Song Challenge: What Do You Want of Me? by Dianne T. DeSha ("What Do You Want of Me?" from _Man of La Mancha_) -+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+- Why do you do the things you do? Why do you do these things? The startling clarity of the young crusader's outlook had been what attracted him in the first place. And after all this time, when so many interests had peaked and faded away, it fascinated him still. A world painted in stark, indelible pigments--white and black, good and evil, right and wrong-- the choices so clear and simple. A conception so alien to the thousand shades of politically-charged gray he had been taught to perceive. The world had never worked that way, life and death were never that simple, yet the knight's belief in them persisted, beyond all credulity, beyond all reason. It drew his jaded old soul irresistibly, with all the hypnotic power of a moth circling a candle flame. Why do you march through that dream that you're in, Covered with glory and rusty old tin? These were killers, murderers, sackers of cities and destroyers of cultures older than anything they could conceive, who nonetheless believed themselves pure, holy-- washed pure in the sight of their god by the spattered blood of their enemies. So he had claimed the crusader, brought him into the fold of the night. Made him a hunter, a killer by his very nature. And for a time they were as one--content, safe as a child in its mother's arms, being taught to survive in a new and exciting world. Why try to be what nobody can be? And what do you want of me? What do you want of me? But then that partitioning of the world that had so entranced him had reasserted itself in rejection. For his child now believed that the blood of his prey, his very nourishment, stained him as the blood of the infidel never had. And the pain of that rejection was sharp, and deep, and utterly unacceptable. -+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+- Why do you do the things you do? Why do you do these things? What parent, given the choice, would choose to watch their child die, knowing that they could prevent it? What parent would not do whatever was necessary to ensure that the child lived, even at the price of their rejection, their hatred? And the pain Nicholas caused himself! How could any parent look upon their child wounding themselves, torturing themselves, starving themselves from a twisted desire to deny their own flesh, and not interfere? Why do you rush at the world all alone Fighting mad battles that aren't your own? Do you allow a suicidal child to pick up a gun? No, you take it away and hold them safe until the madness has passed, no matter how they scream and writhe and tear at you begging for release. In the end they will be alive, and with that anything is still possible. Why do you live in a world that can't be? And what do you want of me? What do you want of me? Nicholas' passion for the mortal world had become and obsession--an _addiction_. An intense and idealized longing for what could never be. And each time LaCroix saw him, weakened, changed, wasting away in body and spirit like any addict, his heart twisted within him and he found himself desperate to do something--_anything_--to break the deadly hold that world had on him. -+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+- Why don't you know That you're laughed at wherever you go? And the others laughed at him. Never to LaCroix's face, but he was not fool enough not to know what was said, whispered in the shadows, about his child--the one who denied himself, who had changed his mind long after there was any choice to make. The one who would return to being prey--weak, and sick, and doomed to die. They laughed at Nicholas and his pointless, hopeless quest. And they laughed at _him_. The one with a child so foolish, a child who insisted on displaying his madness for all the world to see, shaming his father, his master--the one whose eternal gift he would spit back in his face. But I cannot laugh with the rest, And why, I don't know. And what if Nicholas were to regain his precious, deadly humanity? How long would he survive, how much chance would he have to come to his senses and return? A few decades before disease took him? A few years until accident tore his new breath away? A handful of _days_ until the reflexes of centuries of invulnerability left him standing unflinching in death's very path? No, the "cure" he spoke so movingly of would be as much a death sentence as a stake to the heart. That could not be what Nicholas truly wanted. What had he ever really wanted than to strike back at his parent? Of what else in his existence had Nicholas ever been so certain? This was a stab of anger at LaCroix whose blade would strike Nicholas' own heart...and that he could not allow. -+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+- Why do you do the things you do? Why do you do these things? Nicholas' pain hurt him, as it would any parent. And so he tried to prevent it, eliminate it--to move the pan of boiling water from the edge of the stove and to hold the child's hand firmly when crossing the street. Such things were always frustrating to a child's longing for independence, but they were _necessary_. Until the child was old enough to be trusted to keep himself from pain and danger, someone older and wiser must guard him from the hazards of the world. Why do you batter at walls that won't break? Why do you give, when it's natural to take? And his behavior was unnatural, absurd! Does the wolf take in the injured hare, tend its wounds, defend it from harm, while eating grass and weeds? A wolf cannot survive so; nature will not permit it. The wolf would starve trying to deny its very nature. And to try to _become_ the hare... Where do you see all the good that you see? And what do you want of me What do you want of me? He had stepped in to save Nicholas from harming himself and the result had been pain in his child's eyes. He had stood back, letting him take big, brash, childish steps on his own...and watched him fall. And then the pain was even worse. Far better then to protect him, guide him, knowing one day he would understand--_must_ understand. And someday Nicholas could be trusted to guide his own fate without diving headlong for the grave. Someday...but not yet. -+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+-+*+- Dianne Dianne la Mercenaire... -*- -*-"We must be powerful, beautiful, and without regret."-*-