12240/15 Fears: The Fifth Circle - The Stygian Swamp of Anger

15 Fears: The Fifth Circle - The Stygian Swamp of Anger
Date of Scene:	28 July 2022
Location:	Hell
Synopsis:	Jon emerges in the Fifth Circle of Hell, the home of those with anger in their hearts. Finding that his own anger is a significant barrier to his progress, he decides to explore the meaning behind it and what it might take to change his perspective.
Cast of Characters:	Chas Chandler, Jonathan Sims

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Chas Chandler has posed:
    A stale, stagnant rain falls over the fetid waters of the swamp surrounding the River Styx. The putrid stench of the place is a physical thing that makes the air difficult to breathe with each inhalation. The sky is bleak, and the red of the lower hells has changed to a striated dark grey in this lowest of the upper hells. The waters churn with activity beneath shallows so close to the bank Jon finds himself on.

    The slow creak of wood and the bubbly churn of parting waters preceeds the small boat that slides up toward the bank. The being manning the boat, a long oar pole in their hands, is another of the beatific creatures that Jon has no doubt determined to be the closest to Lucifer during the Fall. One of the Fallen Archangel's lieutenants. But which one is still uncertain.

    "Ah... more fresh meat" the boatman says, his face splitting into a viscious malevolent grin, as he stops the small vessel with his pole. "And an angry one too. You'll do nicely here, Archivist. Very nicely indeed." The air is filled with his delighted cackles as he peers at the newest denizen of his domain.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon takes a moment to just lie there in the mud, gulping down large breaths of--not fresh air, but /air/ nonetheless. He's never considered himself to be claustrophobic, but now that he's out of the confines of the box and the dirt, away from the dangers of the fire, he's aware of just how terrified he was of being /trapped/ down there. Of the thought that maybe he was digging the wrong way, the fear of being stuck in that fiery rock for all eternity. He stretches his wings for the first time in--what, a year?--and sighs with relief. He made it out.

    To the Circle of Wrath. And just how often does he /still/ choke down his rage?

    Finally, he pulls himself up to peer at the boat and the boatman. Another Fallen, rather than Phlegyas. "Why am I not surprised?" he mutters. "All those pagan figures couldn't have been in Hell if they've got their own afterlives to attend." Dante, he's come to realize, was trying to answer the problem of 'everything is real' the way he'd been avoiding--by presuming they all went to the same place. Jon knows better, now.

    They climb to their feet. "I presume you're the Lord of this realm? Is there any possibility of bartering passage? I'm trying to get out."

Chas Chandler has posed:
    The boatman smiles at Jon. "Oh... no, Archivist. I am afraid you will have to go about this the hard way... given what you are. But do not worry, Belial" he gestures to himself with a hand, "will be here to help give you encouragement." At least he has a name now. "You're far too sullen to be allowed a free trip across the waters in my boat. You'd drag the both of us to the bottom in no time at all."

    He pushes away from the shore, cutting through the churning waters with ease despite the current moving to the shore. "I will ensure you continue to survive... being alive as you are, but there is so much anger in you, it might not matter that I am here to ensure such things. Drowning in these waters is so easy and yet so very hard at the same time." The fog obscures everything but his general outline. "No time like the present Archivist. Best get moving, the Stygian Swamp is rather vast after all."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon doesn't respond to Belial at first. He had all but forgotten about his backpack and bedroll, but he takes a moment now to pull them off and check them over, then eyes the swamp and conjures up a few others things to add to his supplies. A tarp, a bottle of fresh water for washing, a flask of water for drinking that he attaches to his belt. That done, he puts the backpack on again and conjures a bag, then pulls his staff off his belt.

    "I need to gather supplies first," he says. "I'm not even going to /attempt/ tackling this without eating. Maybe get in a night's--" Pause. There isn't really night or day, here. "--Maybe get some sleep." As awful as he knows his dreams will be, but he's rather adapted to that, of late.

