Storm 12:: [Audio] // [Open Commentlog]
[It is very easy in one's life on the Elegante to lose track of time. Ignoring the possible discrepancy in calendars between worlds, there was the unending drone of days that just dragged past like a drive in a desert with no horizon.
It occurred to him a week late that the anniversary of his wife's death had passed.
It hadn't occurred more than five years ago. She'd died just before Mar was kidnapped, leaving a once-proud king alone and undeniably bitter. There was always, in his mind, a question of what to do to honor her death. He had a rather unique view of the world religion; while Havenites praised the Precursors and thanked Mar, Spargans fought to honor them and not curse them in the same breath. For all of Haven's problems, including it's decline into chaos in recent memory, it had always been exactly what its name suggested: a haven. In Haven, you were safe. You had the Precursors to thank. Compared to Spargus, Haven was blessed, no matter how you looked at it.
Spargus was a kingdom of the forsaken. Forsaken by Haven, forsaken by the Precursors... with an outcast member of the House of Mar at its head. Damas couldn't help-- in some ways, still can't help-- but feel cheated. Outcast from a city that was rightfully his, he built a ramshackle kingdom on corrugated aluminum, rusted engine scrap and corpses of fallen comrades, only to have his wife and young son stolen from him some time later. The Precursors had either thrown everything they had at him, or turned his back on him entirely. He'd always thought that he was simply destined to be the master of these misfits and outcasts of Haven, outcasts of their Gods, as the crown ruler of the outcasts-- the master of the forsaken, the king of the wasteland.
But knowing his son had changed some of his philosophies.
One cannot, for instance, ignore the existence of the Precursors; they are fact, they are no kind of fiction. His son was proof of that. The very fact that his son was their chosen one, possibly even the Mar of legend, only served to distance his opinion of the Gods that were worshipped. When Havenites swear upon the "mother of Mar"... he only knows her, now, as the woman he loved for years.
She is nothing to be sanctified.
She was a woman he loved, a woman who lived, and a woman who died, whose remains were lost to the sands and the shallow graves of Spargus' deceased.
There are no smoke and mirrors to the Precursors now, he has learned from his son. Certainly, they are powerful. Certainly, they are to be respected. Worship might be pushing it a bit.
And, thus, the questions remain: when one is faced with a set of beliefs that are rendered unbelievable, what does one do? If you know the facts behind the myths, what else is there?
If the monks claim to honor the dead in a certain way as passed down by the so-called wisdom of a set of glorified rats with superpowers, how is one supposed to actually honor the deceased? Do you follow those beliefs? Throw them aside?
These are the things Damas thinks alone on the top deck at night, staring at the missing patch of stars. He stands, stoic and still as a statue.
Out of some kind of morbid curiosity, he makes a voice post in the wee hours of the morning.]
On your homes, how do you honor your dead?
It occurred to him a week late that the anniversary of his wife's death had passed.
It hadn't occurred more than five years ago. She'd died just before Mar was kidnapped, leaving a once-proud king alone and undeniably bitter. There was always, in his mind, a question of what to do to honor her death. He had a rather unique view of the world religion; while Havenites praised the Precursors and thanked Mar, Spargans fought to honor them and not curse them in the same breath. For all of Haven's problems, including it's decline into chaos in recent memory, it had always been exactly what its name suggested: a haven. In Haven, you were safe. You had the Precursors to thank. Compared to Spargus, Haven was blessed, no matter how you looked at it.
Spargus was a kingdom of the forsaken. Forsaken by Haven, forsaken by the Precursors... with an outcast member of the House of Mar at its head. Damas couldn't help-- in some ways, still can't help-- but feel cheated. Outcast from a city that was rightfully his, he built a ramshackle kingdom on corrugated aluminum, rusted engine scrap and corpses of fallen comrades, only to have his wife and young son stolen from him some time later. The Precursors had either thrown everything they had at him, or turned his back on him entirely. He'd always thought that he was simply destined to be the master of these misfits and outcasts of Haven, outcasts of their Gods, as the crown ruler of the outcasts-- the master of the forsaken, the king of the wasteland.
But knowing his son had changed some of his philosophies.
One cannot, for instance, ignore the existence of the Precursors; they are fact, they are no kind of fiction. His son was proof of that. The very fact that his son was their chosen one, possibly even the Mar of legend, only served to distance his opinion of the Gods that were worshipped. When Havenites swear upon the "mother of Mar"... he only knows her, now, as the woman he loved for years.
She is nothing to be sanctified.
She was a woman he loved, a woman who lived, and a woman who died, whose remains were lost to the sands and the shallow graves of Spargus' deceased.
There are no smoke and mirrors to the Precursors now, he has learned from his son. Certainly, they are powerful. Certainly, they are to be respected. Worship might be pushing it a bit.
And, thus, the questions remain: when one is faced with a set of beliefs that are rendered unbelievable, what does one do? If you know the facts behind the myths, what else is there?
If the monks claim to honor the dead in a certain way as passed down by the so-called wisdom of a set of glorified rats with superpowers, how is one supposed to actually honor the deceased? Do you follow those beliefs? Throw them aside?
These are the things Damas thinks alone on the top deck at night, staring at the missing patch of stars. He stands, stoic and still as a statue.
Out of some kind of morbid curiosity, he makes a voice post in the wee hours of the morning.]
On your homes, how do you honor your dead?