snowblindrpg | [network] Event: Long & Lost [NIGHT 217]

Not all. Sometimes high-ranking demons become enamored with certain mortals, and make efforts to drag them into the Pit before we or any other powers can reach them. Sometimes they're successful.

[ Too often. But the custody of souls is a messy affair, and intervening in these cases would often mean contending with other pantheons as well as the demons. Again, something the Archangels have deemed more trouble than it's worth. ]

Even many of those who do make contracts are not necessarily immoral people. Many call upon the demons to save loved ones, or communities, and only do so as a last resort. Maybe they should have had more faith, and turned away from the easy solution, but... maybe we shouldn't have failed them in the first place.

[He shifts uncomfortably, a rustle on the other end. What should angels do without instruction? Without God, whose will do they follow? Is this retreat the right one by their own rules anyway? And yet...

...best to keep talking about the condemned, rather than the angels. His thoughts on them are too scattered for his comfort.]

Those who promise away their souls do so without knowing it is what they do, I've learned. I've only recently - er...recently for us - ended a settlement led by Fallen Angels who had contracted with a demon prince. The souls of their people were his on their death. The people who lived there had been there for centuries. Their only "crime" was to be born in the wrong place. They didn't know at all.

Demons have a way of explaining the terms of their deals without really explaining them. "It won't cost you anything you'll miss." "I'll only be coming to collect after you've died."

[ Demons go to great lengths to only contact mortals where angels cannot see, but they've been making the same sales pitch and speaking in the same euphemisms for thousands of years. In that time more than enough of them have slipped up in their warding and subterfuge for Heaven to learn of their methods. ]

Even of those who made contracts for malicious reasons, very few deserve an eternity of torment. If any of them do at all.

[ There are some people whose admittance into the Fields of the Lord he questions, but an eternity is a very long time. Longer than Castiel can imagine, and he's much better at thinking in eons and epochs than most. ]

[Enoch makes a wordless noise, something pained and bitter, but one that's quickly swallowed up in his own throat. It comes out again in his voice.]

None do. No one does.

[A pause, as he clears his mind, or at least attempts to. It's a sore subject for him, to say the absolute least. Though, it's doubtful he would find anyone deserving of such torment even if he hadn't had any firsthand encounters with it.]

...Even if somehow someone did is it worth giving the demon that much more power to take someone else?

[ Castiel thinks of some of the things to which he's borne witness in his long vigil over humanity, but says nothing of them. They all came long after Enoch's time or very long before, and even if they hadn't, this isn't an appropriate time or place to discuss man's failings. ]

No, it's not. Every soul lost to the demons eventually becomes warped into a demon themselves. It's why they were able to overwhelm us so quickly.

We should have intervened sooner. More often. I am sorry, Enoch.

That much is true of both our worlds. The city founded by the Fallen Angels gave The Darkness an army...

[He falls silent for a while again. They aren't of the same world, and yet, Castiel's has more in common with his own than the ones he's heard of so far. It makes him feel obligated to help, more so than usual.]

...Can the condemned souls be purified?

[ Finally, something he can deliver good news about. Or maybe not good news, precisely, but it's a situation with a proven solution instead of more of the same endless confusion and despair. ]

Not by us. Angels are powerless to do anything but send demons back to the pit when we encounter them. But many humans have tried, and over time some have even begun to succeed. The process is taxing, and demands a great amount of sacrifice from all participants, but it has worked more than once.

[ There's something in his voice almost like pride or admiration, at that. That humankind was able to accomplish something that even the host of Heaven could not. ]

[He'll find that sentiment echoed. Man possesses more ingenuity than anyone else seems to ever give them credit for. He knows, deep down has always known in some form or another, even if he had no way of knowing the limits.

He can't help it, relieved laughter escaping him as the tension does.]

Of course we would, somehow... Purification is only possible with angelic blessing so far as I know, but if anyone could somehow find a way...

[The swell of pride is audible in his voice.]

I've always known it - we have our failings, but He gave us only one directive, to care for our home and one another, and in doing so nothing can stop us.

Yes. You're right. [ Despite everything, Castiel relaxes somewhat as well. There is hope yet. ]

If anyone could take up Heaven's mantle after we strayed from the path, it would be them. [ He thinks, again, of Dean Winchester, the man so convinced that he could find a better, more merciful way that he was willing to fight the entire Heavenly Host to prove it. And then he remembers that Dean is very likely going to have to, after the stunt they pulled together. ]

I can only hope that we - all of us - can fix things before more good people are made to pay for our mistakes.

I do as well. There's little worse than seeing to innocents being caught up in a struggle they never asked for.

[As he speaks, the pride slowly leaves his voice, and the quality that joins the strength in his tone is a soft sort of seriousness. He's trying to give advice on something he himself struggles with - but he understands it is part of his nature. Castiel's nature, not quite so much, not yet.]

Free will is being able to act on that hope. It may not go as planned, but such is its nature.

[network] Event: Long & Lost [NIGHT 217]

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