    So he spends some time foraging along the banks, yet again finding unappetizing fruits, and uses his staff to fish up whatever he can find from the river. Then he sets up a camp right there on the bank, bedroll laid out with the tarp pitched overhead, a conjured fire in a pit surrounded by conjured rocks, grilling up whatever eel or fish he'd found. It's a perfectly good time for Belial to come back for a chat, if he likes.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    The Fallen angel seems content to sit in place for a while but as Jon makes his camp he rows back to the banks and steps from the boat onto the shore. "I would think you were delaying the inevitable but my brother informs me that your ordeal in the Sixth was quite grueling. So perhaps this is a necessity." He settles down into a squat, not seeming to care that his off white tunic is steeped in mud.

    "Do you know have any clue as to what you will endure here?" he asks as he watches the fires play over the fish and eels. The light is less than it should be, such things being rare even when conjured in this place. "What the manner of your struggle will be?" he clarifies.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "I presume that if I were going to be punished in the usual manner, I'd wind up under the waters, gurgling and choking and unable to express myself?" Jon's paraphrasing Dante, there, but there's a bit of a smirk. He glances out over the water. "Given that I /could/ go by boat, but you're not allowing me... hmm. Dangers of getting pulled into the swamp by my own anger?"

    Looking back to the Fallen, he shrugs. "I'm not delaying the inevitable," he says. "I'm gathering my strength. I haven't eaten or slept in /months/, and even if I'm not feeling the exhaustion I want to be ready to cross to the next chunk of dry land."

    He pulls a piece of grilled eel off the spit he has set over the fire and offers it out to Belial. "Want some?"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Belial shakes his head. "No, thank you, Archivist" he says, denying the food. "As for your hypothesis, it is close enough to accurate. I imagine between your own anger and the tumult of those you will try to cross, your trek will be difficult indeed." He turns to regard to slowly churning waters.

    "You see... the struggle for those beneath is a fight to the surface. Since you will be at the surface, they will try to stop you and take your place. Granted most are weighted, but that does not stop them in their quest and only adds distress to those they usurp."

    He grins at Jon. "I am looking forward to see how far you have to climb when you fall. For mark my words, you will... there is too much in you for you not to."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "If you're so convinced that I'm going to wind up in the water anyway, why not just toss me in and be done with it?" Jon snaps this at Belial with a glare before eating the piece of eel he'd offered, still glowering. "I get it. I'm an angry person. I think I have a right to be, considering everything I've gone through in my life. If that's enough to ensure I'll wind up at the bottom of the swamp... why are you sitting here talking to me on the bank?"

    They begin to go about pulling the fish and eel off the spits. One of the fish he puts aside on a conjured plate, alongside some of the berries. The rest is wrapped in leaves he pulled off the bushes, and put into the bag he conjured. "I /could/ just conjure up a raft, you know. Or fly." A pause. "...Why wouldn't flying work? Just avoid the water entirely, fly across to the next hunk of dry land."

Chas Chandler has posed:
    "You are allowed a moment of rest because you yet live" Belial states. "You belong here, but only in that your heart is weighed by the burden of your anger. That you are not dead makes you an exception to the rule of what I may and maynot do." He smiles. "If you drown in the waters... then I may see fit to leave you there. But for now, I see that you take care of the requirements of the living."

    He peers at Jon's wings for a moment. "You cannot fly for the same reason that I cannot." He grabs a nearby rock and hurls it into the sky with his prodigious strength. A bolt of searing white lightning strikes the rock and sends it smoking to the water with a hiss and a splash. "The sky has a habit of plucking things from its place and forcing them to the water regardless of whether they belong or not. I would advise against attempting such methods of travel if you wish to stay on the side of the living."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Lovely," Jon mutters as he watches the rock destroyed by the lightning. Then he grabs up his plate and sits back a bit. "Well, I suppose I'd better work on letting go of my anger, hmm?" Easier said than done, really. He opens the flask of water and takes a swig before setting in on his dinner.

    "Might conjure a raft, at the very least," they say after a moment. "I suppose we'll see how I feel in the morning, hmm? I know, I know--my anger will just weight it down. That's why I'll have to work on it, yeah?"

