Welcome to Gaia! ::

The church was plain and old, very old. Rodney could taste the tallow of its burning candles, smell the wet of recently cleaned stone floor. Its stone walls were high, filling the rafters with shadows near untouched by the light that filtered through the small windows well above his head. The benches were wooden and plain as the rest of the place. The cross at the end, open and gilded, was the only thing close to ornamentation.

It was a little cold, but the walls held back the worst of the wind outside. There was only one other figure in the church, dark and thin and otherwise indistinct, sitting closest to the little altar.

"You've been troubled," the voice is soft and male, but neither young nor old in its tones. From where he sits, Rodney can see the other is not looking at him, but at their hands; he turns them over with a thoughtful gaze.

"Forgave?" The figure glanced up toward Rodney for a brief moment, and then turned a wry expression back to his hands. "Not even God forgave easily. It took time, and pain, and cleansing death." He looked up toward the cross before them.

"Forgiveness isn't kind. Nor should it be."

"I am, perhaps, behind the times. The transitive nature allowed to mankind once pertained to a singular moment: that of the fallen, allowing themselves to be lifted up."

He turned once more, to take in Rodney's appearance, the arms that cage him in. "You place yourself between those two states."

"Oh...no. I suppose I'm closer to the other one. Your devil as it were," he offers Rodney a wan smile and holds up one of his hands, long and slender fingered. They didn't look like Rodney's at all. There was no hard work to be found in abused knuckles and callused whorls. They seemed pale, but for the gilding offered by the tallow candles.

"The crudest light always casts the most gentle glow. It's a sort of magic," another wry smile, "to so easily transform those who draw near."

"I was," he sighed, "a savior, once. I brought mankind magic and wisdom. I placed protection in their hands so they could defend themselves from an insidious enemy. But such gifts were turned against me, and so I fell. All fallen saviors become the devil, given time. Were you his savior?"

"I don't have use for apologies, " and despite this, his tone was almost apologetic, "they're against my nature."

The figure leaned toward him, bony elbows on thin knees. "What did you do? To be so hated by your own kind?"

"You've been mistreated." It was a statement, final.

"I don't require forgiveness and I never, ever forgive. I simply wait, until some form of satisfaction is at hand. There are certain things, in any world, that once received, must be given back in kind. Preferably with interest."

There's a brief pause, and then went on, "Forgiveness doesn't move you past the harm done. Nor does it make those who harmed you a better person. It simply makes them...safe. From retribution. Equilibrium can no longer be met."

He nodded toward the cross before them. "Forgiveness doesn't heal a wound, nor keep others from following."