trans_9 | Mmm, good Bible.

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Mmm, good Bible.

Daimon had chosen the location ahead of time. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was sacred, perhaps more so than the Vatican. It was the place where Jesus Christ was crucified and buried. It had also not been descrated.

Many months had passed since Daimon spoke before a group of people. His palms sweat and he wiped his brow. Silently, he asked God for the strength to not simply speak but to speak on behalf of the Lord.

When the time came, he walked up before the assembled, Bible in hand. While he was nervous, perhaps on the verge of a panic attack, his words were strong and passionate and grew surer the more he spoke.

“I recognize that the people on board this ship come from various walks of life. Some of you, perhaps, are not familiar with Christianity. If this is the case, you may ask whatever questions you have and offer me any comments or insights after I have spoken.” Daimon then gave what he called a “brief summary” of Christianity. It was, in fact, very lengthy and detailed and contained heavy praise of Jesus and the love of God. He then moved on to give a similarly “brief summary” of the context behind the Old Testament.

“Some of you are perhaps aware of the book of Job. Job was a prosperous man. He had seven sons and three daughters. He had herds of animals and acres of land. He was a devout worshipper of God. In the story, the Adversary speaks with God and tells him that Job only praises God because he has no reason to blame him. He says that if God takes away from Job all of his blessings, his animals, his land, even his children, then Job will curse God’s name. God answers that Job will retain his faith and permits the Adversary to strip away everything from Job save his health.”

“A series of disasters befall Job. He loses everything, his land, his herd, and even his children.” Daimon paused. “Job is distraught. Throwing himself upon the ground, he cries:

“‘Naked I came from the womb,
naked I shall return from whence I came.
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord.’

“The Adversary spoke with the Lord God again. He tells him that Job continues to praise God only because Job himself has not been afflicted. God allows the Adversary to take from Job his health.

“Robbed of his health, bereft of hope, Job laments. He cries out to God, begging for relief, begging for death, and questioning his justice. Each of Job’s friends berate him and encourage him to have faith but Job refuses. Job’s lament continues until God himself answers him. The Lord says:

“‘Brace yourself and stand up like a man;
I shall put questions to you, and you must answer.
Would you dare deny that I am just,
or put me in the wrong to prove yourself right?
Have you an arm like God’s arm;
can you thunder with a voice like his?
Deck yourself out, if you can, in pride and dignity,
array yourself in pomp and splendour.
Unleash the fury of your wrath,
look on all who are proud, and bring them low,
crush the wicked where they stand;
bury them in the earth together,
and shroud them in an unknown grave.
Then I in turn would acknowledge
that your own right hand could save you.’

“At these words, Job kneels and asks for forgiveness. The Lord grants it and Job prospers greater than ever before. He lives to see his grand children and his great grand children and his great great grandchildren. To the end of his days he sang the Lord’s praise.”

Daimon gazed into the eyes of the people before him. “You may ask, as I have, why the Lord would cause a blameless man such grief. You may, as I once did, come away with the sense that God is not just, that he is fickle and cares not for man but this could not be further from the truth. To ask why God could and does allow such horrible events to transpire to such good people would be folly, for it is as the Lord says: we cannot judge him. We cannot know why the Lord acts as he does, nor can we hope to know. We can only have, nay, we must have faith in his actions. For the Lord is greater than all of us. He sculpted us with his hands and breathed into us our souls. The Lord knows more than we can possibly imagine and has our best intentions in his heart, even if it seems to us that he has caused us nothing but misery.

“Why, you may ask, have I told you this story? ‘What meaning could it have on my life?’ And this, I shall tell you. Every one of us on this ship is lost. We have been stripped of our most precious comforts- our home, our friends, our family. We do not know what lies ahead of us. We may despair, we may weep, we may beg for the mercy and guidance of our Lord. On board this ship, even surrounded as we are by each other, we may still feel, as Job felt, alone and abandoned.

“But I tell you that this is not so. You are not alone. The Lord sees you. In your darkest hour, at the hardest time of your life, you must remember that you are loved. You must remember that there is hope, no matter how dire your future seems. Furthermore, I tell you that though you have listened to every word I said and still do not believe, I tell you this: you are still not alone. For though we come from different worlds, cultures, and beliefs, we stand before each other as equals. We stand here together and so I tell you: we are not alone.”

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Once again, Katara felt an immense wonder at the kind of things Roxie must have seen. She always wondered if she was in any position to worry about her (even after being assured by that "Roxie replica" thaht she could hanbdle herself). There was so much Roxie had to del with on her world.

