It always take that first step, and then you plunge into the unknown. Coming from a history that exists before, and then emerging to find something new. But with this expansion, comes the dangers unknown. A blank slate holds as much danger as promise.
For no place is truly ever pristine. Every place holds its own horrors, evils and dangers abound. There’s a few ways one can adapt to those changes. You can be faster than the dangers, taking the high flying way and speeding away from potential threats. Or you can follow the way of the turtle, armoring up and sitting through anything someone can throw at you.
But the favored way? Pure aggression. Violence for violence may be the rule of beasts, but it flows like water here. Combatants sweep in and out like rabid dogs, tearing into each other as easy as an artist paints.
The ring’s always been a dog eat dog kind of a world. And there’s so many threats out there. From gnashing kings on the top to starving wolves in the woods, everyone wants something from you out there. Because no matter how big and deadly you think you are, OSW here throws out worse.
Get a little wild with someone and make them bleed? They’ll carve a chunk of flesh out of you.
Want to break some heads together? Some will just straight up cut them off.
No matter how gruff you think you are, how big you are, there’s one thing to learn from here St. Claire: there’s always someone willing to push it further. Life and death are on the lines, and even the brightest and cleanest can be rendered down in the layers of blood that come from it.
So you have to make a choice. You can try and be the biggest antagonist, and hope that you’ve got what it takes. Let it wear you down until you make that wrong person made and you wind up down the river on one of the Ferryman’s boats. Or, you make a difference. Forge your way despite the odds, and make an impact for yourself.
Every new beginning is a way to something better.
It wasn’t all that long ago that I had to watch my brothers die in front of me. Steps to the end of a mad man’s reign, a truth that I was told that helped push me to think of more than what I had known. I’ve embraced that, embraced the truth and steps for the people of Arcadia. With each action, each life I save, there’s an actual impact on the world around me.
It all really boils down to you though. How you handle this new beginning comes down to how much push you think you can take, and the changes that come from when you inevitably break. It happens to us all here in this ring.
All that matters is if you pull yourself up, or die on the mat like a dog.