[Day Four - Early Evening] A Hard Day's Work

[Jean Wellspeak]

"Well, yes. But it's not like Satan's cannot reach here." he looked markedly at Tiffani. "You saw the demon, didn't you. You may say we are on earth, but the hell is just as real and it's out there." he waved his hand towards the corn fields. "Whether you wanted or not. You both had better keep that in mind. The Devil works tirelessly to tempt and deceive us." He emphasized his point with few nods. "Did they put the man on the moon without the help of God? Did the God not guide the men who built the moon-ship? Did he not safeguard the brave men who took the journey?" As far as Jean was concerned, very little happened without God being involved.

Tiffani mentioning her wings wings caught his attention, Jean moving to touch the appendages out of curiosity. It did not occur to him that she might be opposed to what he was doing. "How peculiar."

[Tiffani Noelle]

Tiffani leaned on her elbows. "If everything was God, then why do humans have to work so hard and take so many risks to make things happen? Why did they need a ship at all? Or hundreds of people back on the ground monitoring the ship's systems and making sure they were on the right course? Why couldn't we just sit here at this table and wait for God to simply put us on the moon? Honestly, Jean, that has always been one of my big peeves regarding religion. For instance, people sit down at dinner and pray to God giving thanks and praise - but funny how I never see God standing over a hot stove all day preparing the food. I didn't see God out there harvesting the corn today - did you?"

"If people are going to start handing out thanks and praise, perhaps it should go to the people who actually deserve it - like the farmers, the cooks, even the merchant who sold us the food deserve more thanks than a God who simply stands around waiting to be praised. How come our food doesn't just magically appear on our plate? How come we don't wake up one morning and find all the corn harvested? How come ..."

Then she sighed and waved her hand in a dismissive sort of way. "Just ... never mind, Jean. I don't think we'll ever see eye to eye on this subject, I'm afraid, but that doesn't mean we can't get along - perhaps even be friends. All I'll say is that you should give humanity a little bit more credit. My ... uh ... time in Hell wasn't like yours. There was no fire and brimstone, no torture, no gnashing of teeth. While it was hellish to live through, that doesn't mean I was in Hell. If the devil is out there, well ... there's nothing I can do about it. If God is behind everything that happens, then it will happen regardless of what I do or what I want - so why do anything at all? I should just sit here until God wants something to happen to me."

When Jean reaches out to touch one of Tiffani's wings, she flinched, but not dramatically. Jean may not have even noticed. No one had ever touched her there before - ever. But she didn't pull away, either. How long had it been since anyone had touched her in any way at all? Years? Decades? Oddly, the touch of another human hand actually felt - foreign, somehow.

[Jean Wellspeak]

"How can you know that?" Jean asked, perplexed. "Can't you see God's work around us? The sun on the sky, the corn growing. Can't you see the Satan's work? The demon from before." He had hard time with Tiffani, unsure why she could not believe her eyes. "Yes, a lot of men did a lot of work. And God's Angel's stood by their side. No-one gets anything by sitting on their asses, girl." he huffed. "But without God, we are nothing. It is written in the Bible!" His faith in the holy texts was as unshaken as his belief in the God. "God does not provide to the idle, or the unfaithful. He rewards the devout and the pious. The hardworking and the good." he explained, rolling his eyes. "God made the corn grow. Why cannot you see that?" the former knight was getting visibly frustrated.

[Imogen Baker]

"I can give my Keeper credit for one thing," Tiffani said to Imogen, switching subjects, "At least when she gave me these accursed wings, she somehow made them in a way that don't interfere with my clothing. I mean, since it all takes place on my back, I really can't see what's happening. All I know is that I can wear shirts and jackets and things without having to stuff the wings through little holes cut in my clothes. It's almost as if the wings aren't quite ... there, if you know what I mean."

She looks over one shoulder, looking at one wing critically. "I thought about decorating them with ... like earrings and stuff."

