Logs:Apostate vs. Apostate

Apostate vs. Apostate
cw: discussions of child abuse and abandonment, religious trauma.
Dramatis Personae Lily, Polaris
In Absentia	2021-11-21 I applaud you for your mental gymnastics. That's the most Mormon thing you could do.
Location The Smith - Lincoln Square, NYC
This American-fare restaurant is bustling during the early afternoon Sunday brunch rush. The high-ceilings and mirrored surfaces make it seem busier than it is already, filled with locals and tourists alike. It’s not perhaps the most likely destination for those streaming out of the LDS New York Temple a block away, given the amount of coffee and alcohol freely flowing from the bar to the tables. The glass-fronted Bed Bath and Beyond building isn’t quite transparent enough to see how close the statue of Moroni is to hand, but Lily is certainly aware of the angel’s proximity. Dressed in a soft cream knit turtleneck and dark green trousers with chunky heeled brown ankle boots, hair pulled away into a very deliberate sort of ‘messy’ bun, Lily doesn’t look too out of place among the other brunch-goers. The table she and Polaris are at is a little away from the rush, nestled up to the frosted windows looking out onto Lincoln Square. Food has yet to arrive, but drinks have made it — two flutes of virgin mimosas, one for each of them, and a mug of coffee on Lily’s side that may be the teensiest bit spiked. This is the vessel thats currently cupped in Lily’s hands, sipping at it in between explaining how she finally, finally finished dropping out of UPenn. “After a year, you think they would stop charging your student account,” she grumbles, apparently finished in complaining about the administration there. “Anyway. How was church?” Polaris is wearing a pearlescent gray high neck blouse, a green riding skirt, and black knee high boots with a low, wide heel. Her hair is twisted into an elegant updo that probably would not be able to maintain structural integrity with her fine green hair if she had not woven long gleaming lengths of steel wire throughout. As is usual for her on Sundays, her makeup is subtle and "natural", today with just a touch of shimmery green eyeshadow. "There are a lot of ways capitalism sucks, but one of the ways is isolating people and organizations from the actual consequences of making their profits." She takes a long swig of her not-mimosa as if the not-champagne in it would help ease her disgust. Alcohol or no, she seems also finished complaining about capitalism (for now). "It was fine, I guess? I was kind of distracted. You...I mean you grew up in the Church, but I don't know what meetings were like for you, or if you've even been, as an adult." “Distracted?” Lily’s eyebrows rise up, a touch surprised. “Anything particular on your mind, or was it just that boring this week?” She sips at her coffee again, slowly, considering the rest of the question. “I wasn’t very present mentally, when I did go,” Lily says eventually, “during undergrad. It’s been a few years since I’ve been at all.” Polaris's eyebrows raise even higher than Lily's, a smile playing across her lips. "Should I feel flattered that you're surprised? I'm pretty distractible at the best of times, and the city is...loud. Louder for me than most people, probably." Then she seems to reconsider this tack, though what she adds she adds casually enough. "I mean, there's been a lot on my mind, too. Some days meeting helps me feel connected to the community and the divine. Other days it's frustrating if not outright infuriating. Occasionally it's even both!" She tucks an imaginary strand of loose hair behind one ear. "You don't have to answer, but why did you stop going?" Lily flushes a little at the cheeks, but smiled back over her coffee. "Good point. You've always struck me as someone who is..." She trails off, setting her mug down on the wood table, "really focused on being part of it -- even knowing what the world looks like to you didn't quite dislodge the notion." It looks like she's suppressing a laugh at Polaris' last comment, but the expression quickly shifts into something more ill-content at the question. "Uh, what you said. It's frustrating and infuriating. Once I left Utah, there wasn't the social pressure to keep going." "I'm trying, anyway." Polaris says this lightly, but there's a heaviness in how her eyes tick down to the lone silver CTR ring on her right index finger. "Even when I'm not distracted by EM chaff-induced headaches or the latest in terrifying fascist news or confusing revelations about other worlds and the people in them, I struggle a lot. I don't think that's necessarily bad? But it's hard." She swishes her drink around the inside of its flute, watching the bubbles rise. "That's a good reason. Basically why I stopped going to church back when I was nominally Catholic. Except I stopped when I was like...13? Which, okay, maybe I also did it to pi--cheese off my parents." Her chuckle is only slightly embarrassed, but her cheeks flush anyway. "Again, please tell me off if this is upsetting or too personal or something. But do you...believe?" 