Not reallygious [Afternoon - Frog x Maria]

Posts : 2877 Join date : 2014-12-26 Age : 26

Frog was hardly religious. His family was hardly religious. He stood in front of the church for no religious reason. Sometimes it was just easier to halt his step and observe the boring, bland environment and architecture around him strewn across the world's broken surface. It gave some solemn peace of mind to look at something people worshiped in awe with naught but a tremble of disdain behind one's eyes.

True it was a very shitty way to go about defying the order.
...but it was also an easy way to do it without anyone realizing. And proved time and time again how one could decieve oneself so easily into believing they were accomplishing something without actually accomplishing anything.

tl;dr, peace of mind.

Regardless, to a naive observer it'd appear as though some young lad was admiring the beautiful church and whatnot.
We all know that isn't true though.

Posts : 5994 Join date : 2013-10-06 Age : 29

Mornings were a busy time of day for Maria. They were moments to get an entire establishment ready to receive the faithful. She was used to it after a half decade. It was simply going with the motions at this point. Wake up, clean up, and open up, simple. It sounded easy, but doing it was a whole another thing at first. Eventually, working with the Cadets, on top of it was even much more burdensome. Maria was sure she'd get used to it, they expected her to after all.

This morning ended with a weak dismissal. She felt remarkably jilted and cheated out of her own training. It was great to get experience on the actual field, but some practice off of it was just as good. Now in the afternoon, she continued to sweep against the granite steps of the Church without paying much mind to whoever was passing and going. Morning services were over and the Church was going to be empty under the sun as usual, save for some of the more faithful attendees. All of it was the same to her with the modest stream of people passing in and out while exchanging pleasantries.

That is, until she noticed with the corner of her eye, someone was just standing there. Someone quite unfamiliar. She hailed him with a wave towards him.

Not reallygious [Afternoon - Frog x Maria] 7wOKzLO

"Hi there! Do you need something?"

Posts : 2877 Join date : 2014-12-26 Age : 26

There was only one thing worse than prying random people approaching Frog-and it was prying random religious nun people approaching him. He blinked twice and cursed his damned luck beneath his voice as his hand moved spontaneously to wave in greeting. His stare was a blank one for there was naught but hopelesness he could feel at the rapidly unfolding scene and the girl's enthusiasm in asking him such an awful question.

"N-nah I'm just admiring the architecture." He said, getting his composure back on. He could do this. He could do this...nah, he actually had to do this at all costs to avoid the catastrophe in the making. Yet he felt his words would only dig him a deeper grave. "I've always liked this style, haha. Because you can see it everywhere so it never gets old. And I like how the lights fall through the colored glass. Especially at sundown. Yeap." Frog finished with a smile. Now to watch her go back to the hellhole shack she called a church, satisfied with the love he'd showered the establishment with, and he'll be free.

Posts : 5994 Join date : 2013-10-06 Age : 29

Maria blinked blankly at first, but she slowly began to nod in understanding. The cathedral that houses the Church's membership was an impressive piece of architecture. It had to be big for several reasons, but some that people rarely know about. It wasn't every day that there was someone curious about the make and structure of the Church. But seeing how he came all this way, it would be rude to simply give a lackluster response.

"Oh? Really? Yeah, a lot of people like the depictions of Saint George slaying the dragon. You know, with that guy about to swing his sword on some snakey-like thing. Is this your first time here? I've never seen you around before. What brought you here to the House of our Lord?"

Posts : 2877 Join date : 2014-12-26 Age : 26

Frog smiled in confidence and glee when the girl nodded vigorously. He was certain that'd be it and she'd go back to doing....errrr, whatever veeeeery important business she had to attend to at the holy place. Of course, he'd run off as fast as he could as soon as she turned and said goodbye...then he'd be safe...
He'd be...

...

She bit the bait. And she bit it hard. Harder than Frog'd hoped she would. And now he was the one getting reeled in. Like some kind of nefarious money grabbing scheme, she was about to gulp him down and spit him out with her religion now he'd showed interest, however faux it was.
Who could've guessed the plan would backfire!? It was foolproof! And he was no fool, dangit-!

"Oooooh, I was wondering if that was Saint George-" To be honest, Saint George was one of the several saints Frog was actually informed of existing, so he actually had a basis for discussion with her on the topic. "I always liked what little I'd heard of him. And yeah, it's my first time here. So...would you mind showing me the inside-?" The church wasn't that big...right? He could be out of there in a couple minutes tops...

Posts : 5994 Join date : 2013-10-06 Age : 29

"Why, of course! You're welcome to come in any time, no need to ask! By the way, I'm Maria." Maria piped up at his request. Though she was hardly that motivated truth to be told, but sometimes you needed to sell the Faith a little as much as possible. Donations are starting to get more difficult to come by these days. The Cadet gestured him to enter, but as he did she'd ask him, "What's yours?"

