Role

Chapter 3

--------------------------------
5th day, 3role + rd month, 16th year.
--------------------------------

Today marks the the third year since I was delivered upstream along the tears.
The ferryman Balokur left me here at the discretion of my unknown benefactor,
Vymir. Not a copper to my name I found refuge for a time in the swaddle of the
temple prelate's charity. Their rule was strict, and their education expansive.
Even good-will knows its boundaries and not long thereafter I was left to my own
devices. In the city so noble and resplendent I have found myself living among
whores and thieves, as if I never left the pit from which I was spurned.
I serve my existence now trapping along the wharf, executing vermin whose
wishes are no more than to survive. I pity them as the hatchet falls upon their
necks, I do not regret it. The piercing shrieks and squeals as they struggle
wracks my ears daily, I must not regret it. The unearthed nest, the newborn
rodents will not live without their mother and I must eat if I am to survive,
I can not regret it.

-------------------------------
22nd day, 6th month, 16th year
-------------------------------

The people of the city have much in common with the rodents I protect them
from. Squirming masses fighting over scraps, cannibalising their own in times
of hardship, greedily clasping every last copper when they regard those they
see as their lesser. Using their own young where it is advantageous to them.
Another man, woman, or child dead as a pack of roaming dogs plods along the
city streets tonight. The guardsmen pay little heed for fear of retribution,
desperately clinging to their own lives as they do. Is this truly the haven
the stranger sought? I am glad he died in that purgatory, wistfully dreaming
of a world much unlike my own.

-------------------------------
1st day, 1st month, 17th year
-------------------------------

I lashed out last night. One the dockworkers in the middle of a drunken
rampage saw fit to exert his will over a beggar in the street. I rapped
the blunt end of my hatchet against his temple. The beggar had nothing
to give me but his thanks. I've earned much more than that. I see now
that in even the darkest of nights an outburst of passion truly can
change the course of events.