Anaharath follows, denying regret, denying curiosity, denying that she will wonder about the path not taken.

Gabriel rounds another corner, and there is another man. He sits, almost like a toy discarded, propped against a building; he wears a robe of rough fabrics and a begging bowl sits by his side. He is the yellow of old bones, for the most part, and very thin; his eyes have only the dimmest light in them, and something - perhaps a bacteria, perhaps lifestyle, perhaps recent and partially-healed torture - has eaten away at the flesh of his arms. His face looks darker than the rest of him, and every ten or fifteen seconds he coughs, a long and rattling cough.

Anaharath shudders once, then forces herself to consider this being closely.

Gabriel says, thoughtfully, "This is Enos. I would not suggest a diagnosis; he lived in the time of Makatiel, before the black plague but still in disease's heyday, and his condition would not be known to you." She muses. "You are concerned with strength? He was strong. His sickness ate away at him, Anaharath, taking first his vigor and then his health and then his beauty and finally his pride - his closest family died and his relatives shun him, his breathing is troubled, and he is too weary to care any more about what or where he is. Still, he was strong."

Anaharath asks, quietly, "And if, if he and I were... joined? What would it do to me, Burning Lady?"

Anaharath tries to push terror down. It's weak, to be so frightened. She must not show it.

Gabriel says, "You despise human weakness, do you not, Anaharath? You feel that no burden should be so great as to turn a man away from honor, pride, faith, love, and valor, yes?"

Anaharath works her jaw, then drops her eyes to her feet. "Weakenss is the root of cruelty. The inability to resist the urges. The refusal to do what is pleasing in God's eyes. Forsaking what is burning truth. It must be scourged."

Gabriel says, calmly, "This is a detached and intellectual perspective; an admirable thing in a Power of Fire, Anaharath. Yet you are not a Power, but a Punisher, and should you take his essence into you you will understand as he does what it is to lose honor, pride, faith, love, and valor, because the burden is simply too great."

Gabriel murmurs, "I do not say that you will face such a burden, of course. The effect of the sickness upon you - it might break you, Anaharath, or not, but this is an irrelevant thing in comparison to the understanding I have spoken of."

Anaharath shivers, clenching and unclenching her hands as she stares at the ground in front of Enos' feet. "And... and if I turn away from this... this loss of strength, this failure... That is failure too." She swallows, lost somewhere in her own mind. She whispers, "I swore I would not fail. I swore it to Fire."

Gabriel says, "Do not presume, Anaharath, to make your choice for me."

Anaharath flinches, sinking to her knees.

Anaharath . o O (Nonononononono, but O God if I turn away, for no reason than that this repels me...)

Gabriel says, abstracted now, "There are things to recommend in Enos. If you feel this choice suits you, I will not say you are wrong. Not being wrong is not enough, but neither is it meaningless."

Anaharath lifts her head to stare at Enos.

Enos shows no awareness of Anaharath's gaze; she does not reflect in his pupils at all, and Gabriel is but the smallest spark.

Anaharath says, harsh and forced, "To turn away, for fear it would break me -- is something I cannot justify. If I break, then I am a flawed tool, and must burn as any other weakness must be purged."

Gabriel says nothing.

A slight breeze stirs Gabriel's hair. She is otherwise still.

Anaharath drops her head again. "Him, Burning Lady. If I must choose... then I must choose this."

Gabriel says, "Very well." Her eyes brighten, and the fire begins to swirl within them. Enos fades into mist, with nothing but a ghostly image behind him; then that image uncoils into a shape, as clean as a Kyriotate in form and as twisted as a Shedite in its aura, which drifts slowly towards Anaharath. "Welcome to Heaven, Punisher," she says, and the first tendril touches; it is despair, it is disability, it is the weight of entropy and scorn. It is Disease; but as it blends into Anaharath, its essence shifts, mixing with the most heated fires of punishment, polluting and corrupting them, and finally extinguishing them entire, until an Emptiness fills Anaharath's soul. It is deeper than the one she has sometimes known before: as deep and as hollow as the Lower Hells, and there is the light of the Divine beneath it.

Anaharath would sob, but she is hollow, too hollow. She stares blindly, trying to summon up some emotion, some way to fight, to prove she is not failing, is not weak.

It is not Redemption. It is not death. It is, if anything, enlightenment. And though Gabriel makes no move to cast Anaharath into the Pit - for all that, behind her, a gateway into the golden glow of Heaven's light is opening - the fire in her eyes is as cold as Kronos' heart.

> Treat this as a DI on Emptiness.