Opening the door of the very humble-looking chapel leads to an interior that is more akin to a Catholic church. It’s a grand building, though not of the scale of a cathedral. It’s architecture suggests it might be a basilica, but that can be hard to tell.
In any case, it’s bigger on the inside, and the figures depicted in the stained glass are unfamiliar. There seem to be nine figures, four to each side and one at the front, behind the altar. Said center figure seems to be a man with two heads- one that of a man, and the other that of what is most likely a dragon.
Though no one seems to be attending the church, and though it’s the middle of the night (wait, then how was the foliage outside so vibrant?) the room is warmly lit with several burning braziers, and numerous lit candles adorn the altar.
What a strange place. He's not unused to the idea of very Church-like motifs being used for other, and even poly-theist faiths; the Temple is one for example, with their towering windows of stained glass. Back home, it's not something he sees often beyond the structures of the Abrahamic faiths. But the universe is wide, and he could be wrong even on Earth.
This is all to say that the idea that this is somehow appropriated does not spring to mind, despite recent experiences with idolatry and blasphemy. Curiosity sparks in him instead, and he finds himself looking around for information of any kind, be they books lying around or plaques beneath the windows. Or if none of those are evident, perhaps peering more closely at the altar and the two-headed figure will be more illuminating.
There’s actually quite a lot of information lying around, books tucked into the pews and plaques under each window. The nearest one, depicting a woman with flowing hair, reads:
“Kynareth, Mother of the Weather, Wilderness, and all Creatures of the Air. Honor faithfully her domain.”
Not a name he's seen before, so likely not from one of the faiths he's already encountered.
He continues to tour the plaques beneath the window to familiarize himself with the names. Very, very odd. What is such a well built structure such as this doing here on the island, when he's never heard of a local faith besides that of the four seasonal Mothers? Unless Kynareth is somehow part of some kind of syncretization?
He gleans what information he can from the plaques and skimming books, before coming to inspect the altar and the central statue. These braziers and candles are all lit...
It's as he turns that the lighting changes, from warm and inviting to a cold, bleak, unearthly blue. The windows are shattered, the pews overturned, and a chill wind howls down through the dilapidated ceiling. The air smells like blood, metal, and ash. And on the altar, laid out like a feast for flies, is the beaten, bloody body of Harry Powell.
At least, it seems like just his body at first. He's being picked apart by what appear to be blue, slate-skinned imps, which are ravenously and gleefully stuffing chunks of him into their toothy maws. After a moment, a blue fire ignites behind his eyes, and he begins screaming, alive and awake but seemingly incapable of moving otherwise.
The church smashes itself apart. It’s a howling and raging wind that Mulcahy flinches and cries out from; in a second he will feel a sense of divine wrath in such an immediate and drastic, terrible change; but in this moment, what he thinks of first is the war. Shells, iron, and a bus full of wounded.
And there is a wounded man.
He doesn’t understand what’s going on, but he’s convinced that either God or some other divine power has laid this purgatory on Powell, freezing him in this moment of most humiliation and at the same time ossifying Mulcahy’s most shameful act–he stares in horror at the imps, too familiar with the smell of blood and tear of sinew. And he claps his hands over his ears when he screams.
This is his shame: that he hesitates. That for a moment, two, three moments, he considers going away.
It isn’t guilt that moves him forward. It is deeply rooted instinct. Not a jerk reaction like a flinch or a scream, but a behavior as inherent to him as shepherding is for the working dog. Mulcahy rushes in to help and attempt to beat the imps away. “Get off of him! Off, all of you! Off!”
Any relief he could have had at Powell's being alive is snuffed immediately. Still--a M*A*S*H doesn't refuse to treat someone just because they're the worst person you've ever met. They treated the enemy, too. It's not their lot to cast judgement like that. Only to heal.
"Keep him out of this or I'll lay you out again, and you won't like how I do it!" he snaps, as he gently tries to ease his arms around the man to carry him from the altar. "You know as well as I do that it's only the luck of Providence that of all people to end up here, it should be me."
“I’d… rather die than accept the likes of you. There is no redemption for the sinner who attributes the works of God to Satan. The spawn of Sodom and all those who are sexually unclean shall not inherit- ggk!” He’s suddenly cut off as one of the imps suddenly leaps upon him and tears out his throat, holding the grisly trophy with an air of triumph, before the others start scrabbling to steal it.
“Nasty little things, Banekin,” comes a voice from behind Mulcahy.
Mulcahy reels back in horror. It is the grace of having seen such slaughter before that he does not drop Powell outright, but it's a near thing. Instead, Mulcahy makes his peace with the massive splatter of viscera now staining his front, and sets the corpse down, albeit ungracefully.
