Aggro: A Love Story

Aggro is a fickle mistress.  A relationship with her is like a game of cat and mouse.  The more you try to keep her from noticing you the more she will chase you.  The more you try to get her attention, she will try and escape you.

Reese, a dwarf just trying to find his way, has been flirting with aggro since he was a wee one.  When he was just a boy his father took him out to teach him how to fire a rifle.  Most of his early years where spent trying to target critters on the mountain side from as far as he could.  He got good at it but never met aggro until later.

He did not meet aggro for the first time until he was older and his father had taken him out hunting a real target.  While hunting some boar he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, what seemed like something looking at him while his father wrestled the boar that he had shot.

His father explained to him that what he felt was aggro.  The feeling thrilled and frightened him at the same time.  Who was this aggro, why was she looking at him, why couldn't he see her but he could feel her. 

He continued to hunt with his father for a few years and became a very good shot.  Almost always hitting his target.  As time went on and he got better with his gun he felt as if aggro was looking at him more and more often.  As his skills increased her attention to him seemed to get higher.  Each time she would look at him he would feel a bit frightened and tried everything he could to redirect her attention from him to someone else, anyone else. 

As soon as her attention was gone he would feel a little empty, as if he had lost something he really wanted.  This game of flirting bewtween Reese and aggro went on for a few years until one day when he felt aggro with full force coming at him.  Still young and not understanding what to do he ran and hid.  His father found him some hours later cowering in the ram pen behind the feed bin.  Rifle still in hand, trembling hand that is.

As part of his training, perhaps a bit earlier then expected, his father sent him away to learn from the priests about the art of healing.  While there he would learn the arts of the preservation of life.  No matter what he would choose to do in life it is dwarven rule that all people understood all aspects of life from hunting, to farming, to medic, to battle, you name it.  No dwarf would ever enter the world not understanding, at least in part, every aspect of life.

Instructor Simmons began teaching the new recruits the simple spells that they would need in simple situations.  Reese thought the instructor seemed a little off but could not place it.  Perhaps it has something to do with the strange hand gestures he would make whenever he would cast a spell.  He would yell out, okay, everyone try a greater heal now and don't forget the jazz hands.  He was a strange man, someone unlike anyone Reese had ever met before.

One night thinking back to hunting with his father he remembered the feeling he had when aggro was chasing him.  Full of fear but also exhilarated at the same time.  It seemed to him that while learning here he would never get that feeling again.  From his standpoint aggro would never find him doing jazz hands interesting enough to focus on him.  He was not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing but based on his last experience with aggro and remembering the fear, a good thing it would be.

A few years had passed and Reese had become quite good with his studies, he was even an honor student.  Professor Simmons even told him to start calling him Richard.  That is how well he became as the art of healing.  He had not felt the aura of aggro in a long time, so long that he had almost forgotten what it felt like.

Aggro however had just been hiding for a while.  One day while out and about with some people from the school they where ambused by some Troggs and while fighting them he had the feeling of aggro wash over him again.  But I am doing jazz hands, I am not hurting anyone, why is aggro watching me.  Why does she still want me, he asked himself.

The feeling was not the same as it was the last time he felt aggro bearing down on him however.  It was almost thrilling and not quite as frightening as it was before. 

Some months later, after a few adventures, he had flirted on and off with aggro again and liked it.  She would chase him, he would hide, she would leave.  The cat and mouse game went on and on for a while when he made the decision that he had learned enough here and was going to return home.

He started to do some work on the farm for his father when he arrived home. Soon after returning he met a sweet, by dwarven terms at least, girl.  Her father was a well known warrior in the area, she worked the store back home where she sold some of the good he collected while out adventuring.

As a few years past they became closer and fell in love but Reese never stopped flirting with aggro.  He would often see aggro while chasing the wolves from the livestock but it was always a slight feeling, as if aggro was only peeking at him from behind a tree.  It had gotten to the point where if a day would go by without seeing aggro he would look for her.  Of course, as soon as he found her he would try to lose her again but the day did not feel complete without a date with aggro.

One day while visiting his girlfriend at her shop she told him that if they where ever to be together that he would need to learn the ways of the warrior.  No man would ever be allowed to take her hand without learning how to be a warrior, her father would not allow that.

The next weekend he set out on an adventure with her father and watched.  He did not participate at all but her father was an amazing fighter.  Even if he was in a group with four others he would tackle all the beasts himself and let the others take them down while he held them.

When they got home Reese asked him about why he would put himself in such a position where he could so easily die.  He explained that there was something exhilarating about it that he could not explain but he tried.  Listening to him explain he thought to himself that what he was describing sounded a great deal like aggro and the feeling aggro would give him.

He started to train with his girlfriends father the very next day and his world changed instantly.  He spent his whole life trying to escape the attention of aggro and now he was seeking it.  When he was trying to get away from it he never could, it would always find him.  Now that he was chasing it, it was always trying to leave him.

Aggro was indeed a fickle mistress.  When you do not want her their, she will find you.  When you want to hold her and keep her, she will try to get away.  It was a dance, a dance he had decided he liked.  It was more fun chasing aggro then running from it.

He decided, this was his destiny, he would be a warrior and he would embrace aggro.  He would hold aggro close and soak up every minute he got to have with her.  The fear from when he was just a wee one would once in a while come back but it was filled with excitement now, even if it were a state of fear.  It had changed because now he wanted aggro's attention.

He noticed that his true love, the one he always wanted to be with, was aggro.  Because of this, he never proposed to his girlfriend, they just dated, and dated, and dated, for years.

Her father when to his father one day to ask why Reese had not asked for his daughters hand in marriage yet.  Reese's father did not know but assured him that he would find out and make sure that his son would do the right thing by his daughter.

That night when Reese came home his father asked him about her.  Reese explained his whole story.  How he had been flirting with aggro for such a long time, since he was a kid and they were hunting.  How aggro followed him to school, how aggro would always follow him and how he fell in love with aggro while learning to be a warrior with her father.

He explained to his father that he is in love with aggro.  That is all he can ever think about.  How now that he is seeking aggro it always seems like aggro is trying to get away from him.  He was afraid that there was no place in his life for marriage if he was going to be spending so much time chasing aggro.

Reese watched his father stare into the flames as he sat in front of the fireplace.  He told Reese to sit down and wait for him while he went to get some refreshments.  His father got up and picked up two steins, filled with to the top with brew and came back handing one to Reese and sitting back down with the other.

"Do you lover her?" he asked Reese. 
"Of course I do." he responded. 

Reese did love her, she was the only woman he had ever felt connected to. It was his love of aggro that kept him from proposing to her.

His father thought for a moment and smiled looking at his son with a twinkle in his aged eyes as if he were remembering something from his very own youth.

"So you say you love aggro and you love her, am I getting this right son?"
"Yes pappy."

His father laughed loudly, finished his brew, got up and slapped his son on the back.

"If you love aggro son, marry a dwarf woman, you'll have more aggro then you know what to do with."