A Chance to be

By: Kirrh Posted on: October 28, 2004

This is guaranteed to be a boring tale for some of you. For it contains no shining Paladins battling Infernals of old; no quests of Dragonhood or glory; no Divine decrees or intervention. None of those have any bearing on my life, and it is my life about which I write. This is merely a tale of survival, and the hopelessness of fighting the world for a chance to be yourself.

I was born in the Siroccian Mountains longer ago than I care to remember. If you wish for a reference, it was very soon after the Orc invasion that even now continues to plague the Dwarven inhabitants. My father led that invasion, and that was the reason for which were never able to care for each other. I could not understand why, when Sapience was so large a place, and we had space enough of our own, he had felt the need to drive the Dwarves out of the home they had claimed. He would just look me in the eye and grunt, "They dwarves."

I hated my stolen birthplace. Yet I could not leave it. I knew nothing of the world outside, other than the fact that those of my race were killed on sight in most places. And so I had no choice but to stay in the small Siroccian outpost, surrounded by those with whom understanding was mutually lacking. I was shunned by all my kin for what they saw as sympathy for the hated Dwarves; I was too weak, too much of a ‘sissy' to fight against those who had done nothing to me. I was shunned by all those who came to our village because I was an Orc. While there were those who allied with the Orcs, they hated me for the same reason as my kin did. But in the eyes of most who entered, I had been personally responsible for the plight of the Dwarves, and so I, along with the rest of my race, deserved only death. Certainly there were some who felt that it was unnecessary to kill children (in which case, thanks to their ‘mercy' I witnessed my family die time and time again), but more than my share of times, I was sent to Lord Sarapis' Halls. I never fought back. They would come in with their whips, maces, staves, swords, or even their bare hands, and they would attack me on sight.

"Please," I would say as they struck me over and over, "please take me with you. I have no argument with you, nor have I any wish to stay in this place. Show me the world outside this outpost which I cannot leave on my own. Let me be judged on who I am, not what I am." They would, sometimes, stop hitting me for a moment. If they were laughing too hard to continue. Treachery, they would call it; and me a coward, trying to lie my way out of death. Then I would die.

I spent half my childhood in the halls of the Logos. I looked around myself each time I was there, and I saw so many like myself-- slain not for what we had done, but for who we had been born as. Slowly I grew weary of it all. As I grew, there were always younger children, as I had been once, all being slaughtered. It was for them that I became a soldier. Because children are innocent from the sins of their race. I could not understand why those who claimed Goodness could kill them, who had done nothing wrong in their entire, short lives. I took up a sword in the defense of my people; never with the intent to harm anyone. Many among the ranks would taunt those who came to kill us; especially the Dwarves who sought vengeance upon all life in the outpost. The Tsol'aa, as well, hated the very existence of the Orcs. After I began to fight back, I never spoke to any of the attackers. I had learned it to be useless.

I remember every person whom I have killed. All have later come back and returned the favor to me. I didn't mind dying; I had protected the children from at least one useless, uncalled-for death. I gained reputation, in fact, as a fierce fighter; though none of them knew it wasn't for my own survival. They couldn't understand, none of them, that there were more important things than themselves. I died for them, they died for themselves, and nobody even acknowledged my existence as a person-- I was a soldier. And with that I grew bitter.

And with bitterness came the hatred. I hated the Dwarves lived in the mountains, in my mountains. I hated the murderers who came through my home and wiped out all signs of life on a matter of misplaced principle. Most of all, I hated the entire world for turning me into just another angry Orc.

The witch doctor, Gothmog, looks up at me from his scrying. "They come. Two Mages and a Priest." He follows as I walk silently out of the tent to face the assembled soldiers, women, and children. Grashna is there, and Thrakma with knives ready. Hatred at the invaders burns steadily in every gaze; including mine. I hate them because I finally realize why the rest of my race was the way it was and still is the way it is. "What do we do, Gorblatt?"

Nobody ever gave us the chance to be anything different.

"We do what we always do. We fight."