Alliance is for the weak.

That’s what I used to tell myself.

I sit cross-legged on the grass and take in the view. The wind rustles through the air around me, rustling the leaves of the trees nearby.

Distant clamouring echoes from a distance.

Alliance is for the weak.

Maybe I am weak. I believed I could trust no one, that vulnerability only gave way to potential hurt. To loss. To trauma.

But I would have died, so so many times during this journey had it not been for them.

These dummies. With their relentless positivity, unrivalled survival instinct and ability to rally the most downtrodden of us, they’ve propelled us to a victory I could have never achieved on my own.

Or maybe I could have, with an extra decade or so.

I watch them rugby tackle each other to the ground in the distance.

Their duality astonished me. Playful yet rugged, lighthearted and dead cold serious.

I struggle to believe that alliance is for the weak.

Perhaps in truth,

I was weak for lacking trust.

I was weak,

to not be vulnerable.