"Are you...upset that you're here now, instead of your planet?"

"... yes," Roxie says, and pauses just a moment to consider that. "I have a job to do. And I haven't been able to commune directly enough with Shyama so far to get his instructions on what I should do now."

That made sense. Aang never had to check in with the spirits unless he actually needed their help, so it wasn't likely that Roxie would feel at ease now. Despite that, she was still here, still making do, and for that Katara had to feel she still had more courage than most.

"Roxie? Um, you said once Shyama is a god of dreams, right? So...what happens to you when you sleep?"

Roxie smiles subtly. "What happens when you wake up?" she asks, softly enigmatical.

"When I wake up?" Katara asks, smirking. "Normally I get ready for the day and prepare for what it brings. Nowadays I remember I'm on a ship and I feel claustrophobic."

How was that for an answer?

It's less thoughtful than she'd have preferred, but she can work with it...

"No, before that," Roxie says thoughtfully. "The transition moment exactly when you wake up. Just that by itself."

Katara didn't have any words. She never gave it much thought, when it came down to it. When she thought about it though, that moment, wasn't it always like coming to life in a way? She blinked and look thoughtful.

"I don't think there's a real way to describe that feeling, not clearly. We all sort of forget it, and its gone. What about it?"

"That's what it's like for me when I sleep."

"Oh," Katara said, and she finally understood. She had no idea it could be fleeting for some people, or was it just for Roxie? There was still so much about the little girl that she didn't know...and for whatever reason, she wasn't disturbed as she should be.

"I dream when I sleep, although the dream is never guaranteed. Sometimes its a good dream, sometimes it brings out the worse fears in my heart. Either way, its always unexpected, where our minds take us when we shut off the regular world."

"I have dreams... sort of." Roxie gestures vaguely. "They're how I find out where to look for the cho, and what else is happening in my home... it's sort of like stepping into another world. There are all kinds of places you can get to, if you know how to do it."

Now that sounded familiar. "Wow," Katara said. "That almost sounds like you know how to astral project! I know the Avatar might be capable of doing something like that, but I didn't really think anyone else could. That's pretty amazing."

Though when she thought about it, it was also necessary too. She'd seen how hard one of those cho fought, not to mention that evil car, so who knew what other cho were like? "I sort of wish knew how to do it," Katara admitted.

"I might be able to teach you," Roxie offers. "But I don't know how well it would work without the connection I have. You might be able to lucid dream, at least."

She pauses, glancing around to reorient herself compared to wherever in the city they've gotten off to by now.

"I'd be willing to try," Katara said immediately. "I only thught that if you were the Avatar you could. If I could...well, who knows what I might find?"

The two had wandered off fairly far from Damion's preaching circle and were now at another temple. Upon further investigation, it looked a little familiar to one of the two of them.

Shyama's temple is low-built of soft stone and quiet dreams. There is no ostentation, no stained-glass windows (or even windows at all), no gold or silver, no shine: only stone carved by the touch of a master, fitted so precisely there was never any need for mortar. The building looks almost like a small fortress, though it doesn't have any of the crenellations or defenses for that.

Roxie steps forward, the entire train of thought in her conversation with Katara lost as she looks up at the broad stone doors, wide enough for five abreast to walk through but barely tall enough for an average-sized adult man. Something about the place seems to draw in all sound; Roxie's voice is smaller and softer as she murmurs "Holy fu..." and then trails into silence.

Katara could see this was not a moment to be filled with idle chatter or questions. Where they were had to be a temple from Roxie's own workd: somehow, Katara felt it. It may have had to do with what she'd seen before when Roxie slept, she wasn't sure. All she knew now was that this was something of her making, and something, like the Air temples and Damion's holy ground, sacred.

She could feel a presence around her: it was something like a steady hum but not, as if she were falling asleep to some kind of white noise she always needed as background. There was little doubt that this was a place of dreams, and of far more necessity than some of the other holy buildingd Katara had seen before. She took a breath and entered with Roxie, her expression solemn.

The doors open at Roxie's touch with a great echoing anti-sound, a somehow reverberating emptiness as the two girls step inside.

"Don't let go of my hand," Roxie hisses, and blindly reaches over to grab Katara's arm, her hand then tracing down to grip onto Katara's hand with a grip tight enough to be almost painful.

The inside of the temple is pitch-black, and as they step inside the silence presses so deeply that it's like cotton smothering their ears. "Whatever you see, don't let go," Roxie repeats herself, voice echoing as if from very far away.

