“You’re not wrong, not completely anyway.” Whatever sense of self-righteous indignation had been in him fled as soon as he saw how badly it shook Eris. She was practically cowering and it was all because Michael didn’t check his pride. Reaching out to offer the woman some comfort he realized he had no idea if such a gesture was wanted or welcome.
His hand hovered in mid air for an awkward handful of moments before it fell to the angels side and he pulled his wings in tight against his back. “What you’re speaking of isn’t caused by injuring one’s grace. Me injuring my grace isn’t very different from your breaking your arm, it’s uncomfortable and needs time to heal but it probably won’t change how you see the world.” Michael swallowed an uncomfortable lump in his throat and mentally scolded himself for lecturing. It was a bad habit of his, something he did when stalling for time or not wishing to get to the point. “What you’re speaking of is a lack of faith.” the words were quiet and forced, and there was no small amount of shame bearing down on him at the admission.
“I don’t know the pain of a mother losing their child,” he imagined it might be something akin to losing a brother, “or how you recovered from such a tragedy. I just know that angels are beings of order and faith and losing either will surely drive us insane.” He hoped that was an exaggeration. That he had misinterpreted all such cases in the past. But there was a reason why lack of faith and disregard for other were considered such serious and dangerous crimes in Heaven.
Eris tucked a curl behind her hair, using the movement to buy her a few moments to compose herself before she faced the archangel once again. The lecturing tone he seemed to be so displeased with served the witch to gather her thoughts and rejoin the conversation. Sensing no malice from the archangel, she straightened again though she still bore her weight on the balls of her feet should fleeing be required.
“It is hard to keep your faith in something that is not tangible and forsakes you over and over.” Eris observed softly, her tone conveying empathy without presuming to know the full extent of his burden. Putting her faith in humans she could interact with had proved futile enough, let alone a being of such supreme power that he could give and take life with as much disregard as feeling breeze on his skin. “Harder still when he curses you with the one thing that could cause your desire to maintain belief to waver: free-will.”
“Going insane is generally not advisable.” Speaking from experience, her tone was nonetheless cautious lest she offend him again. “Sanity is about as tangible as faith, and similarly as easy to fix.” Looking around her, back at the church brought an encroaching sense of hopelessness. What more perfect symbol of disintegrating faith was there than a dilapidated church? When she spoke next, it was more to continue her train of thought than speaking directly to the archangel. “But there has to be some, or we would not be here right now.”
snowghoul
germansingergirl
tangentwithtanner
titsay
