Why Be Arbiter?

JP with Voah and Gonyaul:

Gonyaul thought on her questions. Was that what he was saying? This ideation process was still in its infancy. He closed his eyes briefly to try and reduce one of his five distracting senses to help think.

“I think? Need absolute standard of measure. But when not physical, then what? What? I am thinking must be something that above the natural yes. Super-natural?” He wasn’t even sure if that last word was real or if he made it up.

To her other question he clarified, “I fix. Kagim not balance. … nnn … nnn” he was searching for the right common tongue word. “Kagim is truth.”

He nodded as if he thinks he used the right word to depict it.

Her brain hurt a little. She wasn’t accustomed to thinking outside the teachings of the faith and wasn’t even familiar with some of the concepts he spoke of. It didn’t help that his common was broken and he sometimes used words in his native tongue, about which she remained hesitant to inquire.

“I was taught that truth is dictated by the Pillars and I have been the judge and executer of those truths. But I have also seen what I believe to be contradictions to those truths in my experience here in Arcadia. Now I fear that I must hide what I have learned and forget about it instead of exploring and understanding it. So your people… don’t believe in… or teach about any Gods? But they teach you about an Arbiter? I have deduced that is why you were so nervous on the day we met.”

Gonyaul was confused by her statement. “Why must hide what you learn? Would not learn be important if fact? If you have truth than no questions will change it. No need to fear.”

“They no teach gods more than others believe such things. Arbiters are used for give nightmares and caution for how evil takes flesh when stray from kagim.”

He smirked playfully, “yes, I thought I die by you that day. Sometimes I still think maybe kill me.” He joked, but was he?

He brought the prepared rabbits over to the fire to begin cooking. It smelled delicious, especially after so many days of rations.

“Why do you be Arbiter?”

Despite their conversation, she had been paying attention to how he skinned the rabbits so that she would be able to do it herself some day if she needed.

“I must hide what I have learned because others in the Inquisition would not tolerate it and consider me weak… a traitor and a heretic... I would lose my position or even be executed.

I have heard about great evil. And I have seen it for myself. That is why I am Arbiter. I never wished to be seen as evil… only as vengeance and protection of my people…”

It wasn’t hard to tell that she was looking off into some awful memory.