A Voice in the Darkness

I was talking to a friend at Uprising who had been offered a red scarf. Now despite the honor of the offer, he was pretty set on saying no. It wasn't that he had anything against either the White Scarf who'd made the offer or the whole White Scarf/Cadet thing, instead, he wasn't really sure he needed to become a cadet. As he put it, he is a middle-aged man with his own household who'd been fencing far too long to become a "cay-det" and there were others who needed it more than him.

And all of what he said is true, if not his conclusion. There's no question that he's no spring chicken any more, he does have a household of nearly twenty people, and he has been fencing since the turn of the century, but...

Being a Cadet isn't just about being someone's servant and having a private fencing tutor. Yes, those are parts, but not all of it. And not the biggest part of it, even. The biggest part is that when you become a Cadet, your White Scarf becomes your advocate, your voice. They are the ones who will spread the good word about you. They are the ones who will defend you and your actions against all comers. They are the ones that others will bring both your praise and your criticisms to.

When I mentioned this to my friend, it didn't really make him any more comfortable with the idea of becoming a Cadet. You see, he was worried about tying in his reputation with someone else's. And not because of what the White Scarf's reputation would do to his, but what his would do to the White Scarf's. Now, I can relate to that. After all, I'm the guy who no White Scarf will touch with a 10-foot pole. Anyone who took me on as a Cadet would get more than a handful, that's for sure. Something about me and my big mouth. Or, as Don Adam put it so succinctly at Uprising, "You need to shut the #!@* up!" I think he was a little surprised when I thanked him. You see, he's the first White Scarf to tell me what I need to do differently to get a scarf. To me, that's part of what a White Scarf should do, whether someone's their cadet or not. Okay, I'll admit that there are a few people who, if they used that exact same phrasing, I might not have responded quite so pleasantly, but I doubt Adam would have said it so bluntly if he didn't know me so well.

But back to my friend. I don't know if my words helped my friend in his decision, but I'd like to think so. I do know that he continued to talk to the White Scarf who'd made the offer and, in the end, decided to accept the offered scarf. So maybe I did help him out.