'Other worlds?' Lily mouths, brows furrowing. Whatever she wanted to ask to this point is put aside for later as the conversation moves on. "I can't imagine being able to do that at 13. Even to upset my parents. Especially to upset my parents." Her hands fold onto her lap, a little bit of tension setting in her jaw. "I've been you. I think we're past questions being too personal." There's a little bit of forced lightness in her tone. "I think the question is -- do I believe in what? In God? Or in --" Lily doesn't finish the question, but her eyes dart out the window, as if she's looking at the temple hidden from view. "We had...very different childhoods, I think." Polaris dips her head slightly, her lopsided smile difficult to read. "But also, I was crazy as a loon back then, too. They said I had oppositional defiance disorder before I got diagnosed as bipolar." She comes up short, blinks at Lily. "I think you're allowed to have boundaries no matter how close you are to someone. Maybe especially when you're close to someone." She blushes again, faintly. "Not that I'm--probably I should let you speak to your own boundaries." To the meta-question she at first just nods, as though it were something that could be answered with a yes or no. "I do mean God like, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Polaris gestures vaguely at the ceiling. "But also God our Heavenly Parents, the Holy Ghost, and Their son Jesus Christ. And also God as exalted mortals from another realm who have created infinite worlds, like ours but not." She drops both of her hands and turns them palms up, sort of but not quite a shrug. "I guess if you follow that sequence to its logical end it does get us to whether you believe in--" She flicks one finger unerringly in the direction of the temple. "--that. But I don't mean like do you believe about the ancient Jewish-Native-American submarines commissioned by God. Though I am super curious." "Very different," Lily echoes, a small awkward smile on her lips. She quickly shakes her head as it fades. "It's fine. If I don't want to say, I won't say." Her eyes drift down, as Polaris elaborates. Under the table, her fingertips press into her legs at 'infinite worlds'. The silence after Polaris finishes speaking drags just long enough to be uncomfortable before she speaks again. "Definitely not the submarines." She looks up, briefly to Polaris' face, then out the window again. "Probably-- not any of it. Jesus was probably a real person, who's life was probably tragically ended by a brutal occupying force. But a god?" She shakes her head. "I stopped believing before I stopped going to meetings." Polaris has gone amiably quiet in a way that extends beyond merely not speaking--in her stillness and attentiveness to Lily she feels as though she is taking up less space than usual. Finally she bows her head again. "A year ago, I would have definitely filed 'other worlds' in the 'cool but probably not literal' box right along with 'time traveling Jesus' and 'holy submarines', but now?" She actually shrugs this time, though her expression gentles after. "I doubt I can really know what that was like for you. Not just because of the uh, very different upbringings, but...I never completely stopped believing. I couldn't, and I don't know if I can explain that to anyone who hasn't felt..." Her open hand describes a graceful arc down toward the ground and back up. "...connected, the way I do. Which, you have, but I still don't know if this makes any sense to you. Are you happy, though? I mean, are you fulfilled by what you believe about Life, the Universe and Everything?" “The ‘other worlds’ stuff has thrown a wrench in the metaphors.” Lily slumps a little in her chair, fingertips relaxing slightly below the table. “Maybe I would understand better if the way you see the world was always how I felt it, too, instead of taking occasional peeks around the curtain.” The questions again give Lily pause — she steals a quick sip of boozy coffee as if it might relieve the tension in her shoulders. “Am I happy?” She sounds a little incredulous. “I don’t know if I’m fulfilled. I know it’s easier to accept terrible things in a entropic universe with no guiding hand than it is to have faith that there has ever been a plan. I think I’m just — in less pain.” Polaris winces sympathetically. "I'm not sure what it would have been a metaphor of, but since it is literally true, I've been trying to read up and think about all this." She ducks her head, takes a sip of her fizzy drink. "And re-examine what I'm reluctant to believe and why, considering I control magnets with my brain. You can't explain that." She manages a thin smile, here. "But yeah, I think it's different, when you feel those connections all the time. It's kinda like lowkey tripping for just, your whole life." Her head tilts to one side, her interest sharpening. "'Happy' was probably