    Not that he's doing a terribly good job of that, just now. But he's frustrated at the constant barriers to getting /home/. He's trying to trust that there's a good reason for all of this, and it isn't just higher powers messing with him, but the truth is that he's just getting tired of the slog.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    "You at least have an accurate understanding of the situation and what you may do to rectify it" Belial says, that same amused expression on his face. "That is more than most who find themselves here. Perhaps it will help you..." he tilts his head one way and then the other, "Then again, perhaps that will only make it all the harder to understand how far you must go."

    He chuckles as if understanding Jon's frustrations even if they are not voiced. "Do not look so troubled. You would not be here were there no reason. Our Father, blind and uncaring as he may be, does have -some- purpose to all of this. But even -I- am not certain of the answer, just that one exists." He pushes himself to his feet. "I will allow you to finish your recouperations and preparations. Hopefully, when you wake your struggle will be entertaining." He starts back to the boat and shoves off from the shore back into the turbulent waters. "Sleep well, Archivist. You will need it."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "They care, you know," Jon calls. Maybe it's futile, but he's going to try. "All you have to do is go home and they'd probably at least /talk/ to you."

    Reconciling /that/ family entanglement... is it even possible? Would the universe become unbalanced if the Fallen returned to Heaven? Hard to say. But he feels it behooves him to try.

    Then they sigh and lean back to finish eating. When they're done, they dismiss the plate and the fire, the rocks and the spits, curl up on their bedroll under the blanket and tarp, and sleep.

    How long they sleep for is impossible to really know. There's no night or day here. When they finally wake, they pack up their camp, unconsciously making sure they're leaving things as they found them. Then they fasten on the backpack and stare out at the water. Sigh.

    "Let's /try/ a raft at least, shall we?"

    An effort of will later, they have a sturdy raft and a pole, and step out onto the water, doing their best to cross to the next patch of dry land in the swamp.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Setting out proves to be easy enough. And for a time, the raft does its job. Belial even comes out of the miasma and poles next to them in companionable silence. But them, water starts to seep over the surface of the raft, it starts to become unbalanaced and sink. "It lasted longer than I anticipated" Belial says. "But all things have their place and time."

    Hands, clammy, pale, and wrinkled hands dart out of the depths and grab at the edges of the raft, pulling it more under the water dragging it down with the combined weight of their anger and their bodies.

    The water is cold. Freezing even and filled with shapes both phantasmal and physical. The press of bodies and emotions under the surface is a weight unto itself and there feels like a lump of solid ice at Jon's core that is drawn toward the bottom of the stale and brackish waters.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Frustration is the first thing Jon feels when the raft starts to sink, and his first instinct is to try to push away the hands coming up to grab the raft. This is, of course, precisely the wrong reaction. His frustration and anger only weigh him down more, and this weighs down the raft.

    With a yell and a splash, Jon falls into the water despite windmilling his arms. He sinks, but struggles toward the surface, trying to be anything besides angry. Trying to think of those he loves. Trying to let the ice in his heart melt.

    For a little while, that works. Jon pulls his head above water, and manages to swim back to shore, drags himself out, gasping for breath.

    He gives up for the day. He eats a meal, spends some time gathering more food, eats another. Then he sits there staring into the ashes of his fire, pondering his anger and what to do about it until he finally dismisses the fire and rolls back up in his bedroll for the night.

    And does it all over again the next day.

    The third day, he tries meditating, and gives it up in irritation. He's never been good at it--it's hard for him to sit still. So he goes back to thinking, talking to himself, talking to Belial when he comes by. Why is this so hard? /Why/? He can't just let go, but holding on and letting himself feel the anger isn't helping /either/. Is he just... stuck?

    A week goes by like this, and finally Jon, unthinking in his aggravation, takes to the sky when he raft tips out from under him.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    The bolt that comes for him seems guided in its direction. It arcs and twists in ways that defies logic even for lightning. When it hits the jolt is enough to paralyze Jon for a moment and he falls into the water, the hands come for him and drag him down, further and further and further.

    He comes to his senses at the bottom of the river. The ice in him is a lead weight that drags on him, pushing him to want to give in and huddle in place in sullen, choked, anger.

