Soul-stained

I am ashamed.
 
Mother, hear my words. Your son brings shame to your bloodline. Forgive my transgression. Witness my words of shame.
 
Father, hear my words. I bring shame to the family, to the people of the Godinja and to myself. Witness my words of shame, see my act of repentance.
 
Forgive me.
 
My memories of my parents are few and as I get older, they are dwindling still more. He and my mother were like so many others in the tribe: a young, bonded couple who had grown up together and practiced their skill of mask-making. They were well-thought of within the tribe because both demonstrated such finesse in their mask skills that both, particularly my mother, were considered blessed.
 
In time, as is the way, they had their first child – my sister – and some years behind her, they had a second. That child they named ‘Takkamer’, which in the language of the Godinja loosely translates to ‘born of the spring rains’. My sister used to tease me that it meant I was destined to be soggy. I have always loved my sister, even when she was sitting on my chest and punching me. I may have been seven summers her junior, but my father instilled in me from an early age that as a young Godinja, all women – no matter how old – were to be treated with the greatest of respect.
 
I was never going to take my place in the mask-making collective. To sit for hours and create something of such beauty and with such meaning was never within my ability. My feet ached to run, my heart beat with the wind and I ran free in the forests near the tribe, always at the heels of the hunters, always asking questions, always practicing with my bow. I was never turned away. My joy of hunting blossomed and bloomed and although my parents were saddened that I did not sit with them for hours, whittling and shaping, they were nonetheless proud to see their boy of only eight summers, triumphantly return from the woodlands with game for the evening meal.
 
Once, I remember sitting with my father when he was working particularly hard on something that was not a mask. It was a feathered fetish, not dissimilar to the one I hold in my hands now. I can still remember asking him what it was, still remember his deep voice when he told me of the honour connected to wearing the mark of the White Feather. Still remember how the words made me feel.
 
Still remember him looking up at me, at nine summers already starting to fill out with the strength of a young teenager and earnestly saying that the mark of the White Feather was one of the highest honours any of the hunters could receive. Such pride he had, for it was one of his own brothers who was receiving the mark. Those who bear the mark are considered pure of heart and soul and openly display the fetish as a sign of their vigilance against the all-shrouding darkness.
 
Less than a day later, he was dead. My mother, too, and many others in our small camp. The raiders struck swiftly and they struck without mercy. Thanks only to my mother’s swift efforts at sending my sister and I to hide in the woods, she and I survived.
 
The years passed and we got by on her skills of making masks and my ability to hunt. I ran with the pack and in time, I grew to young manhood. There was a woman who had my heart, but what could have been did not come to pass. But I did receive a white feathered fetish of my own, made by my sister’s own hand.
 
I have grown to an adult devoid of your guidance, my mother, my father, and I have always tried to walk the path you wished for me. I have borne the mark of the White Feather proudly and for many years I have taken comfort in the knowledge that had you but lived, you would have shared that pride.
 
I hold that pride now in my hand, as if I hold the very core of my soul. I am baring it for you to see, as I have done every year on the mark of the day you passed from this world. I am baring my heart, my soul, my pride and my honour.
 
And with the blade of this weapon, this axe of a great chieftain, passed into my hands by fate, I make a cut in my other hand. My life’s blood wells instantly and taking the feathers into my cupped hands, I allow the stain upon my soul to steep the feathers, to sully their purity, to reflect upon the honour gifted me by my people. With my own blood, I mark myself as shamed.
I will wear this mark of shame openly, as is the way of my people, marked as one who is less than worthy but not unworthy enough to be cast out.
 
In time, I will work myself a new mask. I am not the man I was before and I cannot move forward until I adapt to the man I am now. I am impure. I will work to resolve this, but I do not know how. As the Envoy’s witch says, I must tread carefully going forward, and I will.
 
My beloved mother and father, forgive my failure.
 
I am ashamed.