Sgrios Mass: The Dead Young

Today an eager congregation gathered in worship with Minister Leanna, the Paramour, as she gave mass on the subject of youth in the cycle of death-life-death. The transcript can be found on the parchment below.
 This unfathomably warm time of the cycle is a time of abundance. Cail’s influence is felt when the sun shines down on the verdant paradise of Temuair. In these bright times it often feels like walking behind the enemy lines as I do my meandering through the typically dark woods here on the Isle of Dawn. Ah, the display of innocence these denizens of the forest exhibit could make even the most jaded cynic swell with a child-like joy. For, who would not delight as the brown rabbits frolic about, or when the songbirds form to chase the vulture from their fields?

And yet, even under the illumination of Cail’s bounty, none are exempt from the shadows. As I twisted my way deeper into the silent woods I came upon a fawn dead from an arrow wound. There are poachers in these woods, and, though I have alerted the Rucesion guards to the illicit hunting they scoff at the loss, protesting that any who tread this cursed island are punished by proxy to the darkness living therein. Like as not the poachers took the mother only to see the young one afterwards - surely one this young would not last all too long without it’s mother and they let loose another arrow to make that end a sudden one without much suffering.

I see this among mundane and aisling society often -- a grave marker denotes the remains of an infant upon which the observer laments the life lost too soon. How tragic, they note, that one should be removed from the world with so much potential left to spend. Our companions at the shrine of Glioca will shed the purest of tears over the loss of this young life whom they had never nor will ever know. Yet, even as I can adore the gift of life and the sparks we were entrusted with, I cannot feel pity for those who die young.

Yes, death can manifest as tragedy just as easily as it can provide a wonderful relief for those who find each day yet another in a chain of enduring suffering. There are those among us who live to a ripe old age having known nothing but failure and defeat; even more, still, who develop some horrid disease that wrestles the life from them slowly or rather painfully. These lost souls, after 30, 60, 90 Deochs or more would beg for death. You might argue that they lost their lives long before death brought her cold embrace.

Perhaps I am every bit as jaded and cynical as one would expect from a Sgrian Minister, but when I see the dead young I don’t lament the lost potential, I envy the short painless life they must have enjoyed. Naught but a haze; a false memory at best. My life has been long and fraught with pain, sadness and loss. Imagine the sweetness of dying before the world has the opportunity to teach these cold lessons to the living? It is, perhaps, the gentlest life one can lead, even if it lasts only but a moment.