The Eunuch's Journey to Wholeness

My name is Haakon. I am a eunuch.

I was born to the dirt, in a pile of straw with two younger brothers and two older sisters. We were poor, but happy. My father worked as a farmer, my mother cooked, cleaned and sewed for the wealthier families nearby. When I was seven they sold me into slavery to pay off the debts they had run up from gambling. A black market slaver offered me to the Captain of the Royal Guards for one hundred gold pieces.

The Captain took an interest in me, called me to his chambers and bought clothes for me. He told me he was amazed by my strength and endurance and decided to make me his squire and body guard. We are both men, or at least that's what he tells me, so I'm not sure why he needs a body guard at all. Not that it matters to me really. He feeds me three times a day, gives me room and board and pays me in gold once a month. I like him. He's kind of funny too.

But I digress; that is how it all began, but now... now there is this place where all the old knights go to die when they become too weak to fight anymore or need healed or whatever. They call it The Garden of Serendipity because who knows what you'll find there? Some say it's home to god given wisdom others say it's cursed and you'll wander there until you die from hunger or thirst or some other horrible way just like the crazy old men who live there now do! Either way I don't mind going there when my master asks me either to get him something or get him out of whatever trouble he finds himself in when he gets drunk and does something stupid or meets someone new who wants to talk philosophy instead of whacking them over the head with his mace! *

There was one time when he went there though... It was strange! We were sitting down on a nice stone bench near one of the lakes they've got there in that garden place when suddenly he just started telling... talking about how he met this girl once named Anna who liked him so much that she wanted to marry him but how he felt like she didn't understand him... She was always trying to get him to wear pants! Pants! And how even though she gave him gold rings for their wedding day he never did figure out how to put them on his fingers anyway! Then he got quiet for a while again before yelling out: "I never want hear anything about pants ever again!" Which naturally scared away all the birds that were living in those trees around us!

Then after laughing at our good fortune at having startled so many birds we just sat back down again and stared into the water for a bit before I asked him if he'd ever been married as well and why not since everyone seems to be these days? To which he replied "No" then added: "Don't want no woman telling me what to do!" After which we both laughed quite hard at this absurdity! But then as if remembering something important he got quiet again before saying: "They're all liars anyway... They're only after one thing." And with that said jumped up from his seat seemingly in a better mood than before and said: "Let's go kill someone!" Which we did later that week when some travellers came through town selling cattle who weren't paying taxes on their goods like they should have been!