The Impersonal Is Political

the impersonal is political

“It is commonly known that Ozriel, the Black Judge, who governs the universal aspect of death and destruction, carries a scroll which he uses to record the names of every living being killed in the severing of a world from the Way- both those who die in the events of the violent downward spirals that lower the local population enough for the world to become vulnerable to corruption, and those who live to be reaped by his own hand, at the end.

Each name is written in the native language of the deceased, presented in the fashion which would be most appropriate according to their culture and personal views.

This is surely not for his own benefit, as by his nature the Reaper has an exhaustively precise memory of anyone he has ever killed, and indeed of all deaths that have occurred in what may very generously be defined as the vicinity of his person.

During a legislative session of the Court of Seven, when the Judges had once more convened to discuss the matter of granting the secrets of healing known within the Way to mankind, Ozriel took the floor to argue in favor of changing the law, as he had every time the motion had been raised previously.

Instead of speaking, he held up the scroll and let it fall open, allowing it to continue unrolling in silence for the entirety of his allotted time.

By the time custom required him to yield the floor to his opponent, the scroll had unfurled to such a length that it filled all available space within the room, and had continued to unroll the list of names out the doorway and down the entire length of the hall, with no signs of stopping.

Makiel, the Judge who governs the universal aspect of fate, banished the scroll from the physical space around him with a passing whisper of thought and proceeded to make his own argument: that the Eledari Pact stood as written and would remain so, for though too-certain Death could witness all mortal suffering, even he could not see as Fate did the horror averted by the careful restraint of the Abidan.

Where their eternal laws might prevent them from doing some good, it also prevented them from committing any evil- and when considered on the scale of the Judges, a single evil act on their part would cause far more terrible suffering than the natural course of human life, short and often painful though it may be.

To strip away mankind’s certain protection in exchange for their uncertain benefit would, he insisted, be an act of monstrous arrogance.

Under popular opinion, Makiel’s position is currently held to be the more correct of the two, and indeed the motion was denied once more at a vote of five against three.

But Ozriel continues to tally the dead.”

-from “Laws and Records of the Abidan”, a series of case studies collected in the largest library on Sanctum

“Calder Marten, was it- remind me, exactly how do you spell that, again?”

“Why do you ask?”

“…Mm, never mind. If we’re lucky, I won’t need to know.”