Split the Stride
A Coming of Age, or an Ending of Youth
You didn't even go between Sharenskus's legs, you went behind em. Come back when you've done the real thing, this table is for adults only.To many foolhardy youth that live across the coastal city of Russin, the path to adulthood is routed between the two giant legs of the water bound God-husk Sharenskus. If one wishes to think of themselves fully mature, they must undertake the extraordinarily dangerous stunt of captaining a sail or steam ship through Sharenskus's legs, while he is in mid stride.
The brave die young
The tradition is an extremely popular talking point among all those who call Russin home -- yet barely a fraction have attempted it, due to both the theoretical danger and the proven deadliness it possesses. Tales of splitting the stride are passed from older generations to the younger as a warning not to attempt the ridiculous maneuver; those tales are then passed around between students on lunch break as mythical stories of those who attempted the impossible. Every single year, even with all the warnings, a few dozen people attempt to split the stride. Most are stopped long before they even reach Sharenskus; there's a watch tower on Break Point exiting the Russin harbour district, as well as always at least one guard boat in the water. However some still manage to sneak through -- and while there are a lucky few that survive the extremely risky ritual, a significant portion never make it back to shore.
Oh, no, absolutely not. I never even dreampt of splitting the stride -- at least, not after I watched my closest friend attempt it and nearly die.
I love that you made a coming of age ceremony that only the foolhardy would attempt. Many such examples in our world, it is nice to see it done in a fantasy setting too!
Thank you! Yeah, I definitely remember seeing a lot of that sort of attitude when growing up -- "you're not cool if you don't do BLANK!", so it's really fun to take it in a fantasy direction too :)