He steps forward to start shooing them from the rest of the corpse when a voice issues from behind him. Blood freezing, he whirls around to see who's caught him here.
Mulcahy would back away, but two issues: first, he’d bump back up against Powell’s corpse. Second, he’d show fear.
It’s just Theodore. He knows and likes the man, and yet—and yet something feels so deeply wrong. Obviously there’s the inexplicable presence of Powell and these imps and the church and the fire, but there’s—there’s horrible and impossible such that either he’s been beset by devils or he’s dreaming… and then there’s another underlayer, a mysterious off-ness that he doesn’t understand. And he can’t stand it.
“Because what he wants is denying himself his peace,” Mulcahy tries sternly. “And no man should have to suffer forever like that. How are you here?”
"Of course not. But it may be best that you know what you're up against."
He gestures to the implike things, which are keeping their distance now, seeming uncertain in their actions.
"Banekin hail from a realm that, at its core, is Domination-as-Consuming, Hope-Crushing, Forever-Chained. Daedra are... how might you say? Embodiments. His own hatred, his constant companions, are quite literally eating him alive when he no longer has what he needs to lord over his surroundings. That's quite typical, of those that seek out ol' Molag for power. The promise of being powerless under someone else, so long as you can dominate everything else in turn, is quite appealing when you don't think too much about it. After all, most mortals realize they're inevitably under someone else's heel- isn't it just a matter of survival and practicality, to make sure you end up as close to the top of the heap as possible?"
This is reaching into a kind of alien mysticism that 2 would never once have bothered with. In all those years he was never so imaginative, and if there was any kind of mystic or occultism he bothered Mulcahy with, it was his own.
That stinging iciness in his nerves doesn't go away, but this... is different. It's the shallowest compensation.
...
"How are you here?" He wants to know what kind of game he's expected to play before he plays it. This, before he answers any questions, before the man tries to pull a confessional from someone whose most terrible mistake he can clearly already see. "For that matter, what is here?
“We’re somewhere, I believe, between a dream, a desire, an an appeal for help. And I… well, I suspect I’m here because I have a tendency to promote change, for better or worse. And I’d rather it be for the better in your case, Father. I do like you.”
He walks over to a nearby candle, snuffing out the icy flame and seeming to conjure up a new one that glows with a proper warmth. The orange hues of comfort and safety begin to radiate from it, but there’s a distortedness to it. The edges of the world are too sharp, too deep, like heavy strokes of an oil painting, and the colors are a little too bright.
“You don’t trust any of this,” he remarks, tone neutral, as he scoops up a piece of broken stained glass. It turns into a butterfly and takes to the air.
“Probably best that you don’t. I had a dream recently that kept folding in and in and in on itself, and by the morning I had folded myself into such a tight knot.”
"Sometimes they're wonderful. More vibrant than anything I can describe. Sometimes, they're torturous, designed to break me. I break quite often. It's part of my nature."
He walks around the church, life blooming in his footsteps. It isn't restoring the place to what it was, and in some cases it's actually hastening on the ruin, roots pushing through cracked stone, but it's a sort of destruction that lives and breathes and grows.
"You're a fool to keep fighting, Father. But that isn't a bad thing."
“You grow. You grow and you grow and you grow. Twisted and strange and refusing to die. You form new shoots where the world cuts you back. You learn to grow around your hollows and let life shelter in it. You push up through cobble and masonry and make it crumble as you reach for the sky. And you ready yourself to do it again when they cut you back.”
He pauses.
“Someday, you might find that you can’t grow back. When that happens, you let yourself rot. You feed the next thing that will grow in spite of them. If you know you have that power, they cannot destroy you in a way that matters.”
As Theodore speaks, he lowers to his knees in front of the body and clutches Powell’s cold, stiff, cruel hands in his. He had the words love and hate tattooed onto his fingers for some unfathomable reason; the one he clutches now reads love.
This is as he was conditioned to do: turn away from the living world to mire himself in guilt, in what was never really a failure at all.
“You make it sound so wonderful,” he sighs. “But I’m no plant, Spirit. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t—I don’t know if I can.”
He knows he’s speaking metaphorically, but the point us that he feels far more like a dead bush whose woody skeleton has been there for years more than he does a thing that can change. Not in a way that matters.
“No one knows what they can do, until they do it. But if you’re looking for proof, Father, look back at what you’ve done. Really, look back. Start digging back the soil, and you’ll more likely than not find you’ve got some sturdy roots.”
