[There's a very long pause on Bruce's end, this time. Did he believe in the Maker? That's... well.
It's easy to say 'no'. In fact, the answer is no, but at the same time its more complicated than that. Believing the Maker was something you just grew up with - or at least it had been for him, from where he came from. The Maker was somebody you believed in and there wasn't any question about that. Even if his life hadn't been the best back then, at least there had been the Maker. The Maker was always there, watching, waiting, knowing. Giving you what you needed, he was told before, and all you had to do was to seize it.
Even when he lived in the Circles, the Maker was still in his life. Everything he had been dealt with was a trial, he believed, and all he had to do was to rise against it. So long as he proved himself, he became better, became good - then surely he would be recognized. The harder the challenge, the greater the reward; and so if the Maker would give him so many trials to go through then surely, it meant that he could be something so much greater. That he could be more than the helpless child who was hated by his own father, no longer remembering himself as the powerless boy who couldn't protect his own mother. He would be more than that.
But then--came the failings, the mistakes, the deaths and the ruin and Harlem. He remembers the way everything became crushed in that one night, that moment when he knew nothing mattered anymore. Regardless of what he did, the pain he lived through, the suffering he endured--nobody was going to see. Least of all The Maker.
What reason would a divine being care for a monster like him?
That's when he had tried to do it. To bring an end to the suffering, the pain, the hurt and the anger. To remove himself from the equation and take away the threat he kept bringing to others. But it hadn't take, and when even death wouldn't accept him Bruce could do nothing else but move on.
Bruce realizes belatedly how tightly his fists have clenched and he forces himself to relax, letting out a long, slow exhale. That had all been in the past. A past that he'd never escape from, yes, but--that's neither here nor there. In the end, nothing really matters. The only true certainty in his life is the anger that forever boils underneath his skin.]
No. [He finally says, voice tight, every part of him forcibly still.] And even if he is real, he's not somebody I could place my faith in.
no subject
It's easy to say 'no'. In fact, the answer is no, but at the same time its more complicated than that. Believing the Maker was something you just grew up with - or at least it had been for him, from where he came from. The Maker was somebody you believed in and there wasn't any question about that. Even if his life hadn't been the best back then, at least there had been the Maker. The Maker was always there, watching, waiting, knowing. Giving you what you needed, he was told before, and all you had to do was to seize it.
Even when he lived in the Circles, the Maker was still in his life. Everything he had been dealt with was a trial, he believed, and all he had to do was to rise against it. So long as he proved himself, he became better, became good - then surely he would be recognized. The harder the challenge, the greater the reward; and so if the Maker would give him so many trials to go through then surely, it meant that he could be something so much greater. That he could be more than the helpless child who was hated by his own father, no longer remembering himself as the powerless boy who couldn't protect his own mother. He would be more than that.
But then--came the failings, the mistakes, the deaths and the ruin and Harlem. He remembers the way everything became crushed in that one night, that moment when he knew nothing mattered anymore. Regardless of what he did, the pain he lived through, the suffering he endured--nobody was going to see. Least of all The Maker.
What reason would a divine being care for a monster like him?
That's when he had tried to do it. To bring an end to the suffering, the pain, the hurt and the anger. To remove himself from the equation and take away the threat he kept bringing to others. But it hadn't take, and when even death wouldn't accept him Bruce could do nothing else but move on.
Bruce realizes belatedly how tightly his fists have clenched and he forces himself to relax, letting out a long, slow exhale. That had all been in the past. A past that he'd never escape from, yes, but--that's neither here nor there. In the end, nothing really matters. The only true certainty in his life is the anger that forever boils underneath his skin.]
No. [He finally says, voice tight, every part of him forcibly still.] And even if he is real, he's not somebody I could place my faith in.
[Not after everything.]