Jay - Denies paradise

Instead, the tendrils wrapped around him. Held him. Caressed him.

The graveyard, statues, sky—all turned milk white. Warmth glowed. Pain vanished, all fear and unease. He realized, the thought jarring in its reversal of what he'd thought only moments before, that he was perfectly, utterly safe. That nobody would, or even could, hurt him. That all loved him. Charm regarded him with a motherly smile. Radiance replaced raggedness—her wings, an angel's.

"There, there." Charm's voice lacked any shrillness whatsoever. Like song, minus meter. "You need no longer worry. You are elect, dear hero. God's love imbues your very aura—I feel it."

Her tears rocked him gently back and forth. He swayed on weightless legs, devoid of any sensation of his feet touching the ground.

"You—you do like it, don't you?" Her hands wrung together and she could not meet his gaze. "It makes you... happy, yes? I know my abilities are meager. I could not even hope to imitate the blessings of your God-graced world, no. But... if I could see you smile... even for a moment... then my damnation was a worthwhile price to pay for this witchcraft. O Lord, I seek not forgiveness. I know I have been sacrilegious. But I only ever wanted them to smile."

Honeyed scent rose around him. No sense left unattended. Every component a wash of pure pleasure, but pleasure devoid of guilt, pleasure imbued with another sense, a sixth sense, a moral sense. It was not simply joy to feel this pleasure, but correct. One's proper reward for virtue, and though Jay dimly understood himself to be not a virtuous person, when he tried to conjure counterexamples in his stickily saccharine brain he recalled only moments of kindness, moments of care and love. This world—this world he inhabited within the embrace of Charm's sorrow—was paradise in the true definition, not merely freedom from external misery, but freedom from misery self-inflicted. Doubt diminished into nothing. Logic decomposed and broke into pieces with frayed edges, erasing it of the power of its exactitude. Any components of self, dissolving...

"Now, great hero," she said, "will you remain within my paradise?"

Paradise.

Paradise.

"No," said Jay.

As soon as Charm blinked and the thick cords of black tears dropped and splattered the floor, his rational component instantly resurfaced and he understood his decision to be one hundred percent correct. He'd obviously been manipulated by Charm's magic―simple illusion. But in that world, there was only sensuality. Reason was prohibited from playing a part. Therefore, submerged in simple, guiltless pleasure, he made his decision with what, in retrospect, he considered only seventy-five percent confidence. Some doubt existed. Something about that world provided—solace.

But Jay Waringcrane did not want to live in paradise. He knew that at least for certain. He wanted to create paradise.

***

[2] The Same Place in a Worse World