Rising Sun [text/action]

[mother_of_god]

[Her last memory is heat and rust and darkness. Now there is light and life and comfort- at least, more comfort than she's felt in seven years. (Or less comfort for part of her that has lived a life free of constant pain.) She sits up with difficulty, blinking in the bright. The air is clean, carrying a fresh smell she'd forgotten after half a life in a basement room. The world is green and dazzling and living. Birds twitter, leaves rustle, a breeze rolls past her ears; no beeps or rumbles or electric hums.

[Dread creeps up her insides.

[A cat meows. She peers at it in surprise, then notices the scroll. A few moments' fumbling with bandaged fingers and it's open. She reads, silently, then turns her attention to the Vine, which unfurls its parchment and stylus helpfully, apparently aware that speaking isn't high on her list of strengths. She reaches for the stylus automatically, before realising that her fingers are too restrained to operate it. But there's another way.

[The Vine offers a new text to the residents. Unusually, the words aren't hand written, but singed into the parchment.]

Is this Paradise?

Comments

[mother_of_god]

[She frowns at the other end, spending several moments trying to figure out a way to explain things.]

She used my power to have God come t

God was going to

Daddy

I'm sorry.

[reverentresistance]

[Ky really doesn't know what to say to that, just staring at the words for a moment.]

It's fine. You clearly don't know any better.

[mother_of_god]

It did happen. If it didn't, I would not be here.

[reverentresistance]

You mean that you'd be dead, I take it?

Since none of us have control over being chosen for here.

[mother_of_god]

I would be in Paradise, maybe. Or still in the sick room.

I think I am dead. I think I died after Daddy left.

[The thought brings an almost intolerable cocktail of relief and despair to her, as two minds try to wrestle with it. One is happy to be free from her former life, the other, horrified.]

[reverentresistance]

[None of this makes much sense at all to Ky.]

You don't seem particularly dead to me.

[mother_of_god]

I don't understand it. Maybe this is like Paradise, but for other people.

[reverentresistance]

I'm fairly certain that it's just another place.

[mother_of_god]

How do you know?

[reverentresistance]

Because nothing else makes sense.

[mother_of_god]

Sometimes things don't make sense anyway. Like in Wonderland.

[reverentresistance]

Wonderland is a story. This is actually happening.

[mother_of_god]

Other things happen like that. All things are possible with God.

[reverentresistance]

Yes, but God isn't capricious.

[Ky's just about done talking about this, if it turns into another discussion of God she will be done.]

[mother_of_god]

[An idea!]

Maybe you have a different God.

[reverentresistance]

There is only one true God.

[mother_of_god]

There are many gods.

There were some churches back home that had a different kind of God with the same name. Maybe that one is your God.

[reverentresistance]

No.

[Ky's not sure what she's disavowing about that -- other than all of it, but she's also sure that she is in fact done here now. And probably going to go practice her sword forms until she's gotten some of the frustration out.]