The Name

MOI

You want me to disown my name. To kneel, to beg for mercy, and in exchange to be allowed to live. To live! As though it were a gift, when it is bought at the price of everything that makes it worth the having.

My father carried this name. His father before him. They fell, all of them, one after another, but not one of them fell to his knees. You can take the breath from me; you will not take that.

You think you hold me because you hold my body. Poor creatures. The body is only a door. What I am does not live there; what I am is beyond any chain, and no blade cuts it.

So do it. Do it quickly. The executioner is waiting, and I will not keep him standing with the pleading that would please you far too much.

But know this: in a hundred years your names, judges and kings, will be forgotten. Mine will still be spoken. Not because I won, I won nothing. But because I refused. And refusal, when everything commands you to yield, is the one victory death cannot take back.