JEHOVAHJIRAH
Written on June 19, 2019 (♊︎)
Author's Notes: I have a lot of thoughts about how incredibly weird the Glabados religion is despite having seemingly been developed by just filling the serial numbers off of Christianity and throwing in some info from the apocryphal Gospel of Judas. I also get sort of frustrated by how great it would be if one could actually read significance in a lot of the Christian imagery that seems to crop up in this game, because the whole Chapter 3 plot arc with Izlude, Vormav, and Wiegraf working together has some really neat synergies with the Sacrifice of Isaac that I don't believe were in any way intentional.
But anyway... yeah. This snippet doesn't have a ton to do with it despite its name being derived from the site of Isaac's sacrifice (where he was eventually replaced by... a ram). It's a thought that's percolating though.
Izlude balanced on the railing of the overlook, calmly walking one step after another as though his soft-soled boots were firm on the ground below. The wind was warm that summer's evening, and he stood, backlit by the red and gold spires of Lesalia like a saint circumscribed within stained glass.
"Do you ever think about what it will feel like to die?" he asked contemplatively.
"Yes," Wiegraf replied bluntly, looking up momentarily from the whetstone with which he'd been polishing his blade. "I'm not rushing to find out, however. Get down from there."
Izlude smiled with slight embarrassment as he stepped lightly to the stone floor.
"I mean, can you imagine what it's like to die... fearlessly? Not just bravely or something, but with that assurance that there's really nothing you could fear?" He fidgeted with the edge of his glove, feeling he wasn't making himself understood. "Like... the way saints die."
"Yes," Wiegraf said, his tone a touch darker this time. "I don't think on that often these days, though."
"I sometimes try to think what it must have been like to be Ajora, you know?—to know with that absolute perfection of purpose that you'd just pass into the Kingdom? I mean, maybe we can't know, being men, but I think of what I'd do if I had to face a Golgorand. What it's like to just let them slip the noose around your neck and smile and just peacefully step..."
"You should think about other things, Izlude," Wiegraf interrupted. "The Kingdom's still a way off."
"Is it?" Izlude's eyes widened. "You believe in the cause, don't you? That we'll see a new world, right?"
The sword edge slipped, and he knew he'd made a bad stroke. Breathing calmly, he set it aside before he ruined it further. Izlude didn't notice, still half-monologuing to the sunset.
"Surely that's worth the sacrifice?" he said. "Or at least the faith to make one? The Farists were wicked, but even their Gods only demanded the patriarch make the gestures and accidents of a sacrifice. Ajora is surely kinder."
Wiegraf stood up. "I don't know much about Farism," he said dryly. "I wasn't recruited as a theologian."
"Sorry," Izlude said sheepishly. "I'm rambling."
"This is your first mission, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Did my father tell you?"
Wiegraf didn't reply. He wished he had been assigned another companion on this journey.
"We'll do just fine not dying, you know?" Wiegraf finally said in as warm a humor as he was able. "God's seeing sacrifice enough these days without adding our blood to the altar."
Izlude nodded, trying to look reassured.
"Besides," he continued quietly, picking up the sword and stone as he walked back into the darkness of the chapel, "I'm not sure heaven has much use for my blood anyway."
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