Bathroom Monologue: The Worthy

"This will sound self-serving, but I don't think you've paid enough attention to the god you're trying to feed me to. This is an ancient god of five islands in a patch of frozen sea, who only appears in blistering weather, and whose only favored worshippers are giant raiders. He's demanded revenge killings for at least six centuries and decreed the blood of the "minor" be poured into his icy sea to thaw it. If local history is anything, he favors huge, cruel killers.

"I'd love to be walk across the cursed ice to the first for you, I really would. Then we'd have something to bond over and you'd stop considering me so dispensable. I understand why people from my culture would see this challenge of ice, beckoning the worthy to walk it, and you'd elect me. In my culture, the educated and the well-dressed are worthy of perhaps too much. I'm unscarred, I'm unsullied (thank you for that), and still probably electable for office if I get back home.

"Now if you'll look at these documents, you'll see none of the god' favorite heroes are even blond. Certainly none of these are unsullied city-folk; they're swathed in animal or human hide and scarred to the verge illegibility. So when he's talking about the worthy, he's not talking about lawyers.

"There's a perfectly good prison three days from here, full of perfectly good murderers and thieves. Some of them are probably his people. Half of them have to be some kind of descendents. The five island raiders got around, you know. I don't mean to be racist, just practical, when I say to buy a few of them and toss them at the ice.

"If none of them can walk the icy reef, then you should send a lawyer. For now, aren't I better used finagling prisoners for you?"