Ghastly didn't know what sort of an answer he'd been expecting God to give. He didn't know enough about the Bible. He certainly didn't expect God to lie, which was probably why the tailor grew very still as the conversation went on.
Barney stood up and took a few steps away, bringing the sleeve of his sweater quickly up to his face. Ghastly, who had been sitting on the foot of the bed and, apparently, unconsciously using Barney to block his view of God when He came up, could now clearly see His reactions to everything Allie was saying.
Ghastly didn't have the context, but he knew enough. And it stunned him.
How must it feel, to be the only being in existence until you yourself created companions? Companions who believed they'd be damned if they so much as argued with you? And the only one who did was somehow filled with such hatred for everything you created and wanted to achieve, everything you stood for, that he eventually Fell? Cast down by you, by your oldest companion, because there was no other way?
'Of course I made it that way. I made it easy a few times, and it always got borin' fast.'
Free will, Gabe had said. A gift that the angels didn't even know they had until just recently. People took free will for granted; the ability to make decisions on their own without any idea of what the consequences might be, because they'd never known anything else. But Ghastly could suddenly picture how hard the concept of free will must have been at first, for anyone, up to and especially including the one who oversaw it all. Who created it all. How any world without it just... wouldn't be the same.
He could also picture, very vividly, how much you would want to protect it when you finally had it. Gabriel, especially; the way he'd grown angry at China for the smallest infringement on that gift. And that was only millions of years without it. Only millions. How long had God gone without anyone willing to second-guess what He was doing?
Ghastly looked at Dad, Grandad, the fisherman. At the tears. And for the first time since stumbling off the curb outside the bar an eternity ago, he didn't see the man as God. He saw God as, simply, a very, very old man. A man who'd been through the exact same struggles as everyone on Earth, over and over again, and was simply old enough to know what the answer was. Old enough to know that, no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much you wanted to intervene, no matter how much doing nothing was twisting you up inside... sometimes you just had to let your children make their own mistakes.
Dad. Grandad. Father. Of course He could stop the suffering in this room. Of course He wanted to. But what would happen then?
Barney's back was still turned to them. Ghastly looked up and regarded him sadly. The man would need a proper Christmas this year. That was all Ghastly could really offer him; some comfort. Like a teddy-bear, here and there, at various hospitals around the world, just to let people know that no one had been forgotten. That everyone was loved.
Maybe he could get Skulduggery to join in, too. The detective wasn't a big fan of Christmas, but with a little persuasion at just the right moment, he might relent. He would relent. Ghastly would make sure of it. A little unconditional cheer once a year wouldn't kill him.
Ghastly looked back at Allie, smiled, reached out and shook the bear's paw. "Good to meet you, Nicholas. I'm Ghastly."
He'd wondered before if giving inanimate objects names somehow granted them something resembling a soul. Names were power, after all. At this rate, Ghastly wasn't going to take anything for granted.
no subject
Ghastly didn't know what sort of an answer he'd been expecting God to give. He didn't know enough about the Bible. He certainly didn't expect God to lie, which was probably why the tailor grew very still as the conversation went on.
Barney stood up and took a few steps away, bringing the sleeve of his sweater quickly up to his face. Ghastly, who had been sitting on the foot of the bed and, apparently, unconsciously using Barney to block his view of God when He came up, could now clearly see His reactions to everything Allie was saying.
Ghastly didn't have the context, but he knew enough. And it stunned him.
How must it feel, to be the only being in existence until you yourself created companions? Companions who believed they'd be damned if they so much as argued with you? And the only one who did was somehow filled with such hatred for everything you created and wanted to achieve, everything you stood for, that he eventually Fell? Cast down by you, by your oldest companion, because there was no other way?
'Of course I made it that way. I made it easy a few times, and it always got borin' fast.'
Free will, Gabe had said. A gift that the angels didn't even know they had until just recently. People took free will for granted; the ability to make decisions on their own without any idea of what the consequences might be, because they'd never known anything else. But Ghastly could suddenly picture how hard the concept of free will must have been at first, for anyone, up to and especially including the one who oversaw it all. Who created it all. How any world without it just... wouldn't be the same.
He could also picture, very vividly, how much you would want to protect it when you finally had it. Gabriel, especially; the way he'd grown angry at China for the smallest infringement on that gift. And that was only millions of years without it. Only millions. How long had God gone without anyone willing to second-guess what He was doing?
Ghastly looked at Dad, Grandad, the fisherman. At the tears. And for the first time since stumbling off the curb outside the bar an eternity ago, he didn't see the man as God. He saw God as, simply, a very, very old man. A man who'd been through the exact same struggles as everyone on Earth, over and over again, and was simply old enough to know what the answer was. Old enough to know that, no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much you wanted to intervene, no matter how much doing nothing was twisting you up inside... sometimes you just had to let your children make their own mistakes.
Dad. Grandad. Father. Of course He could stop the suffering in this room. Of course He wanted to. But what would happen then?
Barney's back was still turned to them. Ghastly looked up and regarded him sadly. The man would need a proper Christmas this year. That was all Ghastly could really offer him; some comfort. Like a teddy-bear, here and there, at various hospitals around the world, just to let people know that no one had been forgotten. That everyone was loved.
Maybe he could get Skulduggery to join in, too. The detective wasn't a big fan of Christmas, but with a little persuasion at just the right moment, he might relent. He would relent. Ghastly would make sure of it. A little unconditional cheer once a year wouldn't kill him.
Ghastly looked back at Allie, smiled, reached out and shook the bear's paw. "Good to meet you, Nicholas. I'm Ghastly."
He'd wondered before if giving inanimate objects names somehow granted them something resembling a soul. Names were power, after all. At this rate, Ghastly wasn't going to take anything for granted.