[ Unlike Persephone, Penthos has suffered no personal affront from Belial beyond the obvious and most general — the assault of faith, the disruption of the balance between the gods and those who provide the worship that gives them strength. If he is to fight, he does not fight for revenge — not for the breech of Tartarus nor the gods' suffering — but for a return to order, however tenuous. He watches silently as the demon usurper breathes deep and, perhaps, Penthos smiles in a vague way, his demeanor sullen and not yet riled. What Belial inhales is not wholly vapor nor is it wholly the breath of the dead; no it is suffering — slow, sick and insidious one moment, hair-tearing and teeth-gnashing the next.
The suffering of others as it is the suffering of oneself — that is what Penthos brings to this meeting. But does a demon, arguably soulless, have conscious enough to suffer the pangs of grief? If not, then Penthos and his wraiths will give Belial one, looking to infuse him slowly it the way air fills lungs, the way tea steeps water. A gnawing inside, quiet and niggling at first, that only with time grows to a violent crescendo.
Blame. Survivor's guilt. Self-loathing. Saudade. These are not spectres here to haunt, they are facets of the human condition, and as Persephone speaks and Penthos listens, these things try to suffuse themselves into the Angel of Darkness, try to make their feelings his own. ]
no subject
The suffering of others as it is the suffering of oneself — that is what Penthos brings to this meeting. But does a demon, arguably soulless, have conscious enough to suffer the pangs of grief? If not, then Penthos and his wraiths will give Belial one, looking to infuse him slowly it the way air fills lungs, the way tea steeps water. A gnawing inside, quiet and niggling at first, that only with time grows to a violent crescendo.
Blame. Survivor's guilt. Self-loathing. Saudade. These are not spectres here to haunt, they are facets of the human condition, and as Persephone speaks and Penthos listens, these things try to suffuse themselves into the Angel of Darkness, try to make their feelings his own. ]
This cannot continue.