"Well, I'm pretty sure everything that they've done seemed like a good idea at some point," she said with a small shrug, not too heartbroken that she didn't look like Tiffani or Jean, more human-like than not. "Even not having wings, that's something that might be a bad move. Something about affecting your aerodynamic ability? Then again, I'm not going to stop you. I know I've had my share of tattoos and piercings people might think are a bad idea."

She took a long swig of her beer to down the rest of it, then quietly stowed her work camera back into her backpack. Just in case fists started to fly or things were going to be thrown, she wanted to protect her things at the very least.

[Tiffani Noelle]

Tiffani simply watched Jean's hand slide over her wing and he could definitely feel a slight trembling beneath his fingers. At the moment, she was rather speechless - but Jean would sense no hostility from her, especially since she neither pulled away or told him to stop.

"Well, Jean .... " she said along with a sigh. "Like I said before, it's not about shaking your faith. Unless you want it to - but I doubt that'll happen any time soon. I'm no farmer, but I have some understanding of how and why corn really grows. How those men really got to the moon. Why the sky is blue and not red, what the sun is and why it burns, etc. etc. Even the vast majority of Christians today don't believe God coddles us like infants, doing everything for us."

"To say that God only helps people who work is essentially removing the need for God. After all, where are all the miracles now? No one is walking on water, no water to wine, no parting of the seas. No, it's just us now, for if God were involved, why does he hide? He certainly wasn't afraid to make his presence known before, no?"

[Tiffani Noelle]

"Wait, watch this," Tiffani said to Imogen as she swung around from beneath the table and stood up. She then climbed up onto the bench and walked to the edge, her toes hanging above mid-air. An unnatural breeze engulfed both Imogen and Jean as her wings started to beat - faster, faster - making a fluttering noise as if a dog-sized sparrow were taking flight. She stretched out her arms and, without warning, took a powerful leap off the end of the bench - stayed airborne for a few seconds longer than would have been normal - then promptly hit the ground, landing on her feet.

"Damn things don't even let me fly. See?"

Frowning, she re-takes her seat next to Imogen, across from Jean. "I might actually be pleased if I could even hover - or fly across a river or something. But no. The human form wasn't designed for flight. We're too heavy, we're not aerodynamically sound, and all the rest of it. But I thought - maybe - with it already being fey magic, that I'd be able to fly here in the mortal world. But I guess not. I used to be able to fly in Arcadia ..."

There was a short pause before she finished her sentence, ".... but not very far. My Keeper always had a cold iron chain fastened to my leg so ... " She finished the rest of her beer, wishing fervently that she had another.

[Jean Wellspeak]

"Well, can you show me God wasn't involved?" Jean argued, frown marring his fair features. "You speak as if you knew for sure." He had let go of her wing when he had realized he shouldn't be touching her, muttering a short prayer in French even as he did so. "No, people need God. Without God, what we have? Nothing but sin and depravity. You must have been to the big cities here. Godless, hollow places. Here..." Jean pointed at the town. "Everyone seems happy. Content. No-one is dying of hunger." The former knight was wiggling his hands in the air as he spoke, as if gestures made his words more convincing. "An then today's Christians are nothing but heretics, having lost the way. I hear that most people don't go to church anymore! Can you believe that!"

He watched Tiffani with curiosity as she explained how her wings worked - or didn't, determining that she could not be an Angel if she could not fly. Just as he had thought. Everyone knew that Angels had feathered wings and more than two of them. "I was kept in stone, unmoving." Jean explained his own fate. "I was... a decoration? Statue? She would wake me occasionally to take me to their satanic revels, then do things to me I cannot repeat in this company, and then, mold me unto stone again." he shook his head, hoping he had wine instead of the beer.

[Tiffani Noelle]

"It's not up to me to prove that God wasn't involved. It's up to you to prove that he was. It's called the null hypothesis. In other words, one cannot prove a negative statement. For instance, can you prove to me that there is not an invisible kitten on my head right now silently singing La Marseillaise? Of course not. I would have to prove to you that there is - and since I can't do that, it is assumed that there is no invisible kitten. Hopefully you can see the parallels to proving God's involvement in anything."

