Today I found myself with a bit of time on my hands, and so I went to pay a visit to Eburnean. They were on their way to patrol, but invited me to come along, and I had to admit that I was curious. I have seen a Guardian at work with a specific charge, but never—as Eburnean called it—“looking for trouble”.
We started in Chicago, sweeping over the darkening streets. Eburnean explained that there was a trick to it, a way of “skimming” many auras to spot the ones who harbor violence in their hearts. At first I could not see it—they had frightened two muggers and a stalker away from their victims before I began to catch on.
Violence is an action, not a feeling, and everything that humans do begins with a feeling. It can be anger, or greed, or envy, or even sorrow that turns sharp in their spirits and searches for a way out. Even then, they do not always turn that violence against others—some learn to restrain it, often at cost to themselves.
For example, we saw a man in his mid-twenties—I tried, but I did not find his name—who left a bar unsteady on his feet and uneasy in his heart. He’d been rejected for yet another time, and he trailed after the woman who sneered at him, thinking furious things about her, things that I cringed to see. But after a few steps, he turned away from her and walked down an alley, where he pounded a wall with his fists until they bled.
“Good for him,” I said.
Eburnean shook their head. “He chose rightly this time. But the darkness is still there, and often it will wear a man down, until the only comfort is to be somehow more than someone else, whether that be stronger or bigger or even crueler.”
“Could we not help him?” I asked. “Perhaps a Comforter or a Persuasion will take him on.”
A small, sad smile was on Eburnean’s face. “Even in our multitudes, there are not enough angels in heaven to save them all, Asa’el. Come.”
They went on, but I lingered, looking at the small hunched figure. His aura was lashing with anger, and yet he looked so very young, and so very alone.
I went on with Eburnean, and soon I could spot their targets only moments after they did. There is something very distinctive about it, once one has seen it enough—the aura takes on a kind of metallic sheen, as if there are sharp edges gathered around the person, ready to be turned against others. But how does one carry such emotion in the spirit without it also turning inward?
“One doesn’t,” Eburnean answered simply, when I asked.
They could see that I was upset, and we paused a moment, watching a squabble between two sisters outside their apartment. It had something to do with a man, but more to do with the razor envy of the younger.
“Perhaps Orison was wrong, Asa’el,” Eburnean murmured. “Perhaps you are precisely where you are meant to be. Your compassion does you credit, but for a Guardian it is a weakness. Your enemies can hurt you just by hurting themselves, and that leaves you insufficient strength for the victims.”
They then went to intervene in the fight, driving the young woman away from her sister before her angry gestures became blows.
Any other time, I would have agreed with Eburnean; I am, after all, precisely where I need and want to be. And yet I was stung by their comment. How could compassion ever be a weakness? Whenever I give love to these humans, I find myself with more love to give. With the strength of choice behind it, love is not a limited resource.
I followed the quarrelsome young woman as she stormed away from the apartment building. When she sat down on a curb and dissolved into furious tears, I sat with her. I put my wing around her, and when a group of boys paused to look at her with speculation, I turned my anger on them, scaring them away almost as quickly as Eburnean might have done.
“You are loved,” I told the woman whose name I did not learn. “I give you love, and I ask nothing in return, not even goodness. Perhaps it is a waste, but I do not think so.”
Her breath caught, and then she began to sob again, this time out of the deep pain that was the source of her violence. I stayed with her for a long time.