ten_fwd | Where Angels Dare to Trod

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Where Angels Dare to Trod

Islington is walking along the ship. It is a steady pace. But slow. If people didn't know better, It would like like It was floating or gliding. If you run, It will walk. If you stop, It will continue Its pace. Never changing, never pausing. As if by walking, it can change something about this place.

It's garments seem to be made of light itself. As It goes along, It is humming an ancient tune: The Lyke Wake Dirge (As sung by Benedict Cumberbatch)

And that's the interesting thing about this particular Angel: It seeks neither to offer help nor the counsel of others. It is simply walking. Perhaps It is measuring the ship, perhaps It is weighing the integrity of the people gathered. Whatever the reason, It continues on Its journey. Simply walking....

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Something did not set right with her at that. "Truly? All the gods and their close kin I have ever met had red eyes. Though, Gilgamesh has an ego befitting of one as well. Mayhap it is just that I have never met anyone with different eyes, but it's the kind of thing that you notice over time."

She hadn't bothered asking Cu Chulainn or Gilgamesh on their ancestry, but then those weren't the happiest of conversations to begin with, either. Missed opportunities.

Oh she is revealing too much about herself. And the Angel is enjoying it immensely.

"I cannot explain your experiences. I can only tell you that I have direct knowledge of such things."

Grainne didn't care about that part as much as it happened after she started traveling the multiverse. That was more difficult to pin down.

"Are you sure that it is the same in all universes, then?"

"I know the creator of all universes."

How Its knowledge is interpreted by others is a completely different matter.

Something seemed very off. Grainne stared at him blankly for a moment or two, before asking in a hollow voice, "Then why did this creator, create the Tower of Animus?"

"Describe this Tower to me. Because, as you have pointed out, I am not from your universe and it's possible that it means something different to you than it does to me."

It is currently thinking she might mean the Tower of Babel, but without more information, It cannot say for sure.

Taking a deep breath in, Grainne steeled herself to talk about it. This angel was a perfect stranger, and there was no reason she should trust him- it. Yet... if it could provide answers, she would take the risk.

"It is a... a universe, where they created a giant Tower that experimented with the... the aspects of humans. Psionic energy, the mysteries of the mind, and even souls. That's how they destroyed their own universe. Not just their own, they created a mad... god that destroyed many universes, including mine. Why would this creator allow something like that to happen?"

"I see. You had initially said that the Creator created that place. It did not. That place was created by creation. But to answer your question: we do not intervene when a leopard kills a gazelle. Why would we do such just because the creature is deemed to be 'more sentient' than an animal?"

From their perspective, it is really the same thing.

"You are implying that a creator would not intervene when its creations discovered the means necessary to both destroy and create new universes. I thought 'God' was a jealous god." She replied evenly. "You're also implying that the implantation of an entire universe worth of souls into one being alone is equivalent to the natural order."

"I am simply stating that Creation is allowed to be Creation. Jealous? In some respects, I suppose that is true. But just because creatures want to be like God, doesn't mean they are. And they reap what they sow eventually. Like Lucifer."

It's not bothered by her pushing It. It's used to such things happening.

"It may be the 'natural order' for those creatures to have done that. Who are you to decide otherwise?"

"And who are you to decide that in the first place? We all have free will, do we not? When a soul is yanked unwillingly out of their state of existence and forced to carry the souls of its own universe around, they have a right to object. It was not some accident of nature. It was one person's choice inflicted on countless beings. Punishments beyond human comprehension perpetuated on entire universes of victims. Minds and bodies broken over and over like a child's plaything. If 'God' is supposed to be merciful, then he had his back turned to that place and all its lifeless worlds."

Grainne did not comment on Lucifer, but something in the back of her head brought to mind Naoya and the state of his world. His inner sadness. What she remembered of it had been horrible, terrible things happening even before Ruana had set her sights on his universe. What did he say? Some cult had been trying to do something and punish everyone? The details were lost in the months after that place, when she tried to suppress everything about the ordeal. She wondered how Naoya was doing now.

Then she wondered why she had thought of him in a conversation with the angel.

"You are correct. You have free will. However it doesn't mean choosing to do whatever you want. It only means that you can act within your own agency. And that is why we do not interfere. You call it turning our backs. But it is not. Those creatures captured you. That was their free will. How you reacted to being captured is your free will."

It really is that simple. Too bad most humans don't understand how free will actually works.

"It is not my choice to still be suffering from the damage that caused." Grainne finished, her expression falling away from her usual mask and letting the torment show through, if even for a moment. "It's not my free will."

"You have suffered greatly, I can see. However that suffering has ended. Yet you are clinging to something. Attachment is the cause of suffering. So if you let it go, then the rest of your suffering will cease."

It is an angel, specific religions matter not to It. Nothing wrong with Buddahism.

An eyebrow quirked at him, and she gave him a skeptical look. "That is more easily said than done. But still, I am making an attempt."

"I never said it was easy. It is, however, necessary. And it is possible. Which would probably be a good focus for you."

Well, for anyone, but It is talking to her right now.

"Any advice on how to do so?" The question came out as rather dry. It wasn't easy letting go of a literally lifelong obsession, and others had tried to help her already. She did make some, but it felt too slow for her.

"Advice? No. It is a different sort of angel that offers advice. However, I can give you something to think about. Take breathing. People think when they have trouble breathing, they suffer because the automatic response has been interrupted. However, I would say, they are attached to breathing beyond what is necessary. When people die, if they release their attachment to breathing, it becomes an easier and less painful death. People who maintain their attachment, suffer."

It thinks this is very helpful.

"People never think about all the things they are attached to until those things are jeopardised or taken away completely."

Tilting her head, she frowned ever so slightly. "I did not have trouble letting go of life or breathing... I think that is more an instinct to keep breathing until the last." Once the important people in her life either died or moved on, she really had only one reason to live after that. Her old age made even that less important.

Grainne started to think on the subject, though, wondering if she would have had a happier life if attachment had not troubled her.

"Calling it 'instinct' is the lie people tell themselves so that they don't have to release the attachment. There are people on this ship who are dead. But if you watch them, they still breathe. They don't need to. It's their attachment to it that causes them to continue."

Well, that's how Islington views it, anyway.

"Is it? I thought I was merely breathing to gather stray prana in the air." Grainne didn't really know how her body made of prana worked though, but now that she thought about it, it would be an interesting study of magic.

It is unsure what 'prana' is, but the concept is the same.

"If you say so. However, even that could be a form of attachment."

"It sounds very much like there is no singular way of having no attachment..." Grainne, oddly enough, looked discouraged. "Perhaps it is impossible for mortals." That word kept coming up in her life. Impossible love, impossible life, impossible conflicts. "Are you truly serious about showing the way an immortal would think?"

"I have been doing that this entire conversation."

Unless she hadn't been paying attention, which is always possible. It's so frustrating when the mortals didn't listen.

Grainne raised an eyebrow, but realized more or less he was right. Whether that was comforting or not, she would decide later.

"I suppose that is true. Is it not just as easy to say that if a conversation has a particular angle, though?"

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unfallen - 2016-02-14 12:57 (UTC) - Expand

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