not the best word, but like, it does bring you solace. That's good, I'm glad you're...in less pain. I believe in entropy and the Plan of Salvation, and I'm not sure either makes it easier to accept terrible things, personally." "Can't explain it, yet," Lily says softly -- it's not so much a correction as it is an addition to Polaris' statement. She nods in agreement with the other woman's assessment, eyes dipping downward to stare at the table's surface. "'Solace' is maybe not the right word, either. Because it's hard either way to accept--" Lily presses her lips together, cutting off the sentence. "I couldn't accept the church of a God that sent my brother away in His name and still wanted me to love Him. Believing in a random universe -- maybe 'less pain' wasn't the right way to say it, either. I spend less time angry at someone who isn't listening, now." She ducks her head. "I have no idea if that makes any sense." "I kind of see the rest of it as 'can't explain it yet', too." Polaris allows, wiggling the CTR ring from her finger and rolling it around the palm of her hand. "Well. Maybe not the submarines. I love me some science, but I'm pretty comfortable with the mysterious, too. If I somehow end up with an actual headstone after I die, it should say 'why not both?'" Still looking pensive, she gives a small shake of her head that does not seem altogether like a negation. "I'm not sure it makes sense to me personally? But I'm not the arbiter of what's sensical and what's not. Thank God." She blows out a long breath. "I wasn't there and I'll never understand the pain either of you went through, but it was your parents who sent Dawson away. Not the Church, even if your ward was shitty about it, and certainly not God. Which." Her eyes drop the ring in her hand again. "Doesn't mean you haven't got a right to take issue with Them. Just. He saw it very differently." Lily shrugs, small -- "Pretty fun headstone idea. Get the taco meme girl on there too." This brief moment of light-hearted-ness fades from Lily's face quickly, replaced by the first flare of anger or distress she's shown the whole conversation. "That doesn't --" Wherever this thought was going is interrupted by the arrival (finally) of solid brunch. Lily mumbles a "thank you" to the server, looking far more despondent at the prospect of pancakes than she did when they ordered. When the server leaves, her expression has settled into something more neutral, but still troubled. "I guess that -- if that's what he said -- explains, what you said, the day we met DJ." This is almost an aside to herself. Lily's volume increases again when she picks up her fork, her tone a little wry. "If we end up in the same kingdom of glory, I'll ask him about it." Polaris tries to wipe the frown off of her face when the server arrives, with limited success. She does not touch her utensils or her waffle after, but she does frown deeper. "What do you mean what he said?" Both of her hands wrap around the silver ring, as if it would warm her hands--as if her hands need warming. Her shoulders tense subtly. "Is that...not what happened?" Lily pours maple syrup, sets herself dedicatedly to slicing into her stack of pancakes. "That's not how I remember it," she says, voice carefully mild. "Like you said. He saw it differently." Polaris has not stopped frowning. Has not started eating, either. "How do you remember it?" Her hands press into each other and, presumably, the ring between them. Fork goes into pancake, food is lifted up to Lily's mouth. She frowns, now, small, lowering her fork back down. "I -- it was the ward, not -- not just --" There is a flare of anger again, in her eyes and nostrils. "After he manifested. They banned him from coming to meeting. That was the first thing. It lead to everything else." The bit of pancake finally makes it to her mouth, though its not clear if Lily is hungry or looking for something else to occupy her mouth. "Yeah, your old ward sound like giant bags of di--dice!" Polaris finally does start to sound heated, her words coming faster if not much louder yet. "But unlike your parents, they were not legally, socially, and ethically responsible for Dawson's care and protection." There's the barest tremor in the flatware around them, so faint it would not be noticeable if Lily weren't holding a fork already. It quiets at once as Polaris's knuckles go white. "There's a huge difference between 'we don't want your kid at meeting cuz we're bigots, but to be fair he's randomly teleporting shit' and 'oh well, guess we'll just throw our son out, cuz conveniently we're also bigots'." The tremor ceases, then comes back, more prominent this time, as Lily's power snakes out unbidden and synchs with Polaris. Lily blinks once, twice as she chews. It takes her a little longer still the shaking silverware. "It's one step to the next, though, isn't it? You must have realized by now. The faith is everything to these people -- leave or be banned and they shun you and everyone around