Subdue Your Passion

“Subdue your passion, or it will subdue you.”

Those words shook Bearded Bear to his core even to this day. When he first heard them, it had been centuries ago, soon after he had taken on his first apprentice. Then, he was relatively new to the raw magical power he had. Of course, it was a fraction of his current power, but he was still regarded in fear and respect for it, nothing like how he was seen today.

He had an excited young boy following behind, blabbering about how lucky he was to be chosen out of a dozen others to be taught magic by a wizard. Bearded Bear had been rather excited too, he just didn’t show it. He knew that the boy had a thirst for knowledge rivaling his own. He just wasn’t sure how capable he was in magic without former training.

They walked down the twisting path, towards village in the distance. He knew that it would take a while for them to reach where he lived, so he let the boy blather for a bit, only half listening.

“-and I was always shot down for apprenticeships in the past so- “
“Wait- Why were you always shot down? Just curious.”
“Well, I’m not sure, I asked why and I was told to-“
“Subdue your passion,” a new person started walking by the young man, “or it will subdue you.”
“No, not that…” The apprentice replied, “Wait, who are you?”

The wizard looked back and grimaced, “Oh, it’s just one of those people who think that they know what’s going to happen, just ignore them.” He stopped and glared at the soothsayer, “Go on, you loon, get out of here!”

“You will regret saying that in the future.”

He did. He still missed the kid to this day. He couldn’t mess up with his descendant, who hadn’t been taking care of himself as of late due to his passion for science and magic. So, he said those very words and made the half breed sleep with a spell.

He did not want to make the same mistakes as before.