Current mood:

happy

My young apprentice...
Imagine my surprise this afternoon when young Gilder proposed himself as my apprentice. It's a strange thing for a warlock to take a paladin as a student, but his argument was such that I couldn't deny him, though I don't know that I can teach him properly. I've never been a very good tutor. He says he wishes to understand the nature of light and shadow, and the way that the two depend upon each other. I suppose on one half of that equation, I can help him well enough. I gave him my father's journals to read...where he'll likely learn more of the nature of shadow than he could ever wish to know.

It makes me think of a poem my father loved:

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected,
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow's form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show them me.
((--William Shakespeare, Sonnet 43))