Role

Chapter 5

As the fire roared, and the blade neared my neck, edging ever closer and
closer, the Goddess Iunna asked "There's no way I can stop you, is
there?" I shook my head and gruffly replied "No, ain't bein none". As the
blade began to pull on my skin and scrape the beard away I remembered how
I felt when I vowed to do this. Within moments of waking from my hut a
gruff voice, that of the Biddy's, had started hammering me about
everything I had accomplished in my life. At first I thought it humour, I
could take it, I had heard worse, but then it kept going, became worse,
to the point that she told me I had spent my entire life with my head up
my arse, smelling shit. A line inside was crossed. All my life I had
spent fighting and earning what I had recieved. Respect from my family,
my abilities in battle, my Hut in the Village, even the friendships of
those I call brothers and sisters. Yet the one thing that I had not, that
I, personally, had not fought for was my faith, my blind faith, in the
patron Goddess of my people. I had been brought up to believe that her
way was the one way. But after she kicked me from the heavens instead of
meeting me, when she dumped me in the latrine hole and emptied out the
only tankard of grog I had, and then transpired so that I would fall to
the denizens of the underworld, she had lost my faith, she had lost my
respect, she had lost any feelings of devotion I had for her. It made me
realise that my faith in her hadn't made me the person I am, I had made
me the person I am. Through my actions, through my resolve, through my
own drive I had accomplished everything I am now. She was not worthy of
my faith, she was not worthy of my actions, she was not worthy of me. And
in my anger, in my rage, I yelled that I would shave off my beard as a
sign of my loss of respect for her, and I am a man of my word. It would
represent everything that I believed her to be being removed from my
body. This was my oath, and so my actions must fit. I would make my own
path, I would make my own decisions, unclouded by my blind faith, and I
would be greater then I had dreamed possible, and then my father would
respect me, he would welcome me back. Yet I would tell him that my place
was now somewhere else, and in doing so he would respect me even more.
This is what will come to pass, this is what will be, and all because of
the decisions I make, not those I thought were for another.