An Elder's Pain

An Elder's Pain is a short story pyrographed by an Izbranan woman named Laneri of Dalelech that has been preserved ever since its writing in 2136. The story was written in Izbranan, however a few copies have been made in Ciomani or Metsanan for certain influential people. It details the experiences of Laneri's grandmother, Sikole of Dalelech, during the end of the Crying Times and the pain that she felt. Mostly a memoir, An Elder's Pain also includes several short stories of characters mentioned and their ultimate fates from their friends and family.    An Elder's Pain is an extremely influential story in Izbrana and is widely considered the most influential directly pacifistic piece of literature in Izbranan culture, even more so than The Lover's Return. Its pacing of short stories and memories of different people that Sikole once knew followed by their tragic fates and the fates of those around them are a continuous source of hope and then heartbreak, the reader led along as they follow the story of Sikole trying to manage her community in Dalelech through the pain. An Elder's Pain has had an influence beyond Izbrana, being one of the most common pieces of Tiularan literature, with at least one copy in each of the five tribes. Despite the laborious nature of making copies of books, many copies have been made of An Elder's Pain due to its intense cultural relevance and impact. 

Background

Laneri of Dalelech was a priestess of Xiva in the time directly following the Crying Times. In response to resurfacing jingoist sentiment among the younger generation who had only experienced peacetime, Chieftess Orati of Izbra-Svetkamuk followed her predecessor's push for the creation of more permenant literature and art to show the horrors of the Crying Times and help make sure they never happened again. While people who had lived through the Crying Times weren't extremely uncommon, Sikole was one of the oldest that was still alive by 2136 and was an influential figure within her community, especially during the Crying Times. A skilled pyrographer, Laneri was asked to take her account of history and use the newly popular pyrographic techniques of writing books to make them available for more to read.    Sikole had a hand in the communal rearing of many of the children of Dalelech from around 2060 to the end of the Crying Times, so she saw many of the children she cared for go to war and not return or strugle mentally once they returned from war. Similarly, she saw many people that she cared about lose loved ones and the intense effect that had on their mental and physical health. As a cook, food distrubutor, and volunteer guardian of minds, Sikole was very involved in helping those who lost loved ones, injured warriors, and those who returned from war. 

Contents

Content Warning: Mention of depression, suicide, and implied self harm. Please skip this section if you are sensitive to any of those topics.   An Elder's Pain mainly follows the stories of Sikole's relationship with five different Izbranans, three that became warriors and two that did not. While part of the whole book, many readers refer to the stories of each of them as the story of Diri, Lote, Norica, Malanu, or Rufini of Dalelech, respectively. The book begins with several stories of each of the five as children, securing a baseline for Sikole's relationship with each of them. As they grew up, Lote, Malanu, and Rufini would become warriors while Lote and Norica would become a hunter and a gatherer, respectively. Lote and Malanu would be sent to fight the Metsanans while Rufini would remain nearby on the smaller Izbranan force focused on defending against any attacks from the Esterrideans.    Laneri includes several stories from people who had fought with Malanu, Lote, and Rufini to show that they not only were well liked, but integrated into their units pretty well. The story takes a turn from the positive reminiscing to the true goal when Lote dies in his first real battle. While his death is not the first one that Sikole has experienced, his parents are inconsolable and it falls to Sikole to help them cope with the grief. Sikole describes how much pain and suffering they went through and throughout the story includes story of her check-ins with them. As the only child of his parents, the loss of Lote is something they cannot recover from and they die shortly after. Sikole states that she believes it is because of grief.

While their bodies were alive, their hearts had long since died. It was only a atter of time before their bodies caught up. I try not to remember them as they were once Lote died, for I know that they died with him. - Sikole, An Elder's Pain

After Lote's death, Malanu would return home for a time to grieve before returning to the battle. During this time, Malanu falls in love with Diri and the two are Soulbound within a couple of moons. After another moon of time away from his unit, though, Malanu is sent back to the Metsanan front, much to Diri's dismay. Much like before, Sikole is the one to comfort Diri through his grief and fear of Malanu dying, developing an even stronger bond through it. Meanwhile, the Izbranan force launches a doomed offensive into the Esterridean Mountains against the Esterrideans in which Rufini dies. Similarly to Lote, their death sends their close friends into a downward spiral which Sikole tries to help them work through it. No one dies, but it is said that their siblings are never exactly the same. 