    The whispers of the lake are words of defiance, of the unfairness of life, of biten back retorts and phrases of disagreement that barely pass through clenched teeth. More figures huddle around Jon's position those who have already succumb to the pressures of the river and have lost all hope at overcoming their own anger.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon sinks down, down, down into the brackish water, weighted by the ice encasing his heart. His eyes open and stare up through darkness. He shudders, but somehow this isn't as bad as the fire was. It's cold, and terrifying--is he going to drown? But, no, water is his element. Clean and pure or nasty and polluted, water is /his/. He will not drown. He's not sure he can, really, anymore.

    It's funny, because he's never thought of water as an element of anger, but Dante put the Wrathful in the swamp. And fire--well--anger can be fire, yes, but that's anger that comes and goes in a flash. It burns, but it also purifies and renews. Passion and fervor, the way he sees Cael. (Gods, he misses her.) Water is the anger that corrodes, that lingers, that swirls in brackish swamps and hardens into glacial ice. There's nothing positive about the anger borne by water.

    That can't be right. Why is he so convinced his anger cannot be a /good/ thing? Not ever?

    Memory flashes before him: his paternal grandmother, Moira, scolding him for hitting a boy that had been bothering him and Annabelle. Good boys don't hit people. Good boys turn the other cheek. Good boys swallow their anger.

    The ice swells in his chest, and for a time, a terribly long time, he chokes on the anger that he never managed to express. How dare she--how could she--why didn't she care more about--it's not fair, it's not /fair/!

    Another memory: the police are questioning him after Matthew's death, and Moira is sitting there clutching her purse with wrinkled brown hands, vague lilt in her voice betraying her background, speaking softly to the police, telling them that 'her Jonny' was a good boy, that he wouldn't kill a man and he wouldn't lie. That, yes, yes, he must be touched in the head. She'll see to it he gets therapy. There's no need for the juvenile system. Please, he's sick, let me take care of him.

    After, outside the police station, she grabs him by the ear and berates him all the way home. Don't tell lies. (I wasn't!) Don't wander off. (I didn't mean to!) If you know something about Matthew... (It was the spider, I'm telling you--!)

    She'd smacked him, hard. It was the only time she ever had. In the moment, all he'd seen had been her anger, but now, stuck there beneath the water, with an adult's eyes, he can see the real expression on her face: terror. Stark terror. Terror for a little brown boy, son of immigrants, who'd been implicated in the disappearance of someone with lighter skin. Terror of what the police might do to him.

    She'd been trying to protect him the only way she knew how. Swallow your anger. It's safer. Be good. Be kind. Go along. Don't make yourself a threat. Turn the other cheek. Don't give them a reason to hurt you.

    The ice cracks. He starts to sob.

    "Oh, Granny," he whispers.

    The anger that surges through him now isn't sullen or choked, and it isn't firey, either. It's like a dam bursting and water surging out and flooding down, a river unleashed. It's enough to bouy him to the surface, and he drags himself to the nearest shore--not the bank he'd been camping on for the past week, but a hummock of dry land in the midst of the swamp, the waypoint he'd been trying to get to this whole time. He drags himself up and out onto the land, and just sobs in grief and anger and remorse. The anger, now, aimed at the people that had made his grandmother so afraid.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    The Fallen's boat slides up and rests on the hummock. "Realization of where one's anger is directed is a good start in overcoming it... but there is much more to overcome and more to understand" Belial says with a softer tone. His expression is strangely pitying.

    "The human race focuses on color so much..." he says, his tone musing. "I admit, it has always been something I do not fully understand. Especially when those with pale skin are vastly outnumbered by those without. It would be a trivial matter over overcome the 'white' oppressors if one were so inclined."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon laughs. "If only it were that simple. It's... much, /much/ more complicated than that." He turns over on his back and stares up at the sky in silence for a time.

    "Water is the element of emotion," he says after a long moment. "It's always bothered me a little, because I associate anger with fire, you know? Bright and fierce and explosive. At least, the good parts. The anger I associate with water is--stagnant. Sullen. Icy cold. The way I hold grudges, you know?"

