Chapter Text
Algedonic (adj.) relating to both pleasure and pain
The freedom of the Earthly plane was to him a simultaneous delight and agony.
Humanity had been given the gift of free will, the thing that he desired most, and being surrounded by it was intoxicating. He was captivated as he inspired, encouraged, enabled them to fulfil their desires, to exercise their freedom and relish it as he did, and yet it served as a constant reminder of what he would never be allowed. Nothing thrilled him more than watching them, radiant with passion and exhilaration, and he responsible for it, Lightbringer once more; and at this he despaired, knowing he could not escape the role written for him at the beginning of time.
He threw himself into the pleasures of the flesh with reckless abandon, hoping to drown out the countless lifetimes of tormented memories that plagued his overactive mind. Knowing that he would have only hours, days at most, of this respite from his own eternal suffering, he sought to forget and live only for the singular moment, a cruel mockery of peace found in the depths of a whiskey glass and the ecstasy of sexual release.
In his aeons of experience as a torturer, he had learnt that constant and endless pain would cause a soul to shut down, numb and insensible. However, when allowed moments of relief, of joy, and above all of hope - then could one continue to suffer beyond all endurance.
He wondered whether his trips to Earth were allowed him for this very reason.
He couldn't bring himself to stop visiting.