Post by Reverend Mateus on Feb 1, 2016 15:04:38 GMT -5
Now, good ladies and gentlemen, let's introduce the pitiful roles in this little play:
-The demoness: Debauched creature, centuries old, bored out of her hide. Downright monster, far worse than Rev is at present time or will be anytime soon — Sly fox.
-Human!Rev: Humble priest before he became a demoness, devoted, genuinely pious, small community. Textbook example of what a man of the cloth is supposed to be. Cinnamon roll, must protect, smol pup.
His side of the deal: He very well knew it was a terrible idea. Self-sacrificing bullshit, little boy in his community was lethally sick, family heartbroken, you all know it, insert overly compassionate priest 'love thy neighbour more than thyself'. The kid gets to live. Rev spent an indefinable amount of time in hell [felt like eternity or a few seconds all the same; literally not able to tell in the slightest.], whilst on the mortal plane he had been in a comatose condition for a mere few days. He doesn't like talking about it. Scorched by fire and brimstone, not quite the same when he returned~
Demoness' side of the deal: Rev becomes a demon (loses his mortal body, community, contact to family, etc in the progress.) It’s more of a bet, really, the demoness did it for the funsies/entertainment. Eternity gets boring, ya feel me?
The demoness promised Rev that, once there's demon blood running through his veins, he will succumb to his nature and become just as twisted as she is. Rev promises he won't, but that's exactly what happened: these days he is on a direct path of becoming the very same, despite having greatly fought against it. A slow and steady progress, nothing sudden, instead bit-by-bit. He lost his religion along the way, formerly catholic, now a mish mash of what he used to believe in, twisted and turnt and convenially cut to size. Some influence of suburban cults and 'religions' of the region.
But here comes the clue: Rev doesn't know all of that. He thinks he's still just as pious and right-in-every-way as he was before his 'death', still thinks himself the person he was before, which results in the notorious inability to see his doings as anything other than right. That such doesn't at all apply he doesn't notice, outright blinded by how self-sure he is [Oh boy, just wait for the day he has an existential crisis {realisation death of the kid?} and in a bloody breakdown realises that he became just what he fought the most. That's gonna be fun. That'll leave him broken beyond repair, self pity and wailing and crisis followed by the decision to embrace it. Good boy, huh?]
After the deal he faked his own death as to not endanger his family/the community. Played guardian angel for the boy until said kid was 18, because he felt a kind of responsibility over him. The boy was obviously not aware.
At some point the kid got reckless, started endangering his life, causing Rev to snap in the end [ ― ”How dare you, your pitiful life is not yours to give!” “Do not dare talk to me like this, kid, do you even know who I am?”― ]. Insert bloody frenzy etc etc the boy didn't survive this encounter. Rev to this day doesn't remember what he has done.
His life is thus divided into two parts: His first life, the pious and kind mortal who handed himself into damnation for the sake of a child — and his second life starting with the deal, the slow and steady progress of being twisted into shape by demonic instincts, eaten alive from the inside out.
Tl;dr: Made a selfless deal, lost himself and his religion along the way without realising. Still thinks he is the same devout man he was in his first life.
Backstory; the parents and the reunion
*You: Find a worn down photograph in a lost wallet.
It's brittle with age, the edges torn by now, its owner presumably handling it a lot.
They were good people, his parents, you know. Dad a humble preacherman in a tiny poor village, basically giving away everything they can spare, or rather, often more than they can in fact spare. The mother, kind and gentle, what do I have you expect.
They practically raised Mat into the clergy role, though contrary to his father he actually managed to get the chance to properly study and become ordained in his later years. Bit of a scholarship situation going on.
And now, you have to consider, that his parents died in the belief that their son succumbed to the long-term effects of an illness.
By that point already of old age themselves, they had to bury their own son.
Now, Imagine This:
Imagine.
You have to bury your only son, after already having lost your daughter who never even got to walk on her own two feet.
Picture this, he was about 30 at the time.
Years go down the river, you and your partner aren't exactly the youngest anymore, there's not much more to it than enjoy the few years you have left. And one morning, a man's standing at your doorstep.
He didn't age nearly as much as you two did. And he looks close enough as to what you remember your dear son looked like.
The mother, of course she welcomed her only son, her dear dead son, with open arms. She ignores the odd yellow glint to his eyes, plays it off as a trick of old age, maybe his teeth were always that crooked and wrong, and for Christ's sake who would question a son brought-back? ― A son broken and desperate and at the end of his wisdom as he struggles with himself. The mother is patient and tries to be understanding when he explains what happened to him, just what brought him here.
The father, however. He is wary of this strange doppelganger in his home, this man pretending to be the one thing he lost most dearly ― no man should have to outlive their children. And no man should have to suffer such ridicule, of a lunatic spitting into old wounds.
― Things escalated.
Though don't you worry, no one lost their life ― but long story short, in the end they were both afraid of this beast, this monster with a terribly short fuse who took over their sweet child and desecrated his very soul in such a way.
He's dead, to his father, never returned. And the mother, in the end, was afraid of her only son.
Now. Knowing all of this, knowing that it was his father who rejected him, called him out as the monster he is… Why do you think he carries a picture of him, and not of his mother?
Of course, partly it is the fond memory of pre-hell, the Self he is still clinging to. The father he still loves.
But also, if not most of all, it is a reminder to himself; that steady voice in his head that tells him that attachment is dangerous and he will just fuck it up in the end.
That sometimes, just sometimes, a lie can be more humane than the truth. And frankly, this detail is what keeps the last hints of humanity and kindness in his personality.
He still doesn’t take himself for a monster. He still thinks he is the man he used to be, and better even. Pious. Infallible. In the right.
But the memory of his parents carry a bitter aftertaste. They just couldn’t understand.