He starts quietly sobbing at that but fortunately that doesn’t really make it any harder to answer. "Empirically, no."

"There's tissues on the shelf of the prie-dieu. -- There's been a lot for all of us to pray about, these last few years. God has opened up a lot more of the world to us than we ever thought was possible. But if He brought you back, don't you think that might be because He wanted you back for Himself?"

After sending him there in the first place and ignoring all his prayers for centuries, yes, actually, he’s intimately familiar with the kind of being who leaves people alone to scream until something comes up that they’d be useful for.

"Why only now?"

"God inhabits eternity. Our time is like the blink of an eye to Him. All He is concerned with is now, today, and today He is saying: behold, my son who was dead is alive; my son who was lost is found."

...Does Elspeth need to explain urgency again? Presumably she would have tried that already, right?

That's terrifyingly unpredictable, and - and he doesn't just live each day as its own thing. The version of today he can live is one shaped by everything that came before it. How is he supposed to work with that? Among the things Colindo listed that people want were safety and security; how can he have that if God might decide at any time that a few more centuries of torment don't really matter? They matter to him. They're most of his existence.

He was angry at God before but just in a way where he was confused and despairing. He still thought of it as somehow just, for him to be damned. He just didn't care how just it was.

And, to be fair, he still doesn't. But also, it wasn't.

"I think maybe he should be asking for my forgiveness."

"I think you came here looking for His."

Did he? Who knows. It’s not implausible.

It’s not a bad thing. He would like to be forgiven. And - well, actually he has no idea whether God is anything like how this person says he is.

God can forgive him if God wants to. He can forgive God, in that he doesn’t want God to suffer like he did.

And he can’t actually trust any claims about why any of this happened or whether God forgives him. But he can still decide whether he wants to forgive God even if it means some chance of forgiving someone evil or nonexistent, and he thinks maybe he does. And while he’s at it maybe he forgives himself.

He thinks he sees now what would have made him immune to the whole set of tricks, because in deciding it would be okay to forgive demons he does forgive them, and once he's done that there's really nothing they could tell him someone had done or deserved that would get him to think that what would really help the situation was punishing them. That's... it, he's rejected the whole idea, and maybe that wouldn't have helped - maybe they would have found him useless and tortured him and he never would have made it to Earth and escaped and then he might not have been eaten by the snake -

- which is really very bad, right, something is fucked up about a situation where being a better person would have had worse outcomes and he is miffed about this even though he is going to choose to forgive God and contemplate maybe conquering the multiverse if need be to avoid situations like that ever happening again. Though, who knows, maybe it would actually have been fine, maybe he could have saved everyone there if he'd just been better - but whatever. That's old ground even if the specifics are new.

"Maybe I did. I just also want to know why all that happened, but I guess that's not something anyone can tell me."

"Many terrible things happen in our fallen world. But Our Lord came to Earth to endure them with us, and He descended into Hell, too. He loves you, my son, and He does not want you to suffer."

Those are just words. They can’t really cause him to know that even if it’s true. He doesn’t really care about having someone endure with him anyway, if that's true. If anything it's worse.

He kind of maybe doesn't belong here on a deeper level than the specific list of sins. He doesn't say so. He can't think of anything it'd be a good idea to say.

"You said you hurt other people, when you were in Hell. God knows what is in your heart now, and he knows the circumstances you were under then. He is all-loving and all-forgiving. He calls you to see yourself as He sees you, and forgive yourself as He forgives you."

He probably wouldn't do that on the priest's say-so at this point but he already has.

"That's probably a good idea."

"Christ gave us two great Commandments. He told us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and all our soul, and all our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourself."

"For your penance, I would like you to take a quarter of an hour this week and talk to God. You don't have to say a prayer by heart -- you can if it's easier, but you don't have to. I want you to tell Him what's in your heart, and offer it up to Him, even if that's pain and guilt and anger at Him."

"I would also like you to practice loving your neighbor by doing something kind for someone else, and to practice loving yourself by doing something kind for yourself."

"Do you think you can do that?"

...If this had been a normal kind of penance several centuries ago in France he doesn't think he could ever have been tricked.

"I don’t know how to find things to do for people that are actually kind."

"...yes. That makes sense."

"You mentioned a Yeerk friend. Can you ask them for advice?"

"Maybe."

"Then if you can do that, try doing that. And it sounds like eating lembas is a kind thing you can do for your friend."

"I guess it is."

"Can you say the Act of Contrition? It's on the wall there if you don't know it."

"Probably not with my actual voice and I don’t know if I really am sorry with all my heart or how likely I am to decide to sin in the future."

"Okay."

"You hurt people. If you had the choice, would you hurt them again?"

"In hindsight hurting people put me in a position where I would be eaten by a portalsnake, which alerted people who were able to rescue everyone. I would do something different in the future but if I time traveled I would do everything the same way again."

"All else being equal, you'd rather not hurt people."

"Definitely."

"I believe God rejoices in your courage."

"God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of His Son, has reconciled the world to Himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins. "

"Through the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace."

"I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father; and of the Son; and of the Holy Spirit."

This should probably not feel as weighty or as freeing as it does.

"Thank you."