Even as they got inside, the entrance led into a kind of wide clearing that led to other parts of the building. But most importantly, straight ahead, was a clear path towards the chapel. She guided him inside and it only took a couple of steps until they were in there. It was empty as services ended until the next evening. But it was spacious with enough room to house perhaps up to a few hundreds at a time with just the pews alone. There were still at least one person who was kneeling and praying quietly. The stained glass illuminated their variety of colors from the sides above. Each one depicted specific saints and even several of the mysteries of Christ.

"We're in the Chapel right now. It looks like no one's using it at the moment, but we have to be very quiet. I'm sure you'd know who this is."

She gestured towards one stained glass window with a specific figure holding a basket with bread and fish. Surely, even if he wasn't interested in stained glass art, he'd know who this was.

Posts : 2877 Join date : 2014-12-26 Age : 26

"Mine? Oh, my name-it's Frog." He replied as he was lead into the church and further down into the chapel. Of course, no matter how not christian he was, he still felt and knew about the atmosphere in these imposing places. He wouldn't be able to not be quiet even if he tried. There was just this weight pressing down on his chest. Call it respect if you want. People were free to believe what they wanted, no matter how ludicrous. He believed many things as well. Of course some came true as he discovered his nature as a Psyche Terrorist, but the rest he was still iffy on...eheh...

Regardless, he nodded at Maria's request to be quiet. He never understood why someone would come to a shrine and pray for no reason at all, though. People who remained after sermons were a complete and total mystery to him. Maybe it was some primal instinct he chose to disregard and cast away to divide himself from the rest?
Enough, what she asked him afterwards was almost enough to offend him. "Well yeah that's Jesus. When he spread the little food to everyone and everyone was fed. It's a way to say that people gotta share equally so that everyone could be happy, right?"

Posts : 5994 Join date : 2013-10-06 Age : 29

"F-frog? Um, well, uh... okay. Nice to meet you then." Perhaps like many others, Maria raised an eyebrow at his name. She was confused and wondered who would actually name their son such a name? But she paid no further heed. If that was his name, then she wasn't in any place to judge him. It was his high school peers' place to judge like they always do in the safety of their vapid cliques.

"Well, you can say something like that. I'm sure that's a message of one parable about the hoarding farmer," Maria thoughtfully conceded as she looked back at the stain glass in all of its luminescent glory. "The Feeding of Five Thousand is one of his many miracles signalling his place here as Our Messiah. Our Church chose this scene in particular to show God's graciousness and compassion in the face of our needs."

Not reallygious [Afternoon - Frog x Maria] 7t7Bpc2

"Look at them go."

She wistfully looked behind her towards the entrance as she began to hear a bit of an excited commotion. There was a trail of children just leaving the Bible Study classrooms. They were eager to head home. As the last one finally left, Maria addressed him again, "And we do our best to emulate that to the best of our ability. Some people have hard times and I believe sometimes they need some help. What about you, Frog? Has there been a time you wanted to help others?"

Posts : 2877 Join date : 2014-12-26 Age : 26

Sooooooo, Frog had been picking up on some unsavory vibes coming from Maria ever since he'd mentioned his name to her. Of course, many people thought it was dumb, but the impression he was getting from her was different from that in some way he couldn't quite put his finger on how exactly. Still, it was, somehow, worse than simple judgement or pity he had to usually endure. He never had any qualms with his name. Or well, at least ever since he chose he was able to start choosing for himself what he thought and how he felt.
Frog eyed Maria's raised brow inquisitively.

Still, he followed with the rest of the tour. So she was gonna disregard his sensical metaphorical interpretation in favor of some faith-fed bollocks. Not that Frog'd been expecting much more than that anyways. She did appear to at least be quite knowledgeable in her field of interest. He could respect that. "Oh, all right, then I was wrong I guess." He said, holding a chuckle back. It came out as a smile instead he beamed at Maria to cover her eyes away from the truth of how he truly felt about what she'd said. Not that there weren't enough things she was already covering her eyes with by default of her working position, but alas. "It's great how people can choose these things so that they don't look out of place. I'll never understand architecture." He gave a sigh which grew into a displeased internal groan as he could already see where the whole situation with the kids was going.

And then it went a different way entirely, so much so that Frog couldn't help but blink in surprise. "Err...wanted to help others, eh? Well actually yeah I wanna help others. I wanna help others help themselves. I don't think I'm good enough at stuff to help them directly or choose for others, but I can help lead the way." He nodded and straightened his posture. "How come you ask me that?"

