@direclat | cont. from here
𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐄 like I-no would expect reciprocation. Would all but demand to be shown due deference despite the impossibility of the idea that mortal hands might make something to her tastes.
A ridiculous notion, of course, considering how very human their God really was.
And for all that she is a divinity given form, it must be understood that I-no has never expected anything. Neither gratitude nor consideration nor reverence. She's long since grown past the idea that humankind will ever be grateful as they ought for all that she's done for them. For all that she might tug at his metaphorical leash, the choirboy is no different. All she does is with the understanding that, regardless of her intent- good, ill, or anything in between for her own amusement- there will be no reciprocity. There's really (but only in his case) no need for it. All she needs him to do is stay alive.
Well, that was all she'd needed before, in any case.
Now though, there is the reality that his role has been played, the future he was meant to prevent avoided. For now (and it's always for now, there is no rest for the wicked or the divine) humanity is safe, and he has little need to worry about making himself its sole savior. It makes it more dangerous, this little game she's playing with him- because who can predict what trouble it might bring? Nothing she's sure the mortals would say they can't handle, now that they're so sure of themselves. Now that they think their little peace with the Gears means anything.
(As if she didn't watch him die in Rome. As if she didn't watch the Command Gear burn the world because no one else could stop her by any means other than sacrificing his life to her. It might not seem like that to anyone else — but why else, then, is his one and only son named Sin?)
Dangerous, yes, but a game she plays nonetheless.
Because of the possible outcomes, there is one that would be worthwhile. One that might make her remember what it was like, before everything boiled down to that single word he now understands so well:
Inevitability.
She would always be God, and she would always be relegated to the past; unnecessary, since they had no need to pray to her for salvation anymore. Since they did not need her (supposedly) to save them from their own mistakes. That his is the only faith that perseveres, despite his lack of prayer feels like it means something. Like it must, for his sake more than hers.
So when he comes to her, all dark-clad and stern, as though he can cover up that light of his so simply, she welcomes him with open arms. There is little else she can do, because the game is turning in her favor, and with it comes the most dangerous part of all. That singular, fervent intensity of his, all focused on her. He may not overpower her- not now, perhaps not ever- but what God, in the eyes of such devotion (the kind that drives the devout to think of nothing, nothing but their deity) would not feel some reciprocal awe?
"Was it ever really me you were running from?" Though she asks it, she knows the answer as well as he, but if he's truly stopped running, then he needs to say it. She needs to hear it. Just as much as he needs to hear —
"Besides, you're a smart boy. You have faith and you have hope... but you didn't really think that's all you'd ever need, did you?"