“Tell me, Father, truthfully, would you rather be capable of love and feel this agony, or never feel love at all and spare yourself from the pain?”
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2024-11-14 03:51 am (UTC)In any case, it’s bigger on the inside, and the figures depicted in the stained glass are unfamiliar. There seem to be nine figures, four to each side and one at the front, behind the altar. Said center figure seems to be a man with two heads- one that of a man, and the other that of what is most likely a dragon.
Though no one seems to be attending the church, and though it’s the middle of the night (wait, then how was the foliage outside so vibrant?) the room is warmly lit with several burning braziers, and numerous lit candles adorn the altar.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-14 05:04 am (UTC)This is all to say that the idea that this is somehow appropriated does not spring to mind, despite recent experiences with idolatry and blasphemy. Curiosity sparks in him instead, and he finds himself looking around for information of any kind, be they books lying around or plaques beneath the windows. Or if none of those are evident, perhaps peering more closely at the altar and the two-headed figure will be more illuminating.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-14 02:17 pm (UTC)“Kynareth, Mother of the Weather, Wilderness, and all Creatures of the Air. Honor faithfully her domain.”
no subject
Date: 2024-11-14 03:49 pm (UTC)He continues to tour the plaques beneath the window to familiarize himself with the names. Very, very odd. What is such a well built structure such as this doing here on the island, when he's never heard of a local faith besides that of the four seasonal Mothers? Unless Kynareth is somehow part of some kind of syncretization?
He gleans what information he can from the plaques and skimming books, before coming to inspect the altar and the central statue. These braziers and candles are all lit...
cw: desecration of a corpse, hellish torment (being eaten alive)
Date: 2024-11-14 04:11 pm (UTC)At least, it seems like just his body at first. He's being picked apart by what appear to be blue, slate-skinned imps, which are ravenously and gleefully stuffing chunks of him into their toothy maws. After a moment, a blue fire ignites behind his eyes, and he begins screaming, alive and awake but seemingly incapable of moving otherwise.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-14 05:19 pm (UTC)And there is a wounded man.
He doesn’t understand what’s going on, but he’s convinced that either God or some other divine power has laid this purgatory on Powell, freezing him in this moment of most humiliation and at the same time ossifying Mulcahy’s most shameful act–he stares in horror at the imps, too familiar with the smell of blood and tear of sinew. And he claps his hands over his ears when he screams.
This is his shame: that he hesitates. That for a moment, two, three moments, he considers going away.
It isn’t guilt that moves him forward. It is deeply rooted instinct. Not a jerk reaction like a flinch or a scream, but a behavior as inherent to him as shepherding is for the working dog. Mulcahy rushes in to help and attempt to beat the imps away. “Get off of him! Off, all of you! Off!”
cw: religious bigotry, torture
Date: 2024-11-14 06:16 pm (UTC)“Miserable get of Sodom… you think I want your pity? Your mercy? Filthy companion of that whore of Babylon-“
The imps, seemingly emboldened, start inching back towards him, though they still eye Mulcahy warily.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-14 06:33 pm (UTC)"Keep him out of this or I'll lay you out again, and you won't like how I do it!" he snaps, as he gently tries to ease his arms around the man to carry him from the altar. "You know as well as I do that it's only the luck of Providence that of all people to end up here, it should be me."
cw: religious bigotry, dismemberment
Date: 2024-11-14 06:48 pm (UTC)“I’d… rather die than accept the likes of you. There is no redemption for the sinner who attributes the works of God to Satan. The spawn of Sodom and all those who are sexually unclean shall not inherit- ggk!” He’s suddenly cut off as one of the imps suddenly leaps upon him and tears out his throat, holding the grisly trophy with an air of triumph, before the others start scrabbling to steal it.
“Nasty little things, Banekin,” comes a voice from behind Mulcahy.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-15 03:01 am (UTC)He steps forward to start shooing them from the rest of the corpse when a voice issues from behind him. Blood freezing, he whirls around to see who's caught him here.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-15 03:09 am (UTC)“You’re fighting a losing battle, Father Mulcahy.”
no subject
Date: 2024-11-15 12:05 pm (UTC)How? This is—he’s sitting there like he expected him. Like he’s comfortable. Like…
A feeling, freezing cold and prickly and horrifyingly familiar, crawls up his nerves.
“That has never stopped me,” he says warily. “You know these things, Theodore?”
no subject
Date: 2024-11-15 12:13 pm (UTC)“I suppose what I’m asking is, why are you trying so hard to keep him from what he wants?”
no subject
Date: 2024-11-15 12:35 pm (UTC)It’s just Theodore. He knows and likes the man, and yet—and yet something feels so deeply wrong. Obviously there’s the inexplicable presence of Powell and these imps and the church and the fire, but there’s—there’s horrible and impossible such that either he’s been beset by devils or he’s dreaming… and then there’s another underlayer, a mysterious off-ness that he doesn’t understand. And he can’t stand it.
