“This story takes place in first person, but I would like to warn you now, I am not a fitting character to tell it, for I know not the depth of emotion she felt as it happened, and I certainly do not have experience with love.
The man takes a deep breath as the room begins to settle, drawing up the images and words from the basin of stories his grandmother left in his mind. Then, he began.
“I will make my life what I want of it, that was the first invention my mind crafted for me when I was young. Now, that surely sounds like a task of the farmers and millsfolk, right. Such a common thing most assume it’s just the nature of man, and I too would agree. But, unlike that of the free thoughts your brain lets run into all of the nooks and crannies of your mind, I was not raised with such freedoms.”
“My life started in a monastery, far up in the confines of the blistering mountains, where the sun doesn’t shine for weeks on end in the winter. Both my mother and father were dedicated to their worship, and so too was I expected to give myself up to it. A god of death we were to worship, which always seemed the strangest to me. “Why give your life away now when it still flows strong and sharp through your veins?”, I would say to my mother, and then to the elders later in my life, but not then, as the child that would stand or sit at the feet of the statue of him deep within the stone of our paradise.”
“I never liked it, the way I was drawn to it during ceremonies or gatherings. It put off an energy of forlorn amusement, a beckoning pull dredged up from the part of us that enjoys misery. The elders thought I had a gift, that he had favored me for his own far ranging reasons. I hated that too, the attention and push they gave me to reach out and meet the call, to invite him in to stay. It was then that I decided to carve my own road, dig it up and walk it as far away from the monastery as possible, and to never set myself to this god I didn’t even know the name of. At the age of twelve I started disobeying the conditioning that had been forced upon me in an attempt to get forced out of the group.”
“I would cut my hair or knock candles over or light small fires during periods of sacred darkness, but all it ever got me was warnings and hair pulling. Once I was thrown upon the platform our leader sat on by the elders, claiming that if everyone prayed to me instead I would have enough power to meet our god half way and accept the words he was whispering to me. I ran from the room when they began, jumping from the platform and following the walls down to the cellar room on torn feet. But even after I was caught I was not thrown from the doors. The elders claimed it was a test of faith, that I had been pushed to do it by our god to see who he could trust. I cried that night, long and hard and agonizingly alone. It would take another three years before my wish was granted, though don’t be fooled at your emotions expense. We were observing a common ritual, not a celebration or holiday, and certainly not something special by any means.”
“The cavern we took Mass in was filled with candles, sealed to the walls and floors and on pedestals all about the room along with the altars and talismans, and as part of the ritual by the end of the night they would all be blown out. Within moments of the last candle burning out the room was filled with a roar unlike anything we had ever heard. The creature crept from the shadows, nearly human but so tall it had to stoop against the ceiling. The roaring stopped at once, then a voice started to take its place. “You have done well to brave the sickness plaguing you, but I can not watch this carry on much more. You must cast out the girl with red hair and pale eyes. She is not mine any longer, and she must not stay yours. Will you accept my plea?” The weight of a hundred or so eyes fell upon me, and in the next instant their hands engulfed me.
“How shall we cast her out!” They yell in my ears like a chorus of souls being swallowed by the earth.
“Should we kill her and place her head on an altar for you?”
“Should we drain her blood and offer it to you in a chalice?” another chimed.
“Should we throw her over the edge of our cliffs to be eaten by the animals below?”
“No,” came the voice again.
“Let her leave without harm, give her some food as well. I do not want her, I simply want to cleanse the stain that has been spilled upon your devotion.” And at once they complied, pushing me out of the room and into the front hall, a coat and boots thrown at me along with a satchel of bread and cheese, and then the doors swung wide and I was pushed out into the cold. I lifted the hood as I looked up at the sky, the moon shining on my face for the first time in my life, and let my mind clear before starting my trek down the mountain. My dream was finally coming true, even despite it being caused by the being I had grown to loath.”
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