set out on this adventure. I'm also still up to my eyeballs in debt, and I do have a lot of authorities and collectors and whatnot to face if I do actually go back to my home town. And also, when I set out, allowing my beloved to just rot away in some tower was completely out of the question. Most people think she's dead actually. I bet you didn't hear things like that much before either. No, this old crazy guy, this freakin' psycho... YES, the VILLAGE PSYCHO, he told me that in a vision she was alive.... I'm probably just as crazy as him for believing that, as well as believing the location of where the damn dragon took her, but really behind this insanity is just freakish desperation.

    Sometimes that desperation isn't enough though. Yes! I know! But now don't you see?! Isn't this already throwing your head for a loop?! WELL, I HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS DAMN CONVERSATION IN MY HEAD WHILE I'M WALKING AT LEAST TWENTY TIMES A DAY! But yeah, loving her this insane uncomprehendable amount, sometimes that just isn't enough. Sometimes a hero can't help but question what the ******** were they thinking when they started this, and would it really be SO impossible to just move on, and oh dear Lord they are SO going to die, and who even knows if she's still alive, and even if she is alive who even knows if she hasn't escaped and moved on and found some other beautiful hunky man who isn't nearly as unstable as this hero is? Try remembering how much you love someone while having thoughts like THAT. Just TRY. I DARE you.

    Nobody tells anybody about the times where heroes throw down their swords and just drop all their supplies, collapse on the ground, and just wallow in how completely helpless this situation is. Nobody talks about those few hours a hero spends walking back in the direction they came from, because for those few hours they give up and decide to go home, which really ends up just making their journey longer because they change their mind and start walking towards their destionation again. Nobody talks about this stuff because nobody hears about it. As a result... heroes don't get enough credit. As a result, nobody really understands that...

    Being a hero is hard.