People call them the Judge. There are other nicknames for this being, of course. Justice. Equalizer. Balance. Redemption. All of these and more their names are through all eternity. A being who watches the world feeling no pain nor pleasure at what is seen. A being who feels no love, nor do they feel hate. They can feel respect, and honor. Kindness and compassion. But also can they feel disappointment and anger. Their job, from the time of their creation, was to be called upon when two individuals had a dispute. But, this being, it was dangerous to call upon them. For their judgments were final, no recourse once it was called out, and the judgments always came true. The ritual to summon the eternal Judge still existed, though most thought it mere myth and faerie tale now. Until that fateful day. The child was thin, was injured, desperate and despairing. A mere beggar in the streets that the entire village ignored, one of many orphans left to such a sad fate. They called out to the gods, a plea to speak to the Judge. The village needed to learn the value of an innocent heart. -- Anon Guest
A measure each of cold grave soil,
Of sweat wrought in honest toil,
Defeat's ashes, winnow'd in winds of change,
And innocent blood, shed from rage... -- from the nursery rhyme How to Summon Justice
They'd beaten her for no reason. Again. Until she fled once more to the shelter of the abandoned temple. Nobody else dared enter that tumbled ruin, and she reasoned that it had to be bad, just like her. She had to be bad, otherwise why would they hurt her like they did?
There was an old god in there. Abandoned and forgotten like their temple. Stiff and straight and faded. Paint that had once made it colourful was so flaked off that the underlying stone was all but bare. She had to crawl through quite the labyrinth just to reach it, but the place where the god still stood was sheltered and out of the weather. She had made her camp -her home- there.
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