The doors close behind them, blocking out all light from outside, leaving them in total, muffled darkness.

Katara had to admit that Roxie's instruction filled her with a quiet apprehension she'd never felt before. It had never been a precaution she needed to take with any temple she visited. She took Roxie's hand, and her heart beat fast. It was dawning on her now why Roxie seemed so intent on showing Damion out to be some sort of fraud: he spoke very aggressively of God, the spiritual being of his world, but could hardly defend him with the same gusto.

Roxie's world was not one with vague ideas of what her god wanted. She knew...and this place, wherever it was, was a part of what that meant to her.

Roxie's free hand fumbles in her jacket, and in the dark the noise flares up at the edge of Katara's hearing, echoing against the stone, threatening to become the roar of an angry firebender.

With an electric crackle, a marble ignites in Roxie's hand, bright enough that it's painful to look at directly: she holds her hand forward, and it sheds its harsh, color-washing arc-light down the long, low, wide entry corridor. There are doorways that vanish into shadow, edged with hypergeometric abstract frescoes that almost hurt to look at--

"This is one of the old,really old temples," Roxie says, and her voice becomes the rush of water against a thirsty shore. "The way it's built, the sound, the echoes, it really gets into your head..."

"Yeah," Katara whispered. This place was definitely giving her something of a headache. She was only breathing, and it sounded loud and echo-y to her. Katara could have appreciated the light trick Roxie had done if she weren't a little scared out of her wits. She was again reminded of Daimon and the talk of his god.

Evidently, he had a lot to learn about different gods. Maybe HE should take a class on different religions.

"Do you ever feel like you're in a place that will give you nightmares later?" Katara asked Roxie. "This place is a little like that."

"It'll be better once we reach the threshold," Roxie says, and tugs Katara forward. "This part is made to drive away strangers and trespassers. It's all illusion, just ignore it--"

Out of the sharp shadows looms a dark thing with knives for fingers and mouths for eyes. And Roxie's words twist and echo down the halls, coming back as a shrieking caw of attack--

"Don't move!" Roxie hisses.

Katara had never remembered feeling so apprehensive in a religious place. With Roxie's explanation, she was put a little at ease, but not by much. It was taking much of her own personal courage to not run screaming from this place. The danger wasn't new, but backdrop, and what she'd seen of Roxie's world already-

An at her urging, Katara froze, her eyes locked in fear.

"Now, you're going to stay with me, and we're both going to step to the left here, roger?" Roxie says, voice slow and trying to be reassuring (but mostly failing).

The figure... stays in place. It's almost certain to click all at once, the fact that it's just a bizarrely complex trick of the light, cast by the shadows on the carvings and frescoes and floor tiles.

And as they step to the left, the perspective changes, and suddenly it's just a harmless spray of shadows—

—and the floor just behind where they were standing a moment ago falls away with a near-silent grind of stone into a dark and unknown pit.

Roxie lets out a noise very much like a stressed sigh of relief.

Katara followed the little girl obediently and saw her fears fall away. The menacing figure in the shadows seemed to disappear, and now they were in yet another strange part of the temple. Katara was having to give hedrself a little courage yet again: this place was starting to get to her. She didn't know why, but she suddenly had images of them coming upon a body.

She knew that was impossible though. It was just her own fears being played about in an unfamiliar place. She had to conquer them.

"So..." Katara said. "Why is the teple so guarded anyway?"

"It's meant to keep out anyone without enough drive to work past their fear," Roxie says, and she pulls Katara forward and down a side doorway marked no differently than the others. The sound of their footsteps echoes into the sound of a crashing wave of scuttling vermin descending on them. "And it's a maze," she hisses. "You have to keep your head."

She pulls Katara sideways through another door as the corridor floor folds out from behind them, collapsing into darkness.

A wide-open, bare-walled square room is illuminated by the marble Roxie still holds, an open doorway visible in each of the other four walls.

Katara understood now. This girl was certainly chosen wisrly by the god she served: she seemed to remember exactly where they needed to go. What was really bothering her was how she didn't know where anything was. She was at least used to having an idea where she was going. Going full speed ahead into the breach was not her idea of smart. If she were with Jean Luc she was sure he'd say she should be careful. Still, she had confidence in Roxie.

She followed Roxie through yet another door and let out a gasp when the corridor seemed to disappear behind them.

"Which one do we take now?" Katara asked apprehensively.

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