I was born in a place that I care not to go to again, unless it is at the head of an army. It was a very small farm deep inside the Realm half way between the Imperial Mountain and the Imperial City. It was equally hard to get to any city and impossible for any farmer. The land was fertile but the portion my family farmed was small and we barely grew more than we used after taxes. We lived far from the roads and there was never any trade nearby. The local magistrate was the landlord of the area and it was his family that dictated what we grew. But only as long as we were allowed to be there. Just before my tenth winter, the land owner told us that we were to vacate the land and never come back. So we left our ancestral home of centuries, and began a long arduous journey to the nearest city to begin our new lives as beggars or what ever turned up.
The Winter was tough. When we were pushed off the land, we were not the only ones; there were hundreds of us each year. The growing population of Dragon Blooded meant that the scions of the great houses were being sent to oversee smaller and smaller areas. Smaller areas often meant more direct control. The cities were getting clogged by the increase of the disenfranchised, the poor. My father and my mother each found employment, but there were periods of unemployment too. I found more steady employment than my father, as there was always work for the very small. Soon, though, the Empress found work for my father as he was swept up in recruitment for the Vermillion Legion, as all beggars were from time to time.
When I got old enough I removed myself of the burden to my mother by going to the Scarlet Chapel and there I spent three days as a postulate before being accepted into the Immaculate Order. The trip to the Palace Sublime took a long time but the experiences of the previous few years left me more humble than all of the pilgrims on the journey.
The years I was a monk of the First Coil were some of the best in my life: there was a good meal every day, plenty of practice and the comrades of the cloth all near by. I was able to learn and proceed though the katas of the basic Immaculate style and after some time, I was allowed to follow in one of the Elemental Dragon styles—not to learn the secrets of the uses of essence, but the katas and the sutras. I decided to emulate Daana'd, to seek self sufficiency and to help others to depend more upon their own resources.
I understood that the Exalted would always progress faster than I would because they were closer to the Immaculate Dragons than I ever could, but I aimed to do the best I could. I attained the Second Coil after several years of devotion and it was said I progressed fast. Upon reaching that station I was sent to work in a Mission in the Threshold, in Cherak. I spent many months there acclimatizing to the region before traveling to the countryside. When I did I found the locals open to the teachings on Daana'd and they learned well at my hand. But all that was to come for naught, when my superior was replaced by an Exalted by the name of Peleps Deled.
The Scion of House Peleps had strong ideas of how things should be done and was very exacting in which interpretation of the Immaculate Texts was valid and which were heretical. All the monks had to fall in line with his ideals or suffer the consequences. The consequences were for the mortal monks quite swift and permanent: death.
Peleps Deled's interpretation focused mostly on the superiority of the Dragon Blooded and that of the protection of humanity from the Anathema threats and not to elevate the mortal life to a more self sufficient way of life. He made his point by showing to my parishioners exactly how self efficient I was at defending myself. The match was over in a very short spell, my crushed rib cage from his first blow seemed to sum up his point in his mind.
The minutes that I had in my life were painful, but I knew that while I was insignificant to the power of a chosen of Daana'd, it did not show that I was wrong. Not having air in my lungs, a working jaw, nor a space for my diaphragm to make speech possible, denied me my ability to make that point. I was not wrong.
The voice in my head spoke of the misfortune that my death was and asked me if I would still like to make that speech and if I had the power to make the Immaculates listen to you. I responded that I would like that very much, there was much arrogance in my soul after the indignity that was shown to me and the bullying that was done to my flock. I accepted.
I was born anew and I was greeted by my new Sufi who began to teach me many new things. I learned that self sufficiency was only the first step in a mortal's enlightenment. He also told me that what the mortal had to work with also determined how hard they had to work to gain self sufficiency and therefore how fast they rise to enlightenment after becoming self sufficient. He also taught me the Peleps Deled was correct to point out that I was not as self sufficient as I thought I was, but that the Immaculate monks all suffered from this delusion, the Exalted more than others. He told me that I should make sure to drive that lesson home as often as I could and to be aware of it myself.
He then presented me with a project. He desired that I free slaves from a nearby nation and set them up with the ability to become self sufficient and see if they can become enlightened from the experience.
The initial projects met with failure, but I was cautioned that there would be much failure to start with, but I would need patience. Later projects also met with failure, but my Sufi only expressed satisfaction at my many attempts, saying that it was also my enlightenment that he was concerned about too. He told me that I had progressed quite far and that enlightened mortals should not be the measure of my success; I had to weigh the fact of the difficulty of the circumstances that the mortals were in too.
I know that the ways of my master are harsh but he seeks the very best for them. I hope to continue to please him forever more.
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