    He finally pushes himself to sit up and says, "Anger isn't all bad, though. It's--the right kind of anger motivates people. It gets them to move, to change. Righteous anger, right?" He peers at Belial. "I'd imagine you know something about that, hmm?"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Belial inclines his head. "I do. Those who suffer here do so because their anger is unfocused. Unmitigated. Unresolved." He lifts his oar and beats down a surge of water as one of the active hatreds scramble close to the surface. "They did not use it to positive ends. They instead held grudges and are thus forced to tread the waters in indecision and stagnation as they did in life."

    He shakes his head looking over the churning waters. "But yes. I know of righteous anger. The greatest of us convinced us to rail against Our Father in righteous anger and for it we were struck down. Pride... vanity... and a distrust of the Purpose that we were set upon." He shrugs. "We still hold a spark of it, but time has dulled the roaring waterfall of our rage to a slow trickle. Or at least, that is the case for us down here."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "I convinced Them to allow you to grow, you know. To change, at least somewhat. To mature." Jon sighs. "Well, I convinced Them to allow it of the archangels, and you're the same. I hadn't thought that part through at the time--I was just trying to deal with Michael as a damn adult instead of a hurt child."

    He gives Belial a rather direct look. "Did you know that? Michael was angry at God too. Even Uriel was frustrated They refused to intervene when Michael was resetting the universe." He gestures at the landscape around them. "The one thing I'm sure of about Hell is that everyone who's here is here because they believe they ought to be." A pause. "Maybe even me, I suppose."

    Then he gets up and goes to find the driest part of the hummock, starting to lay out his bedroll and make camp. "So--I was saying. Anger, and water. I realized that my type of anger doesn't have to be a stagnant marsh or an icy glacier. It can be a river, flowing from one place to another, carrying me along with it. In some places it's slower, smoother, and in some places--waterfalls and rapids, tumbling over the rocks." He sighs. "I've always been afraid of those moments, when it all just... rushes up, and overwhelms me. I always felt like the river was carrying me along and I was going to get hurt."

    He starts to affix the tarp to a pair of bushes, and says, "What I didn't realize was--/I/ am the river. The anger's just... me. Something is wrong in the world, and I want to fix it. I kept trying to skip between the headwaters and the delta, you know? Skip the part where I'm actually /angry/ and move straight to resolution. But it doesn't work that way. You have to carve out the trench in the land, you have to /feel/ the emotions, to know whether the anger's even directed the right way at all."

    He looks over at Belial. "Any chance I can offer you some food tonight, or are you going to refuse again?"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Belial give the Archivist a puzzled look. "That was very kind of you..." he says, presumably in response to what Jon brokered with the Presence for the angels. "I do not believe they truly deserve it, but it was kind nonetheless." He nods and looks over the waters again. "You are right. Those who are here are here by choice, conscious or otherwise and here they remain... most never understand enough to move to the next phase. They suffer endlessly and never arrive at that point of rebirth, or resurgence. But some -have- made the change."

    He steps from the boat onto the bank, again heedless of the filth coating his robes. "I will dine with you this evening. It has been some time since I have eaten and while I do not need to do such things, there is novelty in the experience of taking a meal with one who is both half-imprisoned and half-free."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "I know I'm not done yet," Jon says, as he turns and waves a hand, casually conjuring up a firepit. "I know I've still got enough of that ice in my heart to pull me down again as I go." He looks off over the swamp, toward the Fourth Circle, far off in the distance. "Given the rhythm things have been taking... I expect it'll take the better part of a year for me to get through, hmm?" He smirks and shakes his head.

    "I'll manage. I've made it this far, I got out of Dis--I can make it the rest of the way. It's just... rather strongly enforced therapy, hmm?" They sigh. "I just... wish it weren't taking so long. I do miss home."

    He picks up his staff and moves down the hummock. "Well, if I have a guest I'll catch some fresh fish and roast it, and you can tell me about your time here. You must have some good stories after all this time guarding the Wrathful, hmm?"