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You are starting to think your God is cruel.
For all you have given in His name, for all you have been good, surely you would not deserve a fate like this, sitting at a creaky dining table even after everyone else has gone off to rest.
Laughter, sweet and a popping sort of bright, like cherry tomatoes. Hands on your face, cradling you like how you’re holding the rock between your hands.
“You’re so cute,” he says, smiling so unbelievably bright and soft and mischievously all at once, like all of the flowers in his greenhouse, “and a bit like a dog. All loyal and following me around whenever I ask.”
Endless rebirth, the constant taste of divinity coating your tongue, and for what? For the simple purpose of dying again at the hands of a rotating cast of monsters like some sort of joke? This holy gift being shared with undeserving harlots just as it is with you feels like a cruel knife twisting in your ribs while you were already down.
You’re startled out of your thoughts for a moment by the rain picking up, before that turn of phrase settles in and makes you clench your hands involuntarily. Leather creaks against leather, louder than it should be from the lingering wetness in the air.
You hate the weight that stays in your palm, just as you let yourself hate how ungrateful your companions are.
He’d dragged you out to a hilly sort of field, to a rocky spot with a dead tree over it, swearing up and down that he found rose quartz here earlier.
Azure had been right, of course. The overly large salmony pink chunk of earth between your hands is proof of it. It is heavy and unfamiliar and cold, but you think the colour of it matches the sound of his laugh.
As much as you want to, you do not stab the blade into the table, and instead redirect that almost physical vitriol towards your new home after a few breaths of stewing on it. The overwhelming sound of rain grating on your ears also helps in your choice.
The weather’s started changing, recently; a sign from the Lord in your eyes, and a bad omen to the others. You can’t be sure of the nature of that sign, though, and that is what’s been making you anxious.
You hate it.
You hate it, just as you think He hates you, in your darkest moments– like now.
You tilt your head– unintentionally living up to his previous comparison. You realise, but do not mind. “Why would I not follow you?”
Truth be told, you almost hadn’t. He’d told you there would be plenty of bugs out this time of year and you hid inside where nothing can crawl over and inside and through your skin for at least an hour.
A new wave of something awful and bitter wells up inside of you, just as heavy as the dying holiness on your tongue following each brush against the waters of River Styx.
It’s a taste you will never not recognise.
You bled yourself dry, gave away your heart, lost everything you hold dear– all for your God. Nothing in you would hesitate to hand over your soul as well, either.
And yet, and yet.
Here you are: stuck with wary, ungrateful strangers, unpredictable, awful weather, and a startling uncertainty in your God’s love of you.
Azure laughs like cherry tomatoes again. “You always will,” he sing-songs. “‘Cause you’re too sweet, just for me.”
Warmth blooms out in whorls all over your insides and over your skin. Of course you’re sweet for him; he shows you sun-gold beauty inside and out, all for you, just for you. How could you not repay that?
What perfect weather, though, part of you thinks, as the rain reaches its crescendo pounding against the wood of the cabin, for blasphemous thoughts like these.
(Something in you whispers back that for once, it is justified, that it does not matter if He hates you.
You decide that more than the rain, more than this Hell, more than sharing your second chance with people who did not lose everything for it, you hate that something.
And then you shove it right back down again.)
Still, everything you worked towards has been tarnished in the name of some sick game. Some childish part of you cries out that you aren't supposed to be here; that this is not part of His design, and neither are the other survivors sharing your gift.
The guilt coils around your lungs regardless, in that awfully slow way that always feels like an inevitability. All of that, for nothing? For the Lord to damn you?
And then another wave of guilt hits you like a tidal wave. You cannot take your hurt out on things that cannot fight back, and you especially cannot take it out on Him. With gritted teeth, you push back the snake's head and smile under the light of the Spawn.
“But…” Azure shifts awkwardly, accidentally smushing your face with the hands still cupping your cheeks as he does so. “I know you hate being out here, y’know? You should ask me to follow you ‘round, sometime. You know I’d follow you to the ends of the earth and back, nightshade.”
You smile involuntarily, softly; as you often do with him. The rose quartz in your hands prevents you from placing your hands over his like you want to; you refuse to put it down.
A shaking hand finds your Spawn pendant and lets the cold edges of its metal press into skin. Truly, you must not get angry, and you must not curse out your God. He is wise, and He is good. He would not do this to you, not after how loyal and good you have been.
Doubting Him brings you nothing but true damnation. This must be part of His plan.
You will yourself to breathe.
“I know, Azure.”
You breathe, and you smile, and you make the decision to pray again before the next round to clear your head. You simply must not be doing it enough. The sound of your chair scraping against the floor carries over the still overly-loud rain, startling someone into yelping out in the main room of the cabin.
He rolls his eyes playfully. “I know, Azure, I love you, Azure, you’re the light of my life, thank you for making me go outside even when I’m being a big baby, Azure.”
The Spawn asks you to be good and generous and kind, to be loyal to Him above all else, and you will play your part. You have dedicated your life and your heart to doing so.
He has been kind and generous, as he asks you to be, in extending His grace to your fellow survivors. He still has a place for you, once you have run your second chance dry.
Your head is swayed side-to-side as he puts on a bad imitation of your flat inflection, but you can’t help but laugh with him. “Yes, yes. Thank you and I love you, my star.”
You both lose yourselves to the laughter, for a moment, before you lean up to press your forehead against his. Azure’s eyes soften. You think of the taste of cherry tomatoes and rose quartz pink and forever.
You will love Him above all else.
“I know that you and I will give our lives to the Lord and more,” you say, “but know that I’ll love you above all else.”
You put a dagger through him in a field of roses a long walk south of here, five years later, on the same plot of farmland.