mental link; day 050

[hymnals]

[ Adra's mental voice is much like his actual voice: resonant, warm, oddly deep. He's been glad of this restful period; the flurry of the last mission weighs on him, even if he only (mercifully) experienced the tail end of it. He's been able to work on adjusting to the Nest in the meantime, to test all these newly formed connections, to know something of all these unfamiliar minds.

But he would like to know more. ]

( Tell me something, if you feel like it. What does faith mean to you? Religion? Doctrine? Is it something comforting, or something repellent? Did it foster community or oppression? What kinds of faiths have you lived in or alongside? Were you directed by gods? Or crushed by them, perhaps. )

[ He hasn't spoken to many people about the Light, though he's certainly not hiding his own position. ]

( Indulge an old priest. )

Comments

[hymnals]

[ Adra does the mental equivalent of a sweeping, 'you know what I mean' sort of hand gesture. ]

( Yeah, you know. Primal deities. Elemental chaos. It's all one and the same where I'm from. )

[ The Elemental lords were subordinates of the old gods, the old gods were cosmic horror monsters, so on and so forth. The scenes that filter through his memory are of flame-scarred battlefields, of shimmering, obsidian temples populated with buzzing hives and pillars of vicious, man-sized wasps, of rolling deserts whispering madness into travelers' ears. ]

( To me, faith is community. Religion should serve its people, not the other way around. It should be a balm, focused on service above ideology. On healing above ritual.

That often turns out to be an idealistic viewpoint, though. )

[ So many of Azeroth's religions were little more than cults; engines of hatred and zealotry sustained by blood. ]

[somnifacient]

[He supposes he knows. He can think of "primal deities" and "elemental chaos", drawn up and tinted with the bias of his own experiences. And so, a mental shrug in return. A sure, I think I get where you're coming from type of gesture.]

(That is pretty idealistic. It's a nice goal, anyway.

So, then... you don't believe faith should be placed blindly in the will of the gods? Even if they were the ones to have created the world?)

[No contention in his voice. Just curiosity.]

[hymnals]

[ Adra knows there's a difference between a lovely goal and ugly reality. Still, he has to hold on to the former. It makes the latter bearable. ]

( Absolutely not. No more than should a child blindly believe in the will of their parents. )

[somnifacient]

(I agree with you. As weird as it might sound.)

[After what Noctis had said about being chained to destiny and all that. After he sounded all very accepting of it.]

(Are you some kind of priest? Or do you just like talking about philosophical stuff like this?)

[hymnals]

( Both, in fact. I'm a priest AND I like talking about philosophical stuff. Though, with gods you can talk to and divine energy you can touch, some of it crosses over into practical considerations, too. )