But for better or worse, this was home, growing up, mad jungles of cookiecutter homes, little league pyramid (let the children play, of course, but not without rules), and 4.0 (4.1, 4.2, 4.5, and still not valedictorian) GPA, at least one trip to a regional high school sports competition to show that competitive edge, enough public service to make sure you get a spot at Caprica University, the passport to the rest of your perfect life…
The city was a strange place, despite having grown up so close to it. You never take advantage, you know, when you live so close, you figure it'll always be there. The museums (houses of the muses, feel them in the walls), the churning politics, the celebrities- and the courses. Poetry drew her, first, an empty soul looking for filling, these were the words she was looking for. They meant something. She could feel it in her bones. But for the life of her she didn't know what- odd marginalia with vague pushes toward significance in the pages of her well-worn Timon Amichai. From poetry to the earliest poetry that was, where meaning lived so dense that three words could yields whole bibliographies of discussion, and Greje knew she was home.
Her Literature years had her on fourth string on CU's varsity Pyramid team. She never played more than three 'actual' games, and those all foregone wins or losses in which the team was sitting out its best players. She might have advanced, if her attentions hadn't gone pre-sem. She took up boxing as her new sport. Less group practice. Less pressure. And still she took second her senior year in the planetary university-level championship. A priest of Ares in the making, the press called her.
From pre-sem to seminary at Delphi (of course, the only place suitable for a promising young Caprican theologan), where she took in scripture and cult in equal wise voraciously, picking apart the texts with the keen eye of the Caprican Academic school of theology and performing keen exegesis upon rite and ritual, spending months abroad here and there at the most prestigious temples in practial service to the Lords, keeping notes of all that wasn't an impiety to put to paper, and coming out with several published articles before even dissertating. Her dissertation on Zeus and Dionysus was spruced up quickly into her first book, and following quickly upon its heels was a second volume on the same topic which secured her blacklisting on Gemenon (the straw that broke that camel's back).
After ordination, Greje was already anointed in the cults of most of the Lords, and, in order that she might be thorough, she collected anointings in all the other major cults, as well, and a couple of the minor ones that tweaked her interest. Roving from temple to temple wasn't difficult for a graduate of the Seminary at Delphi. It was more or less a free pass to anyplace you might want to pick up a three or seven month berthing.
It was after several years of this vicious voraciousness of cult that Greje began to notice that something was terribly wrong. Almost all of the people who'd been ordained in her year had settled down with their chosen Lords, at their chosen Sactuaries, and Greje, for her part, began to wonder where her place was in all of this. Began to realize for the first time that perhaps her academic interest in the subject far outweighed her faith. She tried to change, to pray more in earnest, to meditate, to self-medicate, to bring herself to the Gods in a more personal way. But no God ever called her to His or Her service. She felt disconnected, alone, and fell into a bout of depression. She had never been great with personal relationships, either, and the few boyfriends she'd ever had had drifted away in a fizzling of awkward efforts at romance.
At the suggestion of a concerned colleague she began to investigate opportunities in the Colonial Military Ecclesiastical Services. It was a good fit. They needed people who could perform a wide range of services to suit the needs of a diverse crew, rather than people devoted to one or two lords. She was tidy when it came to bureaucracy, and paperwork never frightened her, nor hierarchy. She chafed against some of the seemingly pointless regulations when she first entered, but in her first few years as a military Chaplain she began to understand how things worked.
The job gives her plenty of time to work on her own articled and pursue her own research. She's been able to help some people, which has made her feel vaguely of use, and she still holds out a vague hope that one day she'll become a real girl.
