11.18.2018

Judith Slays Holofernes, Pt XVIII

It closed its eyes again, and I could not help but wonder if Shedim cry as men do.  I sat in silence, watching its breathing grow more shallow, wondering if I should offer the knife yet.  Wondering if I dared ask the one future-related question I did have.  At last, I decided it could not hurt, and I leaned forward: “Can you tell me when she’ll be Called?”

The Shedim’s only answer was a wheeze, and I slipped my knife from its sheath.  No need for it to suffocate slowly.

I collected a few useful parts for spells, but left the majority of the creature for the scavenging birds that had already begun to wheel.  Our Diaries indicate that the Shedim honor their dead by devouring them. It was the last of its flock, but perhaps these distant cousins would do.

The Judaean Sabbath began at sundown this evening.  My ward absolutely refuses to do any training on Sabbath, which I’ve been trying to argue her out of, to no avail.  She tells me that if and when she is called, she will of course perform her duties no matter what day it is, but as long as she is merely in-training, she will not break Sabbath for my ego.  I will admit- I haven’t tried too hard to coax her.  It is nice to have a day to myself, and it’s often when I update my Diaries.  But now?

Had you asked me two months ago if knowing for sure whether or not my Potential would be called would have impacted my training methodology, I’d have given you a scornful, “Of course not!”  But now that I know… I find that it does make a difference, in my attitude, if nothing else.  She might be called tomorrow, or perhaps a decade from now- although I strongly suspect it will be closer to the former than the latter, if there is a threat so large as an emerging god.  Either way, I am glad that she will have no children to distract her from her calling. Or grow up motherless she is inevitably killed. Perhaps her god knew what he was allowing, after all.

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