Comin' round to carry me home
The empty space seemed to sparkle. Motes of dusk hung thick through the air, and bright streaming sunlight illuminated them like fireflies. The great window was framed in bare wood, as were the beams, the walls, the floor of the attic. Cloth covered antiques were pushed against the walls, leaving an aisle facing the Sun. Like a little Cathedral.
Ruby laid down a folded cloth and a satchel, and then sets carefully down one knee. -Ouph- placing herself on top of the cloth, she kneels and turns to the bag, reaching. Her hands are becoming veiny, sometimes they shake. So many worries. She withdraws a tin cup, some crackers, and a half empty bottle of wine.
"Lord, I've been strugglin'," she says suddenly to the heavy stillness, to the ephemeral sanctity of the place, to nothingness. "Strugglin' hard."
Ambient Mana saturates every breath, sparkling rods twinkling beyond natural sight as if refracted from the pane of glass.
"Folks, good folks, are dyin'. They ain't deserved it... there's so much Sin here Lord. Sometimes I can't take it, the meanness, the selfishness. Not a one of them seems to know you... feel like I'm carryin' a torch all by my lonesome."
"I know I'm not supposed to ask you for stuff, it's selfish of me. But... could you keep my friends safe for me? Could you protect them please? I don't think I can handle losing any more of the people I care for. It hurts... too deep, Lord."
In that quiet, Ruby reaches out to the cup. As if a layer of grime was washed away, impure tin becomes pure gold, radiant and burnished and bright. She splashes just a touch of wine into the cup, and its red deepens, sparkles, glows.
"When Paradise got taken from us Lord, you gave everything to leave us a ray of hope. We didn't deserve it, but you left us a Lighthouse from across that deep ocean. Even though we abandoned you, abandoned your love and fled so far from your grace, you still tend the light. I want to find you Lord, I want to follow that light. I want to bring good hearts into your grace, lead people out of this darkness, out of this ugliness."
She places the cup to her lips, drinking and ounce of liquid fire.
"It's such a narrow road though, and I feel like I'm right about to slip off. Please help me walk it."
The cracker transubstantiates to something impossible, realer than real, and Ruby places her teeth and lips on the precious bread in holy mastication.
"Sin's made your creation unwholesome, help me make pure what was pure. Help me sanctify what's gone unsanctified, help me bring the light back."
Ruby curls up, forehead nearly to the floor, speaking feverishly and her whole body shuddering as she lets the power of the place enter her.
Mana answers her call. God remains silent.