you. And -- they weren't, they aren't --" The tremor comes back as Lily's fingertips press into the fork. "You can't untangle it that easily." Polaris narrows her eyes Lily's silverware-rattling, and narrows them even further at her retort. "'These people'? I'm these people. Dawson was. So are you, whether you like it or not. The Church is made up of people, and however frakked up, we have free will. The faith challenges us to fucking use it for love." Her voice is rising now, her hands still cupped tight, though with her borrowed senses Lily can see the dramatic distortion of Polaris's personal field lines, bending her immense power away from all the steel at hand to wrap around...seemingly nothing. "I'm not saying it's simple, but even if they had threatened to excommunicate--" She sputters, looking up at the ceiling as if expecting guidance. "'Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs.'" She rattles this off with admirable celerity for a not-quite-convert, her voice--and the rest of her--shaking hard. "They hung that on the wall strictly for homophobia purposes I guess? But sure, they weren't bigots. They were just doing what bigots told them to do." On the verge of tears and fully shouting now, she's drawing a lot of uncomfortable side-eyed and a few open stares. "Oh wait no they weren't! That was all them. They threw him away." "I am not." Lily is breathing hard, grip tight around the fork in her hand. "I am not one of them. You want to go quote-to-quote? I can quote -- but the words in the Family Proclamation don't matter, not in the day-to-day. You think that anyone chooses their family over the church? You think that option actually exists? It doesn't. Not out there, when everyone you know is in the cult. Every choice comes back to the church. Every single one." Polaris can see Lily struggle to keep still, to keep everything around them from rattling -- can see how the magnetic field momentarily returns to normal around Lily for just a moment as Lily tries to let go of the power. Too soon the rattling begins again. "I applaud you for your mental gymnastics. That's the most Mormon thing you could do. My parents aren't perfect, maybe they aren't even good, but they are not the only reason it happened." Their server, at the counter, is quietly putting together takeout containers and bills. Polaris clenches her jaw tight, but when she speaks again she's no longer yelling. "It matters when people decide it matters. We can decide to do better, and hold each other to better standards." She shoves her chair back and pushes to her feet abruptly. The silver CTR ring remains in the air where her hands had been cupped around it, spinning slowly as if suspended from a string, somehow kept aloft by her field despite feeling completely inert to Lily's involuntarily borrowed senses. "If you wanna be mad at God, that's between you and Them, but you don't get to--" She tears her gaze from Lily, blinking tears free as she looks down at the ring. "I'm sure there were a thousand reasons, but it didn't just 'happen.' Your parents made a choice, and it wasn't between family and Church. They decided Dawson was too much work." Her eyes snap back up at the other woman. "And if that was because of their faith, or the Church, or God? Why the frak didn't they do it to you?" There is a push of power towards the spinning ring -- Lily can't dislodge it from where it hovers but she shoves it with the borrowed power anyway, lip curling in distaste. "It must be simple for you, when being Mormon is new and shiny and chosen, when you know from the onset you can walk away and not be utterly alone, when you can take every teaching at face value." This is new -- Lily's tone is mean and nasty and hurt, under all of that, a new voice Polaris hasn't heard from her before. They're both looking at the ring now, Lily breathing hard despite the lack of apparent physical exertion. "Isn't it obvious?" She laughs, now, bitter and harsh. "I could hide my sin. Dawson couldn't. The ward never knew. Because they don't care what you are on the inside, as long as they can turn a blind eye." The server approaches cautiously -- Lily pulls out her wallet and slams bills onto the table. "It was good to see you, Polaris," she says, voice strained. "Tell the rest of the cult I said hello." Polaris diffuses Lily's shove easily. The ring does not budge. "Simple--" That single word, furious and incredulous, comes out at a shout again, but just that one word. The "fuck you" that follows is quiet and cold. She says nothing more as she fumbles cash from her purse with shaking hands, leaving a very generous tip for the scene she made--or perhaps she's just trying to avoid doing any math. "Sorry, friend," she mumbles to the server without looking up. "Peace be with you." It is hard to tell whether these parting words are for Lily the poor server, but they do not sound angry. The CTR ring drops unceremoniously to the table as she storms out, not even bothering to pull on her coat.