Determination comes from termination.

The crown had entered the world with the wind at its back. It was a soft, still wind, as silent as the baps of the machines. What lay forth was new life, its respiration a desperation instinct.

In the matters of mores of old, the first thing to do was to let it suckle the nutrients of the world. Transformed from blood and excreted unto its white form. There it would grow in strength, multiplied by organs ready to be molded, one way or another.

Not every one survives the first second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, century. But for every breath taken, it is said that worth had been given. For life had a purpose, a meaning of sort.

Once outside the cradle, it’s time for the sorting center. Where ticks are given if you’re born of silk or straw. For the former, it’s yesmen and the race against the clock. For the latter, it’s the nomen and the struggle against the lock.

Beyond the first decade, problems open and situations cease. Into existence they say that it will be all for something. A certain path, story to be told.

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Yet again, not everyone sees beyond the darkness of the womb.

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Religious zeal sealed all in custody. The child was the last of his line. His first breath, the hope of holy binds.

“Who hadn’t attended this day of occasion?” a voice asked. The sentence reverberated. The dome of the church was made for it.

For a moment, only the organs played. Instrumental beats. “Dukes of yore and dukes of more, we’ve only got the entrenched middle in here,” replied a voice with a higher tone.

“Whereof I know, now stop with this archaicness, we have a newborn to welcome!”

The baby was dunked into the shallow basin after his first breath. The water was muddy, unclear from all the sediment stirred up. For his kind, it would be the first and last time to eat dirt.

The congregation started a hum as the newly baptized cried.

“There among the waters abroad,

Lay the land of all holy,

Read, rant, a ball solely,

Dares along the orders allowed,

Feast upon its jolly,

Sleep on top its folly,

Life is but journey,

And death no hurry,

I knew anew for you,

Don’t forget the due.”

It was the practice for the adherents of Mase. Something unknown to the masses, but central to the nobility. The audience of the christened child was a mishmash of low gentry and high bourgeois.

The families in attendance held well-respected positions within the Delamer kingdom of Taoka. Most of them followed Mase’s teachings but a few called on to the gods of the land.