I am a baker. A passion for food burns in my heart. Like my father before me, and like his grandfather, I continue our trade. Instilled in my hands are memories of kneading, my body feels the proportions as I begin to add the flour into my newest pastry. Behind me, without even having to look, I can feel the crust hardening, the fire instilling beautiful cracks along the bread’s surface. A customer stands waiting for their share, I’m sure not to disappoint. I can’t disappoint. I want to be able to look into my father’s eyes and see something more than the stinging reflection of my failure. I want him to be proud. Just once I wish that he would smile at me. He’s passed now, but I still want to make him proud. Even if he can’t watch me anymore, I’ll keep his passion going. Better and better and better. Maybe he might tell me he was glad to have raised me when I meet with him again. But this wish was not to be. The baker would work on this plea and pass it to his son. As generations all had done, the passion would be forced on him. His future grew so dim, as he would seek his father’s pride. But just as our poor baker tried, his son would fail to get a smile. Perhaps as he would face his final trial, would our baker see this cycle vile. This family’s passion had died long ago, just as the summer’s rain’s not winter’s snow. A tragic fate, yet I’m sure more lies in wait…

I am a soldier. I find my duty not with my lord or my country, but only with my family. The games they play, while they sit on thrones of vanity and glamor, I don’t care about. I just want enough coin to feed and house my family. Perhaps a little more for my kids to avoid the life I’m forced to live. It’s neither pleasant nor safe on the battlefield. I know that every battle I leave for might just be my last. I know that soldiers on the other side may wish for the very same things I do. I stare into their eyes as my sword slices towards them, and I wonder what futures I’ll be cutting down. Will I break a poor widow’s heart? How many children’s futures will I cut short with this one strike? None of these thoughts weigh heavily enough to stop my slice. Because I know whose heart would break if I were felled, whose futures would disappear if I die. I just want to protect them from so many things. From hunger, from cold, from pain and violence. But her wants fell short. What her heart did then purport, her children could not hear. She instilled in them a pride, not fear, which made them follow her career. Her protection was for naught, as the battlefield they sought. All the terrors she endured, so their future was assured, were now brought upon her wards. For her efforts, unjust rewards. But let's see about those lords, what fate do they head towards?

I am a king. My hands are slick with blood. My crown weighs heavy with the worries of a thousand families. A dagger of betrayal rests in my back. And yet my skin grows numb to the sensation. I’ve buried many for my cause and burnt the dreams of many more. How could I rule if every scream I heard was like a needle piercing into my flesh? The decisions that I make can clasp onto my royal robes, but I still have to walk. No purpose could be higher or more noble than mine, so I’ll bear whatever cruelties I must enact. My purpose is eternity. The common man lives such a short life. Even the homes and castles we build will one day fall into the tides of time. What purpose is there in such a meager existence? Why struggle just to be erased? No, I will achieve more than a meager existence! I will create a legacy. So long as a single heir lives on, I will survive. My blood, my deeds, my sacrifices will be eternal. But eternity is not so easily achieved. This purpose in which he believed, would fail within a century. All deeds would fade from memory, as new kings came to be. They too would bend the knee to grand designs of legacy. Oh what great beauty tragedy instills, to all these wandering wills. A world cannot be right without a tragedy in sight. It colors life in shapely ways, and earns a reader’s praise! Now what despairing paint shall I use next to decorate my characters in text?