fandomtownies | Our Lady of Fandom, Friday all day

Rikku realized almost shamefully that it had been a week and a half since she'd stopped in to check on the man living in the church, and so she stopped first to get a few bags of groceries, hoping that his fridge still worked since many of them were cold cuts.

She walked through the church doors hesitantly, feeling almost as though she should knock first. "Hello?"

Gabriel raised his head. It was Rikku the passionate atheist again, bringing food by the looks of it.

"Welcome back, Rikku." Gabriel was almost smiling.

"Hiya," she said with a tentative smile. "I, uh, is your fridge still working? And plugged in and all that? I thought maybe you, uh, could use some more food. If that's not rude or whatever."

"Still working! Great invention. And offerings of food is never rude." He was actually running out of things to eat.

"Really?" She smiled a little more certainly. "I just meant, uh, you know, some people might ... take it funny or whatever. But hey, you don't have food so I brought you some, yeah?"

She set the bags down. "You know, I don't think I got your name."

"Gabriel," he said, peering into the bags, she'd brought. He didn't seem to mind having to repeat it. Picking up the cold cuts and sniffing them, he smiled oddly. "Oh, want a cup of coffee?"

"Hiya," she said with a nod. "Uh, no, thanks, I'm kinda bad with caffeine. Think I'll skip it. I, uh, didn't know what you wanted so I just grabbed some stuff."

Rikku chewed on her lip a little uncertainly. "I, uh, met that Karal priest guy."

Gabriel didn't notice her uncertainty, being too focused on the food. "Oh, good. And you got along?"

"We, uh ..." Rikku tilted her head, unsure of how to answer that. "I don't know. I think I was kinda mean to him, but he was really nice anyway?"

"He's always like that," Gabriel replied. "You get used to it. Oh, and I have a dinosaur visiting this weekend." Best blame the mess on the extinct animal that wasn't around to defend itself.

"I heard about that," she said with a shrug. "I missed 'em. I was in Denmark."

"Denmark? Why?" It seemed like a very odd place to visit to Gabriel.

"A friend died," she said softly. "Had to go see his grave and all that."

"Oh, stuff like that." Gabriel gave her a look of sympathy. He could never stand the wailing and moaning at funerals.

Rikku nodded, glad that he wasn't falling over himself with offered pity. She smiled back a little wistfully. "It seems dumb, you know? Whether you believe in ... well. No matter what you believe, he's not there any more. I'm not sure what it was I needed to see, you know? Maybe I just needed to know it was real."

"Happens a lot," Gabriel replied. He'd seen it for millenia after all. And then there were the miserable ones that just wanted to die, the ones he'd had as helpers. Those could really get on his nerves.

She shook her head. "Tired of it. Too many of them are just ... too young, you know? He was eighteen. It's not fair." There was a bitter laugh accompanying that. "Right. 'Cause life's usually fair."

"Expecting fairness is missing the point," Gabriel replied. This girl certainly had a thing for the big questions.

"What is the point?" she said, giving him a long look. "I mean ... I just don't get it. And why's Karal such a nice guy if he's a priest, and why do people ... want to believe in something so badly they'll believe anything?!"

"You want things to make sense. You can't. You're human." He sighed. She wasn't the first mortal who had asked these and similar questions.

"Right," she said with an eyeroll. "Humans are just too dumb to understand, so you have to nod and agree and blindly obey. Forgot about that part. Nice and convenient for whoever's making up the rules. 'Yevon says you should, uh, give me your stuff and say nice things about my hair. For really legitimate reasons I can't explain to you. Let's not question the divine, here.'"

Much as he approved of humans who shut up and did as they were told, that wasn't what he'd meant. "You assume that all bad things come from God?"

"No," she said tersely. "I assume gods don't exist, or they do their own thing and either screw with us or don't. Priests, though, they use that 'you wouldn't understand' crap to do whatever they want. Let's set up a bunch of rules to make sure we've got all the power and anything else we want, and let's use these gods as the carrot and the stick. Hey, you know, mine gets really angry when you question me about why none of this makes sense. And when you don't give me money. That one especially."

"You're missing the point," Gabriel said drily. "If people have free will, whether you assume that to be a gift from God or not, and they use that to lie, deceive and manipulate, then that says nothing about God or the world. Nothing. So why don't you just tell them to shut up?"

"That's hard when people are idiots and just buy that crap on up and outnumber you by a lot." She made a face. "And maybe it doesn't say anything about gods or worlds but it sure does about priests, so what's the deal with Karal?"

"There's a deal with Karal?" Gabriel raised an eyebrow.

She made a face. "You know what I mean. He was all supernice and helpful even when I was being snotty to him. Why is someone like that a priest?"

"Why not?" He'd seen enough people like Karal chose a religious vocation. And people quite the opposite of course.

"If he's a nice guy who likes to help people, then ... why not go into a job where he can manipulate and control them and use fear tactics and lies to do it?" Rikku rolled her eyes. "Gosh, what was I thinking."

"Maybe broaden your view of the character of priests?" Gabriel couldn't help wondering why he ended up in conversations that included defending priests.

"Why else would they become priests?" Rikku shrugged. "I mean, do they not know it's all a big power-control kinda thing? Then someone oughta tell them so they can find a better job."

Gabriel looked amused. "And you informed Karal of this?"

"Didn't get around to it," she said thoughtfully. "Whoa, you're right, if I don't tell him I'm just as bad as anybody else, huh?"

That wasn't what Gabriel had meant, but as he imagined the conversation between Rikku and Karal on that subject might in interesting he saw no reason to correct her. "I wouldn't say bad..."

Rikku nodded quickly, an old master at jumping to conclusions. "Yeah. That's ... whoa. Thanks. I was totally being a hypocrite there. You think I can help him?"

"I'm not sure Karal thinks he need help," Gabriel replied vaguely.

Rikku nodded, perfectly content to delude herself further. "Yeah. It's gonna be rough. But someone's gotta break it to him. I mean, I have to try, yeah?"

"It's your choice, of course," Gabriel said in a noncommittal way.

"Ugh. What if it's all an act and he really is like the rest of them?" She shuddered. "I guess he can't do anything to me, here, right?"

"I guess not," Gabriel replied. "But I seriously think he's honest."

Rikku nodded. "Yeah. Then I guess I have to. That's ... I mean, for him to get pulled in like that ..."

She sighed.

Gabriel said nothing, but he couldn't help thinking that it might be an interesting conversation. He expected that it might not end as Rikku anticipated though.

Our Lady of Fandom, Friday all day

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