“Because what he wants is denying himself his peace,” Mulcahy tries sternly. “And no man should have to suffer forever like that. How are you here?”
no subject
Date: 2024-11-15 01:46 pm (UTC)Tap.
“I’m afraid you’d have to tear through a whole army to get through to him. An unenviable task. Tell me, Father, is he not consumed by hatred?”
no subject
Date: 2024-11-16 11:03 pm (UTC)His gaze turns bitter and suspicious. “Of course he is. Should that mean that I abandon him?”
(It’s an ugly and thankless duty, to care for people in spite of their tireless hatred for others. It’s just the thing for a priest to do.
He’s so tired.)
no subject
Date: 2024-11-17 11:34 pm (UTC)He gestures to the implike things, which are keeping their distance now, seeming uncertain in their actions.
"Banekin hail from a realm that, at its core, is Domination-as-Consuming, Hope-Crushing, Forever-Chained. Daedra are... how might you say? Embodiments. His own hatred, his constant companions, are quite literally eating him alive when he no longer has what he needs to lord over his surroundings. That's quite typical, of those that seek out ol' Molag for power. The promise of being powerless under someone else, so long as you can dominate everything else in turn, is quite appealing when you don't think too much about it. After all, most mortals realize they're inevitably under someone else's heel- isn't it just a matter of survival and practicality, to make sure you end up as close to the top of the heap as possible?"
no subject
Date: 2024-11-18 06:59 am (UTC)That stinging iciness in his nerves doesn't go away, but this... is different. It's the shallowest compensation.
...
"How are you here?" He wants to know what kind of game he's expected to play before he plays it. This, before he answers any questions, before the man tries to pull a confessional from someone whose most terrible mistake he can clearly already see. "For that matter, what is here?
no subject
Date: 2024-11-18 06:39 pm (UTC)He walks over to a nearby candle, snuffing out the icy flame and seeming to conjure up a new one that glows with a proper warmth. The orange hues of comfort and safety begin to radiate from it, but there’s a distortedness to it. The edges of the world are too sharp, too deep, like heavy strokes of an oil painting, and the colors are a little too bright.
“You don’t trust any of this,” he remarks, tone neutral, as he scoops up a piece of broken stained glass. It turns into a butterfly and takes to the air.
“Probably best that you don’t. I had a dream recently that kept folding in and in and in on itself, and by the morning I had folded myself into such a tight knot.”
no subject
Date: 2024-11-22 04:59 am (UTC)"Is that so...?" He still doesn't deign to get closer, but that butterfly is ever such a familiar sight.
"W-well... you dream as well, then? Are... are they often good dreams?"
no subject
Date: 2024-11-22 03:14 pm (UTC)He walks around the church, life blooming in his footsteps. It isn't restoring the place to what it was, and in some cases it's actually hastening on the ruin, roots pushing through cracked stone, but it's a sort of destruction that lives and breathes and grows.
"You're a fool to keep fighting, Father. But that isn't a bad thing."
no subject
Date: 2024-11-24 11:39 am (UTC)In a small voice: “Then how do you come back from being broken?”
And as he does, he turns around to look back at the body.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-24 04:26 pm (UTC)He pauses.
“Someday, you might find that you can’t grow back. When that happens, you let yourself rot. You feed the next thing that will grow in spite of them. If you know you have that power, they cannot destroy you in a way that matters.”
no subject
Date: 2024-11-28 12:08 am (UTC)This is as he was conditioned to do: turn away from the living world to mire himself in guilt, in what was never really a failure at all.
“You make it sound so wonderful,” he sighs. “But I’m no plant, Spirit. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t—I don’t know if I can.”
He knows he’s speaking metaphorically, but the point us that he feels far more like a dead bush whose woody skeleton has been there for years more than he does a thing that can change. Not in a way that matters.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-28 09:07 pm (UTC)“Tell me, Father, truthfully, would you rather be capable of love and feel this agony, or never feel love at all and spare yourself from the pain?”
cw implied child abuse, inpatient psychiatric stuff and medical & religious abuse, injury/gore ment
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From:cw mentions of self harm, mutilation, gore, disordered eating
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From:cw maladapted spirituality from religious abuse, light reference to child abuse, suicidal ideation
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From:And so I emerge from the depths of Sheogorath to return to the depths of Sheogorath
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