[ Do they? Maybe. Maybe some do need it and never find it. For him, he doesn't mean it as a pull of faith that kept him moving forward. It's something he found, abruptly, in those woods that made him realize, when looking at all those decades behind him full of pain and heartache—perhaps they can be worth something to someone, if not for himself. But his relationship with fate and faith is complicated. Some part of him won't accept the idea that everything in the world is preordained, that he's always been exactly where he was meant to be from the start, because it would mean Visenna was right to do what she had.

He doesn't want her to be right. A petty, childish desire, but it's one that stays with him. ]

Yeah. It is. [ It is unfair. Always has been. From any angle, it feels unfair: that he's here, with a life and a family and people who care for him, and his brothers are, what. Still alone? Fated to die forgotten in a fucking swamp somewhere?

But he'd never asked to go through the things he had, either. In a sense, her bitterness and anger over it—it's not a foreign thing. He's felt it, too. He's simply had a few decades to learn to put it aside, not because he found some peace or a realization that made it acceptable, but solely so it didn't consume every part of his being. ]

I don't know, either. [ Surviving hurts. He's never known it to be anything else. He grows quieter. ] I just believe—if your magic feels as though it's meant for you, then who's to tell you otherwise? Arrived by Destiny or chance, you decide what's yours when you find it.