“Bad things happen to good people” was what Valentin Marveille had said to him, Pascal remembered that while telling the other man about his wife he could feel his chest tightening. He had no idea how he had kept his grief to himself for so long, regardless it felt good to finally release it onto someone who understood.

Lord knows he couldn’t do it with Teles, everytime he brought up his wife was in a delusional happy tone and Pascal wanted to shake him until he saw reality. Part of him felt jealous of Teles, living in such a blissful delusion that he sometimes wished for himself. Part of him felt sadness that the man has to relive the news that his wife has passed. It filled him with anger and sadness. Teles was a good man, Valentin was a good man…why were they given such grief to cope with?

“Bad things happen to good people” repeated like a mantra in his brain, he was still trying to understand. He had always been such a devout man to the one true god, he did everything a good Benalian would do and so the idea that the dreadful Vecatra had taken his wife and baby from him made sense to him. Valentin had told him it was likely not Vecatra that had made him lose his wife, Pascal still wasn’t convinced.

But why hadn’t god stopped this from happening to one of their devout children?

Was Vecatra stronger than God? Not possible, he was sure of it. Maybe it was a test. He still feels slightly irritated that during the forum the priests all seemed busy, he wanted to speak of faith but he also felt like there were bigger matters going on in their important lives. It felt selfish for Pascal to want a priest to pat his back and tell him it was going to be okay, but sadly the more he thought about it the more he realized that is what he needed at the time.

His faith had been wavering lately because of his loss, and was searching for a hand to guide him towards the righteous path again.

Pascal’s father had always expressed to him the importance of knowing his place, and he knew that his issues weren’t the issues of the town. There were bigger things at hand that needed to be taken care of, like an ancient being and a terrifying stag walking into a grove where he had found a girl flayed alive a few days before. In the grand scheme of things, the voice of his father would say sternly, a gravedigger wanting to be comforted is not anything of importance.

Pascal agrees with this thought.

Valentin had said something about living on to be able to resolve his grief, he was willing to try it if that made the knot in his chest a little less tight.

With a sigh he snapped out of his thoughts and continued attending to the graveyard. There was work to be done, maybe that was enough to keep his dreadful thoughts away for now.