expiationlogs | A flame to guide the way (open log)

Who: William and anyone
Where: The Church of Many Faiths/near the forest close to Aldrip for firewood
What: William offering shelter from the cold
Warnings: None

If you need shelter, please feel free to come by the church. There are blankets and bedding in the communal area.

And to our newcomers: if you would like a place to make offerings to your god or gods, you're welcome to make a small shrine or something here. I would like this church to be somewhere we can freely share our faiths.

William spends most of the blackout in the church he has taken care of since late last year. It's a humble place, as one would expect, made cosy by the light of a few candles during this bleak blackout. In the aforementioned communal space, he has taken the trouble to create small firepits for people to gather around and huddle by or sleep near. Food is a little more difficult as he doesn't have the capital he does back home. However, he tries to at least offer some kind of soup - simple to make and easy to portion out to a large number of people. Donations are always welcome.

When not at the church, William can be found outside gathering wood for fire. He doesn't seem to care if the wood he picks up is wet or iced over.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Darnit, William, she just starts feeling even more flustered when you laugh about it like that! At least she can tell it's not a laugh born out of malice, since Ange has heard the latter often enough to be able to tell the difference, but it doesn't help her embarrassment all the same.

Maybe it's why she looks away, unable to look at him in this moment. Which, in turn, means that she completely misses what he's doing with that candelabra in favour of studying a seemingly very interesting spot on the wall.

(There's nothing there.)

"It's.. complicated," she says. Despite the pout still audible in her voice, she's being serious, rather than not wanting to explain out of some sort of petulance. "Where I come from, magic is really different depending on the person using it. I'm still trying to learn anything more than summoning demons, but since the butterflies are more just a side-effect of my magic, I can make those appear without any trouble. They always show up when I use my magic, regardless of what I'm doing."

"I see. That's pretty cool," he says, sounding genuinely interested. "So, even though you can't summon demons here, those butterflies still appear? In a way that's a good sign then because it means your magic still works on a fundamental level."

Got to think of the positives here!

"What magic do other people use in your world?"

Look at him being so positive about it. Even though there is a fundamental part of her magic that he disagrees with, he's still bothering to be this.. weirdly nice about it. Ange really doesn't know what to do with it. Thank god that he's asking her a question that she can focus on instead, so she doesn't have to say anything about the rest of what he's saying.

"It's really varied. I know one witch who can make anything happen, as long as there's even the tiniest chance of it being possible. Like making a miracle happen, I mean. And then there's another witch who can endlessly kill and revive people, only to kill them all over again."

... It's not all that great, William. Sorry.

There are two extreme examples being laid out before him and William is caught between amazement and...horror, really. Ange's world sounds so odd.

"I... I see." He wants to ask more about the miracle witch but morbid curiosity prompts him to ask: "Why, um, why does that witch want to revive and kill people endlessly...?"

He's going to regret asking this, isn't he.

"Because she thinks it's fun."

Sorry, William. This is likely the more regrettable answer here, but he did ask, and it's not like Ange is going to lie about this one.. Especially when she has zero reason to even try and defend Beatrice's honour. That's the hussy that stole her big brother from her after having murdered the rest of her entire family on top of it, after all. Screw her.

She'll take any opportunity to talk badly about that witch she can get.

"That's all. She doesn't care about life, nor does she care about people. She just does whatever she thinks is fun, no matter who else gets hurt or worse along the way. That's what most of these witches are like." Granted, it.. might set a bad impression of what Ange is like, given that she's also claiming to be one..

But that's a different case to her.

"...That's horrible."

He did ask and so he can't complain when she gives him a brutally honest answer. It's not as though he hasn't seen his own share of horrors perpetrated by demons against humans. If he were to encounter another human being committing such acts though, he doesn't know if he'd be able to keep a level head.

Someone like the High King, he thinks suddenly. He's incredibly grateful to have not lived through that war.

"You said you're a witch though, didn't you?" he asks carefully.

It might just be the singular time their opinions on this sort of thing overlap. Because Ange isn't offended by his answer at all - she also thinks it's horrible. The witch she's talking about sucks, and Ange would be more than fine with it if someone gave her a taste of her own medicine.

Hence why doesn't comment on that. She just silently agrees. But then William moves on to a question that is obvious, yet one that Ange hadn't quite seen coming all the same, despite what she just said. It makes her pause with surprise for a moment, but then she nods.

"That's right. I guess I'm just different from them since I only became a witch very recently. I feel more like a human than I feel like a witch, honestly."

Not that some humans don't think killing other people is hilarious and fun as well, but.. Ange likes to think she's at least not like that. Not even with the emotionless front she tries to put on a lot of the time.

The way she says that seems odd.

"Do you mean that most witches become witches really young? Or that they somehow...lose their empathy?"

He wonders if this is why she seems to deadpan all the time. Does becoming a witch change a person?

"The latter, I think."

Not that she knows whether the other witches really were human before.. But some of them seem to speak as if they were, once upon a time. Definitely very, very long ago.

"I have no idea how it happens though. Maybe it's just what happens when you grow way older than any person is meant to be. It could be that everything else starts to look insignificant at that age." Judging by her tone though, it sounds more like speculation than like anything Ange knows for sure.

She pauses for a second, and then adds a touch more slowly: "Not that I'm planning on becoming like that."

So apparently the girl doesn't seem the deadpan and relative emotionlessness as anything special or related to it, since she isn't bothering to bring it up.. Or maybe she doesn't notice it herself?

The look he gives her then is deeply empathetic. Even if there's no clear explanation for why witches in her world become the way they do, he thinks it's at least clear that it's beginning to affect her. Maybe she won't ever become someone who enjoys harming others (he hopes not), but will that only last until her apathy wins out? It's easy to justify morally questionable acts when you don't care about the outcome.

"I hope you can remember that," he says gently. "You still have a long life ahead of you. Make sure you surround yourself with people who care about you and can remind you about who you are."

A flame to guide the way (open log)

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