plantfood [#428547] - Neith
“Then where are your gods? Why do they sit silently as we starve and fall to our knees in desperate pain?” she yelled, throwing her arm in a vicious arc.
The clergy members, all too familiar with Neith’s raving atheism, formed a semi-circle of placating gestures around her. Two had already left to gather the guardsmen. A clergywoman with a voluminous braid stepped forward with a voice of equal pleading and exhaustion. “Neith, please, I understand you feel no ties to any higher power but you have no right to question ours. You’re disturbing the temple visitors, so I’m asking you again to-“
Neith abruptly closed the gap between them and clutched the woman by her lavish garbs, eye-level and furious. “I have every right! It my absolute liberty as someone who is committed to actual reality and not utter delusion to point out your lies,” she seethed.
The woman was paralyzed with shock, abhorrence etched plainly into her body language. In the distance, two clerics approached steadily with the guardsmen.
“You collect riches from the destitute and wealthy alike to build these dens of deceit. And for what? For us to place our power into the hands of negligent, impersonal ‘gods’? So that we might placate ourselves into inaction and hope some disembodied council will finally bring us justice?” Neith released the woman and spun spitefully towards the growing crowd, “You’ve all fooled yourselves into believing there is anyone else in this world else who can save you! That something not even on this plane has the ability to take away the problems we suffer!”
“If your gods are always listening, why do they never respond even with these beacons of precious metal and stone? Why do you need these pretentious robes and jewels to prove you’re worth their sympathy?” She stomped abruptly towards another clergy member, yanking them forward by a gold-plated emerald necklace that laid over their collarbones. It was polished so finely that Neith could see every detail of her creased, angry features.
The guardsmen and returning clergy members entered the outer edge of the crowd. Their spired silver helmets jolted from the group, shouting a punitive, “Halt!”
Neith released the gasping cleric and lifted her chin to her audience, peering at them down her nose. “I’ll give you this. If your so-called gods do exist, they are lazy, cruel, impassive, selfish, stupid, and incompetent. They are no more glorious or giving than a barren desert. They have failed you, and for that, they are worth nothing of yours.” She turned again to the clergywoman with cold rage. “And you self-appointed minions are evil for conniving people into sacrificing what little they have to appease these nonexistent forces. You just take it for yourselves and excuse yourself as servants. You disgust me.”
The guards burst through front end of the gathered people, rushing to isolate Neith from the temple members.
“Horrible little ants,” she concluded. “Each and every one of you.”
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