Re: Flower Girl: Ella & Carver
"I don't see how denial is freedom, fella. It's like politics, perhaps, and no one can see the other side of the fence as it is. You see it all as good and blessed, and I see it as a whopping waste of time, and never will either of us see the truth of things, which likely lives in the middle someplace. The difference is I'll admit that, but I rather think you won't." She sounded cheerful about their impasse. "It's your way or no way, isn't it?" Because that proved her thoughts entirely. "I think appreciation of things can't be generalized. Someone can appreciate, and another can't, and there's no tie to that and your Lord, not unless you force it to be there."
"I thought there was free speech. Dear, dear, was I wrong?" His voice didn't frighten her. Why would it? She'd spent more years in Hell than he'd been alive, and she knew the sound of the damned. It was something that lived between her ears, and it never left her. It was like the scent of death, unmistakable and never forgotten. "I'm sure there are people at your church sweet as candies freshly unwrapped. I said most." She smiled.
He asked if she'd felt His presence, and she laughed a twinkle of a laugh. It was rather like bells on the bicycles of children years and years ago, when the streets were filled with the noise. The sound evoked summer freedom, and it was something filled with dark prettiness. The sound was made for sin. It was like honey thick and sweet, and she looked at him with warm brown eyes that expressed her entertainment. "I have. It doesn't mean I like him. I don't deny your God, fella. I just think he's rather a pretentious prick."
She watched him recover from that twitch of eyebrow, and she did like goading the religious. It was an awful habit, but she'd lived in a time when God did nothing for anyone, and he'd certainly done nothing for her. Walk over the starved dead and smell the rot, and then speak to her of belief. "I suspect you won't. I won't argue with you about that, but you do have someone you fancy. Disliking my religious beliefs shouldn't alter your desire to buy her blooms." It entertained her, the thought of this particular man giving Hellblooms to his sweetheart.