Musings of an Orc 002 - I was a plough. Now I'm a fence. Just call me Metaphortimer.

Dying was a humbling experience. Mother and I did not disagree often, but the afterlife was one of a few things we never saw eye to eye on. I thought that it would be an eternal reward or punishment in line with your life’s efforts. Mother saw it instead as the Great Equaliser where souls are either beaten straight and recycled, or broken forever. Despite my experiences, I can't claim any expertise, but I think she might have been on to something. I can imagine her sly smile were she to hear that admission.

I struggle to describe exactly what happened to me that day. I accepted a blessing from the God Pharasma, and it killed me. My shade passed on to the Boneyard, where it witnessed the Line of Judgement. I had already been judged however, so I passed quickly onto Axis.

I did not like Axis. One would be forgiven for thinking that I would. But I didn't. Let me put it this way. I have always seen myself as a tool in the hands of Vanitthu. I was the scythe that clears barbarism from the land. I was the plough that tills the soil, ready for civilisation to be sown. Axis is a land with nothing to clear and nothing to sow. It is everything I dreamed of, and I hated it. My days were spent wandering streets that didn't need protecting. I practised skills that didn't need to be used. Artistry was too beautiful. Things ran too well. It sucked the life out of life. If I hadn't already been dead, I think I would have died of boredom. I didn't even see anything I found interesting enough to take as a trinket.

There was no ritual or ceremony to my resurrection. I simply disappeared from Axis, and woke up back in the real world. I don't remember exactly how long I was on Axis, but it was measured in weeks. Apparently I was only dead minutes though. Does time pass differently there? Or was it simply a dream given to me? I guess it doesn't really matter, as it doesn't change the experience I had.

This has make me question what I'm doing and what I'm trying to achieve. Clearly, civilisation can only be appreciated when barbarism exists to oppose it. Perhaps I shouldn't be trying to purge barbarism, but instead I should be like a fence, protecting civilisation and barbarism from one other. Once again, I feel the need to bow to Mothers wisdom. I never did fully grasped the true meaning behind her talks on balance, but recent experiences have given me some clues.

There is so much more I wish I could have learnt from her. I'm sure she would have had something to say about my magic die at this juncture. She would surely have said “Chaos framed with rules is useful. Your die has ten sides. If it were unbound by rules, you could roll it and get an 11^th side. This clearly isn't useful. If it were too bound in rules, you could roll it constantly and only get one side. Clearly this isn't useful. Only in Balance do you find meaning”

Or something like that anyway. I was never much able to penetrate the meaning of her lectures.

One...interesting... side effect of this is that I didn't return to my own body. While it shouldn't matter too much to me, as these hands can serve Vanitthu just as well as my old ones, it still hurts a little bit. Mother was always proud of her human blood, and so was I.