✞27 Days since my Last Confession✞

[13th_crusader]

[†]Ezekiel 7:22

My face will I turn also from them, and they will desecrate my treasured place; robbers will enter it and desecrate it.[†]

[☨]The commlink was smacked amidst the thin threads of sheets, to meet the bandaged face of the archbishop, twisted in a disquieted but blind sneer. After a few days of falling in and out of a concussion force-fed to him through a two-ton bible to the face, he stirred in agitation as those last conscious moments replayed in his waking mind and shot him straight out of bed in a flurry of ribbons and tattered blond hair.[☨]

Defilers! M.. MURDERERS! I'll have you hanged on a halter of--

Che!?

[☨]Clawing at his face he realizes he can't see a damn thing, and his horizontal position which was upon something much harder last he recalled, was now a tiny mattress with a familiar horrible squeak.[☨]

Kssh.. You blasted mother-hen, unless my brain-matter was leaking from my ears, I told you not to bring me back here!

[☨]Whether anyone was in the hospital bedroom to hear him was anyone's guess, yet the pounding in his head gave him little reason to care as he mewled melodramatically and fell back over the commlink's lense.[☨]

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[13th-crusader.livejournal.com]

[He listened. Through the beat of his heart deafening in his ear, through the dry quavering of his stifled breath, through the agonizing screeches of denial in his mind. Enrico Maxwell heard his priest, teacher, and shepherd beseech him as if his words flowered from the mouths of patron saints.

All his life day and night he had spent perusing the scriptures, taking them to soul and heart. Yet his own loathing for mankind, spurned by those who transgressed against him in his youth, had led him to corrupt the Word he coveted so obsessively. He interpreted the wrath of a jealous God as a reflection of what he was to become and would be lauded for. To be glorified and feared, that would bring him ever-lasting love and adoration. His name would be sanctified, and even he too would see himself canonized to sainthood.

Here and now, even after facing the truth that riches and fame bring no man any closer to God than the poor and downtrodden, he skewed his preacher's words from an outcry for forgiveness, to a hollow guilt plea.

Quivering lips hardened as salted moisture leaked from beneath the bandages and trickled down his sharp vanity. And he hissed as he tasted his own tears, disgusted with himself for allowing them to pour forth, and loathing for the man that spurned their escape from his dry husk.]

So... That what is, was it?

[The archbishop was at an icy precipice. His tone shallow and gelid. Frost so cold he was about to crack from the pressure and weight of his teacher's soul-shattering assent.]

I never... grew to your standards. Never to let go of my loathing for all who had trespassed me.. or would soon do so.

[The utterance left him like a hushing calm before the maelstrom. His body shook violently, the torrent of misery against the floodgates of his frail heart burst. Maxwell roared through the agony of his sobbing, stripped of all his regalia and majestic august. Before the shepherd was a crying sheep lost from the fold miles and miles away from home.]

And why should I have!?

Why, teacher!?

Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee? And am not I grieved with those that rise up against Thee?!

[Was it not written to loathe what was wicked? Had that not been ingrained into him since he was but a babe? Irate that all he had lived up to had brought him nothing but a lonely grave with none to grieve him, he strangled a scream through his stinging tears.]

My heritage is unto me as a lion in the forest; it crieth out against me.. therefore have I hated it. Hated, hated those revilers..

[His so-called mother and father. The whore and the selfish noblemen.]

...just as I hated the dissenters of Midian. It was divine retribution! There was nothing left for them! They dug their grave, teacher! To have slayed them all instead of turning them over to the ghouls of the damned...

That was My mercy!!

[Watching the flames of purgatory, he saw that damned island for what it was. A lake of fire within whom no one could escape. To have attempted to save a single soul there would have meant corruption to those who touched their sinful flesh. The ghouls were spreading like a plague. Iscariot was the cure. The final solution. Genocide.]

And you... You in in your... undeserved kindness and love and mercy... you slayed me instead.

Was that it, Father?

Teacher?

Was that your mercy!?

Was that your love, Alexander Anderson!?

[sanctus-cineris.livejournal.com]

[ His rugged features visibly softened to see his chiel in such despair, and he leaned forward to press his lips to the others ear like he had done many a night when he'd found the young Maxwell sobbing, speaking in as gentle a voice as possible.]

Let my prayers come before ye like incense tae be pondered by all who love thaem.

Ah trusted e'en when ah said "Ah am sorely afflicted" ahn when ah said en mae alarm:

"Nae man can be trusted."

O precious en th' eyes o' th' Lord es th' death o' his faithful. Yer servant, Lord, yer servant am ah; ye have loosened mae bonds.

Humbly, humbly thaen. En veneration.

[He then took in his arms his child and cherub, his melancholic ward whose fears and anguish poured forth like a fountain mopped up by the corner of each cassock sleeve. The flimsy cot creaked, but still he remained steadfast. Cradling that spindly form closer than he coveted life itself he would offer his comfort and compassion—be a Guide to the Light the way in the path of Darkness.]

Th' Lord Jesus, on th' night when he was betrayed, took bread, ahn when he had given thanks, he broke et, sayin' : "Thaes es mae bodieh which es fer ye."

He whom disciples woul' sell tae jealous men firs' gave, as verieh food o' life, Himself tae disciples still. He gave his blood, his flesh tae eat, sae thaet he migh' replenish th' hearts ahn souls o' mankind. Christ's food ahn bountieh es rich; he shall yield royal dainties, alleluia. Th' holieh priests offerin' ae ransom fer mankind at his death.

"Ah ahm th' livin' bread which came doon frem heaven. Ef anyone eats o' thaes bread, he will live forever, alleluia.

[Comfort and care, of a kind like this, could only bring deliverance should it be accepted.

His carpenter's hands slid down to Maxwell's mid-back, steadying him there, serving as his support system.]

E-et's nae too late, Enrico. We've bin given ae second chance. Ef ye forgive mae, we coul' be one agaen.

"Sit at mae right: Ah will scatter th' Heavens ahn put yer foes beneath yer feet."

Th' Lord will send frem Zion yer sceptre o' power: rule en th' midst o' all yer foes. A prince frem th' day o' yer birth on th' holieh mountains; Frem th' whom before th' daybreak ah begot ye.

A thanksgiving sacrifice ah make; Th' cup o' salvation ah will raise. My vows ah will fulfill. O blessed, o dove, ye will be happieh ahn prosper by thaes hands....

Alleluia.

Th' bread which ah shall give ye, alleluia, es mae flesh fer th' life o' th' world, alleluia, alleluia.