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Cracks in false stone -- Part Four
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Advice, is what people assume a mentor is most used for when people refer to them. It’s why you have one, but it’s never why they stick around. If an apprentice has everything set out for them perfectly, they don’t need you anymore and you can focus on other things in your life.
Possibly the hardest thing to realize when you take someone on as an apprentice, or someone takes you on as a mentor, is that advice is almost never followed. Doing what I do, being helping my apprentices most of the time, and my family, advice is a fickle thing.
Take Hyrien, the present leader of the Bloody Dawn. She’s possibly the only apprentice I have that has reached the point where I could, without worry, let her go completely. But I doubt that’ll be anytime soon, she ignores my advice as any of my apprentices, but she makes good choices. I don’t have to step in too often.
Or, to the other extremity, Neyaa. Possibly the ‘worst’ of my apprentices as she hasn’t moved on in any manner, nor has she listened to any of my advice. But she at least listens with a present expression, unlike certain individuals. I have had to cradle her while she cried like a babe, and even stepped in to fix her romantic situations. But she has made me the guardian of her child, and there’s little I can do about that. Whether she is actually learning anything from me, or not, I’m bound to her blood.
But complain as I may of those who learn under me, there’s no want for me to make them leave. They’d stand by me if I really needed it. Even if they all cause more problems than they’re worth, they keep me occupied. They’re like my kids, which is what I consider them. All going through the horrid phase of thinking they know everything even when they come to you for help.
