Role

Chapter 1

Second Place Melememelem, that's what her name should be. Second Place
Melememelem. How it infuriates her. How it burns inside her. How it
haunts her every moment, waking and dreaming. She is not irrational,
she is not unreasonable. There are always minor setbacks or little
failures or moments of less than perfection in any person's life. But
to be second, always.. Every. Single. Time. It makes her skin crawl.
Her hands shake with fury.

She is a twin. She has, or should I say had, a sister. A fifty second
older sister. Not even a full minute, but she was second, for life.
Every birthday, her name comes second. Every gift, hers comes second.
Walking? Second. Talking? Second. She cried when her sister fell to
an escaped cavefisher, but in her heart of hearts she shed not a one.
Now was her time. Finished were the days of elementary education, and
now finished were the days of always being Merreren's younger sister.

But the new days were if anything worse. Having finally allowed herself
to have expectations, to believe she would rise to the top, she now had
that much greater to fall. That much more pain. As the schooling began
in earnest, she was always the runner up. Second highest score on an
exam. Second quickest to summon a demon. Second to channel the power
of the divine and afflict a baby duerg slave. Second in her age group
to be welcomed into the Matron Mother's Young Priestess League. Second
to graduate from her class, despite doing so a year early. At every event
she would hear the same words congratulating someone else and then turn
to her and say "Oh, and you did well too, Melememelem, you're very good
too." Curse them and the horses they rode in on!

As has happened in the past and will undoubtedly happen again in the
future, a breaking point comes, a crisis, a turning point which either
breaks or tempers and hardens the person. Melememelem endured that moment
mere months after graduation from the cleric's school. She was, as all
junior priests are, posted to one of the city's outlying shrines, to
minister to the locals. And, as usual for her, she was sent to the second
most prestigious local shrine, used by the wealthy merchants, but not
the nobility. The day began as any other day. Nothing to signal that it
would change her life forever. Like any other day, she prepared to hear
the prayers of those nobles who chose to come by. Like any other day the
lay acolytes prepared the wines and waters, each for a different purpose,
to be sipped by a noble, depending on the desired divine intercession.
Like any other day she moved from supplicant to supplicant, speaking the
words and concentrating on the spirit of the divine.