Tiffani closed her eyes, absently pulling one of her spiral locks until it straightens - then she would let it go, allowing it to bounce back into a curl. "I used to go to London every other weekend," she finally said after Jean lambasted cities. "What is sin and depravity in your own eyes, Jean? Keep in mind that this is their time, not yours. If people today choose not to go to church, then that is their right. One of the big problems I've had with Christianity since the beginning was its preoccupation with sex. Oh, it's okay for the Catholics to commit genocide against the Cathars, but having sex with the wrong person and you burn in hell forever. Genocide? Acceptable. Fornication? You burn. It's the same way today. I found it - reprehensible that Christians blamed the Black Death on low necklines and lascivious dancing - because that's what makes God angry. However, according to them, God was perfectly fine with having a society that tortured, imprisoned, and murdered innocent people accused of being a witch with absolutely no proof. So again we have a religion whose God only cares about showing too much cleavage but couldn't care less about torture and murder. So I ask again - what to you is sin and depravity? Because in my eyes, your religion has lost the plot. And it lost it a very long time ago. "

When she finishes, Tiffani gives Jean another one of her intense stares. As before, there is no hostility there, no anger. In fact, she has kept her voice and tone quite civil considering the volatile subject. She honestly hoped she wasn't angering Jean too much as it wasn't really her mission to debate Christianity - she didn't care overmuch what other people wished to believe. But, she had to admit, Jean was interesting to talk to even if they did disagree on religious points.

She holds that stare just long enough to let her point sink in, then she looks downward, a conciliatory expression on her face. "Anyway, Jean ... I'm really sorry about what happened to you." Her voice is much softer now; Jean can hear profound sadness in her words. "Nothing I say can make it better - or make the pain go away." She reached out then and put a reassuring hand on Jean's arm just above his wrist. "But if I could do that - I would." She gave his arm a few gentle pats, then she withdrew her hand before Jean got the wrong idea - she knew that simple touch could be misinterpreted in a dozen different ways.

[Imogen Baker]

Seeing as Tiffani and Jean shared their respective purpose, this would be the part where Imogen probably would have done the same. However, considering that she met these people, she wasn't going to into her own past. There were other Lost and freeholds for that. Her past was perhaps worse than they had to go through or maybe not. She wasn't going to turn it into a bleeding contest either. "Ayep, Keepers tend to have pretty ideas of what to do with people. With the power of creation on their side and some limitless imagination to go with it. Before that, I thought Creepypasta was the strangest thing I had to endure hearing about. We're all the more smarter for getting out now, aren't we? At least, we should be."

[Tiffani Noelle]

Tiffani gives a little laugh and nods to Imogen. "Oh my god, creepypasta!" She laughed again. "Someone I met in Bismarck was a big fan of that - he bribed me to sit and listen to hours of it. I only agreed because he was going to buy a large pizza supreme. No anchovies, though. But ..." Her face twisted up in a state of confusion, "...why do they call it creepypasta? I mean, what does spaghetti or macaroni have to do with campfire ghost stories?"

She shakes her head, still looking confused. "The internet is like ... totally awesome. Absolutely brilliant. But it is weird beyond words. How many cat videos can a person watch? And why would a baby biting some guy's finger be so bloody popular? So much of it doesn't make any sense to me. No more than naming something 'creepypasta.' It's as if they're saying the pasta is creepy."

No, she didn't want to bog down the conversation with heavy, sad enotions remembering their durances - but she also knew from her own experiences that sometimes people - especially Lost - just needed meaningful contact with others sometimes - to know that others actually give a damn. Dwelling on it, yes, that does no one any good. But pretending like it doesn't bother you is just as bad. At least that's what Tiffani thought as she gave a few sidelong glances toward Jean as she talked to Imogen.