The Judgement of Orual

Orual, daughter of Trom, Queen of Glome. I am Brâdÿ D'Høust, God of Pirates, Slayer of Krakens, the Galemaker, Rider of the West Wind, Un-Tamer of the White Seas, speaker for the Celestial Council. 'Twas my brother first drew my attention to your land-caged country, to witness a mortal beauty of untold splendor: your half-sister, Psyche. In watching her grow so I watched you as you grew from self-pity to sisterhood, and from sisterhood to love, then from love to obsession, that vice so self-centered as to forget its own self-centeredness. I watched your self-love projected on another, and that love turn to hate when time came to realize she was not yourself. I watched you sacrifice the object of your love on the alter of your hate. In your rebellion against the beautiful, and his just union with like-beautiful mortal, you became the Shadowbeast you wished us to be. I watched you proceed to build a wall of carefully recorded facts around your self-harmed soul, watched you bury the truth in an elaborate tomb built from facts as firm as stone; watched the success of the Queen in all her endeavors, and how with every victory the original love was buried deeper and deeper a pittance of material victory; watched as a single story which erred in the facts struck deeper into the tomb than any fact, even the appearance of a god, could do. Though wrong in the telling of whom you were jealous, the myth of Psyche unveiled your jealousy to a light more dazzling than the smoldering coals of facts had cast in twoscore years. You were not jealous of Psyche, Orual. You were jealous of us. Jealous of a beauty pure and good and deserving of like beauty, jealous of a love of depth, passion, intimacy, purity, and obedience as it was intended to be. You have been found Jealous, Orual, and moreover Selfish, and moreover Utterly Bereft of Love, (even for yourself, for you know not how), and of Beauty (though not in the way your father always told you, but a much worse way in which your face played no part, and indeed gave advantage). On behalf of the Celestial Council, I hereby sentence you to Learn of your failings, to understand your sins in full, and to live out your remaining days in a terrible and sober peace which comes of realizing that you have been spared what you deserve.

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