by Corbin Adal on Fri Aug 17, 2012 4:30 pm
"He did not deserve this." came the young man's thoughts as he watched the acts proceed. There were so few things among the people that could cause a man to be put into punishment, and today was not supposed to be a day of sorrow. Finding stolen food was not supposed to be a painful act among them, but the rains had grown slender and the land had not yielded to their tools. Hunger was a friend ever-near, omnipresent in the day. But they survived, as they were always meant to. Leaner and leaner, the people grew while one man grew softer until it could not be denied that he was starving the community.
When they dragged him from his seat in council, revealing to all the collection of apples and grain that had been found in the councilman's chambers? The clamor had been so tremendous. Voices cried out and echoed from the walls of the structure, and justice was always swift among the people. The councilman could not lie or deny his place in it, but claimed innocence. The return cry of the man was haunting.
"I only did as nature bids man." he'd cried in hopes that his voice would be heard. And as they cut him down with their unforgiving knives, the cleric bore witness with the stoic expression that all of his Order had adopted when justice was meant to be meted out. But the call echoed in his thoughts and again he told himself that the man was not guilty of a crime against the natural order of things. Life had in its grasp a clever greed, and the councilman could not have turned away from it without turning away from life.
"He turned from life in innocence..." the cleric mused aloud before he and his Order returned to their meditations. And behind them, the call to council came anew.