Your writing is the best I've read on here in a while. It moved me. I think in large part because your story, or adventure, reads so much like my own.

To borrow from another Hero story, like Frodo from the LOTR, he could never return home after he had done what he set out to do because he was no longer the same person he was when he left, which has a sad irony considering he set out in order to save the world and the people that he loved. But, again, that was someone else's story. Who's to say we can't write our own ending.

Go on bravely young warrior! The road may have hardened you but you're still fighting and your heart is strong.