- The Gray Wardens' Joining Oath
The pyres were nearly finished, and the few bodies placed upon them. My fellow Gray Wardens slowly stepped back from their work while I stood beside our newest, Rahul. A send off was in order for those who did not make it – Jorje, Loius, and Nordus.
I am Grey Warden Vaidas, formerly of Nevarra, and I have just witnessed my twentieth Joining, outside of my own. Again, most did not survive. A trend that the older Wardens seem to treat as common enough but disturbs me none-the-less.
There are some Wardens that take on overseeing Joinings. There are not many of us now, perhaps a few thousand in total throughout Thedas as the Dragon Age commences. But there are particular Wardens that wish to spend their time searching for new recruits, a daunting task given our decline and how many nations seem to not want to honor tradition in full belief that the Blight is over.
Last I was told, there had been seven Old Gods, and with four Blights I doubt the Darkspawn have exhausted their archdemon quota.
Recruits seem more and more to be commoners like myself – street rats, hoodlums, and members of a town or city guard. Half are conscripted on something they have done that would warrant imprisonment, but had impressed the Gray Warden witnessing it (or being a part of it in the case of some cutpurses) all the same. The head of the local Guard usually let the Right of Conscription be invoked with little fuss in most cases – it lead to one less thief to take up space in sometimes-full gaols, and allowed for no mess to clean up in the case of a potential hanging. Many of those invoking the Right seem to show some empathy with the accused – they were once in that same position.
While in current times there is no real ranking beyond the First Warden and local Commanders of the Gray, there is something of a pecking order and Joinings are left to some Senior Wardens – those who have been in for ten or so years. I am junior to one Senior Adiele, a woman teaching me what to look for in a candidate, and who sends me out with the recruits into the closest entrance to the Deep Roads to aid them in gathering their darkspawn blood, while also reporting the spread of the Taint in those tunnels.
Every year it seems closer to the surface.
Among the juniors, we have come up with a bit of a saying for what we see in the Joinings as to who survives and who does not – there are those of us that commonly are involved in the Joinings, but everyone attends at least one more than the one that brought them in, to remind them of the sacrifices we undertake. The saying is based on what one of our fellows, Alaben, once told us during his religious musings (of which there were many, he was found hiding in a Chantry after killing a man of some import, praying to the Maker). “It seems the Maker created Fate to be the toss of a coin,” he’d ruminate. “Good and evil, life and death, even the Golden City and the Black City – different sides to the same coin, heads and tails.”
And so we call it “The Way The Coin Falls. Or simply “The Way They Fall.” And we have noticed it for nearly every Joining.
One who is to die almost always collapses to their knees and falls forward. Adiele told me it is not what she looks for in a candidate she wasn’t sure about – she looks first for the gagging after the initiate’s eyes roll back from the shock of the connection to the Darkspawn (or of late, the voice of the archdemon we see in our sleep more and more). Naturally, if the Taint does not set in properly, the body wishes to expel it. Like a drunkard needing to empty his stomach of rank ale, the candidate will lean forward, or fall to his knees, grasping his throat. A drunkard would then be ill, on hands and knees. But the dying candidate would often expire well before retching, as the Taint would force itself out of reflux and into the body, killing the initiate instantly with the concentration of both Darkspawn ichor and that single drop of archdemon blood.
And so, he falls forward. Tails up. You lose.
The successful initiate however does not gag. Their back arches and they stand at attention, their minds assaulted by what they are now in contact with. Some of my fellows claim that the body is courageously standing in defiance, forcing the bile down. But I felt no such defiance in me, only shock, horror, and confusion. And when the mind takes all it can, the initiate faints, their legs buckling. This almost always leads to them collapsing onto their back, or side.
Heads up. You still lose. But perhaps the world wins a bit more.
The older Wardens do not fully encourage this view – they have seen successful initiates fall face-first, usually from the shock making them jerk forward. And I have seen one fellow simply tip backwards once, no buckling. A large man, I could not help but be amused by how it looked as if a tree was being felled. And I only allowed myself the amusement because he lived through it. He still was heads up, however.
Admittedly, it is all gallows humor among us, but it has started a small tradition with my branch of Wardens, at least among the younger ones. Even now the three pyres are being approached with trinkets. Usually, a shield with our Griffon emblem would be placed, face down, before a pyre. Or a coin of the initiate’s home nation, tails up. In the case of Jorje, his friend and fellow initiate Rahul brought out a broken toy soldier they had found amongst the trash heaps near the ghettos they grew up in and shared in play. Rahul laid it lovingly facedown; closer to the pyre, where its wooden frame and dry, cracking paint would catch once the fire reached its hottest. He bowed his head but a moment and stepped back to me, keeping his eyes on his best friend’s body with a set jaw.
The pyres were lit and we all began to chant our motto. “In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice.” It was spoken in almost perfect unison, like a hymn that rose with the flames. We were sending off brothers in arms.
Because, heads or tails, it is the same damn coin. And all who undergo the Joining are Gray Wardens, regardless if they emerge alive. They joined us, willingly, and met their fate. And one day, when we meet ours, we shall join them.
{This was inspired by the Dragon Age Wiki entry on Gray Wardens, from this line in the Trivia section: “In all joining cinematics if the candidate fails they fall forward, and if they succeed they fall onto their back.”}
Modifié par Meyne, 26 juillet 2010 - 07:59 .
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