text: Somewhere, there is a forest. This is true. Somewhere, inside that forest, there is a sword. It is old and rusted; stuck straight up and down into the hard brown dirt. It has stood there for a long time, longer than you or I have been alive, a symbol of *something*, even if no one quite knows what that thing is. This, too, is true. Once upon a time, there was an adventurer. You can call him such, but a plethora of other names will do just as well: a writer, a storyteller, a bard, a musician. He traveled across the world gathering stories, recording them with his pen and voice and a variety of other means. He spoke of dragons in the clouds and fire smoldering under the earth, of people together and people apart. Another truth. However, as stories are told and retold and spread, their edges warp and become unlike the original. Their meaning distorts, perhaps even until you can no longer recognize it as what it once was. They change with each telling according to the whims of the teller, and every person carries a separate version within their heart. This is true as well - or do you disagree? No matter. This is my story, full of my truths. If you should write your own where the above statement is a lie, I shall not stop you. Fill it with the words that ring true to your heart, and cast aside mine as lies. But this is not your story, not yet, and to me, these words shine true, and so too they will in this story. This is fair, I believe. But once, although no one - not even I - knows where or when, he stumbled across this sword. He saw its rusted edges and imagined that it was not always so; that it had been grand and gilded and wielded by kings. And, as a storyteller must, he went forth and spoke of this sword and the legend. This is... questionable. He might have done what I have described above, or he might not have; simply writing or speaking of the sword as an odd occurrence, a coincidence of fate. But he told the story to at least one person, and they told it to at least one more, and it spread. Perhaps it was him who originally shaped the truth into a legend, perhaps it was not. There is no way to know for sure, so let us move on. Regardless of how it happened, or who had made it come about, the story changed. No longer was the sword simply a sword; it became so much more. It was a monument to a fallen kingdom, they said, the last legacy of a dying king. Whoever could wield it was worthy, no, whoever *found* it was worthy. It meant the coming of better times, the coming of a savior! It meant a destiny grand in its expanse, a story that would awe the entire world. It became hope. This, at least, is true, even if the legends surrounding it are not. Perhaps the sword truly is magic, awaiting a savior to herald a golden age. Perhaps it was simply the marker of a grave for a fallen friend. Perhaps it held no true significance at all, lost or abandoned by one who did not want it. It is impossible, I think, for anyone to ever know for certain. When you tell this story, you may decide what it is, or perhaps what it isn't, or if it even exists at all. Perhaps the stories the people tell about the sword are false. Perhaps they are true. Perhaps it doesn't matter at all. Perhaps what truly matters about this sword is not what it was, but what it became.