Once every year, on the day that Rufini died, I would join their siblings in honoring their memory. Every year, I would come home sadder than when I left. Every year, I knew I had no clue just how painful of a day it was for Rufini's siblings. - Sikole, An Elder's Pain

After Rufini dies, Diri, Norica, and Sikole become much closer, more or less joining part of a support group for those of Diri's and Norica's age that are losing friends and loved ones quickly. They do their best to help others, the three more or less losing themselves in caring for the community and ignoring their stresses that way. After some time, they are considered a model of how to help their community by their foundation of the support group for the young adults of Dalelech. This positivity does not last forever, though. As a result of a newly returned Metsanan offensive, Malanu dies and is returned to Dalelech for burial. As expected, Diri falls apart. Diri falls into a deep depression and quickly isolates himself from the community. While Sikole does her best to push him to return to the support group and let her help him, he refuses her help for a few weeks until he is eventually found dead, covered in open wounds and having eaten a massive amount of poisonous berries. 

I hate it when people say that Diri killed himself. He didn't kill himself, he was killed. The warmongers killed him and I won't let anyone say otherwise. His fate and Malanu's were taken away from them, fed to the monstrous bloodlust of the warmngers in charge. - Sikole, An Elder's Pain

After Diri's death, Norica falls into a depression as well at the loss of her friend. While Sikole is grieving, she is much more aggressive about making sure that Norica doesn't share Diri's fate. She forces Norica to keep connected with her and to talk to her, realizing in the process that she is also struggling heavily with Diri's death. The two devote themselves to the support group entirely, stifling their grief through trying to help others in memory of Diri. When the chiefs eventually want to meet with Sikole and Norica for their good work, they refuse, claiming to have no interest in meeting those who had killed their friends. Eventually, the grief began to fade to become more manageable, but Norica and Sikole would continue the support group's operation throughout the end of the Crying Times and beyond. Norica died a few years before the writing of An Elder's Pain, however Laneri includes some interviews and stories of Norica from her three children, Dirani, Sikanu, and Zenaka. 

It stayed with mother forever. No matter how much good there was in her life, there was always some level of fear and sadness, like she thought it was all going to be taken away at any time. I don't think she ever forgave herself for being happy. Even just the simple act of seeing Sikole or having us, she couldn't forget that there should have been four more people with them. - Dirani, An Elder's Pain

Impact

An Elder's Pain was an extremely impactful book from the moment that it was finished, partially due to Orati's influence, but mostly due to the high quality writing and devestating emotional impact for a reader. Copies were made for the collections of the church, government administration, and Nikavador within a year of its initial publication. Additional copies were made for several different common areas in Izbrana and even other locations across Tiulara over the next decade or two. Even now, An Elder's Pain is the most distributed non-religious book of all time.   An Elder's Pain is commonly used by pacifistic elements as evidence for opposition to any actions that they see as jingoistic or overly militaristic. It is so widely known that it is suggested as a main reason for the gradual demilitarization of Tiularan society as a whole, not just Izbranan. While its impact was the strongest in Izbrana, the memoir has had a large effect throughout Tiulara. Metsana in particular nearly has as many copies of An Elder's Pain as there are in Izbrana.    It is suggested that the prevalence of An Elder's Pain is a large signal of increasing Izbranan cultural influence on the other Tiularan tribes. Pyrographic writing has continued to increase in popularity since the writing of An Elder's Pain, which brought pyrographic writing to many different tribes that had very little exposure to it in the past. Despite the historical dominance of Metsanan culture, Izbranan phrases like those used in An Elder's Pain and examples from An Elder's Pain itself have become increasingly common in other tribes since its initial publication.