My Blossoming Companions

Why am I still here?
 
When I consider the full scale of the powers arrayed against us: an immortal, relentless master-swordsman, a demon of subterfuge who has sold his soul for Wyrdian power, the sitting Queen, her incestuous lover the Lord Protector, an entire continent of brigands, beasts and opportunists, a lost race of swamp dwelling troglodytes and a literal being of world-ending malevolence (and I have no doubts this list is far from exhaustive why have I remained on this path?
 
This quest has thrust me into more danger than I’ve faced in the rest of my life combined, nearly claimed my life several times, financially ruined me, injured my oldest friend and now reduced my home to splinters, and with it, almost everything I own. A lifetime travelling the length and breadth of this land, all wasted in a moment.
 
I don’t know what cuts me more, the fact that Takuma’s Travelling Trove, my life’s work, has been destroyed, or the fact that all the world has actually lost is a rickety cart full of junk.
 
Has my life really been so insignificant?
 
I look at Caerbhall, who has given more of himself in the name of duty than even the most malicious of gods could have taken and did so willingly. Nobody has the right to ask him to take even a single step further than he has already has, yet he rises each day and chooses to face the insurmountable odds arrayed against us, to charge headlong back into peril and pain and loss.
 
I look at Martin and watch a boy, a man and a King all wrestling for control of his young heart; all while expectation and responsibility are piled like rocks upon his shoulders. Even so, he still struggles on under the weight of a burden I have no right even attempting to fathom, smiling and optimistic, not just advancing, but leading.
 
Then I look at Takuma. I see a life twisted irreparably by bitterness and self-absorption. I survey my petty profits and horded baubles, my tools and books, my costumes and instruments, and watch them burn with the ruins of my road-bound home.
 
I’m not a warrior, I could barely hold off a single mere brigand while those two fought our ghoulish pursuer and his abominable mount. They can’t rely on me to fight by their side.
 
I’m not a magician, my thrill of excitement at my blossoming Wyrdian talent has withered with the realisation that my so called “powers” are as useless and unreliable as…well, me.
 
Why am I still here?