14 [Video]

[ofthursday]

[The feed crackles on in the Darkness, the usual growls and other eerie noises of night at Siren's Port conspicuously absent in the area. It takes a moment for Castiel's image to become clear on the screen, almost melding out of the dark, expression smoothly neutral except for the faint hint of a smirk that looks completely out of place on his usually serious face.

His eyes are dark in the dim lighting, endless and like staring into an abyss, and even across the electronic feed the sense of wrongness is readily apparent.]

So I find myself here once more.

[His voice is soft, calm, almost uncaring, as if showing up in the Port again is a curiosity and nothing more. Then he smiles.]

It seems a good place to begin.

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[ofthursday]

I am powerful. Enough so to make things right.

[paterelohim]

What do you mean? How?

[ofthursday]

By being the God that is needed.

[paterelohim]

[He can't even pretend to hide the way His lip curls in disgust at that.]

What? Are- are you serious? [Of course he is.] You remember how dangerous screwed-up authority figures are, right? You're really gonna try and implement an authoritarian system going against everything about free will you ever fought for?

[ofthursday]

[He just smiles again, patronizingly.]

I'm going to be fair, involved. This isn't for my desires and my goals; this is so that those who pray every night have a God who listens, and who cares when they need help. This is so those who sin are punished, and to stem evil from permeating so thoroughly through the world.

[He's seen the danger, yes, but he's also seen what a world without God is like.]

[paterelohim]

What about atheists who need help? Or people who pray for other people to die? Or a fight or a war when both sides believe they're right and are coming from morally defensible stances? Can you boil every human interaction down to a kindergarten-level problem that can be solved by parental interference? I'd argue that we're more complicated than that.

[ofthursday]

Individual cases will be met with as they come. Refusing to act because it's 'complicated' is not an excuse.

[He won't be like his Father. He won't watch while people need help, even if he can't help them all, and he has no reason to believe that he can't.]

[paterelohim]

That's not an excuse, it's Scripture. Injustice and evil are just part of the post-Eden package. They're actually the whole point.

[ofthursday]

There are a lot of things in the Bible that are no longer relevant. And I feel no need to debate my decisions with you. You have nothing to fear.

[So calm down.]

[paterelohim]

I appreciate your... kindness. [That actually hurts him a little to say.] But I'm not arguing to save myself. I'm doing it for- for everyone, I guess. For the principle of it.

Isn't trying to artificially engineer an environment without evil or free will tantamount to the Paradise Michael and Raphael were aiming for? I know you don't want to be like them. I know you. You're a good person and you want the best for all of us. I know that.

[ofthursday]

The Paradise they chased after was a fantasy, and it would have cost billions of innocent lives to achieve.

[There's a huge difference, as far as he's concerned.]

I am doing the right thing, and what our Father refuses to do.

[paterelohim]

Well... yeah.

But I guess... have you ever wondered why? I mean, not why is He ignoring you guys or Heaven - that's really shitty of him - but why He doesn't lord over everything on Earth?

[ofthursday]

I've long ceased attempting to understand His motives, and they're irrelevant, now.

[If his Father won't do something, he will, it's that simple. It doesn't matter why He won't act.]

private;

[paterelohim]

[He falls silent, frowning. Thoughtful.]

-You could talk to Him. I mean, He's here, right? And answering prayers? It might help to know whether or not He's gonna interfere with what you're doing.

private;

[ofthursday]

I have no desire to speak with Him. He doesn't act, and if my presence is what inspires Him to, it will only be more proof of His failures.

[If it takes someone trying to do better, after God sat back and let the Apocalypse and the civil war happen, then it will only prove to him that God is hypocritical and selfish.]