Tales from the Universe
Moral Dilemma: When fear can distort judgment, does mastering fear mean refusing to feel it—or learning when it is trying to tell you something worth hearing?
Nobody could frighten Brann.
People tried.
That was how these things begin.
When he was twelve, his friends locked him overnight in a crypt.
Brann slept.
At sixteen, someone dropped a snake into his bed.
Brann picked it up and put it outside.
At nineteen, he crossed the old rope bridge during a thunderstorm because someone said he wouldn’t.
The bridge lost three boards.
Brann lost a boot.
He arrived on the other side laughing.
By twenty-five, being unafraid was no longer something Brann did.
It was who he was.
This made him useful.
When a horse panicked, Brann approached it.
When fire broke out, Brann entered buildings.
When someone heard noises outside at night, Brann checked.
People trusted him because danger seemed to have less authority over him than it had over everyone else.
He became a rescue warden.
It suited him.
His partner was named Veyra.
Veyra was afraid of many things.
Heights.
Deep water.
Lightning.
Unfamiliar dogs.
Enclosed spaces.
Large spiders.
Small spiders.
And, for reasons she refused to explain, geese.
Brann found this hilarious.
Veyra found Brann exhausting.
They worked extremely well together.
Their first serious argument happened in a mine.
A support beam cracked.
Veyra heard it.
“Out.”
Brann looked toward the trapped miner ahead.
“Thirty more feet.”
“Out.”
“He’s right there.”
Another crack.
Dust fell.
Veyra grabbed Brann’s coat.
“We leave.”
“He dies.”
“We stay, we may all die.”
Brann pulled away.
“I’m not afraid.”
Veyra stared at him.
“I am.”
Brann turned toward the trapped miner.
Veyra shouted:
“That’s why one of us is thinking.”
The ceiling collapsed.
Not completely.
Enough.
They survived because Veyra had already started retreating.
The trapped miner survived too.
Another team reached him from a different shaft.
Brann spent two days in the infirmary.
Veyra visited.
“You were right,” he said.
She nodded.
Brann frowned.
“You could pretend this is difficult for you.”
“I could.”
For several months, Brann became more careful.
Then people began praising him again.
The fearless warden.
The man who walked into fire.
The man nothing could scare.
Brann liked the stories.
He told himself he didn’t.
That was different from not liking them.
Then children began imitating him.
A boy climbed the quarry wall because Brann had climbed it.
He fell.
Broke both legs.
Brann visited him.
The boy grinned through the pain.
“I wasn’t scared.”
Brann felt something unpleasant.
“Why not?”
“Because you aren’t.”
Brann looked at the casts.
For the first time, his reputation frightened him.
He began correcting people.
“I’m afraid all the time.”
Nobody believed him.
At the tavern:
“Brann fears nothing!”
“I fear plenty.”
Laughter.
“Name one!”
Brann tried.
He couldn’t.
The room cheered.
Veyra noticed.
“You’ve practiced not admitting fear so long you can’t recognize it.”
“I recognize danger.”
“No. You recognize obstacles.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
She tapped his chest.
“Danger says something might cost you more than you’re willing to pay.”
Brann shrugged.
“Then pay it.”
Veyra looked tired.
“That is exactly what I mean.”
The mountain taught him.
Mountains are good at teaching things without caring whether the student survives the lesson.
A winter storm trapped three travelers above the tree line.
Brann and Veyra joined the rescue.
Halfway up, the wind changed.
Veyra stopped.
“No.”
Brann could barely hear her.
“What?”
“We turn back.”
“They’re above us.”
“The storm is moving faster.”
“We can reach them.”
“Maybe.”
Brann continued climbing.
Veyra didn’t.
He turned.
She stood twenty feet below.
“Come on!”
“No!”
Brann became angry.
“They’ll freeze!”
“So will we!”
“You’re afraid!”
Veyra stared upward through the snow.
“Yes!”
The word carried strangely through the wind.
Brann had meant it as an accusation.
Veyra answered as though he’d identified a useful fact.
Brann continued alone.
For another twenty minutes.
Then thirty.
Visibility disappeared.
He could no longer see the trail.
He kept moving.
Not because he knew the way.
Because turning around felt like becoming someone else.
The fearless man did not retreat.
The fearless man did not abandon people.
The fearless man—
Brann stopped.
He had no idea where he was.
For the first time in years, he let himself say it.
“I am afraid.”
Nothing happened.
No weakness entered his legs.
No courage left his body.
He was simply afraid.
And once he allowed the feeling to exist, information arrived with it.
He couldn’t see.
He couldn’t navigate.
His fingers were becoming numb.
The wind was worsening.
He had passed the point where continuing improved anyone’s chances.
Fear had been reporting these facts for half an hour.
Brann had mistaken refusing the report for bravery.
He turned around.
He almost didn’t make it.
Veyra found him crawling below the ridge.
She dragged him into a shelter.
They spent the night pressed together beneath blankets while the mountain attempted to kill them.
Brann shook uncontrollably.
“Veyra?”
“Yes?”
“I am terrified.”
“Good.”
He laughed weakly.
“You really need better bedside manners.”
The three travelers survived.
They had found a shepherd’s shelter farther west.
The rescue team reached them the following morning.
Everyone returned home.
Nobody became a legend.
Brann found this increasingly pleasant.
Years later, he trained new wardens.
On their first day, he asked:
“What is fear?”
A recruit answered:
“Weakness.”
Brann threw a piece of chalk at him.
Another said:
“Instinct.”
“Closer.”
“Warning?”
“Sometimes.”
He wrote on the board:
FEAR IS INFORMATION.
Then beneath it:
INFORMATION CAN BE WRONG.
And beneath that:
SO CAN YOU.
The recruits copied it.
One raised her hand.
“So when should we listen to fear?”
Brann smiled.
“That is the job.”
She frowned.
“I thought the job was rescuing people.”
“It is.”
He pointed at the board.
“This is how you get to keep doing it.”
After class, a recruit approached.
“I heard you climbed the western cliff without a rope.”
Brann sighed.
“I was twenty.”
“Were you scared?”
“Yes.”
The recruit looked disappointed.
Brann noticed.
“Would the story be better if I wasn’t?”
“A little.”
Brann laughed.
“Then tell the worse story.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody might try it.”
That evening Brann walked home.
A goose stood in the road.
He stopped.
The goose stared at him.
Brann stared back.
Veyra came around the corner.
She saw the situation.
Slowly, a smile appeared.
“Problem?”
“No.”
The goose hissed.
Brann moved backward.
Veyra folded her arms.
“Fearless Warden.”
“Quiet.”
The goose advanced.
Brann stepped behind Veyra.
She began laughing so hard she had to lean against a wall.
Brann laughed too.
The goose occupied the road.
Nobody challenged it.
Some dangers simply weren’t worth proving anything to.