Posts : 5994 Join date : 2013-10-06 Age : 29

"To be fair, I think a lot of it is really up to personal interpretation even if there is a "canon" understanding of how it is meant to be. So it probably takes a bit of effort, really. Knowing the context and a bit of everything else. Besides, I did ask out of the blue," she shrugged with a sympathetic smile. Maria wasn't an expert architect either and she wasn't even good at that kind of interpretive studies anyway. Gunning down and impaling demons was more her thing from the first place.

She eyed how he reacted to the kids running about. Did he not like them? Not that she couldn't blame him. Watching after them wasn't for everyone. Even some of the clergy here threw up their hands in despair when dealing with these miniature agents of chaos. It took very patient and understanding people to connect with them.

Not reallygious [Afternoon - Frog x Maria] BqTA0lF

"Ah, I see... Well, because I thought you look like a nice person. We could really use more of said people in this City these days. That being said, would you like to help us on our weekly food drive in East Eden?"

Posts : 2877 Join date : 2014-12-26 Age : 26

Huh, Frog'd never thought he'd hear a religious person say the bible is open for personal interpretations. Well, more like, all of them said stuff like that, but Frog had the skewed perception they were just fanatics following the metaphorical teachings as actual reality. A bad sample of the population could really ruin its credibility very easily, no matter how knowledgeable about the statistical studies a person was.
Though to be frank...she did mention a 'canon' understanding though...eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh.

He noticed how she looked at his reaction to the kids. There was no helping that but to give a short chuckle. The request she had for him was unexpected though. What did she even mean by it? He was glad she saw him as a nice person, but affiliating with the church...

"O-oh. You want my help? Isn't that a bit of a sudden expectation? Anyways what even is a food drive..?"

Posts : 5994 Join date : 2013-10-06 Age : 29

"It's a bit sudden, but it's nothing difficult, but it can be hard work. We are always in need of able hands since not a lot of people want to help out. And we could really use your help. But only if you want to. It's all volunteer work," Maria calmly replied back as she waved her hand from side to side to reassure him it wasn't anything that special. Volunteers were always scarce in such jobs like these. People just weren't that charitable enough for this and it's real shame. "It's a kind of charity where we gather donated food and then distribute to people in need. Even with the Government around, there's still some cracks in society. Cracks where there are people who need some help."

Not reallygious [Afternoon - Frog x Maria] KUhLxPQ

"Would you like to help me help these people, Frog?"

Posts : 2877 Join date : 2014-12-26 Age : 26

Ah so the food drive was food delivery. Frog's insides literally burst into flames in opposition of the very concept of unpaid work. Sure, there was gonna be appreciation in the eyes of the people they'd help but........er, he didn't need nor want to trade his free time for some worthless appreciation. People always had to make charity seem big and perfect and whatnot. He never got it. It was just an excuse for shady people on the street to ask you for money for 'charity'. That's probably what prevented many of the people from helping out, since well, they had no trust to spare for organizations like this, even if legitimate.

Still, hmm... There must've been some gain in this. Somehow there must've been. He couldn't quite tell what but something. "So what do you use to deliver food? You said drive. Does it mean like a car or truck?" A white van, perchance? Eheh. Perfect for the clergy. "I guess I could help if I'm free."

Posts : 5994 Join date : 2013-10-06 Age : 29

"Huh? Oh, you misunderstand. It's not literally an actual delivery like that. We just help stockpile and account for donated food into food banks and then distribute that food to people who need it in a given place. We just simply wait for people to come to us if they need it." Maria succinctly replied. She seemed a little confused that Frog wouldn't know that is what a food drive was, but maybe in today's individualistic society that meaning of charity was beginning to deteriorate more than she expected, how troublesome. Though she found herself beaming when he agreed to do so. "Thaaank you so much! I really appreciate the help! When do you think you can start?"

Posts : 2877 Join date : 2014-12-26 Age : 26

"Oooooooooh so it's like a drive-in at a fast food. Except with free donated food for those in need." Frog nodded in understanding of the explanation while picking his words carefully. He finally got why the name was what it was and it felt good. Also, it was good that they wouldn't actually be driving anywhere... Although dealing with poor people was probably gonna be a heck of a drag.
On the other note, he couldn't be sure when he'd be free. It was always a problem. He'd always be forgetting about his plans when someone else inquired him to meet with them. Geez, he just couldn't think in these kinds of situations.

"Like, when do you want me to help out? I could prolly clear my schedule."

» Shift [Afternoon - Frog x Telly]
» The Frog and the dawg and the tux [Afternoon - Frog & Selenus & Gabe]
» Afternoon::The Calm Before the Storm (Maria)
» Ceceiling [Afternoon - Frog x Cecil]
» Who? Takeroo! [Afternoon - Frog x Takeru]