The wonder with heroes is not in their accomplishments, nor in the costs exacted, but in their persistent striving.
For that striving comes out of the passionate fires at which we lesser, or simply less courageous creatures, seek to warm ourselves.
And yet, it is seldom that our own fires seem as bright to our eyes, or as warm to our hands, as they do to the eyes that search in the night of doubt and uncertainty, or the hands that reach out from icy weariness and despair.
We need fires lit by other heroes, or our vision will fail, and our hands will freeze into useless claws.
But we need also to be mindful of those other heroes who turn in hope to our light and hold out their hands in gratitude to our fire.
For those are the eyes that hold our vision for eternity and the hands which will light the fires we return to when our own hands are numb with cold.
